Merchant Archive
Thread: What is the FREAKIN point of Vendor Rotation?!!!!!!!!!! Petition rage starting right here...
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AO4Ever
Tue Jan 25, 2005 5:46 pm
#1
I just had 533 items drop off my vendors in the past 3 days. That is roughly 5 playing hours of doing price checks and placing the item right back on my private FREAKIN vendors. My question is WHY?
Honestly what is the official excuse? I've run a small business, if an employee told me he didn't want to sell something. I'd fire him on the spot.
If you wonder why I say this, a vendor is an employee, it is not the public bizarre. It's a credit sink for you to place your wares somewhere other than the bizarre and a credit sink to up the cost on by advertising with it.
What is the purpose of a Freaking rotation time on player vendors? It's like have to replace everything in your house every 28 days. It's beyond annoying.
Worse, it's a waste of server calculations for the game hardware and the game software. This is nothing more than server software background clutter that contributes to lag and poor game performance, not just for merchants but everyone else.
If it takes me 3 months to sell a blue set of shoes, who freakin cares? Why do I have to replace them 3 times? I'm the guy paying for the store and I'm the guy paying the employee (vendor).
Is there honestly a sane explation for this? Like I've said, if master merchant vendors were a small business employees in real life they wouldn't hold a job.
It's Walmart. Keep it up until it sells and please stop wasting my time. I'd actually like to play the game rather than spend half my time on silly vendor rotations, putting stuff back on from the stockroom.
If your sick of paying for a vendor and wasting your time having your wares dumped in the stockroom, please sign below... This is a completely unnecessary aggravation, as well as,a waste of game coding.
/sign
DocSavag
Tue Jan 25, 2005 6:18 pm
#2
The reason it expires is to keep you from putting all your stuff up there and then going away forever and leaving it around cluttering up the place.
If you consistantly are putting the same things back up then you should consider that you are either selling things your customers don't want or you are pricing them too high. If you aren't trying to sell them in the first place you already have your answer as to why it has to be done.
One of the changes we are asking for is a quicker and easier ability to put items back up for sale.
If you consistantly are putting the same things back up then you should consider that you are either selling things your customers don't want or you are pricing them too high. If you aren't trying to sell them in the first place you already have your answer as to why it has to be done.
One of the changes we are asking for is a quicker and easier ability to put items back up for sale.
AO4Ever
Tue Jan 25, 2005 6:43 pm
#3
DocSavag wrote:
The reason it expires is to keep you from putting all your stuff up there and then going away forever and leaving it around cluttering up the place.
If you consistantly are putting the same things back up then you should consider that you are either selling things your customers don't want or you are pricing them too high. If you aren't trying to sell them in the first place you already have your answer as to why it has to be done.
One of the changes we are asking for is a quicker and easier ability to put items back up for sale.
Actually, it's neither. With the reduction in active Merchants due to WOW and other things, we've had to switch to the Wal Mart concept and overstock with high volume sells, so that a customer can pick something up 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, knowing that it's there. It's how we built our customer base in our town.
Just like in real life retail sells, there are surges and relief in market that go with that, but the idea is actually to never run out of hard to find items. The quick sell mindset would actually sabotage what we've been able to build up over time.
However, even Wal Mart has a variety of items, not just the top sellers. We have those items as well. Again, it has built a customer market of being able to find unusual items as well.
If your goal is to keep 3000-4000 items on as a master merchant at all times, you will have a 100% sell turn around, but it takes time. It is however the heart of player city economies.
In my guild for example, being a master merchant has allowed me to donate over 150 million creditsto my guild and guild members in the past 6 months, this is without hurting my own level of wealth or my own accumulation goals.
I'm not an unsuccessful merchant, just the opposite. The issue that you address was originally supposed to be solved by vendors eventually running out of deposited maintenance money and disappearing thus. That would no longer be an option if the new building / bank auto withdraw system is tied to vendors as well. However, the promised server character wipes would take care of that issue just fine as well...
It's nice that we might get a quicker and easier way to do this. However, for the high volume sellers, this is still really obnoxious, whatever the justification...
taloncard
Tue Jan 25, 2005 7:18 pm
#4
gotta agree with LUCIDIOUS GOTH.
I have some things on my vendors that can stay there for 2 months then sell out in 1 day.
I put about 20 indivual stim b's on my vendors, I do that so I don't have to relist 100 every 30 days. lately those 20 have been going out in 1 day. Then I lose business cause my whole stock is gone.
i understand they don't want to lose database space and such, and the 30 days is much better than the 7 days it used to be, but we need some sort of happy medium.
Yes I would settle for a relist button.
I have some things on my vendors that can stay there for 2 months then sell out in 1 day.
I put about 20 indivual stim b's on my vendors, I do that so I don't have to relist 100 every 30 days. lately those 20 have been going out in 1 day. Then I lose business cause my whole stock is gone.
i understand they don't want to lose database space and such, and the 30 days is much better than the 7 days it used to be, but we need some sort of happy medium.
Yes I would settle for a relist button.
LaurnaRose
Tue Jan 25, 2005 8:18 pm
#5
im going to agree too. there are several BETTER ways to get rid of absentee merchant sales than the current system.
1. Reduce the purge back to 30 days and give us a "multiple item auto restock button" where we can highlight every item in the stock room individially, or all at once, and hit "restock" which would resell every item in the stockroom for its original sell price with its original dell description.
