Merchant Archive

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Swalex1100 wrote:

SOE have made the mistake of believeing that all Crafters are in it justto make money. Many of us are not. We enjoy the challenge of running a competative business, making high quality items and providing a service to our customers through our outlets and most importantly trying to be in some way shape or form better than every other crafter out there. Whether that's through a max damage stat, a well stocked vendor or a friendly service.

We want people to come to our shops, admire the lengths we have gone to to decorate and marvel at the range of goods we offer. We want to see a 5% increase in salesdue toour ad campaigns. We want to win new customers with special offers. We want to be regarded as good at what we do. We want people to make an effort specifically to come and buy an item from us. We want to advise our customers on the item that suits them. We want to promote ourselves, our vendors and our cities through special events.

WE WANT TO RUN A BUSINESS.

We don't want to be some faceless "Ebay" company.

In short: If this goes live, I'm leaving. And I don't think I'll be alone.

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Beautifully put.

And yeah, between this and the veteran rewards, everyone will be producing even more closely identical products than they already do...

But now, I could take my lifetime supply of avian meat, make a bunch of packs, and undercut everyone else into absolute oblivion simply because I have more of everything than my competitors? Where's the challenge?

Guh.

I had already decided to close my business, after nearly a year and a half, due to the now more or less infinite supply of avian meat, but this makes me think about cancelling all my accounts as well.

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AlaManQ5 wrote:

Greed.

Plain and simple.

That's what its all about.

My one-star rating proves it.

All for a VIRTUAL dollar...it is to laugh...

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You are assuming that prices will drop. It probably will for very common easy to find items that already are on the Cnet bazaar. If you want soming good, like long duration brandy made by the best chef in the galaxy or a really nice sliced weapon, you'll have to go to a reseller that marked up the price quite a bit over what you could have bought the item for directly.

People are more worried over the lost of a play style in this game and not prices.

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Elyssa wrote:

The following is my "as a player" opinion:

I disagree with any system that allows a player to see my prices or retrieve their items without visiting my vendor in person.

Being able to comparison shop from a central location will only favor those players who for one reason or another can afford to undercut everyone else.

Secondly, a significant portion of my business comes from people who look around while they're in my store and see other things they may not have been specifically looking for.

This "impulse buying" is extremely valuable to me as a merchant.

However, the ability to see *IF* something you are looking for is on a specific vendor and get a waypoint to go shop there is a very good idea.

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I agree with that 100%

Message Edited by ArthurDentOnBria on 02-11-2005 04:18 PM

I am an alt account. If this change goes through, I will be cancelled.

I am a merchant. Not only am I a merchant, but I am a roleplayer. I run a business on Gorath known as the "Imperial Mining Company." I have fought long and hard to, not only bring a little difference to the game through my vendors, I have also tried my best to bring the Empire to this game that severely lacks it.

-I have six locations for the Imperial Mining Company.
-Ever vendor is a human male with a good build, no facial hair, and a conservative hair style.
-Each vendor is in full Imperial Uniform, standing in front of an Imperial Armoir and two lighting structures. The tents have lights and even the main building, which is a small house, it set up to look like an office with other Imperials working.

Do you know how many MANHOURS I spent getting my vendors to look that way? Now, all of that is for nothing? I've just been wasting my time?

The way I dressed my vendors (and sent out a standard Imperial form notification to each person who purchased something from there) was one of the hooks to my business. Sure, I sell resources at an ultra cheap price, but that is besides the point. This change might not hurt my selling to much, as I am the lowest resource seller I know of. This would make all of my effort to make my shop stand out pointless, though. Anyone who has ever created a human vendor can imagine just how much time that probably was.

Whoever said that this will just create a Walmart atmosphere within the cities is correct. Why would I have to go to a player city mall when I could go to the bazaar? Why would I keep my shop in a city since that will only drive up price? Why would anyone buy from a 10 point smith? Do they not realize how much this wil hurt everyone involved?

I can't believe they would move to push something into live that cripples a profession so much as this. All I can do is look for a creature handler to sypathize with me, but even they knew they had to be changed.

Remember, Competition effects both customer and crafter everytime for good. If someone sells a stuff for price you think it should not be sold or lesser than cost, they are already doomed to bankrupt...

Message Edited by gera on 02-11-2005 04:09 PM

Message Edited by gera on 02-11-2005 04:13 PM

My response to Tiggs' thread:

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As the system stands now, it is the worst thing that I have ever heard about as far as impact on my business. I do an average of one million credits in sales each day, and the main reason is that I spend hours upon hours of each week crafting so that I can have full vendors for my visitors.

My prices may be on an average a bit higher than some of the less-established Droid Engineers in the galaxy, but my customers have never complained. They know if they come to my shop, they will not find empty vendors, and they will be able to purchase everything they need during their visit.

The proposed vendor changes would allow a player to stand at the bazaar in Theed, and but a seeker from DE x, an Arakyd from DE y, Droid Batteries from Artsian x, and maybe a Detonation Droid from me, all without ever leaving Theed.

Merchants who have worked from DAY ONE OF LAUNCH building a customer base have all of their efforts wiped away, and are now without the hard-earned advantage that their longetivity brings. This is a total sucker-punch to dedicated crafters, and unless SERIOUS reworking is done to ensure that destination shops like mine are still destinations, I and many of the long-time artisans will most likely be gone.

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This new feature, if implimented, implodes the Merchant profession.

The difference between an OK tailor and a great Tailor is selection. People would visit my vendors because I have a wide variety of goods to chose from. Now? Big-fn-deal. You can scour the galaxy for those Yellow Snow Boots from the bazaar term in Coronet.

Our player city was built on the backs of Master Crafters, hoping that a mall with a good selection of products from a number of varying merchant vendors would attract citizens. This is useless now. Commerce has been taken away from player cities and put back into the NPC cities.

I can drop all my merchant skills, and just have one vendor in my house, possibly a vending machine or a bartender droid, and list everything I want. (Within the vendor item limit, which seems to be all Merchant skill boxes will be good for anymore.)

All I will have to worry about is pricing: Because its pretty obvious that if there are 3300 Melee Defence shirts to chose from, Joe Combat is going to buy the cheapest one while he waits for his buff.

Crafting is dead to me now.

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EnigmaBSc wrote:
I would like to know if either Elyssa or Doc knew that anything like this was in the works before Tiggs' post?

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No.
My first indication of this was when I read Tiggs' post from the Dev Tracker.

I like the galaxy wide search with price, details and all. I do think it is reasonable to have players come pick up items they have purchased, if the item is outside the purchase "region". That potentially brings even more players into our shops, since the galaxy wide vendor search would broaden our customer base.

As for impulse purchases, I make those all the time on the bazaar anyway. I think you might actually increase your exposure to impulse buying with the broader customer access to your wares.

Do I have concerns about market pricing and competition...sure, who reasonably wouldn't? And yet I think it may be healthy to the game to shake things up a bit. Time to adapt to the new market.

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AlaManQ5 wrote:

ahem...

It is Optional!!!!

Each vendor owner can decide whether to allow his or her vendors to be searchable in the market. There is an option for vendor owners to turn on/off the search option on his or her vendor. The vendor owner will be able to find current search option settings for each of his or her vendor(s).

When a vendor owner turns off the search option, the vendor is no longer listed in the galaxy-wide network search. With this search option turned off, vendor owners have the ability to conduct private auctions. Players will need to physically go to the vendor and click "Use Vendor" to list items from this vendor.

My point was made...

/largefont off

Message Edited by AlaManQ5 on 02-11-2005 05:46 PM

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looks at sig.

isn't a merchant.

person is absolutely clueless.