Merchant Archive

st

Lets see your proposed formula of Total cost /1000 every 45 minutes, you say.

As a Master Droid Engineer whom maintains about 15-25 droids up. Varrying prices.

Lets define some basics first = (60 Minutes x 24 hours in day) / 45 minute incriments = 32 periods a day.

Assume my stock is valued at 250k / 1000 = 250 charge every period.

is values at 500k / 1000 = 500 charge every period.

250 x 32 = 8k a day, 500 x 32 = 16k a day maintenance very unacceptable

Droid sells for the two weeks I been open about 500k (40 droids)

500k - 224k (maintenance assuming 16k x 14 days open) = 276K to operate.

276k (gross to myself after maintenance) - 152k (harvester exp) = 125k take home for two weeks.

125k - house and store front exp ????

minus transportation, personal exp, weapon replacements, maybe leaving me 75k for all my hard work.

I would rather keep MY 224k.

ue

I'm brand new to the business line at all. I went to the effort to grind up to business 4 in artisan tree, so I could have a vendor.

I make very little money now, since I'm a Bio Engineer. If you attempt to take what little money I make, I will most certainly just DUMP my stupid looking droid vendor, and go back to selling on the bazaar and personal sales.

If you went with a 10% tax, I could work with that, but if you try and charge me a flat fee based on a % of the value on my vendor and it cost's more than about 500 creds a day, he will be drug out of my house and shot almost immediately. (This may be coming already, since I'm not sure just how much my little droid is going to cost me now, just got him).

I hate to say the obvious, but do you have ANY idea how things are sold in real life? Could you actually see any business capable of running with the same rules you want to add to this game? Managable fixed costs, I can deal with, but your scheme of continous "heavy" taxation on any item placed on a vendor is simply not workable. If you haven't already noticed that everyone will simply pull thier vendors, and dump the profession that has posted in this thread so far, you should take note of that fact. I will most certainly be one of them.

Vorgus on Bria

stHow about we go this route.


"275,000 Registered Players For SWG!"

275000 * 14.95 = $411125 per month

411125 / 30 = 13704.17 per day

13704.17 / 32 = 428.26 per 45 minutes

So, Sony makes $428.26 every 45 minutes based upon their listed numbers.

Now lets just GUESS that they have 25k available slots left on all their servers. A really low number if you ask me.

125000 / 1000 = 1250 per 45 minutes

With this calculation Sony themselves would be working at a loss of (1250 - 429 = 821) 821 dollers every 45 minutes. Does this sound reasonable? I think not.

I wouldent mind the Low Maint Fee and Sales Tax myself. From what ive heard of the patch (Havent had a chance to really look into it yet myself) they went ahead and turned on the "/1000" charge anyway for any newly created vendors. Does anybody have an actual report of what theve done?

st

I think it should be a flat fee, based on your business or merchant level. Charging a cost based on value is killing me business-wise. I am a resource vendor on the side and I have hundreds or thousands of credits worth of resources and medical supplies valued over 500,000 credits easily), and the maintenance caost are over 1.1k credits per game hour!! I can't run a business in that fashion. Come up with a more reasonable means for vendor sales or kill the 3k cap on the bazaar. The high maintenance costs does not allow for a good player vendor market.

My 2cr,

Drasslo Bastik

Eclispe Server, Kaadera, Naboo (4311, 5808)- Resource & Medical Supplier

stI like the tax idea versus a % tic maintenance every 45 minutes. I think your maintenance rate is something like 3.2% a day? That is very steep.

If someone doesn't have any business or a very slow business your 45 minute tic rate would devisate them. If I put 100,000 in items up to sell and they sit there for a week I should have to pay 22,400 credits? A week really isn't that long for many merchants, while for some that is just fine. What if they don't sell the item? 22,400 is a huge price for trying.

A tax idea would at least allow a smaller or new merchant that has a lower turnover to compete to some extent. They would at least know what the fixed cost of placing an item for sale on their vendor will be and have a chance at starting out by not having to risk huge maintenance rates to list an item they might not sell.

st

oh well,

now this explains my trouble from last night when i tried to set up my first vendor.

i am architect and set it up with some structures and even if architect economy is pricelike totally ruined, the items are expensive cause of enormous resource usages.

that vendor thingy wanted only towork for 2 hrs with 1000cr maintain in it. such is rediculous and is not profitable.

i was looking forward so much to make a shop, but with such calculations its worthless.

architect market isnt the way that u sell every hr an item, so u could affort it to maintain that vendor this way.

iwould see it more like put the rate like +1 for each set item and not bound to pricings. but even that can be very high maintain when u want a good choice of different goods. a vendor should not cost more then a small harvester at maintanance.

normally i would more vote for a 10% sales fee, makes more sense to me. it should only cost if u sell something, cause u cant expect to sell always many things. for casual players a shop is only possebility to sell their wares and in the little time they got they have to get resources and produce the items they want to sell.

well and 45 min steps is also not to understand for me, make it round number per hr not 45 mins pls.

sidenote: if u want moneysinks, then up the travelcosts or such, but to hit merchants with a hammer, so they degrade to persons running to town cry out their wares, cant be intention.cause with such fees vendors become for high end products not profitable.

st

It doesn't appear you were thinking of archetects when planing this.

