Merchant Archive

Is anyone else a pure merchant? meaning you have a shop but you do not craft any items? I have a very successfull shop with a huge amount of traffic every day and i do not craft a single thing. I have half a dozen suppliers that i work with to resell their goods in my store. I spend almost every minute i'm online either restocking, reselling, or working with my suppliers to cut new deals and get new top of the line items.

Is there anyone else out there that is JUST a merchant? (i don't mean you dont' have other skills, but i mean someone that does not just have a vendor as a side job to thier real crafting profession).

I don't have that skill yet, but that's what I want to do too

I also want to run an interplanetary delivery service - A|A InterExpress. So my character will not craft items at all to sell, only those of others...

That's how I do it. Ironic that we have all these great graphics, but spend most of our time on the vendor window

As someone who is considering this. Could one of you pure merchants talk about how you develop suppliers and what sort of agreements you have?

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Draznar wrote:
As someone who is considering this. Could one of you pure merchants talk about how you develop suppliers and what sort of agreements you have?

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What and give up our trade secrets

My strategy was to focus on suppliers first and I did that by building up the supply chain.

The first part of the supply chain are resources. So you want to make friends with scouts and miners. Also, I did some leg work and even, sigh, crafting, to get a bunch of consumables on the vendor. I then asked scouts and miners to start offering me resources. To make it easy, I just had one price I would accept for everything. I also allowed them to post any stack size. I would restack the resources in nice neat stacks and post them for a very modest markup.
Now, the scouts also started buying my consumables -- so they were also my first customers. They also got the word out.
Once my store started to have a good inventory of resources, I threw in some crafting stations and recruited some artisans with eng II or dom II. I taught them how to perfect thier crafting tecnique and gave them orders for large quantities of consumables, clothing, and armor. This got them practically living at the store -- which they found very convientient because they could buy the resources, rather than sample.
They also started building up their own customer base (who they refered to the store). They also helped recruit other artisans.
As these artisans graduated to elite, they continued using the store as their distrubtion channel which meant I started stocking some very nice items.

This is one approach -- it worked pretty well for me.

I am also what you would call a "pure merchant" I believe. I have my own harvestors, but I do not spend my resources in crafting. Instead I use them, and those that Iget from suppliers, and I go out and sell them. I routinely sell 5k of copper or another mineral for about 30k of credits (assuming it is GOOD copper or material). I am having a blast, as I get to spend the rest of the day chatting with clients, suppliers, friends, etc....without having to craft a blessed thing.

Andur Tavis
Merchant
Coronet, Corellia

I am a pure merchant. I made wholesale agreements with a few weaponsmiths so that they sell me bulk orders at 50% off, which allows me to post items at low cost. I generate a good amount of business.

I have crafting skills (planning to be a master chef eventually), but I consider myself a merchant first and foremost. Crafting is just a way to use up all those other skillpoints... plus I really enjoy doing unique things, and I believe I've chosen what will be the two rarest skills in the game. Actually though, my shop is keeping me so busy I haven't had time to work on crafting. But I've been having a great time.

I'm in business with an old friend who plays an architect, and working on developing other supplier relationships. And no matter what other skills I may pick up, I'm looking forward to the day when I can display that "Master Merchant" title above my head.

Ah ok great! i'm glad to see others that are looking at the Merchant Profession as a primary profession and not a sideline job of being a crafter. I see a lot of crafters that open up shops and want to sell their own stuff.

I really enjoy the life of a Merchant, lot of customers and suppliers to work with every day, and a lot of new and interesting products to provide to customers.

Thinker-

I am a pure merchant. And I love it. 8)

I'm probably going to become one... I've just about given up on Tailoring because the grind is sickening. I plan to set up a shop to sell stuff for others.

I play a pure merchant. My approach to sales is this.

1. I trave from city to city on naboo, talking about the days latest wares. Its amazing the response you get.


2. Here is my slogan when attacting suppliers. "You craft, I sell, YOU GET PAID"


3. How I work my deals:




1. If a supplier gives me the wares, I post on my vendors and charge 10% on their sales price. So crafters and miners name their price, and thats what I sell their product for.


2. If a suppliers product doesnt move at their requested price, I tell the supplier what the deal is and as what they want to do. i.e. take goods, back, have me sit on goods for a while, or lower price


3. If a supplier does not find this appealing, (some suppliers think the afore mentioned methods are lucrative) I will buy their product outright for a discounted rate. e.g. if they have a 10k house, I will only buy it if they offer 45% to 50% discount.


4. My approach is this: I want to make master merchant. I also want to clear enough to pay my maintenance, enjoy the cantina from time to time, maybe buy a droid toy or cool rifle to play with.

The only combat skill if have is rifle combat, and that was just so that I could harvest hides and bones in the beginning, and hunting with your pals from time to time is a good break from the norm.

I do not charge access fees to my place yet. I think the hardest thing about being the merchant is that some people would rather build a droid and try to sell it themselves. I dont think that the RPGers get the idea that this game is a COMMUNITY game. Everyone can gain the most by sticking to their craft.

I really enjoy "brokering" merchandise. Now if I could just sell to real people like I do in SWG.

I also left out a key point: I am not in it for profit, just the essential dollar amount to maintain my stuff and to get XP. Merchants get XP from selling, droid engineers get XP from making droids