Merchant Archive

Went up management tree like everyone else. Placed all 6 vendors in one house but not open as a shop. Charged access fee but it was only I that would run in once in a while. Took about 22-23 days to reach 4/4/4/4 Merchant. That was 2 months ago. Still not Master.

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Bey wrote

Don't use access fees. They just reduce traffic. If you really want merchant exp, remove access fee and open it as a shop, and actually sell something so you get a stream of customers.

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Like so many others, my 2nd Holo said Merchant. I want this one done and over with. And as I understand it, there are two routes to choose from for fast merchant xp: 1) Build houses and run in them every 15 minutes with your buddies; 2)Make your shop free to enter and actually sell stuff.

Which of these two methods is faster? I'm a Master CM so I can sell Medic/CM supplies, but I just want to fastest way to get merchant xp. Any suggestions on which of the two routes I should with to appease this cursed Holocron?

Intrepid
Vercin Malachirian - FAITH
Master Pistoleer | Master Combat Medic

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SmakusDOD wrote:

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Bey wrote

Don't use access fees. They just reduce traffic. If you really want merchant exp, remove access fee and open it as a shop, and actually sell something so you get a stream of customers.

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ah look at that, NOW we get a helpful response. welcome back to non-bitterland, crybaby.

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It should have been obvious to anyone. But seeing as people with your level of social skills and general intelligence infest the thread, I thought it might be good to point out the obvious. Now go bore someone else.

I agree that having traffic is the way to go. The access fee really only works great if you've got a huge guild that will pay 1cr to go in your house a few times a day. Then it can add up quick.

The first thing I did was set up a vendor selling hide and meat that I'd harvested. Then onceyou've stockpiled some cash you'reready for the next step.

Finda "mall" city that has a lot of vendors and since you probably don't have merchant tent yet, beg somebody to let you share with them. I fell into a good situation with a guy selling huge numbers of weapons and he let me add a vendor named Skill Attachments. I went on the boards here and bought a bunch of +1 tapes for 7500 each and.... priced them to stay in stock <looks down in shame>. But I get the "existence" xp for everybody going into the weapons shop, and almost everybody at least looks at the attachments vendor to see what's there.

I did Merchant by going up to level 2 on management then hit the ad branch up to level 3 for planetary advertising. I mastered in about 3 weeks which is not bad, but then again, i do make exceptionally good clothes.

BUT the reason I'm fuming (and I am) is that Merchant is just the biggest pile of *insert naughty word here* ever. You get nothing for it. One of the branches gives you reduced bazaar fees!!! WHAT!!! it costs 20 credits to place an item on the bazaar, what kind of an incentive is that? The Hiring Branch is worthless, how many people do you know that have walked into a shop and said "Oh, i'm not buying from this vendorit's a Wookiee" pathetic. I know Hiring makes your vendors look nice and all that but the only time that I can see that it will matter is if there are two vendors owned by different people selling the same thing in same Mall/Shop which IMO is poor planning. Even more about Hiring, you get the races but you don't get Uniforms until level 4 so even when you can place some NPC vendors they still look ridiculous wearing their idiotic clothing.

Another thing, if you Master Merchant you get 6 vendors. Try filling 6 vendors with different things. Not impossible but rather a lot of work, for example, I'm Master Tailor and Master Artisan, so I have 6 vendors that have to be filled otherwise i'm not getting the exp, I have to find a way to fill 6 vendors. So I put different types of clothing on different vendors, but I want to keep my vendor stocked with a lot of items (at least 300 on each vendor in my case) as there is nothing worse than a poorly stocked vendor, so everyday I have to craft enough items to keep 6 vendors above that limit, how much work??? And I know that someone is going to say "well get someone to make you things and you place on your vendor" but the reality of it is why would they bother, after all, it takes a grand total of 9 skill points to have your own vendor and not worry about being ripped off by someone selling your items and not giving you the money.

The recent patch that allows the bazaar terminals to sell items for up to 6k has taken a lot of business from vendors as well so that's yet another kick in the teeth.

To conclude, Merchant is poorly thought out and has very few plusses. I think that I'm more annoyed really as I was really looking forward to Merchant, I really liked the idea of it and really wanted to own my shop and have great business relationships but since mastering yesterday I've dropped all of it today, waste of my time and effort.

Amen to Byalbacca. Merchant should not be a profession, rather it should be an option for anyone with or without artisan...much like harvesting resources using extractors. Honestly, Merchant is equivelant to having extractors and getting xp for extracting stuff and having a number of extractors......This profession is gayer than a San Francisco bath house.