Merchant Archive

Thread: Am I griefing?

Crustyfur
Fri Apr 01, 2005 2:57 pm
#1

I am normally one to avoid confrontation and flaming etc. However, with the current state of sales relating to the GVS I feel I have been left with 2 options. Drop crafting or do what I am about to tell you.

I work in web design and I analyse and try to understand how search engines i.e. Google rank their results. After 3/4 days of non-existent sales I decided to adapt my knowledge to the GVS and try and work out how it is sorting it's results. Specifically for Droids. What I found is that 1 merchant was dominating the first 5/6 page and this number was growing daily as the added more and more stock pushing everyone else to the bottom of the pile leaving us helpless, as there is nothing we can do about it.

So, against my better judgement - I am a desperate man - I decided to head to this merchants location outside a main NPC city, drop a merchant tent with a few items on it and see if they appear anywhere else in the list. And they did.... first page. Now, like I mentioned this is near the other merchant’s house. When I say near, I mean next door this was the only spare lot in the area. Part of me says, "Pack up and move on you worked it out now". The other part says business is business why can't I have a shop outside this city too.

My question is this, am I 'griefing' this player? I am not undercutting him. In fact he is cheaper than me but I am not lowering my prices any more than I have since Friday. I know the considerate thing would be the move on, but the businessman in me says... It Business!

Before I get flamed to hell I will say that if he did this to me I would be pretty mad, but again it's business. I just want to get other peeps opinions.

Still waiting for a CSR response to ticket.


/equip tin helmet




[B] Baebar's Droid Store of Infinity
Tatooine -4400, 7282.
est 2003
Baebar Moonflier - Elder Droid Engineer - Mayor of Mos Tus'ken Tatooine
Current Stock

Elyssa
Fri Apr 01, 2005 4:26 pm
#2
Sounds to me like you made a wise business move.

You're not interfering with his operation in any way.

If you get into a price war with him, that's just a reality of the free market.

It's not like you're preventing him from getting to his vendors or blocking access to his store.


Then again, I'm not the final word on such things.




------
Elyssa Alexander (Elder Merchant Correspondent)
12pt. Master Structures Trader / Elder Jedi / Mayor, City of Metropolis
Shop Crazy Durni, Inc., now open in Metropolis, Corellia (885 -6605 Gorath)

"Why the big secret? People are smart, they can handle it."
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."

Elyssa was 1000% correct
-Pawlin
Kryxal
Fri Apr 01, 2005 4:51 pm
#3
So, it's really still "Location, Location, Location" and the search just changed WHICH locations to get listed!? How many issues does this make now for the new search system?



...has mastered the Pilot profession

Kryxal Lightsky - Radiant - Cancelled Dec. 7
Kagami Lightingdark - Radiant - Cancelled Dec. 7
Kikuko Inoue - Starsider - Cancelled Dec. 7
Momoko - Radiant - Cancelled Aug. 22
Elyssa
Fri Apr 01, 2005 6:11 pm
#4
It is an interesting observation on the search system.

I'd love to see some more experimentation on it.



------
Elyssa Alexander (Elder Merchant Correspondent)
12pt. Master Structures Trader / Elder Jedi / Mayor, City of Metropolis
Shop Crazy Durni, Inc., now open in Metropolis, Corellia (885 -6605 Gorath)

"Why the big secret? People are smart, they can handle it."
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."

Elyssa was 1000% correct
-Pawlin
Dimear
Fri Apr 01, 2005 6:48 pm
#5
Not griefing. Not even very rude, in my opinion. Might bring more customers by his shop even. Either way, it's well within the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Congrats on outsmarting the system better than most people.

I'm sure SOE would say that you're helping the buyer at the expense of a merchant - and that can only be a good thing in their eyes.





Thus sayeth Dimear

Crimsonsplat
Sun Apr 03, 2005 12:42 am
#6
Well, your theory is a bust too. I tried the same thing on Rori, right in front of the worst underseller on the Starsider server. No joy. I'm still on page 9, he's still on page 1.

But it was amusing to buy him out of items he's selling below my cost of production and set up a shop right out front selling them at 4x his price. Doubt it's going to be profitable, but amusing, all the same.

Crustyfur
Sun Apr 03, 2005 1:46 am
#7
I have an ingame CSR response:


CSR JorgeS here. Thank you for your ticket, in regards to placing a merchant tent near another shop. If you have the ability to place the tent then its fine. You can sell the same items as another player. The only thing would be that it makes for stiff competition however thats all up too you. There is nothing wrong with doing this.


