Merchant Archive
Thread: Merchant Templates To those complaining they can't do it.
obeewan wrote:And also do not forget Doc's and CM's need Novice scout to use a harvesting droid.....Aesop says as heRUNS SCREAMING AWAY TO THE NEAREST BAR/hugs
Or they could visit the local Scout's vendor...
Message Edited by Antiak on 08-21-2004 08:37 AM
tgr_lily wrote:I've seen mention here of renting a vendor and can't help but wonder how you would manage that. I am a master merchant who sells only products I make or harvest myself. I currently have 5 vendors up and running, which is about the right number for me to keep stocked. Many people in my guild will be hurt by publish 10. I would like to help them out by renting them a vendor, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how I would ever keep track of all the sales to make sure they received payment for their goods. Sounds like it would be a full time job. It seems like the most logical approach would be to buy their stock outright and then resell it on my vendors. This would mean a massive upfront output of credits on my part. It seems to reason that if everyone does this then inflation will be rampant since merchants wanting to profit from their profession would have to mark up the prices of the goods they've purchased for resell.
Most merchants who do this use the /mailsave command to dump the emails to their hard drives and use a thirdparty program to create reports so they can do the financial side of it. Its not convienient and we want that changed but that is the way it is done by a lot of merchats at this point.
Lochran wrote:
Your Doc template is nothing a doc could live with. You need Scout and at least hunting 1, too ... but it seems you assume they all are longing to pay phantasy prices for meat ...
Its called interdependance, the scouts and rangers harvest the meat, the docs buy the meat and make buff packs, then they buff combat players. Other docs may choose to make buff packs and sell them to their collegues and yet other docs will buy their packs ready made from one of the crafting docs selling them.
If you want to make buff packs for personal use only you can have scout to harvest your own meat. If you want to sell them youwill have to buy in the ingredients, make the packs and sell them for whatever price makes you a profit.
Plenty of Docs do survive without any scout, who do you think buys the buff packs that are sold on these vendors some docs 'need' to have, and who do you think orders avian meat from rangers and scouts?
Its called interdependance, the scouts and rangers harvest the meat, the docs buy the meat and make buff packs, then they buff combat players. Other docs may choose to make buff packs and sell them to their collegues and yet other docs will buy their packs ready made from one of the crafting docs selling them.
This is EXACTLY right and part of the problems we have with economy and game are that people forget this. I am a Master Doc have been for a year now and I don't have scout - gave it up awhile ago when I took on Politician. I have a great group of guildmates that hunt for me - I say hey Avian is hot over on Tat right now and before I know it - they are out there getting me avian or whatever kind of meat I need.
Awhile back a friend needed fish so my city hosted a fishing contest - it was a blast - my friend got all the fish he needed and people had fun and the prize money was much appreciated to the winner.
We have to stop trying to be 100% self sufficient and try to figure out creative ways on how we can make the game - fun (because that is what games are supposed to be right) along with how best to use the skill points we do have.
GraySeven wrote:People, are you forgetting?We aren't supposed to be able to do it all....If you can't or don't want to spend the skill points for vendors, find a dedicated merchant and strike a deal with them for the Merchant to sell your wares. After all, that is what the profession is supposed to be.You may have to sell for less than you think the items are worth, but for that you won't have to worry about reposting items, advertising or other nonsense.If you are a guilder, or have a number of friends online, strike a deal with one of them to be a Merchant.There are plenty of options available, but being able to have a vendor without the skill isn't going to be one of them
Seriously, you try to find a merchant that's willing to put the cash up for your product at a discount you can live with. It's a lot harder than you'd expect, especially given the crappy vendor management tools available.
No, they need to buy resources from someone else if they don't want to invest the points. Or they could pay someone else to find the resource for them. Otherwise if you want to survey for your own resources then drop the business line and let someone else do your distribution, whatever way you would like to go at it.
obeewan wrote:
All fine and good except a Bio-Engineer must have Exploration IV as a minimum too or he cannot DNA sample at master level.
With Doctors and combat medics and bio-engineers, what, they need not have survey IV to gather their own resources?
*wink wink*
Spazzers wrote:
joined42904 wrote:
I think we merchants can agree with the BE community that the BE templates are the weakest of the proposed templates.
I would probably run a good BE shop out of a city mall given the option. (Of course it would NOT be a consignment situation. And many BEs have second accounts. What can be done for the poor 1-account BE though? They have to do most transactions in person or as special orders? What will become of pet stim vendors?
I appreciate this post and I wish the sentiment expressed here was really the case. But, the fact the both BE posts made in this thread were one starred gives you a pretty good indication what the real mind set is.
Anyone with two accounts can run a crafting business and have a master merchant regardless of what that crafting business is. If everyone had two accounts the whole merchant vendor issuewould bepretty moot. Of course not everyone is willing to pay SOE twice to play the same game (I know people with 4 accounts).
Merchants sell product. Do merchants have to sell products they make themselves? No. Many RL merchants sell products made in far off lands. Do they turn a profit? Ask Walmart that question. Scouts make products, doctors make products, smugglers make products, rangers make products, combat medics make products. Why is it that there are a trillion craftspeople in SWG but merchants are only willing to sell product they themselves make? Why is it not an option to rent a vendor from a master merchant?
I have seen this suggestion come up a few times, and while the ability to do consignment or "rent space" is a fun little idea, why is that the only acceptable answer to crafters? Walmart, Best buy, Cub Foods are not renting shelf space to manufactures. Philip Morris is not selling cigarretes on consignment. These Manufacturers are selling these products to a distributer for roughly 30% or the retail price, why do crafters seem to think that if they aren't selling their product for 100% of the profit they are getting ripped off?
Sorry OT, but renting a vendor is way below consigments vendors, anddistribution chainfunctionality in things I would like to see.
Javac wrote:
GraySeven wrote:
People, are you forgetting?
We aren't supposed to be able to do it all....
If you can't or don't want to spend the skill points for vendors, find a dedicated merchant and strike a deal with them for the Merchant to sell your wares. After all, that is what the profession is supposed to be.
You may have to sell for less than you think the items are worth, but for that you won't have to worry about reposting items, advertising or other nonsense.
If you are a guilder, or have a number of friends online, strike a deal with one of them to be a Merchant.
There are plenty of options available, but being able to have a vendor without the skill isn't going to be one of them
Seriously, you try to find a merchant that's willing to put the cash up for your product at a discount you can live with. It's a lot harder than you'd expect, especially given the crappy vendor management tools available.
No problem, I'll buy a starting order of 5 droids of most of the common types, at 60% of retail, you set the MSRP. Many Merchants have plenty of cash, and if they don't, arrange something with them, where they can pay you back once sales start coming in, you will make a good connectionthat will probably continue to work with you when you get bored and decide to take some time off. 
If a Merchant can't afford to pay for your wares up front consider being an investor, you will front the product while they are building up sales, you can charge them interest on the investment. Or you could front them for 80% of the profit until they start buying outright, or hundreds of other ways to work it out.It happens in real life all the time.
(technically as a DE we would work out a slightly different agreement, so much of your product is more custom made then WS, AS, Chef, Smuggler, Etc.)