Merchant Archive
Thread: Feature Suggestion A Fixed Percentage Split for the Merchant and the Crafter
Hi, I am new to the merchant forum and I apologize if this has been requested 23459875 times already.
The idea is to have multiple administrators on a vendor such that a % of all revenue from all items sold on that vendor will go to the Merchant and to the Crafter who is taking advantage of the various Merchant's skills. There would have to be some sort of authorization process whereby all the adminsitrators on a vendor would agree toa percentage within 30 seconds of one another.
As an added benifit of sharing the admin access, the crafter would also be able to load his/her own items on the vendor w/o having to go through the merchant to post them.
There would also have to be some protections in place to prevent the merchant from destroying the vendor while items are in it. I propose that if the vendor is empty, it can be taken down within 3 days of inactivity. If the vendor has items in it, it can be removed after 2.5 weeks of inactivity.
What do you all think?
Multiple admins is something everyone can agree on.
The percentage idea is an interesting one. It would tie up less money for the merchant if the merchant does not have to first buy it then resell it. Most will still prefer buying and reselling however.
On the vendor destruction subject...I think the merchant should have total control over his/her own vendor. But a mechanism preventing a vendor with items to be destroyed is long overdue. Yes please 
I hate buying and selling. No one will sell in bulk at a discount enough to get you any kind of profit.
At Master MErchant we should get a new type of vendor. A Bazaar vendor. Where either you can A. Charge a flat fee for people to sell things at whatever price they want, or B. Set a percentage of the sales you get when the item is sold. There is already code to run Bazaars, they just need to alter it slightly so that Merchants can run their own bazaar.
I have a similar arrangement with my weaponscrafter Mitsu..but I dont send him the emails. I count it all up from the emails, add it with paper and a calculator, and send him his cut. If he wants to start auditing the vendors he's welcome to, but I'm not spending an hour forwarding 100 emails a day along with restocking expired items, searching for new merchandise, splitting and stocking resources, and answering questions...the fun wears a bit thin at times without adding another hour of 'work'
Csin wrote:
I have a similar arrangement with my weaponscrafter Mitsu..but I dont send him the emails. I count it all up from the emails, add it with paper and a calculator, and send him his cut. If he wants to start auditing the vendors he's welcome to, but I'm not spending an hour forwarding 100 emails a day along with restocking expired items, searching for new merchandise, splitting and stocking resources, and answering questions...the fun wears a bit thin at times without adding another hour of 'work'
I am forwarding the emails. And entering them into an offline database so I don't lose any of them. I am NOT tipping anything because paying 5% into the money sink for every sale is ridiculous so we have to get together to make the transfer of money. Add to that at least an hour each night reviewing the vendors and making sure there isn't an item that has sold out and needs to be restocked. I can easily spend 2 hours a night on this and still not have a good handle on it. The tools to make this easier need to come quickly.
Shonid wrote:
The only problem with this is it negates the 5% bank transfer money sink, and we all know how devs love those money sinks.
I personally would not be opposed to a money sink applied to this feature as an added cost for automatic electronic transfers (Paypal has them). It would make sense. Maybe like2.5% for all daily transactions. This would lower the average amountfor people who do use the bank tip, and at the same time, i would speculate, would increase the total amount of money sank. It will increase it because a) not everyone uses the bank tip as it is, and b) i believe that every merchantwho sells other folks goods would use this feature.
I see only benifits right now.
-Greatly reduce frustration of an un-fun timesink for Merchants.
-Decrease average burden of banktips
-Increase total money sink
-And best of all, add a feature that would help really make it fun to be a merchant.
Does anyone see any real dealbreaker problems that I might be missing to shortsightedness?
My current setup with my PA's crafters is I take 15% of the daily totals which are added up for each person one time a day, usually around 5ish PST. After that, I subtract my 15% and then tip them. Granted, there is that 5% money sink just to tip, but I am not really a merchant to make the oodles of cash. The 15% is just going towards shop upkeep and what not.
I like the idea of having multiple admins for vendors, and being able to kind of set up something like, this person gets this % of the sale and this person gets this % of the sale until it adds up to 100%. The only problem with this is it negates the 5% bank transfer money sink, and we all know how devs love those money sinks. I would like people to be able to offer and sell there own items, and take me out of that part, but who knows when or if that will ever happen.
I figure 5 percent is a cost of doing business. If my cut were a lot smaller..and we were doing this level of business I would have to back-charge him for it, but as it stands it's pretty small compared to the big picture