I wish you the best. Thank you for your time, safe travels!


I am going ahead with this new vendor till such time that the GVS is functioing correctly. haha.



[B] Baebar's Droid Store of Infinity
Tatooine -4400, 7282.
est 2003
Baebar Moonflier - Elder Droid Engineer - Mayor of Mos Tus'ken Tatooine
Current Stock

Crustyfur
Sun Apr 03, 2005 2:41 am
#8




Crimsonsplat wrote:
Well, your theory is a bust too. I tried the same thing on Rori, right in front of the worst underseller on the Starsider server. No joy. I'm still on page 9, he's still on page 1.

But it was amusing to buy him out of items he's selling below my cost of production and set up a shop right out front selling them at 4x his price. Doubt it's going to be profitable, but amusing, all the same.




Damn ,sorry it doesn't work for you. I definatley works for me, although it's not 100% perfect it's slightly better than I have otherwise (Currently now on page 17). I have looked at it more indepth and another possiblity I thought of was, is it sorting items by the date they were crafted?! As the items I do have on the first page (Very Few) are things I have had in stock for a long time.


Thoughts?



[B] Baebar's Droid Store of Infinity
Tatooine -4400, 7282.
est 2003
Baebar Moonflier - Elder Droid Engineer - Mayor of Mos Tus'ken Tatooine
Current Stock

TheGliphster
Mon Apr 04, 2005 7:02 am
#9
Hey, it happens in real life (how many times to you see 2 or more reastaurants next to each other) so I say it should be no problem.



Gliph Shadon : Master Smuggler (Elder Master Smuggler).....Human Male
G'li-phg Shadon : Master Trader (Domestic) (Elder Master Tailor/Mercahnt)....Gliph's 4 year younger Bothan twin sister
G'gg-lyphg-q Shadon : Master Officer...Their twin Ithorian sister
Glif Shadon : Master Entertainer, Mayor of Freedom City.....Their Cousin...All pronounced Glyph
Antiont Bak'Bahee : Master Bounty Hunter....Glif's Sulustian Halfsister
Ranora Shadon : Master Spy...Gliph's exwife
All on Gorath

"You know, sometimes I amaze even myself."...some guy..somewhere
Crustyfur
Mon Apr 04, 2005 9:44 am
#10
As an update, the player who I set up shop next to has mailed me and is happy for me to be there. Although I have decided to close the vendor and concentrate on the 2 I already have.


/pray Please fix the vendor listings. I didn't mind page 8, page 10 was a surprise and page 15 was ok. But Page 18, REALLY $£^$ me off Amen.



[B] Baebar's Droid Store of Infinity
Tatooine -4400, 7282.
est 2003
Baebar Moonflier - Elder Droid Engineer - Mayor of Mos Tus'ken Tatooine
Current Stock

Crimsonsplat
Mon Apr 04, 2005 10:16 am
#11
It's not date of creation either. I've got items up for sale that were made by the Arch who owned the shop before the vendor who owned the shop before me. (about a year old, in other words).


I don't think it's date of schematic creation for the same reason.


It's not serial number.


Maybe it's date of character creation.


Or maybe.... and I hate this, but....maybe it's order that you enabled the vendors? So the folks who switched on first are at the top of the list forever??

Crustyfur
Mon Apr 04, 2005 11:41 am
#12
It can't be based on the date/time you enable the vendor search. I logged on litteraly seconds after server was up and I was the first DE on my server to have my results appear. I am now showing on the last towards the bottom of the pile, pages 18-26.


Someone said it might me something to do with when the VENDOR was created? This would stand true for my caseas I recently had a reshuffle of vendors and the guy that is #1 has not changed his for ages - so he says.





[B] Baebar's Droid Store of Infinity
Tatooine -4400, 7282.
est 2003
Baebar Moonflier - Elder Droid Engineer - Mayor of Mos Tus'ken Tatooine
Current Stock

Indene
Mon Apr 04, 2005 1:16 pm
#13
With testing you might find the position is based on when the vendor is actualized after server reset.
Should be easy to test.

-Indene-



Master Creature Handler - Kettemoor Nov 2003, Radiant Nov 13, 2005
http://www.swgcreatures.com/forums/phpbb2/index.php
Once Happy contented successful Master Merchant. (RiverBend, Naboo.)
Then came the dark times. The NGE
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