Merchant Archive

I had somebody else hosting my store. They deleted their character and I said buh-bye to 5 million credits.

Keep control of your store and if you need lots, lease them for harvesting. Better to lose a 100k harvester or a few than 5 million or more when store goes poof. Malls are more trustworthy, but they have the potential to screw a lot more people at once if owner redeeds store/deletes character or cancels account.

Hi again! Some followup on this old thread :-)

When I read my last reply I understand that it could be be some misunderstanding. What i wanted to say was bacically, I am aware of the potential problems and think is is wort the risk.

Have some more question though:

1)Do you need to own your shop to be able to declare residence?

2) What happens i the player owning the shop destroy his character (or end his account)? if you lose everything then it might not be worth the risk of running a shop using someone else account. I would take that risk for factories / harvetsers though since the loss is not that big

Doesn't have to be that the person you rent lots from is not honest. There might be other things happening like getting sick, dropping SWG etc.

I am alrerady renting lots for harvesters. Loosing soem harvesters is not a big deal.

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Fribble wrote:

Faellyn,

With those 12 shops, are you saying you have 12 vendors? I thought you could only create the max number of six vendors? Or do you mean lots where people are placing their own vendors, where you manage the shop decor and storefront?

--D'Ruk of iD Co.

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Sorry, Fribble, I lost track of this thread, somehow. No, I only have 6 vendors (at the locations in my sig) the other losts I rent are for warehouses and factories.

DingoBoi, More power to you if you can make that system work for you, but not me. I keep my harvies under my control so I can move them NOW. Houses and factories never need to be moved, so you never have to sit on your hands waiting for the other player to sign on, and hope that that player has time to accomodate you... Gah! It gives me shivers just to think about it.

i run 50 fusions and I only have one account myself. Since I'm primarily using contractors, it does take them a day or so to get on and get things moved about, but they are pretty quick once they are logged in. I sacrifice some harvesting volume, but make that up by just throwing additional harvesters out there.

What are you paying the people you rent lots from?

I pay 10k / week and harvester and 5 k / harvester every time they move them. I think it is a pretty good deal for both them and me.

I am paying my PA members 20k per lot per shift. I may raise this, though they keep giving me more work as a merchant. I had a hard time last night getting down harvesters. I was able to get down 23. To many of them were AFK. I am hoping to get down 30 for this shift and will be buying more if I think I can get the lots.

I pay 250 credits per lot per day.

I know this is VERY low, but, once again, I only rent houses and factories. Included in my deal is the promise that the owner will (almost) never be bothered with any lot-related needs - they'll just get a tip every week (in advance) for the coming week's rent.

I 'operate' about 40+ fusion gens myself, but I don't rent lots from the other players. Instead, I make wholesale arrangements with them. The other players own their own fusion gens, and their own lots. They're responsible for re-deeding and moving, and for keeping the maintenance paid up. I offer up-to-date notice of resource shifts and as many of the best waypoints as I can for the new mineral, but it's entirely the owner's responsibility to re-deed and move his fusion gens on his own schedule. That makes things FAR simpler for me to manage, and puts therisk/reward motivation back on the player who's time will be used.

In exchange, I offer my wholesalers nearly full retail value for the fusion power they harvest. My selliing price is 75¢ per unit, and my buying price is 70¢ per unit (both PE adjusted), so I get about a 7% markup for vendor maintenance, travelling costs, etc.

Naturally, my real income is from my own 10 lots - the rest is just for capacity so I can expand my presence & name recognition on the server.

I might try and get contacters also.... Not a bad idea. Though I will still try and run as many as possible myself.

I know I am talking to my competition, buy how did you get your suppliers?

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Draznar wrote:

I might try and get contacters also.... Not a bad idea. Though I will still try and run as many as possible myself.

I know I am talking to my competition, buy how did you get your suppliers?

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Well, I guess mayber you and Dingo are competition, since you're both on Eclipse, but I love sharing ideas with you guys, since I don't have much in the way of competition on Scylla. Heck, other than n'Jessi, I can't think off the top of my head of any other Scylla merchant that's active on this board.

Anyway, my suppilers came to me, asking to wholesale to me. I was stumped for ideas on how I might expand production beyond my own 10 lots. I just don't want to get into renting harvester lots - that would just be extremely un-fun for me, imposing on someone else's game-time to move harvesters every shift, etc. I just wasn't willing to take that road.

So I thought about the 'wholesaler' idea - and actually rejected in my own mind! After all, if these other players can harvest their own fusion, they can sell it too - what do I have to bring to the table? So I never gave it further consideration. Then the offers started coming in, "Hey, could I sell EVERTHING to you, to resell?"...

Seems like the promise of a steady, reliable, relatively hefty income without the worry of vendors, distribution, and marketing, is a stong incentive. Who'd have thunk it! It seems to be working.