Merchant Archive

Only a select handful of players on each server actually use vendors they way they were intended. The other 99.99% use them as mail boxes and storage compartments. Here's reasons why:

1. The merchant features intended to draw attention to player vendors and generate sales are absolute and total failures. So we get our vendor on the player map. Big woopdedoo! Completely ineffective because almost all players never both to expand the vendor tab and have a look. The DEV's actually made items on player vendors show up on the bazaar as a listing during beta. Cheered by the beta testers as an awesome solution. But the DEV's had some sort of brain freeze and pulled it back out during the release. They put this stupid put your vendor on the map feature in instead. You guys get the Homer Simpson Doh! award for that move.

2. Because putting a vendor up generates absolutely no sales, nobody can justify the insane maintenance vendors cost keeping items listed that never sell. So they just stick items on the vendor for 1 credit, withdraw the sale, and push the item to the stockroom for storage. Again, if the game mechanics actually connected sellers with buyers, players wouldn't use vendors this way. But the game mechanics do anything but connect sellers with buyers.

3. Offers! Vendors as Mail Boxes! Besides storage, the only real functional feature of vendors. Especially for those of us who deliver products people order to their doorstep. But of course, its constantly busted by house item limits, items posted on the bazaar limit, etc. etc. etc. Getting to be a real pain in the arse trying to do business when you constantly get the cant sell an invalid item when trying to post an offer and deliver a customer's order to them. Especially when they placed a large order which requires putting alot of factory crates up as offers. Either raise the limit on the number of offers and make them independent of the bazaar and the house item limit or raise the item count on factory crates. Better yet, do both.

I read DEV's posting how people aren't using vendors as intended. Well, guess what. Vendors used as the DEV's intended is broken and ineffective. But of course, that's as designed.

(For those reading both threads on this vendor issue - sorry for the cross post, but it was necessary here as well)

I have four vendors. Three are in a public structure and one was in a private.

The private vendor was in our local doctors house so that I could sell him resources for medicinal crafting at reduced rates. He does not have his own vendor as he is not an artisan and can not create his own. I also did not desire to chance someone else purchasing them from my public vendor for these low prices.

My other three vendors are in my large Tatooine house. Two are very accessible - in the main room when you enter - one for equipment/misc items and the other primarily for resources. The third is upstairs in my workshop and I use it as a closet - in fact, it is named "Ewach's Closet."

Yes - I am among those that are using their storeroom for excess storage - there are reasons I was forced to do so, as I will explain below. My vendors have over 230 items stored in the stockroom - until this most recent thread started I was not even aware that was outside of their intended use. Seemed to make perfect sense to me.

I personally chose NOT to pursue an advanced crafting profession (armor, guns, architect, etc) but instead decided to be a Businessman (Master Artisan/Master Medic/Merchant with some combat skills). I enjoy the support role of being able to heal friends in combat, as well as heal customers that visit my shop while I am there.

However, that means that I can not produce any high value items that bring in significant cash flow, as the architects, tailors, et al can do. Instead I act as a middle man. Some elite crafters choose not to pursue business and do not have their own vendors. I am their answer.

They offer their items to my vendor for 1 credit and set the price they wish to sell the item at. I in turn put the item up for sale and, when it sells, I give them 80% of the selling price, keeping 20% as commission for my services. (This is not unreasonable when you consider that real world retail often works on a 100% markup principle) Often they make items faster than I can sell them, so if I get 10 Scout Blasters, perhaps I put three up for sale and maintain the other 7 in the storeroom.

Multiply this by armorsmiths, spice makers, droid engineers,etc - I intend for my vendor to carry a diverse product line. In order to manage my inventory I *HAVE* to use the stockroom as a stockroom - holding my excess goods until it is time to put them up for sale.

The same with resources - since I can not (under the current stacking rules, frequent resource shifts and house limits) store my resources in my house, I keep many of them in the stockroom.

That said, I still only have the front room of the large house furnished as I am not able to drop any more items, due to the amount of goods stored in my workshop. (I craft myself as well - medicinals, powerups, low level clothing, etc)

Possible solutions:

1) Fix the crafting machines so that the input hoppers actually work - that way resources do not have to be left lying around, in backpacks hanging on the wall or in unlocked containers. Fix it so that resources stored in these hoppers do NOT count against house limits - that way crafters can have furniture too!

2) Add a new concept of an "individual vendor" - every house would come with one. This would not be a TRUE vendor in the nature of how we understand vendors to be now. It would only be used as a one-way device - to make offers to the owner (or maybe admins) of the house. The owner would NOT be able to sell things from this "vendor" - only accept or reject offers. (Essentially, a vendor with the "sell" option disabled) That way, those that wanted to sell items to a specific person (or group) could make an offer to that persons house vendor. There's no worries taht anyone else can buy it, because the vendor does not have a sell option - only the vendor owner could accept the offer.