Merchant Archive

If it is worth his while travel to your store and pay your prices and travel back and put them for sale at a higher price and he comes back for more..then he is making a profit and you are pricing your merchandise too low. Saying you are doing it for the benefit of "real customers" is nonsense. The market price is the market price. Offering it for under that isn't noble its bad business sense. Those same customers aren't fools they are not going to buy from you at 10x the normal market price just to do you a favor. THey will buy it elsewhere if the prices are out of balance with the market. That isnt' to say they won't pay above the market for items they really want if it is convienient for them to get it from you, but over all they are not doing you favors buying from you they are looking for fair prices.

As for buying Bestine paintings for 100k .. wow..defnitely send that guy to my server I have plenty of that stuff and it doesn't sell for nearly 100k if he can raise the market to 100k more power to him. Until then he will be stuck with a bunch of paintings that he can't sell for the credits he has in them..

I'm definitely not a fan of resellers. Don't get me wrong - I'm still in it for the money. I price to market, and I haven't ever had a problem with a reseller. But I would instantly ban anyone from my shop who wanted to resell my stuff.

The reason is simple: I pride myself on my selection, my stock, and organization. If someone is selling my goods with a lousy selection, from an ugly vendor, and they are overpriced - well that harms my reputation.

I'll have to deal with returns for clothing I never sold. I dealt with this for a certain extent when I sold my goods through a dedicated merchant. I made the pricing, I chose the stock, but he was the one on the e-mails. Yet people looked to the creator name, not the merchant name, when there was a problem - if they wanted to return something, they would contact me, not the merchant.

And there would be MORE returns if my stuff were resold - I have now organized my vendors by gender and species restrictions so that customers will not accidentally buy something they cannot wear. When previously I had a lot of returns of that type, now that I've reorganized stock, I have had absolutely none. But if a reseller stuffs all my clothes on one vendor, that's more mistakes that will be happening. And then the customers will contact me. I can blow them off and say not my problem (which will probably make me unpopular) or I can deal with it (which I wouldn't have to do, but for that frickin reseller).

I'm not in it for the charity. I don't care who buys my clothes. But I do care how my name and image is spread throughout the galaxy. If I caught someone reselling, I would ban him or her without question. Period.

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Elyssa wrote:

Of course he had a motive. It's unlikely that he gave you money because he was tired of having it.

A) Raise your prices. This kind of thing is generally an indication that you're selling too cheaply.

B) Make as many of them as he can possibly buy. You'll make a fortune until he stops.

C) Maybe. You still made the profit that you had anticipated, though.

It has been my experience that people generally don't buy you out with the intention of hurting your business.

They are buying everything because it's cheaper to buy from you than make it themselves.

You have, in essence, allowed yourself to become a wholesaler.

You can either continue forward in this role and make the profit you had expected to make when you put those items up for sale, or you can raise your prices until your ability to provide supply for the consumer's demand falls into a level that is comfortable for you to operate. Once you hit this point of equillibrium, your prices are "right" for your store.

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Here is my example why to ban people:

a. ) My paintings I sell was 10K. have raised my prices to 100K per painting (Bestine)

b.) Same person bought all of my paintings (around 100 paintings, yes, there are so-filthy-rich exist, bought all of them for 100K) I tried putting in small amounts and he bought every day all of them.

c.) However I'm not power gamer like reseller, can not advertise 24/7 in Corellia Auction chat and I'm not living in Coronet. I want my shop to be in Tatooine where I actually live and wanted for my roleplay. People are so lazy to look for something beside Coronet. (Yes, they buy them for 400K instead of shuttling to Tatooine 4x price from reseller)

I'm getting bad remarks that I sell my paintings in anormous prices because buyer does not remember who he/she bought from but my name in the name field and crafter name on product. People trying to return items with same price they bought from someone else and trying to deal with this instead of re-seller.

C-a.) Purpose of me being merchant is not only profit also to make a name with fair prices, good service, making tourism around my vicinity, being able to take interest of people to my other vendors not just same vendor when they come into my shop. I want more people to know about my vicinity not just re-seller and out of products after sometime because he was making my vendors empty. Sorry Elyssa, but letting re-seller shop from you who has a shop in Coronet is no different than global search option.

