Merchant Archive

For too long Merchant has been a supplimental profession, i.e. one you got in addition to your crafting profession, instead of a stand alone profession that compliments other professions. If you were just a Merchant, you either sold items you made, or sold items your PA mates and friends made....

The reasons the Merchant profession has faultered are many, but one big reason is that no one wants to sell to a reseller. Crafters have no incentive to enter into a trade agreement with a Merchant since it is fairly easy to spend a few skill points in Merchant or just use the Artisan Business line skills to sell their goods and keep all the profit for themselves. No one wants to give a "bulk" discount when they can sell it themselves for full price.

An idea I've been knocking around might be able to help, and I'd like some feedback on it.

Make Merchant Vendors similar to the Bazaar On the vendor's radial menu, add the ability to grant administrative rights to a vendor to a named individual. This will allow the individual so named to use the vendor just as if he were using the Bazaar, placing his items for sale.

As to payment for use of the vendor, part of the admin rights screen should include a Set Cost option that sets either a per item fee for the use of the vendor (ala the bazaar) or a percentage of the sale price paid to the Merchant at the time of sale, much as the fee for using player-city shuttleports is split between the "money sink" travel bureau and the city itself.

The pro's to this that I can seeare:

1) Free's up lots- The Merchant will have either a Mall, store, or well placed tent with the vendor in it, allowing the crafter to use the lot(s) for harvestors, factories or storage space.

2) Location- The Merchant will be able to offer multiple locations outside of the crafter's normal area of operations. An Armorsmithon Naboo would be able to sellon Tatooine without setting up a house of his or her own. Crafters could also use multiple Merchants, if one he uses isn't on a planet he wishes to sell on.

3) Skills- The big draw of Merchant for crafters is Advertising 3-Planetary Ads which takes 18 skill points to achieve beyond the Artisan tree. The skill points freed up allows the Crafters to pursue other endeavours (such as combat skills to allow for harvesters on hell worlds). It also allows for specialized vendors suited to the crafter's wishes (for a suitable fee, of course).

4) Cost- The Merchant will be dealing with the maintenance for his structures and vendors, taking away a hassle from the crafter.

5) Versatility- Combines the ease of use of the Bazaar without the item or price cap associated with it.

The cons:

1) Planetary Ads only allows for one catagory per vendor, meaning that only people who are interested in selling items for or that supplement items in that catagory will use a particular vendor.

2) The possible 150 item cap on vendors would sink this idea for crafters such as Tailors and Weaponsmiths.

3) The raising of the Bazaar price cap would likewise remove a number of items that would otherwise be sold through Merchants.

Please, if you think of other pro's or con's, list them....thats why I threw this out here.

My pipedream to make Merchants tremendously attractive!

This idea stands about as much chance as a snowball on a sun, but I'll throw it out anyway....

Make items placed on a specific Merchants vendor be purchasable and retrievable from ANY of the Merchants vendors....that is, if a crafter places an item for sale at a Merchants Naboo vendor, it would be able to be purchased from the same Merchants vendors in other cities and planets.

Yeah, I know, keep dreaming, but if this was implemented it would go a long way in making Merchants attractive as business partners.

Merchant has been ineffective as a stand-alone profession for far too long. Its time to make it better.

Many of us have been asking for some type of capability to allow others to use our vendors. With the current item limit changes going in I would propose the following:

• Merchants be able to add other users to the admin on a vendor. The number of people that can be added to admin, should depend on merchant skill (say 6 at Master).


• The admin users would only be able to manage items that they put on the vendor.


• The Merchant should be able to set an item limit to each person on the admin list, or an item limit to total items by the admin users (which ever is easier to code)


• The Merchant would get a percent of the sale, say 15-50% (there should be a minimum, so that Merchants will not be cheated).


• The maintenane cost of the vendor would increase when the admin rights are used.

I like those, but the Merchant should set the fee for using the vendor, not the seller. Having the seller manage the goods is also a good idea, but some option to allow the Merchant to manage them too would be helpful, such as allowing the Merchant to repost a sale that has expired and gone to the stockroom for the same price and fee as it was originally posted....

I like all of what has been said.

Here's how I think the admin rights should work.

Someone with admin rights other than the merchant can...

1) pay maintance on the vendor.

2) Add items and set own price on vendor

3) Set the ad barking text.

Someone with admin rights other than the merchant Can't...

1) withdraw maintance.

2) remove items from the vendor

3) recieve payment for bought items (unlessSOE implements a payment % that goes to the merchant)

4) Remove the vendor from the place of business.

All those things would be fair and would give an appropriate amount of control to each individual over the situation.