Merchant Archive

new here so let me say hi! that being done, i'ld like to talk about something that happened today and maybegrab an opinion or two about it.

firsta bit about me. i am a master artisan and merchant with about a fourth of the droid engineer skill branch filled in. i looked forward to making and selling my droids until i found how utterly uselessthey are. i havent made a probot in at least a month now.

so with no crafting skills worth mentioning i do a lot of reselling. i spend countless hours talking with crafters seeking the best deals i can manage, 1000s of credits traveling the galaxy visiting shops to find the best bargains, or buying huge bulk orders to simply get a 20k discount. i then tack on a 5% surcharge as payment for the effort spent inaquireing my stock and vendor charges to maintain it. i consider this more than fair as my prices are more than competitive.

now, the upsetting incident: an ex-guild member (i de-guilded i was so upset) asked a droid engineer in /gu for some seeker droids. after a while, he didnt answer her, but i did, mentioning i had about 1/4 my DE branch filled in and could supply her with her order of seeker droids. she ignored me. no biggie i thought, i was fairly new to the guild and figured she would prefer to deal with a close friend. so i shrugged it off. an hour later as we were all gathering for a guild event, she asked my fellow droid engineer again for a batch of seeker droids. he replied that he had given the profession up (guess he found out how useless droids are as well). now a bit annoyed i speak up, everyone in the guild knowing i am a successful master merchant, i say, "curious how when people want something they go to crafters and not merchants..." her reply: "because all merchants' prices are too high." a bit shocked i reply, "my prices are too high?" she replies, "yes endos your prices are too high."

now thoroughly annoyedi begin to rattle off some of the stock i have and their prices. medium naboos 55k. medium generics 65k. unsliced 2.1 45-195 fwg5s 25k. large harvestors 110k. 77% composite helmets 50k. furnitureIV items 2k. and then ask, "these prices are too high?" her reply? she hugs me. no apology, no just kidding. she hugs me. the words "all merchants' prices are too high" ringing in my ears.

am i deluding myself? is the merchant profession not a viable stand alone profession? must i also be a crafter if i want to sell stuff? is this the popular opinion: if you want something, go to a crafter because merchants will screw you over on price? how are we to define ourself as an independant profession if people go to architects to order a house built instead of shopping at the large shop mere meters from them advertising house deeds? are there any other merchants operating their business strictly by reselling items? should i just drop the merchant profession now? it's like my little star wars world is crumbling in around me, finding out my second profession choice is just as defunct as my first choice.

i am posting this in an attempt to poll the merchanting community. are most of you crafters as well? have any of you encountered a similar scenario in your travels? i am just at a loss as to what to do, i am hopingthe views and opinions of some of you might help me decide. may the stars eternally shine bright for you and your businesses my friends. until next time...

lol

Sorry, I'd probably lose it as well, the /hug would've made me sooo mad. lol
She's probably just spoiled , as long as you still make your sales (you do, right?) who cares if one person doesn't buy from you.

However, you might want to take a look at the things you sell, not your prices.
Almost everyone hates paying 10's of thousands of credits on 1 item (even if it's cheap for an everlasting house), but they don't seem to mind paying the same amount of credits and get lots of trinkets (that are totally 'useless').

Hard time selling a house? Go buy cheap furniture to resell, good money in that. Plants and Torches especially.

While I am a crafter, and have a Clothing shop, right nextdoor I placed a Junkyard Vendor..
And no one can resist the junkyard vendor.
I sell everything on there, clothes (not made by me of course), skillmods, weapons, general items, furniture, A-N-Y-thing that is sold for scraps on the bazaar, I buy and resell. And I'm still incredibly cheap to what the items are worth, so it sells, it sells well.

thanks for the suggestions and the confidence boost. yep, im still making sales. just find it disturbing that people go to crafters and not merchants because merchant prices are too high. but then again, i dotn know if that was just her opinion, or as i fear the opinion at large.

i just think we need to be more of a functional stand alone profession.

perhaps making us the only ones capable of having vendors. or more profession perks that centers aroudn the fact we are handlers of merchandise and money. perhaps soem how the abilty to aquire stock with out payign for it, perhaps bank loans?? until we sell it. i dont know, but i do know the profession at it stands is discouraging.

well anywho. thanks again. i'll keep at it.

Just a brief note...

I am not a combat oriented character, but I sometimes do a bit of hunting and faction missions. When doing this I always have my gurrcat and my probot with me

Yes, neither of them are "uber" killing machines, but they dont need to be. They serve their purpose...they add their share of damage, distract the enemy ( its hard to aim at me when they get blasted by a probot while being chewed on by my cat ).

So dont mind the people who look at the 40-50 damage and say "that suxxors !"

I consider pets an augmentation, not a replacement for fighting skills.

I could not agree more.

I to have suffered from the same trauma.
I started the game with one goal: "To become a known merchant".
Sadly I've failed. I started Artisan profession, and managed to get enough Surveying XP to increase that skill, all the resources i gather went to building mineral surveying tools over and over again to get the busness skill tree up to 4. I repeat, I havn't even got Eng I or Dom I.
Then finally I manage to get enough money to buy me a medium house. (Delivery missions all the way.)
Putting up my one (1) vendor and started asking Droid Engineers, weaponsmiths, tailors, chefs you name it for things to sell.
In the start they where friendly and gave me item's I could sell. Spending most of my time advertising for my one vendor at the stargate and the rest of my time restocking my vendor.
With all the money on sales going back to the crafter's, I soon figured that I was having a hard time to get the money for maintenance on the vendor and the house.

It was about the time I only gave back 95% money to the crafters they abandon me. I too had "to high prices". These people where my friends! I was in there guild! They soon put up there own vendor, thus making money and totally forgot about me. I now a Master Merchant, with 6 empty vendors...
All they had to do was make enough MXP to get Advertising III. They didn't care about Hiring-tree, or the other trees.

Why?

Well, who cares about what the vendor looks like? When someone is already in your shop, they have already used at least 5-10 minutes to walk, so why souldn't they check the vendor?
A simple click and move the mouse pointer 1 cm up to hit the "Use Vendor" button. Suddenly everyone forgets how bad the vendor look.

Independed merchant are no use. Any crafter can easily have enough skillpoint to fill up 4 merchant skills (Novice Merchant, Advertising I, Ad. II and Ad. III). And to think of the horror of losing 5% by using a merchant, when they can do it. No man or woman will ever do that.


But hoping that some day this trauma will end, I still hold on to my Master Merchant skill...

Here is the problem with Merchants and the "too high" prices:

1. As long as a Vendor is available in the Artisan tree, we are unneeded by other crafters. Why sell to us to resell when they can sell it themselves.

2. In the same vein, crafters tend to (but not always) sell us items at the same price that the crafters sell the items to everyone else for. To make a profit, we have to resell at a higher price. Even if we buy "in bulk" we can seldom talk a crafter into a reduced price, since they can sell from their own vendor and get the "full" amount.

As long as Vendors are available in the Artisan tree, we have no use aside from being able to advertise. Our only hope is to team up with friends or acquaintences and sell the items you and they make. As a Master Artisan and Merchant as well as mediocre Armorsmith, I have plenty that I can sell myself. Add in my brother the Architect and I have plenty to sell already. I would, however, like to sell a more diverse stock and cannot as long as that first vendor remains in Artisan.

Vaylis Arturin, Mercenary Master Merchant and Artisan, Indifferent Armorsmith, Starsider