Merchant Archive

I know the issue has been talked about in a few threads, but i d like an official answer from developers.

As everybody knows, we, merchants, cant afford crafters margins. When a weaponsmith can make 1000% and up on the sale of a gun, we might manage to make 20%or 30% off it if we find the right location to sell it and the right arguments.

Now a vendor, even as a master, will cost you 10% of a produce value per day. This means that in2/3 days the margin will be eaten, while a crafter can keep his produces of a long time without loosing money. We already take a risk by buying bulks, as we are unsure that all will sell. The vendor cost, once fixed, will 100% make the merchant useless and unable to generate profit.

Can a developer tell us which solutions are envisioned to fix this problem. Are pure merchant just an impossible option in Star Wars Galaxies. Why dont we get REAL vendor fee advantages on the efficiency tree.

Please answer this issue...for the moment, i can t see how i will be able to survive as a pure master merchant once the npc "bug" will be fixed.

Just to add a few numbers to this argument.

Im a merchant selling on behalf of my PA.

I have a shop with 9 vendors (only 6 owned by me) - Which sells Everything, Weapons, Armour, Resources, Houses, Equipement, Clothes, Droids, - you name it.

My stock value last night was worth 1.5m Credits thanks to the support of my PA crafters (I have no crafting skills myself and no desire to ever have.)

IF NPC maintenance is upped to that of terminals (10% per day). I will be paying 150,000 Credits per day in maintenance. Given that I pay 70-80 % of my income back to the crafter (not an unreasonable amount, any less and they may as well sell direct themselves.) - That means assuming I make 30% on all sales that I need to achieve a turnover of 500,000 CreditsPER DAY Just to stay afloat ??? - I hardly think that is feasable.

I have all 6 of my vendors listed on the map, shout about my store whenever I'm in town (which is rarely due to the time it takes re-listeing my stock every 7 days - but thats a different issue !!! ) PA mates shout about my store too - With all this advertising (which is the most the game mechanics will allow) I am generating 50-100k of sales per day. (which generates me - 15-30k of profit per day)

So tell me Mr Developer. How on earth am I supposed to support a 150k a day maintenance cost...

Personally I think you have the Decimal point in the wrong place, and it should be 1% per day, not 10% - that would still be 15,000 Credits PER DAY - and on my current sales I would break even some days, and make a small profit on others.

A big complaint from the masses ---- understocked vendors. Nothing like traveling across planets to a vendor that only has 30 items. So, i put 800 items on my vendors, now i have a well stocked vendor, and a store that ppl can purchase from 24 hours a day at reasonable prices. If i am forced to pay 10% fee on 800 items that would just be crazy. I have a choice to pass on the cost to the customer or close up shop.

This would be a death blow to alot of crafters, and would be a blow to the crafting system itself. I know i am not the only one that does not want to sit in shop all day just to craft custom orders because i cannot afford to keep them in stock. Whats the purpse of a merchant if not to be able to supply vast quantities of product?

Guess it would be time to take my millions and retire to the life of a fighter.

Omek
Master Artisan
Master Tailor
Almost Master Merchant

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Krantor wrote:
A big complaint from the masses ---- understocked vendors. Nothing like traveling across planets to a vendor that only has 30 items. So, i put 800 items on my vendors, now i have a well stocked vendor, and a store that ppl can purchase from 24 hours a day at reasonable prices. If i am forced to pay 10% fee on 800 items that would just be crazy. I have a choice to pass on the cost to the customer or close up shop.

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Thanks exactly my concern. I have built a reputation as being a tailor merchant that has a huge inventory of all clothes in lots of colors. I also like to be reasonable in my prices so a bump in vendor costs is either going to force me to drop inventory or push prices through the roof to support that inventory.

Well dont hold your breath because it's bound to get changed, as the current rate is a bug.

I just hope they learn from their mistakes and don't just change it to the wrong expensive figure, and just say we'll look at it in the future like they do on so many other issues, If their going to change it, they might as well change it to the correct figure now... Personally I vote for about 1-2% if it must be based upon item listing costs .. rather than the 10-24% we have now.

What I mean is..

Yes the current rate is bugged.

Yes revising the figure is a balancing issue and not as important as a bug "in their view"

I just hope they dont "fix the bug" with high priority, and leave the "balancing" for later as its a lower priority to them.

Yeah. I think it's important to note that none of us (I think) are objecting to *any* kind of tax on vendors, or saying that the NPC vendors should be unchanged forever. Just make the rate something reasonable that won't force us to go out of business.

And please give players that invest in higher levels of mechant experience a real advantage..get rid of the bazzar boxes, we dont need them, instead give us real discount on vendor fees...a master merchant should be able to become extremely efficient, meaning reducing sales cost to its minimum.