Merchant Archive
Thread: Who is going to take the hit?
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Lorander
Thu Aug 19, 2004 3:28 pm
#1
The way that I have been handling it is that I will put items up for sale for what ever the crafter wants.
I forward to them the emails regarding the sales. I track what items that they gave me, selling price, etc on a spreadsheet. We reconcile the money that I owe them from sales minus my commission once a week or so. I usually charge a 10% commission.
Oldog Neutrik
Master Armorsmith
Master Merchant
Master Artisan
Financial and Procurement Officer,
The Jedi Praxium
Praxis, Dantooine, Kauri
Master Armorsmith
Master Merchant
Master Artisan
Financial and Procurement Officer,
The Jedi Praxium
Praxis, Dantooine, Kauri
DocSavag
Thu Aug 19, 2004 4:21 pm
#2
Lorander wrote:The way that I have been handling it is that I will put items up for sale for what ever the crafter wants.I forward to them the emails regarding the sales. I track what items that they gave me, selling price, etc on a spreadsheet. We reconcile the money that I owe them from sales minus my commission once a week or so. I usually charge a 10% commission.Oldog Neutrik
Master Armorsmith
Master Merchant
Master Artisan
Financial and Procurement Officer,
The Jedi Praxium
Praxis, Dantooine, Kauri
If I decide to do it again I will charget 15-20% The amount of time is still considerable even with mailsave. And I don't need the work.
Moepple
Thu Aug 19, 2004 4:28 pm
#3
Lorander wrote:
The way that I have been handling it is that I will put items up for sale for what ever the crafter wants.
I forward to them the emails regarding the sales. I track what items that they gave me, selling price, etc on a spreadsheet. We reconcile the money that I owe them from sales minus my commission once a week or so. I usually charge a 10% commission.
Oldog Neutrik
Master Armorsmith
Master Merchant
Master Artisan
Financial and Procurement Officer,
The Jedi Praxium
Praxis, Dantooine, Kauri
This Posting shows that youve never made that. You will either kill yourself or unskill the merchant :-)
If you have a good Shop, you will not track every sale and forward the mails, cause you will do nothing else the whole day.
Shubashi/Gorath
Lorander
Thu Aug 19, 2004 5:17 pm
#4
I tend to deal in bulk and high-end materials, and most of my suppliers are guild-members. So, they do not get any money until after the sale occurs. This will not work if there is not a great deal of trust involved. I would hate to do it if I had a tailor as a supplier.
If they ever add the ability to "rent out" vendors (let someone else have admin rights), then being a merchant will be alot easier.
The wish list for improvements that Doc has going is great. It will be nice to see what the devs are thing about when they get to that point.
Oldog Neutrik
Master Armorsmith
Master Merchant
Master Artisan
Financial and Procurement Officer,
The Jedi Praxium
Praxis, Dantooine, Kauri
Master Armorsmith
Master Merchant
Master Artisan
Financial and Procurement Officer,
The Jedi Praxium
Praxis, Dantooine, Kauri
DocSavag
Thu Aug 19, 2004 5:39 pm
#5
Moepple wrote:
Lorander wrote:The way that I have been handling it is that I will put items up for sale for what ever the crafter wants.I forward to them the emails regarding the sales. I track what items that they gave me, selling price, etc on a spreadsheet. We reconcile the money that I owe them from sales minus my commission once a week or so. I usually charge a 10% commission.Oldog Neutrik
Master Armorsmith
Master Merchant
Master Artisan
Financial and Procurement Officer,
The Jedi Praxium
Praxis, Dantooine, KauriThis Posting shows that youve never made that. You will either kill yourself or unskill the merchant :-)
If you have a good Shop, you will not track every sale and forward the mails, cause you will do nothing else the whole day.
Shubashi/Gorath
I've done it. Tracking the sales with /mailsave isn't all that hard. Forwarding the emails is a chore but you can do it.
ElPedroSG
Thu Aug 19, 2004 5:45 pm
#6
ask for every Master Merchant to be given 1 or 2 'special' vendors that somone else can administer i.e. update stock for a set fee agreed between the 2.
I don't think every vendor should be capable of this but one or 2 per Master would make Master Merchant worthwhile to a guild (free vendor) or the indie (10% or whatever agreed) without overburdening the Merchant who probably has the skills originally to sell his own crafted items and has enough admin with that thanks.
Something to think of for the future anyway (as we appear to be FOTM say it know 
)...
)...
Elioi
Fri Aug 20, 2004 12:07 am
#7
So these vendor changes are going through, end of story, "poached vendors" are going to be history - I totally agree with Doc that its going to happen with pub 10.
Theoptions for those who had "poached" vendors are several:
1. Quit.
2. Abandon their chosen template and get merchant skills again.
3. Try to do High Ticket Auctions for a few items that they will produce much more infrequently.
4. Try to find a Merchant to sell their stock.
Lets totally disregard 1-3 and focus on 4.