Message Edited by gera on 02-14-2005 12:07 AM

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Elyssa wrote:

He bought all your Bestine paintings at 100k each??!?

Send him to my store.

Quickly!

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Better read C-a, merchant does not works only for money for self-profit, sorry to hear that from you.

Interesting discussion. To ban a customer...fascinating. As a full-time merchant, once a month, I visit every shop on every planet. Reselling is integral to the merchant trade, as is buying factory direct. Agreed that there is a fine line when a merchant has severly erred in pricing (and cheers to ya GraySeven, as keeping an eye out for our own is the key). But in this case, Judegement is an artisan, selling direct to the public. These vendors, with fair priced items, will attract merchants who will patronize the business. It takes a ton of time for me to collect quality merchandise from across the galaxy and offer it to customers in one location and at a fair price. It's a service, it's ethical and it's good business. Judegement, would you ban a merchant who contacted you and ordered bulk paint kits?

Pipeur

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NJ62 wrote:
I'm definitely not a fan of resellers. Don't get me wrong - I'm still in it for the money. I price to market, and I haven't ever had a problem with a reseller. But I would instantly ban anyone from my shop who wanted to resell my stuff.

The reason is simple: I pride myself on my selection, my stock, and organization. If someone is selling my goods with a lousy selection, from an ugly vendor, and they are overpriced - well that harms my reputation.

I'll have to deal with returns for clothing I never sold. I dealt with this for a certain extent when I sold my goods through a dedicated merchant. I made the pricing, I chose the stock, but he was the one on the e-mails. Yet people looked to the creator name, not the merchant name, when there was a problem - if they wanted to return something, they would contact me, not the merchant.

And there would be MORE returns if my stuff were resold - I have now organized my vendors by gender and species restrictions so that customers will not accidentally buy something they cannot wear. When previously I had a lot of returns of that type, now that I've reorganized stock, I have had absolutely none. But if a reseller stuffs all my clothes on one vendor, that's more mistakes that will be happening. And then the customers will contact me. I can blow them off and say not my problem (which will probably make me unpopular) or I can deal with it (which I wouldn't have to do, but for that frickin reseller).

I'm not in it for the charity. I don't care who buys my clothes. But I do care how my name and image is spread throughout the galaxy. If I caught someone reselling, I would ban him or her without question. Period.

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/agree 100% As a tailor, I try to keep two of every clothing item on my vendors at all times. This, in addition to my outfit and furniture vendors, can drive me crazy with restocking. If someone came and bought out my vendors, I would just die. I don't have the time to make nearly 2,000 items again. I only had that happen to me once. A guildie bought out my *entire* outfits vendor. I had to close it down for the next three weeks because I had no time to restock it. Had he not been a guildie, he would have been banned.

To the original poster, maybe you could ask the owner of the mall, or the other vendor owners if they would mind if you banned this person. I own our city's mall myself, so I just ban whoever I feel like. I think I have about 15 individuals and 3 guilds on ban right now.

My moves most be calculated carefully, but I'm afraid I can't please all sides on this one. I suppose I could ban him from the store, but that doesn't sound good to me. I could raise the prices on my pain but that might scare away some customers for awhile. Maybe you guys have another plausible solution?

Nope. Can't please everyone. And both sides of this issue have merit and playstyle value. It's a matter of preference.

Banning him from your mall will cause all the other merchant's vendors in the mall to lose his business too. You could lose customers who he is guilded with or friends with if he informs them he's been banned from your mall. You could raise prices till it's not profitable for him to buy from you, but then you might price yourself out of your "preferred" customer market. You could choose to accept the reseller customer and leave your prices where they are and try to stock more and more often. (they are kind of rare and usually hit several crafters per shopping session, not just one)

Or you could mail him, let him know his buyouts of your stock hurts your ability to manage your business time and expenses, andf ask him if he'd be willing to instead arrange a contract for a regular bulk order. Thereby giving you a guaranteed income, a new regular customer, and merchant goodwill.

Goodwill has value too.