Merchant Archive

im master armorsmith and master merchant, theres no way i could run my shop effectively without my mercahnt skills

I believe in the idea of "who you know" as well. If you know suppliers, have your shop in a high traffic area, and advertise to the right people, you can definately use the merchant class to profit off of other crafters. It's just hard to be at the right place at the right time. I think there may be more Merchants that are their own suppliers though.

I also agree, that running without Merchant skills is definately more difficult, but if you are a widely known Master Weaponsmith, all you really need is a terminal and your waypoint will find its way throughout the galaxy on its own. Again, I think something that is under utilized, but probably because of the difficulty it presents, is Interplanetary Shops. A Master Merchant can have a shop on almost every planet. That is huge, but try going to each shop and keeping stock in, paying maint. and such for all your housing, it'd get a little rough. Having millions of credits like some of you claim to, probably would get the job done, but, it's just a matter of getting there, which the point I think of this thread is, the weaponsmiths and armorsmiths seem to be accomplishing much faster than the merchant class, which seems backwards to the idea of what the merchant class is.

The thought is, most think that the Merchant should be profitting morefrom the crafters. The idea ofreselling seems to be the problem I think. A crafter that has grinded his @ss of to get Master, isn't going to sell a weapon to a merchant for a certain price, and watch them sell the weapon for a 500% profit, even though, it works that way alot of times in our real market. Normally, crafting and manufacturing products is a cheap process, and mass production is dominate. The problem is, you can't do that in this game, crafting takes time and money to accomplish...alot of it. So, the crafter wants its big cut, and the merchant who simply puts it on a vendor, doesn't really do much other than pay vendormaintenance (which is a joke right now), tell it to show up on the map (everyday...grrr..), and maybe to some "barking" of their own in the middle of town.

So, if crafters were dependent on Merchants, (i.e. the terminal vendor was removed from artisan tree), we could in fact bea little bit more incontrol of the prices of products ourselves. We could give however much a weaponsmith wanted for their weapon, and since we would be the only class that could sell, things, we could hike the price and make a killing. I don't think the mechanics of the game right now allow for this to happen though. Crafting is such a more involved process than so called in-game marketting, that you have to give the crafter the greater benifit. Even if the terminal vendor was removed, because of the skill points, a weaponsmith could still set the market standard by becoming a merchant him self.

In order to accomplish a truely dominate merchant class when it comes to matters of money, you would have to regulate the ability of crafters to get the Merchant class at all. Basically, a Merchant couldn't supply themselves, and a crafter couldn't sell their items (efficiently) without a Merchant to help them.

The way the system works now, it's a suppliers market, so unless you have a huge base of suppliers that is willing to supply you with high quality goods that you will sell for inflated prices, most merchants have opted to take some form of crafting I think, in order to make a living, but are finding it more difficult if they do not choose to be a weaponsmith or armorsmith, which is just a little frustrating.

I think some things could be done if the merchant and crafting classes worked together to meet some even ground, but it is unlikely, as there are so many crafters that like to undercut to sell their products.

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Flatfingers wrote:

Having said this, however, are PAs really the right way to do this? The pre-launch theory was that some PAs would be like crafthalls... but honestly, is there any PA out there that is solely dedicated to being a crafting or sales PA? I haven't heard of one -- every one seems to be primarily a combat-oriented organization; if their members do anything else it's on their own time.

--Flatfingers

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..Well, I can't speak for anyone else but on Bloodfin server, Planet: Naboo City: Theed About half way between Theed and Lake retreat is the town of Frankville...you'll know our stuff by the ...Mif (Made In Frankville) suffix . We have a Pa hall(Frankville Mall)up and several shops in the works. I use two accounts (of course due to lot limitations). My merchant is gonna master merchant class and nothing else till we hear what is required for Politician and city planner. But we are 80% crafting 20% combat. I welcome any merchants near there to put up a shop in town. Just send an email to BastionK(townhuntmaster)or Frankii(mayor). We are just trying to maintain a clean city look; Not this random smattering of houses all pointing in different directions and in odd placements. We want a real city look with streets and all.

How about simply creating Deeds which are "commercial" (i.e. stores) which can only be placed by Merchants?

I am really impressed by the stuff I've read here, what I have seen is a lot more thought-out and thus more valuable to me.

Ummm, I just added it up, and my figures say that Masters in WS, AR, and AS PLUS Novice Merchant total 238 points. But yes, I agree that theRe should not be vendors for artisans. Their name inply's that the "craft" things, or practice the art of "artifice". Not selling. Thats what the Bazaar is for, and it's 3k limit (yes people, THAT is why the cap is there, the Merchant!!).

But honestly, we aren't "broken" by the definition on DE, BE, or others. We will likely get some lovin one day.

Here is what I never understood about us merchants.

The devs placed a money sink right on top of our only money maker. Our sink is the vendor maintenance. It is higher than heavy harvester maintenance, and it is right in the location where we try to make money.

It is like designing destroy missions where after the target lair is destroyed you are charged a 50%+ sink fee before the reward is in your bank. Think about it, it is the dumbest idea ever. If they did that to missions NO ONE would do missions. Who wants to do something, and have the reward halved right there on the spot thanks to a money sink.

Well that is the life of a SWG merchant. We have a whale of a sink sitting right on top of our money maker.

Well that is the life of a SWG merchant. We have a whale of a sink sitting right on top of our money maker.

Um, no we don't. I pay almost nothing for vendor maintenance currently. When the income tax or whatever is implemented that will change of course, but right now merchants do not have a lot of costs.

(this was originally a 2 page FAQ on how to get rich being a merchant..but apparantly my login expired and erased the whole thing. Last time I write an opus on these boards..)

I am..filthy rich. I tip 3k to dancers and I drink Sunburns just for the hell of it.

I have a huge house, millions of credits in resources, millions of credits in the bank, 2 fusions, a factory, and a rewarding and busy game schedule.

I wish there was more to spend my cash on...I search for LARGE things to invest in..

If you want to know how to get rich being a merchant come to Coronet on Bloodfin and check out my store. I'll be glad to answer your questions.

Good luck

I would support moving the Artisan venders into the Merchant profession.

Compensate for it by moving those uber "20% discount on Bazaar sales" Merchant abilities down into the Business discipline.

Why not changing the business line in the artisan skill tree to deal with the bazaar only? Not just what was said above by putting the useless bazaar stuff from efficiency down there, but also raising the price cap for getting business 3 or something.

Here is the solution:

• Remove the Vendor from Business III.


• Add "Sales Management" to Business III. This skill allows you to sell on the Bazaar for 20 credits.


• Increase the cost for non-Business players to sell on the Bazaar (100 credits?).


• Add "Supply Management" to Business IV. For details see my thread on Vendor admins: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=merchant&message.id=8203.

Ok, I am not completely sure I like my first three points. However, I think that if Merchants were able to stand a chance as an independent Profession they need something along the lines of my Vendor admin proposal (see the link above).

Please show your support (or otherwise) for my proposal by reading my posts within that thread and posting your own comments. I personally believe it is an excellent idea that will make Merchant a valid profession in its own right. I really believe that. I know there are some opinions otherwise.

To qualify... I am not a crafter. I wish to use my Merchant skills to manage a shop. As manager I do not want to be intimately involved in every transaction. Instead, I need time to work on the shops setup, appearance and overal strategic plan. I also want to spend time doing what I like best, mining and exploring.

My 2c.