Merchant Archive

There really does seem to be a glut of a lot of shops out there as Holo mentioned a few times. And then when I read the responses to Q's question on vendor fees, I see many folks complaining this would put them out of business since they only sell one or two items a day. Now for an architect that is one thing ... but when I read post after post from tailors (and such) saying that is all they sell a day .. well ... that's just pitiful to be blunt.

I am a semi-casual player (play 7-10pm a few nights a week) and I easily sell 30+ items a day. So my thinking is if a tailor can't drum up more business than that, they should just go back to pushing Dusters on the bazaar.

Without knowing the particulars ... these are probably the folks that put their shop in a "cute" location like out in the boonies of Naboo or Rori rather than where the people are. They probably don't post items on the bazaar to get new contacts. They probably don't follow up each and every sale with a thank you email. Basically they are just trying to get extra credits without taking the selling aspect serious.

So to be honest ... I hope the fees go in and I hope they have a bit of a bite. It will help separate the serious merchants from those just clogging up the system

I am a tailor. I did destroy missions to get enough money for a large house, because I needed a structure that could hold all the examples of my work. I generally player 6+ hours a day, I reguarly post items on the bazaar, including advertisement items, I follow up every sale with an email, and my house is in close proximity to many other houses/shops. I often run through various cities, shouting advertisements for my skills, to varying degrees of effectiveness. Still, I average between 2k and 5k a day. If you really want to clear up the glut of shops, take the vendor out of the Business branch. Make people actually get Merchantto be able to be a Merchant.

Y'know, I spent several hours a day trying to maintain 4 shops on 3 planets. I don't make any of my own stock, I buy from crafters and resell. I'm a serious merchant. But these maintenance fees will probably drive me out of business. My margins are already razor-thin... I can't afford any more expenses. And raising my prices won't help, since that'll just raise my maintenance too.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for raising the maintenance on NPC merchants. I know I've had it too easy. Just make it fair to the low-margin crafters and pure merchants.

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So to be honest ... I hope the fees go in and I hope they have a bit of a bite. It will help separate the serious merchants from those just clogging up the system

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To be honest I think this is quite foolish - I like the fact that tom **edit** and harry all run small merchants - this game solved a problem that EVERY other MMORPG has suffered from and thats the distribution of goods being a player to player interaction. now you are saying removing that and making this game more like all the rest of the games is a good thing ? how does someone elses vendor hurt you ? Why shouldnt everyone have the opportunity to dabble in being a merchant ? Then we should makenovice medics unable to use stim packs ? to make them want to invite me on outtings more often ? This logic makes the whole world nerfed if you follow its path !

What you're not taking into account is how difficult it is to build up a reputation and get your business going. I'ma tailor, and generally have 5-6 vendor sales a day and rising. But my shop is about 1700m from the nearest town, and has only been in that location for a week. So I'm pretty much where I expected to be right now. Sure you may consider me "out in the boonies" but not everyone wants to live in the suburbs of Theed.

Tailor shops have to have a very large selection.We need to keep amuch higher selection than any other type of shop. If someone runs all the way out to my store and only finds a handful of items on my vendor, they're not going to bother to come back. So it's important that any startup tailor shop stock a wide variety of items in many different colors each. With this style vendor maintainance, even established shops will struggle. Brand new shops will face a crippling overhead. How do you expect any newshop to get started?

This attitude that folks who have a different playstyle from you can't be "serious merchants" and don't deserve shops is condescending. And yes, this change will force me to"go back to pushing Dusters on the bazaar."Even with such an elitist attitude, I just can't understand why the idea of small businesses like minebeing forced to close up shop makes you happy.

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Horst wrote:

Y'know, I spent several hours a day trying to maintain 4 shops on 3 planets. I don't make any of my own stock, I buy from crafters and resell. I'm a serious merchant. But these maintenance fees will probably drive me out of business. My margins are already razor-thin... I can't afford any more expenses.

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I agree 100%, I only craft bofa treats for pet food, all the rest I buy from others

Well frankly the ability to advertise in this game is **edit**. There areno billboards we can buy, there areno TV spots, there are no radio commercials, there's no way to get a shop in town. So we have all these negatives stacked againste us before we even get out of the gate, and now they want to punish us for having a large selection of goods. If anything they should charge for each transaction. Q said it himself that they want to do it at the transactionary stage. Well that's when the item is sold. It doesn't do any good to kill us when the item is waiting to be bought. Hell if the setup was done like this in the real world Walmart would be 1/4 as big as it is today. Finally if we sell items face to face there is no money being taken out of the system. That makes me reason to believe that they would encourage us to use vendors, andnot discourage us.

Just to clarfy ... I am a Tailor / Merchant so I am very familiar with the inventory issues of a tailor. And I have been very successful I feel in my trade considering how little time I have to play.

But my point is still the same ... if you are a tailor (or other low cost item crafter) and are *only* selling 2-3 items a day, you are merely dabbling in the profession and does that volume truly warrant the need for a vendor?!?

Now having said that ... I don't think the idea of the Devs is sound because this is going to kill those that do sell large volumes of low cost items (eg, successful Tailors) or those that sell a few high dollar items (architects). I believe the true fix is the flat sales tax folk mention.

I can whole-heartedlt get behind a point-of-sale tax. I can even get behind a flat daily fee per vendor. But a value-based fee-over-time is just bad juju.

So you are saying that casual players and merchants shouldn't be allowed to play. Do you work for SOE, sounds like it. Fix the database. I am a casual architect. To put one of every heavy harvester on my merchant would cost around 20k+ per day. That doubles my daily costs, and doesn't include the idea of stocking a variety of items. But, I am a casual player and so...by what you say, and what SOE acts like...I don't deserve to have a chance at fair competition. Well, back to special orders only. Feel free to look at the floor around my vendor to find what you want, then contact my or my partner to sell it to you. The new vendor...your floor.

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Horst wrote:
I can whole-heartedlt get behind a point-of-sale tax. I can even get behind a flat daily fee per vendor. But a value-based fee-over-time is just bad juju.

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The problem is keeping peeps from using vendors as storage containers. Just a flat hourly wage for the NPC and a Sales Tax won't keep peeps from just posting things at outragious prices so they won't be bought but won't take up floor space in their house either. It also won't help drive the prices down to more reaonsable levels because the Sales Tax wouldn't get paid unill ... well until it sells. So players won't be motivated to lower their prices till the stuffs moves quicker because the tax is always going to be the same.

This maintenance over time simulates the efforts required to maintain an inventory which stimulates merchants to price their ware to move. This is more in line with reality where time is money. Yes, there are other ways to stimulate this response, but it's clear that what is already being done isn't a big enough stimulator.

They want an economy that moves. They want product to get made, get sold, get used and wear out. Apparently the current economy is too hot and not moving and the Devs are afraid it might just burn out rather than cool down andassume a healthy glow.

This will hurt some professions. Tailors have it tough because their wares don't wear out at all. This will change but hasn't yet. So I imagine that this will hit tailors harder than anyone else.

It hits this Architect plenty hard enough. 20k/day to keep my vendor minimally stocked? Not to mention that the 'limiting the vendors used for storage' issue is pretty much a DB problem. They just don't want to admit it.

Ghartan, I am a tailor 'dabbling' as you say in merchant. I sell 20-50 items a day ...that is because I have a rocking inventory. I deserve a vendor. Arg you purists are driving me nuts!