Merchant Archive
Thread: Allow Merchants to hire vendors to non-merchants... otherwise a nerf will kill this profession
Zalmun wrote:
I'm with Yolner 100% on this one. If you're dealing with merchants that require you to give them product up front, and then they pay you later, then find someone else.
A smart producer that can make tons of volume would sell WHOLESALE to various reseller merchants, if possible. What is so unreliable about selling stuff at retail less 30% (standard markup) in bulk to some merchant? If the merchant doesn't want to pay up front, find another that will. A smart merchant will realize that it takes money to make more money, and plan accordingly. Buy more of stock that moves faster (what a concept!), and buy less of stock that moves slower. The producers will get the hint, and produce less of the slower moving stock. Supply and demand.
As both a producer and a merchant who has just recently got into reselling, I can say that people that are trying to do consignment sales are just doubling their effort for little return. Buy at wholesale prices, and mark up accordingly. If a producer doesn't want to sell large volumes at a discount for resale, then find another producer. There's always someone out there that will.
Meds and resources are probably some of the best producer-resale market you can possibly get into. High demand, low cost, great margins. Sure I'm not a super multi millionaire like some weaponsmiths or armorsmiths, but I make a nice comfortable living with medium to low effort. =)
RE Consignment Sales:
There are reasons for a merchant and a crafter to use consignment sales. The biggest reason is that if I am the merchant and I am buying everything wholesale then I decide what to buy based on what I think I can sell. I'm not buying your favorite product if I don't think I can sell it. If You are providing the product at no real cost to me I'll sell anything you want. If it doesn't sell you just take it back.
I've done it both ways as a merchant and it just depends on the situation. If you are dealing with a merchant that won't do it the way you want..get a new merchant. Your merchant should offer either method. If they are brand new they might not have the capital to buy millions of units from you at wholesale, but there is something to be said for having your product in half the shops in the galaxy so sell to more than one small merchant if you like.
The point of all of this is that there isn't only one way to do it. Be creative in creating relationships. Don't be afraid to try something for a while to see if you can make it work. Your worst experience dealing with a merchant won't be as bad as some of the bugs you deal with on a daily basis 
Blode wrote:
Anyway, I unlearned all my dancing boxes and I can't dance anymore. I unlearned rifle and unarmed skills and I can't use those weapons anymore. I unlearned organic chemistry and first aid and I can't use wound/action stims anymore. Why someone should get to use a vendor after unlearning it--and that half of the merchants here think they should get to keep it--just boggles my mind.
The problem still remains. You see, no matter WHAT you use merchant for, if merchants aren't the only ones with vendors we'll be useless. Vendors are HOW we are better at selling things than you. Take that away and there's very little for us to do. I, personally DON'T see your problem with that.
1) There arefew to nopure merchants. You know why? Because merchant is ONE profession and ONE discipline pre-req. That's a lot of skill points left over. Professions are meant to be taken together, to mix and match and compliment each other. So your assertation of "merchant not meant to be a compliment to your crafting profession" is false and invalid as proven by the fact that players are able to master at least 2 professions in the game. It is meant to be a compliment. Just as weaponsmith and armorsmith compliment each other. As do Pistoleer and Smuggler/BH/Commando.
2) You don't need money? Then why are you in business? Look, if you're in business for the thrill of business then why WOULDN'T you keep merchant? Why do you NEED vendors at all if you don't want to sell more products, for whatever reason you're selling them? If you don't WANT the money, and if you "go on strike" and stop crafting, then why were you in business to begin with?
3) If vendors aren't exclusive to merchant than the profession itself loses meaning, and right now we're already running short on meaning when people can just drop the profession and keep ALL the benefits. You're "demands" that you get a vendor without the profession, even if they're rented to you, are you "demanding" we slit our own throats.
4) An alternative? Sure. Partner up with a merchant. If you DON'T want to spend the skill points, and DO want a vendor, then go through a merchant. It's really that easy. We LIKE making deals. We LIKE selling your goods. We WANT to. What we don't want is to sell you/rent you/give you vendors while we sit around twiddling our thumb. "Oh gee, I just rented my 6th vendor. What do I do now?" My vendors exist to help my business. You want that benefit? You want to be on the global map? You want something that yells at people? Looks nice? You go through me. I don't ask, as a pistoleer for the ability to do heals or buffs. Why do you want MY skills?
Look. Vendors are merchant territory. Making weapons is for weaponsmiths. Making armor for armorsmiths. Houses are for architects. Vendors that make selling all that stuff even when you aren't online, jumping up and yelling to people, and advertised on the world mapis MERCHANT work. You take away vendors and we got NOTHING.
Artisan [0 0 4 4], Brawler[4 0 0 0], Master Medic, Doctor [0 0 0 4], Merchant [ 3 0 0 0], Master TKA.
With this you cam make dam good stim's for the general public, and sell them on your own two vendors registries on the map, and find your own resources. And you still have plenty of fighting power.
To all thoughts, suggesting ways of sell throe merchants... Ideas about shops and consignment sales, have been posted several times, I have made 3 different suggestions personally, and most merchants will love to have this some way.
Nevertheless, renting out vendors, or letting non-merchants (I am counting artisans with buss 3 as merchants) have vendors, cannot be justified because the functions do not exist.
So join us in strengthening the profession, so you will not need the vendors you self, but can comfortable sell throe a merchant. Asking for anything else is proof that what you really wand is the ability to do everything your self with out interacting with any one else.
I am going to disagree with most of the merchants here. Soren's proposal is a sound start. It'sobviously weighted against merchants and totally unacceptable, but it's onto a basic concept which could be very very advantageous and lucrative for merchants. Of course he's totally wrong about crafters getting out of the business or leaving the economy if exploit vendors are removed. That will simply not happen. Resellers are equally wrong that removing the vendor exploit will turn move people to resellers. Rather if the exploits are removed, a lot of storage vendors will poof, and a lot of people who are crafters will bite the bullet and and get the necessary skills in Business and Merchant to sell their own wares.
