Merchant Archive

Anyone else spend any time running around and looking for great deals that you can mark up, rather than having an established "bulk" purchase relationship?

With all the grinders and low-ballers with no patience having houses and vendors set up, a quick trip around the city in an evening can easily get me 100K of product that I can sell for 125-150K in a week or 2 of sitting on my vendor.

And it only takes an hour or 2 lap around a city every week or 2

I do it all the time.

Cool - easy money , isn't it ? Some of my recent examples (I tend to focus on Architect products) include buying 6 solar generators for 5k each, reselling each of them at 10k with a big "SOLARS for 10K SALE WHILE THEY LAST" added to my structure name in red. I tend to think that I increased sales off of my other vendors as well during this period with the additional consumer traffic. Also picked up a couple of medium houses for 40k and one for 29900 (what was he thinking) and resold them for 55K off my vendor. It may take more time for my stuffto sell at the higher (but still fair) prices, but it makes me feel great every time I make a sale like this ... It also helps me to stay up on what's happening and who the competition is around my city.

Absloutely, Deej! I do this every day...and have since day one...long before I ever decided to become a merchant.

My favorite thing these days is buying harvesters off the bazaar for a few hundred credits that have a few thousand credits worth of power and maintenance left on board. (If you're on Scylla - back of hot rod - they're MINE!)

Yep, I run Syra's Galactic Bargains. My motto is: "I shop the galaxy so you don't have to!"

I have a bit of everything on my vendors, and my customers know that they will get a good price on all of it.

The problem I have with re-sales is the markup needed to feel like you are making a reasonableprofit. There are a lot of costs and risks to be amortized out of that markup before you come out ahead.

Take the risk of inventory shrinkage for example. Thieving vendors absconding with your goods, and general item loss bugs apparently still exist from the reports on the board. On top of that, it is far to easy to miss that 24 hour window and have items poof from the stockroom.One day of RL issues that preventlogging in canwipe a lot of merchandise. If your chance of losing the item completely before it sells is 20% you need a 25% markup from that cost alone to just break even.

The risk that the market won't support your expected retail price and you have to discount the item is aless serious since you still get something back, but a couple of percent seems reasonable.

Your labor is worth something as well. If you don't make as much as running newbie missions for 2000 an hour, it is hard to see it as an elite class.

Then there is the cost of working capital. That's really hard to measure without a banking system, but most characters can easily double their money every couple of weeks if they buy harvesters with it and sell the resources. That works up to fairly high income levels with heavy harvesters and leased lots. Having a few $100k sitting on your vendor instead of feeding harvesters has a real cost.

So the way I see it every item has to have a markup of 50% or 1000 credits whichever is greater to be just barelyworth handling. If you can sell a harvester for $30k in a couple of weeks (about what I see), you can't pay more than $20k for it and feel like your making any profit at all. Of course, you might have some fun at it, but I think a merchant should be making money in the long run if they deserve the title. If you find yourself running missions to supportyour merchant role, you seem to me to be still learning the role.

It is pretty hard to get that kind of markup on any significant volume without established brand names and reliable suppliers. I am my most reliable supplier, crafters seem to come and go. They reach master, make a bunch of cash, and retire. They leave behind a shop with empty vendors and paid up maintenance, but are rarely seen again.

I agree with everything you said, IF I was a pure Merchant. But I'm not. I use my 4-4-4-4 Merchant skillsand my 4-3-4-4 Architect skills to enhance each other and manage to get continued enjoyment out of both classes (inspite of the bugs). I don't think I could have fun or be competetive as a pure Merchant and a casual gamer for all of the same reasons you mention and more.