Merchant Archive

So I made master sometime ago, and now the business is taking off. I own the Anchorhead RiteAid on Radiant, and we are now selling spice, stims, food, and weapons. To think this all began with a crate of muon and a dream ...

Anyway, now that i sell merchandise from many different crafters, and many different types of merchandise ... all in single and crate form, I am a little lost how to keep track of it all for purposes of resupply and paying suppliers (I dont 'buy' wholesale ... I take a percentage of everything crafters sell on my vendor ... that way i dont have to pay for stock that doesnt move.)

Does anyone have any creative ideas as to how best to handle the book keeping aspect of the merchant profession? When I first got master merchant, I would log in for 15 minutes every am in order to reregister the vendors. Now I also try to take care of account management, and I find that I'm getting to work later and later ...

I would appreciate any suggestions on this matter. However, keep in mind ... I may be a business mogul in the making on SWG, but in real life I have a hard time balancing my check book ... so please keep it simple!!

Sadly, I have a binder on my desk, that is the best way to do it right now. I write down what I sell, where, and to whom.

hah.. if you have a hard time balancing a check book, and you want to be good at keeping your SWG books, they are one in the same.

I think its even harder in SWG. In the real world Quicken Business gets me far. In the game there is no support for accounting nor responsibility of trade/sales. Its really really a sad state of affairs.

The only thing I can tell you to do is grab excel or a spread sheet program and track it through there. If you can't dual task like that then pad and paper is the only way to go.

I wish you much luck.

-C9-

Get up earlier :-)

No sorry, nothing more creative than what already been said (but I also buy all my stock so I the biggest headache I have is remembering what I paid for it)

Like Marqie, I also have a binder on my desk next to my computer. Every evening, which is when I do payouts, I make a chart and write down all sales from my e-mails, and then after I write em all down into the notebook I clear out the e-mails from that day. Add up the totals, take out my 15% and then tip it out. Usually takes me about half an hour or so to get it all added up.

So clearly this is an area in which we all need help ... I think i'll start a new thread ...

I use Notepad to keep track of what I stock and from whom. For splitting sales my office is covered in scraps of paper with lines of figures. I also have found the macro-making editor in game can be use for notes.

In general sales tracking is a pain in the butt that should be at least partially automated in the SWG milleu.

??? I've got problems with merchant like everyone, but I'm going to also try to play the game as well as keep customers and crafters happy. What I created a spreadsheet for was pricing formulae. Granted, it's huge, but it allows me to be a capitalist in game and not a shopkeeper or bookkeeper.

When I say capitalist, I mean I help keep money flowing to those who produce the goods from those who buy the goods. No commissions except for early on when some very nice crafters helped with a few advance shipments. Now, I use my pricing calculations. There's the price I buy for, the price I'll sell for and the price that I charge guildmates. All resulted based on the stats that each formula calls for. My suppliers have a copy of this spreadsheet, and they know that they offer me things at the wholesale price. I buy their offers, and don't worry about having to catch up with them for sales later. I also don't have to track it all, except to note general trends and requests for special orders.

Buy low, sell high. Simple.

I'll be no help on this. My model is that I buy in mass at a very high discounted rate. I then resell at a competive rate. Right now I am looking at decreasing my inventory. I am dropping clothing (to much of a pain to stock) and crafting stations, since I do not have a supply of High Quality.

I do track my customers. I have started to use the friend list and groups.

Wow, sounds like it takes a lot of time and hard work being a merchant. Hopefully it'll be worthwhile once I get there.

So far all the book keeping methods in this thread has been really useful though.

You might want to take a leaf out of the book of antiques cooperative shops. Usually such shops have price tags with initials next to it. The initials are the person who supplied it. In SWG, you'd ask them to tag it on to the end of the item name. So 'Fishing Rod [AR]' or whatever their code is. This'll mean you don't need to keep track of what you put on the vendors from that person... only what gets brought (from the mails), and hence needs restocking/payment. It helps when you have more than one supplier of one item type too.

"I write down what I sell, where, and to whom."

With broken email, you cant even do this. You get to write down a stock and take a physical inventory every single day to discover what you sold and you never know who your customers were.

I initially keptExcel sheets on my vendors when I was consigning everything , before I had enough money to buy everything outright upfront. Now I have my suppliers sell to my vendor at my cost so I don't have to pay out. Gamble is that I buy low enough to stave off rapid deflation of prices as the market gets more crowded. Right now all I track are prices. I do need to start tracking everything againto analyze my profit margins and what really sells the hotest etc. If I get off my arse and make a daily tracking sheet that adds up into a workbook for the week and month I will be sure to share it with everyone that wants it.