Here are a few things I'd add to rebalance a vendor rental proposal in ways that I think significantly strengthen the merchant class and provide crafters with a reason to give up their merchant lines and work with a merchant, all using the concept that I've advocated since release that merchants become the masters of vendor malls:
Only the owner of a building would be able to place or maintain a vendor in a building--this would make vendor malls the exclusive domain of the merchant profession, which would be an absolutely huge advantage. UO and now SWG are proving that placing a vendor in someone elses building is the most popular way for crafters to expand their business past the individual shop.
A new form of vendor called a "contract vendor" would be created available only to merchants (this is based on the current system in UO). Merchants would receive one contract vendor for each level of management and 2 for master. A contract vendor would have a limited duration, terms for renewals, up front cost,weeklyrent, and percentage commission all payable to the merchantand would be placed, registered, and dressed according to the skills of the creating merchant. These would be rentable to anyone. And a merchant would have the ability to use a contract merchant instead of a regular merchant giving them a choice of up to 14 contract vendors, but not more than 6 actual vendors.
Master merchants would gain the ability to list a shop under "mall" on the world map, provided that at least 1500 items were available for sale by vendors at the mall. (A huge advantage -- master merchant owned shops would be able to guarantee their vendors aren't empty.)
The advantage to this over a pure rental is that it doesn't require the merchant to give up their own vendors in order to rent them out, it doesn't allow unlimited (and completely devalued)vendors as the "let the merchant sell vendors to everyone" concept does, it keeps a large amount of control for themerchant as well as the emotional satisfaction and recognition of being the owner of the store or mall, and most importantly it works with crafters in a way that is already happening and is obviously acceptable and even advantageousto crafters. For resellers, allowing the placing of other crafter's vendors will improve traffic to your location and thus increase your own sales and marketability. The advantage over the current situation should be obvious, vendor malls are the wave of the future and do sales far far in excess of individual shops and this will only accelerate as time goes on.These would be under the complete control of the merchant class.
The major flaw are that this is a nerf to existing vendor malls, but I suspect that most of them are player city oriented and already have a master merchant as one of the major investors. There may also need to be some holes patched so that people don't create secondary accounts and then rent all their vendors to their main for non-sales storage -- perhaps no more than 2 contract vendors per character in a single building.
Example of how this would work. A master merchant has a mall and currently resells food, medical supplies, and weapons. He also has two architects, a tailor, and a bio-engineer with contract vendors place in the shop. An armorsmith approaches him about placing a vendor. The merchant thinks this is a great idea and suggests that the initial placement will be 100,000cr, rent of 5000 per week, 5% of sales and a contract of six months. The armorsmith says no, that's too much up front because he's not sure of sales. The merchant suggests 10,000 placement, no rent, and 30% of sales and a contract of only a month and then they can renegotiate. The vendor then places and dresses the vendor and transfers the contract to the armorsmith at a cost of 10,000cr. At the end of 30 days, the agreement expires and the armorsmith and merchant get together and renegotiate.
For other references see http://update.uo.com/design_439.htmlwhich is the UO system. (Which can also be used to bludgeon the devs -- if uo can do it why can't you?)
Agreed. What's the point of spending the points to get vendors just to turn them over to someone else? Vendors are finite. You get six. So once all my six are rented, what do I do then? I'm not a merchant, I'm an employment agent with six employees.
And even renting out vendors DOES detract from the profession because it subtracts a NEED for REAL merchants who want to buy your goods and sell them on their vendors. It subtracts from the need for crafters to enter business relationships with us beyond simply renting the vendors.
Noooooooooooooooooooooo.
I've been a merchant since the beginning.
I don't want people to place vendors that don't have merchant skills.
I want to be able to sell other people items without skrewing around with that brain dead Offer, accept, stockroom, for sale, select an individual item, what was the price, close the flippin window cause it sits there with no item displayed after every single sale, rinse, repeat, belch....
I want an easy way to allow other people to post items for sale on my vendor, set their own price, and they get their money without me having to check Offers every day, track every item, write down every sale, tip everyone their money while making sure I don't accidentally spend it because that's where it ended up.
Amen. When I first started playing I assumed this was the case, and was shocked when I found out that it wasn't possible.
- If I'm only limited to 25 items for sale to vendors or the bazaar then I have to coordinate with a merchant every night in order to make sure my vendor is stocked.
- I sell 25 things on the bazaar every day - I'm not going to throw away that profit by having to sell my stuff to a merchant's vendor.
- I know a merchant. He HATES selling things for other people. It takes all of his time just to get with the various people who supply him. If he could allow a specific person to re-stock some of his vendors he'd be able to actually practice his other professions.
- People who sell things to merchants for resale get really pissed when the merchant isn't around to restock that person's vendor. Merchants shouldn't have to feel like slaves.
And even renting out vendors DOES detract from the profession because it subtracts a NEED for REAL merchants who want to buy your goods and sell them on their vendors. It subtracts from the need for crafters to enter business relationships with us beyond simply renting the vendors.
There is no need for crafters to enter into relationships with resellers. There's not going to be. Most would quit rather than do it. Instead, most of us get enough merchant skills to do what they need. You will not compell people to go through the reseller paradigm. It's just not going to happen much more than it does now.
The only people who should benefit from a vendor, should be somoeone w/the appropriate skill boxes..someone who has invested the skill points. It only makes sense. Can a non-CH..usea Rancor, after they drop CH?
Devs, make those vendors......*poof*, if the avatar has dropped the necessary skillpoints! This will make Merchant a much more meaningful class.