Merchant Archive
Thread: I'm curious is anyone a Pure Merchant?
Indene
Mon Sep 27, 2004 5:36 pm
#40
Elyssa wrote:The part about where you get upset because you sold your merchandise at the price you had requested.
BioTamer wrote:
Well what part about I do not play this game to be someone else's employee do you not understand?
What she said
-Indene-
DocSavag
Mon Sep 27, 2004 6:36 pm
#41
I've said it before..someone PLEASE go to the waypoint in my signature and buy all my merchandise (very little right now cause I've been busy doing something else [*cough* NDA *cough*] and haven't put anything up for sale in a while.)
Elyssa
Mon Sep 27, 2004 7:27 pm
#42
I'd love to help, but lately I've been involved in testing this cool new MMO expansion for a major game publisher. It'll be available to the public in the near future, and I think a lot of the people that post on these boards would be interested in it. 
Bazalan
Mon Sep 27, 2004 11:55 pm
#44
DocSavag wrote:
I've been in this forum since day one and I never understand the position that someone who buys all your merchandise for what you are asking for it is somehow doing something wrong. I understand you want it to last. I understand you want it to be sold to more than just one person but if you get what you asked for it you don't really have a reason to complain. If they are getting more for it on their vendor then you are charging to little for your items. If they get stuck with it then you should just smile at the profit you made and make more stuff.
I would ban someone from my shop for doing that to me as well. For the several reasons mentioned. If it annoys me then it's wrong, and there is nothing wrong with banning someone from your shop who annoys you.
Think of it this way. KMart runs a sale on item ABC to increase shopper traffic so they also might pickup item XYZ. Walmart can't send their employees to Kmart and buy all their product off the shelves, then stock those items in their store. They would be thrown out for stealing business.
Likewise I knowingly stock some items below "normal" price to increase traffic. Some commodity items like speeders, stims, powerups, brandy. If they visit often to get these commodity items they're more likely to buy the high end armor/weapons/BE Foods.
There's alot more to being a successful merchant than buying low and selling high. Thus there are many reasons why another merchant buying out some of your stock can be taken as an offense.
Seleana
Tue Sep 28, 2004 12:26 am
#45
Interesting post. The one person that stated you should not be allowed to buy other peoples products and resell them amazed me in stating he actually owned a business. Then his statement that he thought Merchant was the most boring skill in the game told me I'd not want to hang around him very much<p>
<p>I played UO for about 5 years, Earth and Beyond before this and been on SWG for about a year and I have almost always done nothing but Merchant type things. Hacking and slashing bores me silly- but that's just me. I love all my friends and customers that enjoy hacking and slashing as they buy my wares<p>
<p>I have two accounts here and while I did get one char to Master Marksmen only so I could help my guildies I prefer to either be crafting, working on my vendors or shopping for crafting resources or low priced items I know I can resell at a profit.
I find peoples objections to buying someone elses wares and reselling them perplexing. That position shows a significant lack of understanding of how most businesses work in RL (not that that should have any basis for what one does in a game in general).
For someone starting out as a merchant in any game, one of the paths to being successful is having a wide selection of goods to sell, and if you can't make them yourself buying low and selling high is the name of the game. With the skill limitations in this game its not practical for a person, even with several accounts, to be able to make enough variety of items to run a good "mall". On other games I've set up alliances with other crafters to build malls but this game does not seem to have many crafters and the ones that do craft do not have the merchant skill to place vendors. That makes it even more important for me to buy other goods at low prices and resell them.<p>
If someone came into one of my vendors and cleaned them out to resell eslewhere I'd think several things 1) Cool! Sold everything at a price I decided I could accept 2) Cool! Now my products and name will hit a new market- name recognition is important in the long run and that only helps me 3) Damn Sam! I've priced my products too low and need to raise them!
I had one merchant send me a weird somewhat incoherant email ranting about how I should be banned from the game for buying his goods and reselling them that made little or no sense to me. I guess as I think of it someone that thinks that way is not really a full time merchant, or in this case is 12 or so and needs some more economics 101 or ....I don't know. Honestly the objection to reselling baffles me. The good news is he did raise his prices almost 40% after his rant to I feel good that I helped him make more credits.