One heavy that sells for 100k, would cost 26k just to keep it stocked in inventory for eight days.

A tax may be more apporpriate on the sale of the item. Maybe imposed like the current bank transfers are as well. 5% from his bank. In RL the buyer play the tax, not the merchent. The tax could be imposed in bazaar items as well.

Would recommend you hire an economics expert to re-think this idea.

A reasonable fee for vendors should be imposed. But not based on the value or quantity of the inventory. I can rent a shop and one shop may be a Dollar store, but the other store be a jewlery store. The rent does not go up based on inventory. The rent on vendors should be a fixed amount, simular to houses.

So the economy is hot. There's alot of money in the economy, but is that bad? What's the flow look like? Get the economics expert, make sure he's consertive and try again.

st

Ed,

Just tried out the maintenance fee on my vendor. Being a Master Architect I loaded every deedI had on the vendor and checked the maintenance rate. To my complete amazement it was 18000 credits a day. Yep, 18000 credits a day. I cannot and will not use a vendor with this kind of rate. This so called money sink will in fact 'sink' me out of business totally. I now use the bazaar exclusively to advertise. I just dont think this high of a maintenance rate will satisfy your goals. More than likely people will start boy-cotting vendors all together and hawk their wears or use the bazaar and word of mouth completely, and effectivelyI might add,eliminate paying themaintenance fees you are looking for on vendors.

As a suggestion lets look at real life. A vendor gets paid yes, but not that kind of money. However everyone and I mean everyone pays taxes. So I purpose a tax rate system of some sort. Lets say any item on a vendor of 5000 credits or less would pay, oh lets say 6% tax. An item over 5000 to 15000 would pay 7% tax. Over 15000 to 30000 would pay 8% tax and so on with a tax cap of 15% on the big items. This tax would only be paid when the item sells. NOT while it just sits on the vendor doing nothing.

Another responder here mentioned the cost of maintenance for his/her harvestors. I totally agree with that as I can go through 25000 credits a day just to maintain those heavies. Not THATS a money sink. After that fact I simply cannot afford to turn around a pay a vendor 18000 a day extra for doing absolutely nothing unless a sell is made while my harvestors, on the other hand,never stop producing. Thats asking too much. WAY too much.

Please consider a tax rate system to keep us loyal gamers alive AND in business. If that vendor is not selling then it does not get paid, period. If I go to work and I do not work I get fired andNO money is coming in. Currently the vendor gets to hang out and take-take-take while doing very little!! Please re-think this or you you will put all vendors out of the game.

Think 'Tax Rate System'

This is not a flame by any means, I just needed to vent a littleafter being 'shocked senseless' by the unrealistic maintenance rates currently on vendors.

Kal...

ue

Hooray, I finally placed a vendor.

I loaded it up with stuff that I've been stockpiling - not even the stuff im about to make. All told, im looking at 288 credits per hour.

This is, without a doubt, the shortest grand opening i've ever had. I'm closing shop not 15 minutes after I placed my vendor and am going back to the /tell and email order with personal delivery method. Even with time and credit lost travelling throughout the galaxy, it will still cost me less.

st

Well, personally I'd like to see EFF3 and EFF4 changed. Make them both drops in Maintenance prices, and only EFF1 the reduced bazaar fee.

ue

LMAO.

Seriously whoever thought of this "stock maintenance tax" needs to learn to consult others first: clearly he/she has a disconnect with the realities of business.

People are using emails to spam their warez, or renaming droids to advertise their wares, or just running a 24 hour macro that spams passers by.

Skill credits are too valuable to waste on such frivilous matters, especially when the stock tax adds insult to injury.

• Implement the sales tax approach, beginning at 20% and decreasing down to 2% for a master merchant


• Lower the skill credit cost for the entire profession. Seriously, being able to maskscent/negotiate harsh terrain/heal themselvesis more fun/important for an artisan than a few silly vendors that are way overpriced.


• Hire a game designer with who studied economics at school, or read this boards. My god, 3/4 of the posters here have a better idea on how to design a game than you guys!

st

Being a chef just got even harder. My shop will likely become a place for people to only pick up their orders if instead of a place to shop, browse and find out more about food. I was trying to keep a full line of products on my shelves in asmall quantity (1 to 5 stacks) but I doubt that I can do that anymore. My show room will become a loading dock. Chefs run a tight show as it is...

I would like for my vendors to work if I have to pay even more for them. Make the denominator by 60 minutes so that I can calculate how long I can be away from the game easier. I like the tax on sales since I will not be penalized for showing people what I can make for them.

stIs this a JOKE ...Come on if you are a master architech selling a 5 deeds to large houses at 150k ( ok this is at 4cr a uinit ) so you have 5 items total of 750k so for one day for them to be one there would cost me 24k a day to maintane my vendor? You have to be kidding me . THIS KILLS THE MASTER ARCHITECH WE MAKE NO MONEY AS IT IS? to do this is just insane.