How do you plan to work out agreements - lets say a Chef makes a Crate of Vasarian Brandy that is valued on the open market at 100k. To the Chef that is worth 100k, lets say you want to get 20k out of it as a merchant (not a bad assumption considering posts here). So do you get the Chef to sell it to you for 80k or do you sell it for 120k? Who takes the hit?
Korrack
Fri Aug 20, 2004 12:14 am
#8
I used to buy bulk items from various crafters in Vicimus Naboo (Wanderhome) and sell them on my various vendors around town. It worked out well. I would buy the items for 10-20% below the retail cost and sell at retail. So I would pay 80-90k for that crate of Brandy and sell it for 100k. Sales were good and I made good money for simply maintining a vendor and stock.
When I was part owner of a Resource Sales company, I used to run the vendors and collect all the money which was daily given to the group head who would then split it up amongst the members of the group each week. This worked well too, but was paper intensive to keep tabs on sales.
It can all be done. And with not too much difficulty.
Moepple
Fri Aug 20, 2004 12:27 am
#9
Hi,
my "Business Modell" is quite simple, I let the crafter decide what he is offering and let him make the prices.
I only want the prices to be not too low, I dont want to dump, and to be not too high, it is my reputation to have a good price, but not a cheap one.
I add something between 50% to 100% to the price the crafter charges me, so he knows which will be the end-price and he can name a price to his customers.
I either buy stuff first, which is the most common deal, or i just list the stuff and the crafter tells me from time to time what I owe him and pay him.
An example: A weapon which is listed with 15k in my Vendor is bought by me for 7.5k to 10k, depending on the deal. The crafter is almost freed of customer-interaction, cause I am the interface and I am able to answer most of the questions a customer may have. If I dont know something, I ask the crafter or send the customer to him.
This may not sound like a good deal for some crafters, but those I run the vedors for offered me this deals and it was a very good relationship so far. They constantly sell their stuff and I have filled vendors, which makes customers happy. Not only that, we have good prices.
The risk is spreaded between me and the crafters, because they decide what is listed and if its not sucessfull, they will not sell more. Then its on me to think about my royalties, and the crafter has to think about his prices or if there is no demand for his products.
Very important (!): Avoid the channel-conflict! If a crafter chooses to sell through a merchant and gets deals from a merchant, he should NEVER charge less than the vendor-price is without talking to the merchant, and he should handle deals through the merchant or at least give him his part of the deal. Otherwise it might be that he will never make any business with the merchant again.
I fully trust the crafters working with me. And if we lift prices in my vendors, or I do, I will tell them, so they charge me more next time they deliver. Thats the deal you make, always take care that everybody in the supply-chain gets their money, because they all depent on each other.
Shubashi/Gorath
Aiya1
Fri Aug 20, 2004 12:31 am
#10
I think its give and take. I sell my own stuff and have been master merchant for almost a year. If I however decided to take up combat and had to wholesale to someone, I wouldnt have a problem taking a cut as a tradeoff for skill points.
Aiya
DocSavag
Fri Aug 20, 2004 12:37 am
#11
There are costs involved in doing business. The merchant pays those costs and spends the time to market his shop, update his stock and deal with the finances of the business. That service should be paid for by the crafter who is supplying the merchandise. If the crafter wants to increase his price to cover the 20% then fine but he and the merchant run the risk of not selling the merchandise. Ultimately the market will determine the max price of an item and the profit for the merchant will have to come off the to top of that.
Moepple
Fri Aug 20, 2004 7:58 am
#12
DocSavag wrote:
Moepple wrote:
Lorander wrote:
The way that I have been handling it is that I will put items up for sale for what ever the crafter wants.
I forward to them the emails regarding the sales. I track what items that they gave me, selling price, etc on a spreadsheet. We reconcile the money that I owe them from sales minus my commission once a week or so. I usually charge a 10% commission.
Oldog Neutrik
Master Armorsmith
Master Merchant
Master Artisan
Financial and Procurement Officer,
The Jedi Praxium
Praxis, Dantooine, Kauri
This Posting shows that youve never made that. You will either kill yourself or unskill the merchant :-)
If you have a good Shop, you will not track every sale and forward the mails, cause you will do nothing else the whole day.
Shubashi/Gorath
I've done it. Tracking the sales with /mailsave isn't all that hard. Forwarding the emails is a chore but you can do it.
What do you want to tell us with this post? That the system at it is now is good?
Well , I will not do it that way, it sucks :-)
Lorander
Fri Aug 20, 2004 7:13 pm
#13
I do not think the system is good now. This is just the way that I handle it to try toovercome the deficiencies in the merchant/vendor interfaces.
Oldog Neutrik
Master Armorsmith
Master Merchant
Master Artisan
Financial and Procurement Officer,
The Jedi Praxium
Praxis, Dantooine, Kauri
Master Armorsmith
Master Merchant
Master Artisan
Financial and Procurement Officer,
The Jedi Praxium
Praxis, Dantooine, Kauri
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