So... to answer your question, I consider myself a "Hardcore Merchant Gamer" and enjoy it greatly and only ask for understanding from those that think its boring that its not to me. Enjoy
DocSavag
Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:19 am
#46
Bazalan wrote:
DocSavag wrote:
I've been in this forum since day one and I never understand the position that someone who buys all your merchandise for what you are asking for it is somehow doing something wrong. I understand you want it to last. I understand you want it to be sold to more than just one person but if you get what you asked for it you don't really have a reason to complain. If they are getting more for it on their vendor then you are charging to little for your items. If they get stuck with it then you should just smile at the profit you made and make more stuff.
I would ban someone from my shop for doing that to me as well. For the several reasons mentioned. If it annoys me then it's wrong, and there is nothing wrong with banning someone from your shop who annoys you.
Think of it this way. KMart runs a sale on item ABC to increase shopper traffic so they also might pickup item XYZ. Walmart can't send their employees to Kmart and buy all their product off the shelves, then stock those items in their store. They would be thrown out for stealing business.
Likewise I knowingly stock some items below "normal" price to increase traffic. Some commodity items like speeders, stims, powerups, brandy. If they visit often to get these commodity items they're more likely to buy the high end armor/weapons/BE Foods.
There's alot more to being a successful merchant than buying low and selling high. Thus there are many reasons why another merchant buying out some of your stock can be taken as an offense.
You are free to ban anyone you want for any reason. However, you selling your speeder at a cut rate price affects my business too. If you were undercutting me I'd buy them from you and reselll them. You could ban me..and all my guildmates, and anyeone else I decide to send in as an agent..or you could stop trying to undercut my business and price your speeders at a reasonable price. Its your choice.
DingoBoi
Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:57 am
#47
then you are selling to cheap undercutting the market... expect to be bought out.
DingoBoi
Tue Sep 28, 2004 5:00 am
#48
by 'pure' merchant I am using the definition that I do not craft any products for sale. Not that I don't do absolutely anything else in the game.
Cafa wrote:
DingoBoi wrote:
1 account. I also have fun with my single character as a master combatant and a master crafter...though I don't sell anything I craft.
Then you are not a PURE merchant, by definition.
Fivo Asia
DingoBoi
Tue Sep 28, 2004 5:02 am
#49
Dear SOE,
Hate you, Hate the forums, taking the dog.
-Dorothy
Message Edited by DingoBoi on 09-28-2004 11:06 AM
Elyssa
Tue Sep 28, 2004 7:30 am
#50
The only things I enjoy more than finding a supply of underpriced speeders are underpriced houses.
All the people that sell their stuff for 1-2cpu are just wasting their time.
It's takes 3388 units of material to build a small planet house.
Why would you sell this house for 6k?
Odds are you could have just sold the resources for 9k+
Swoops for 25k?
I'd pay that for the giant stacks of metal it takes to build the thing.
Where's the profit?
That reminds me... I'm running out of swoops again. Time to fire up the factory and start snooping in other people's vendors.
ofim
Tue Sep 28, 2004 7:55 am
#51
Elyssa wrote:
The part about where you get upset because you sold your merchandise at the price you had requested.
BioTamer wrote:
Well what part about I do not play this game to be someone else's employee do you not understand?
I think you fail to understand that most of the market "undercuters" that you were buying from ....were the "poachers".
I also think you fail to see that when one of you "craft leachers" clear our vendor, it hurts our costomer base.
ofim
Tue Sep 28, 2004 8:01 am
#52
Elyssa wrote:
The only things I enjoy more than finding a supply of underpriced speeders are underpriced houses.
All the people that sell their stuff for 1-2cpu are just wasting their time.
It's takes 3388 units of material to build a small planet house.
Why would you sell this house for 6k?
Odds are you could have just sold the resources for 9k+
Swoops for 25k?
I'd pay that for the giant stacks of metal it takes to build the thing.
Where's the profit?
That reminds me... I'm running out of swoops again. Time to fire up the factory and start snooping in other people's vendors.
lol....swoops only sell for 25k on chili...and thats the 85-90% ones.
i have a vendor of swoops dedicated to people like you....i make em with garbage resources that you couldn't even get 1cpu for...and don't even bother to experiment on them...then i sell em for 15995 and double my money.
sales on those have been a little slow lately....guess the leachers got the hint when they pulled that swoop and realized it could be destroyed by a nuna in one hit.