Merchant Archive
Thread: A Utility Skill for Merchants
I've been thinking about the Domestic 3/Merchant vendor debate a lot over the past few days, and trying to come up with some means of balancing the system in Merchants' favor. I think I have a way...
Right now, most vendors are only distribution points, even though they're fully capable of interacting both ends of trade. So let's give Merchants an exclusive tool to give them an advantage when it comes to demand. I suggest that Merchant-owned vendors should get another tab at the top called Price List, which allows them to summarize a list of what they're willing to pay for various items. Doesn't have to be complicated - just a text box like those used for the character descriptions. This would allow the user to know what prices to sell items to the vendor for, spurring a little more action in the resource and component markets. It would also be easy to tie into the map links for advertising, along with the location information - just a popup box.
For example,Joe the Miner has 10,000 units of Neutronium on hand, and wants to maximize his profit. He can split it up into a bunch of tiny piles on the bazaar, or he can simply pull up the map and see which Merchants are looking for Neutronium as well as how much they'll pay for it. It's a mutual win for both the Miner and the Merchant.
Where would it fit into the skill set? I'd say Novice Merchant or Advertising 1. All Merchants should have access to it, or nearly all of them. But it would encourage people to get into the Merchant lines, and perform a valuable function for Merchant players besides.
That's a great idea.
I'd actually like to see it go further and let "offer" be configurable by merchants so they actually have a full "buy" list as well as a sell.
That would be nice.
Most merchants I've visited have an misc item, like a chance cube, listed for 9999 credits and labeled "READ ME! (double click)". They just put their price list in the seller's description box.
Not as elegant, but a worthy work around.
BrandonIT wrote:
This would be a great thing for me where I could say I would buy resources at ### per unit. And have the vendor automatically buy them up to a limit on my bank account.
That would be nice.
I think it would be better to have a second account on the vendor, like their maintenance pools. That way you can specificly set the amount of creds you want to use to allow your vendor to "buy" items for you.. and you don't end up trying to buy something from someone else, and find your bank drained unexpectedly.