Merchant Archive

I have been thinking about having a big sale, maybe half price or better, to get more players interested in my main product. Powerups areconsumable so the repeat business could be very valuable, and my normal margins are high enough that I could cut quite deeply into my price without taking a loss.

But advertising a one-time event like this is a real problem! Some of the alternatives I am considering are:

1) Hiring a bunch of players to shout about it at starports (and everywhere else), perhaps evencollar folks and promote the product. I need a way to know how well they are doing, perhaps give them tokens good for a discount at my shop (see next).

2) Make a factory run of chance cubes for each one, labled "I will buy this back for 1000 cr if offered to my vendor =nnn" and keep track of the serial number for each barker I hire. Then pay based on how many I get back for each barker. I can put some of these on the bazaars everywhere as well for 1crwith the description covering the sale.

3) Rent a bunch of lots surrounding every city and put up harvesters named "Big Sale" with waypoint and dates. Doesn't sound very effective though, since there aren't clear roads in the wilderness to put them on, and the name doesn't show easily from a distance.

4) Vendors on the map, in tents at lots of locations with similar names might be better. But I have so few lots, I couldn't even get one per planet much less one in every catagory and by every city.

5) I can advertise on the Forums, in web pages, etc. but this seems out-of-game..

6) I can do a player run event for the sale, hire musicians, have fireworks, contests, etc. and get on the events listing. That could prove really expensive and difficult, and that out-of-game ad doesn't seem worth it.

7) I can buy real world ads on web pages etc, but that is even more out-of-game and could cost RL cash.

8) Of course I will email all my previous customers.

Any other ideas to make this possible before the Dev's choose to give us some viable advertising skills?

Forgot one:

9) Set a droid with a name advertising the sale to patrol around the nearest city. A shame we can only have one.

How about this. Go to the the server trade forum and make thread there and keep it bumped. Next have friends from different guilds tell there guild about it. For that last one, try to have people who actualy plan to attend do the afformentioned ad barking.Also offer something as a side, Hire a band and an on sight medic. If youroffering healing services they might look at your wares as well. Also, if your planning on making it like a neighborhood sale, try to get some well known crafters there too to sell there stuff, if you bring the name, the name will bring the customers. Refreshments aren't a bad idea either. The more RPing you do, the more likely you are to get customers.Something else you might want to try; get about 10 of your friends who are combat oriented and have them duel each other for the ammusement of the crowd, hell maybe you could even get some side bets or something going. Just some suggestions. I probaly should have done this in an itemized format but I'm not rewriting all this. Oh well peace out.