Merchant Archive

I'm not sure I'm following that logic. I open my house up to someone to place a vendor so the merchant can have a place to sell his/her wares. The merchant, gains the benefit of either having a place to put a vendor without owning a house him/herself, or gains a second location thus getting more business due to more traffic (especially in a mall setting where a concentration of differnet vendors are located). How do I benefit, not being a merchant myself, by paying them to be there? How is this a service to me? I get to maintain my house and hope a vendor doesnt go crazy and steal all my furniture, or disappear, leaving an empty vendor for days/weeks on end, or change the sign or whatever else admin rights give. Yet I should pay him/her? I don't understand.

Maybe I'm naieve, I honestly would like to know. If that's really the way it is, then so be it, I won't go that direction. It just doesn't sound right. By no means am I trying to get rich off this. I just thought it'd be nice to have vendors in the house to help pay the rent and make a smidge profit to boot.

Thanks again

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GraySeven wrote:

I would suggest placing the structure in a good location near a popular city and looking for an "anchor" tenant. Make this Merchant responsible for paying the maintenance on the building. In return, place his (or his vendors) name on the house sign, for example; The Mall of Naboo featuring the Clothing store of Stump Puddlejumper. After finding your anchor (who's only fee is paying the maintenance on your structure), begin charging a set fee per a set time period like, say, 1000 credits a (real time) week.

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That sounds more reasonable, Thanks for the input.

What I'm trying to understand is why Merchants would want to rent from you? Houses are cheap, considering they are a one time cost. Maintainence for a house is really minor compared to many of the other costs in the game. The main way I see this working is if you havea location that is very desireable for some reason, that other people can't just place a house nearby, like for instance perhaps a grandfathered house on one of the tougher planets.

Feel free to prove me wrong, and if it works out well for you come back and tell us about your progress.

Ummm, hello....lots?

As a Master Merchant I have 6, yes 6 vendors I can place. I can either place them all in one location (my current choice until they fix my profession) or burn all of my lots on small houses spread throughout the galaxy and still have a vendor left over unless I buy two of the small, round Naboo houses and put them in different locations (its probably a bug that they only take one lot).

I am also a Master Artisan and middling Armorsmith, so I need factories (1 lot each) and harvesters (1 lot each) in addition to those houses for my vendors. Others opening their homes to my vendors allows me to use my lots where I need them most, which is to help me craft other goods.

Also, I would like to one day be a Merchant Prince, with Vendors on all the civilized planets and a Large Naboo Style house in which to live in decadent splendor, and I can't do that if I'm housing all of my lazy employees!

Sheesh....

"Mad" Vaylis Arturin, Master Merchant and Master Artisan...COMING SOON! Mad Vaylis' Used Speeders

And would someone please tell me why a CH/BE is posting on the Merchant forum and arguing with a Master Merchant? For the love of the Force, isn't BE still broken enough for you to be lighting up that forum?

Just kidding....

"Mad" Vaylis Arturin, Master Merchant and Master Artisan...COMING SOON! Mad Vaylis' Used Speeders

Hello,

I own a large house/Inn and want to rent out space to vendors. About how much should I charge people to put vendors in my house?

Also, is there any other way to have them operate within the house other than putting, and keeping, them on the admin list?

Thanks

Rent? How about we charge you?

Honestly, the best way to make money off a vendor is to charge more on final sale than what you got it for. Basically charging the person who made the items for their oppurtunity to sell. Merchants placing vendors in your house is a service to you or whoever sells on it.

And no, they have to be Admins. Look for a merchant you know, and I'm sure you can work something out. Or ask around in-game. That way you can work something out fairly, and you know you can trust the merchant.

I think she has it right. She should charge us rent to use her building. Saying she should let us use it for free is kind of lame, really.

Since you would have to trust the person playing the Merchant who has a vendor in your house (does it become a mall at this point?) to be truthful about it, charging a percentage of sales is pretty much out of the question. Besides, it would be unfair to the person selling large houses while another sells weapon powerups.

I would suggest placing the structure in a good location near a popular city and looking for an "anchor" tenant. Make this Merchant responsible for paying the maintenance on the building. In return, place his (or his vendors) name on the house sign, for example; The Mall of Naboo featuring the Clothing store of Stump Puddlejumper. After finding your anchor (who's only fee is paying the maintenance on your structure), begin charging a set fee per a set time period like, say, 1000 credits a (real time) week. This fee would be your profit for tying up the structure lots. For those who miss a payment, ban them from the structure (so they can't get in and restock/remove stock from their vendor) until they pay up. I would suggest making them pay in advance, so you'd be guaranteed that first week at least.

Just a suggestion.

"Mad" Vaylis Arturin, Mercenary Master Merchant and Master Artisan, Starsider, Naboo, Moenia

Basically what she is saying is that she is a Ranger/Pistoleer who wants to make a little money by allowing Merchants to place vendors in her home. This would save us structure lots, regardless of whether or not she has a vendor of her own. It only makes since that you pay for the priviledge of placing a vendor in her house, just like Sears pays to have a store in a mall. If your advertising happens to bring someone into her house to buy something from your vendor and then buys something from another, so what? You think JC Penny expects the Pretzel Hut (Hutt?) to pay them for every customer that buys a Pretzel when they came into buy jeans from Penny's?

Come on, we've gotten this far in a broken profession, we can't have lost our common sense already.....

"Mad" Vaylis Arturin, Master Merchant and Master Artisan...COMING SOON! Mad Vaylis' Used Speeders

My argument comes from a pure merchant standpoint; I think I may have misunderstood your point.

I took it to be only that the merchant would place and maintain the vendor. The actual goods sold on the vendor I think would fall on the DEs, architects, etc. In this situation, I see it as the merchant providing a service both to you (as you would obviously be able to hawk your wares on the vendor) and to the main product producer, for getting their wares to market. Here, the merchants only motivation is for a cut of the sales.

Now, it seems to be that you were considering a combination Merchant/Other, which, in hindsight, makes a lot more sense. Well, sometimes I'm stupid. Anyways, I'd suggest offering whatever you think is fair, based on merchant maintenance cost and their profit margins. Also, it might be feasible to base it on commision, if you can trust the merchant.

Again, sorry for the misunderstanding.

Normally I would say "**edit** ARE YOU THINKING!? YOU SHOULD BE PAYING THE MERCHANT!" In this case though, I agree with the previously stated plan of charging as, considering it's only a house, the merchant SHOULD be paying you. Though if this house ever becomes a business of yours, then you should start paying them, considering that traffic coming to them essentially comes to you as well. *sigh* Welcome to the complicated life of a merchant.