2. Give a purge free system, but limit the amount of maintenance that can be paid on a vendor to 30 days maintenance. With this, if a merchant goes absent, then it would take 15 days for a vendor to reach 0%. Once a vendor reaches 0% all items are purged into the stockroom and the all of the advertising abilities of the vendor are removed (ie PAC/barking). After another 15 days (a total of 60 days) after stock purge and ad removal, a vendor is deleted.
3. Give a purge free system, but limit the amount of maintenance to 25k max maintenance pool at any given time. Same senerio as above.
4. Give a purge free systme, but remove the "pay maintenance" function from vendors. Vendor maintenance will be listed on the vendor status report as XXcph but rather than having a "maintenance pool" the amount will be automatically removed from the merchants bank every week for the following weeks maintenance. Should a merchant have insufficient funds in the bank for the vendor to auto withdraw the maintenance, then the same senerio as 2 and 3 would go into effect.
any one of these systems would be a far cry better than a system purge with no restock button. i like the walmart comparison ... how often do you think that walmart removes everything off of its shelves, puts it back into the stockroom, reprices it, and sets it back out onto the shelves? NEVER - That is how often. So it makes no sence for them to force us to do it especially if they arent going to give us the ability to restock quickly and efficiently. I understand that the ghost vendor is a serious issue, but as noted above, there are several MORE EFFICIENT ways to deal with this than to punish the rest of the active merchant community.
NJ62
Tue Jan 25, 2005 9:10 pm
#6
I'd just like to point out that tailoring stuff necessarily sits around for a long time if you have a decent selection. I know that for most professions you sell every item rather quickly if it's priced correctly.
And I'm not talking about tailors who have thousands of items either - I'm talking about tailors who stock a reasonable selection, maybe a given bustier in red, blue, purple, white and black. Well some months nobody wants blue. It's just the nature of the beast. Then three blues will sell the next month, but you couldn't pay anyone to take a red. It has nothing to do with pricing.
The first garment put into the vendor will never be the first garment out, because people are fashionable and picky. That is why, at the end of the month, a tailor will have to relist the majority of stock. Stocking fewer items to try to "force" the customer to buy from the limited selection you have will end up with the customer buying nothing.
And I'm not talking about tailors who have thousands of items either - I'm talking about tailors who stock a reasonable selection, maybe a given bustier in red, blue, purple, white and black. Well some months nobody wants blue. It's just the nature of the beast. Then three blues will sell the next month, but you couldn't pay anyone to take a red. It has nothing to do with pricing.
The first garment put into the vendor will never be the first garment out, because people are fashionable and picky. That is why, at the end of the month, a tailor will have to relist the majority of stock. Stocking fewer items to try to "force" the customer to buy from the limited selection you have will end up with the customer buying nothing.
AllyaEcati
Wed Jan 26, 2005 7:44 am
#8
NJ62 wrote:
I'd just like to point out that tailoring stuff necessarily sits around for a long time if you have a decent selection. I know that for most professions you sell every item rather quickly if it's priced correctly.
And I'm not talking about tailors who have thousands of items either - I'm talking about tailors who stock a reasonable selection, maybe a given bustier in red, blue, purple, white and black. Well some months nobody wants blue. It's just the nature of the beast. Then three blues will sell the next month, but you couldn't pay anyone to take a red. It has nothing to do with pricing.
The first garment put into the vendor will never be the first garment out, because people are fashionable and picky. That is why, at the end of the month, a tailor will have to relist the majority of stock. Stocking fewer items to try to "force" the customer to buy from the limited selection you have will end up with the customer buying nothing.
/agree with NJ
Tailors have some 200 some schematics and depending on the item up to 255 colors to choose from and possibly a second color or thirdoption. That's without adding BEed items into the mix. The number ofitems we can make are endless and the demand is not quite so focused as some of the other professions.I used to carry a very large stock of items.I had a very successful tailor business, and this was due to the fact that most people could find what they wanted when they wanted at my shop. Before putting my tailor account on hold, I recently relistedabout 2,000 items.I think I probably could have reground tailor in the amount of time this took me. Grinding is bad enough, but as long as you're going to stick to the profession, you only have to do it once. Relisting is a monthly task and it's not very fun...I understand the overpricing, stocking the wrong item argument, but I don't think that holdstrue for tailors.
LaurnaRose
Wed Jan 26, 2005 8:28 am
#9
my solution to the tailor issue is simply this ... i have the hero outfits that i stock 5 of each all the time ... iff il be gone for any period of time, i through 10 of each on there. i have a "clothing and jewelry" vendor next to my hero outfits vendor and on that vendor you will find ... mistakes, mismakes, unsold special orders. My hero vendor barks to email me with special orders, directing them to my website so they can see my prices, a link to glitterwear where they can view the items. i have a ton of word of mouth business, and every one knows or is immeditately told, if you want something, you need to special order it, if it is more than 2 items or if i am busy, you need to email it. and believe it or not, i get A LOT of business just for the fact that i conduct business this way as most ppl prefer to be able to "build" their own outfits rather than having to settle for what is premade on a vendor. it saves me the time of having to restock and resources of making unsellable items, and it saves them time and money from having to hop vendor to vendor looking for the perfect item, items that match, buying something just to find something they like better at another vendor ... ect. AND i have a return policy. as long as it was made by me and is still 100% condition, you can return it for the purchased price at any time.
AllyaEcati
Wed Jan 26, 2005 8:44 am
#10
As a former clothes addict that did not have a tailor account, I had no desire to make special orders with a tailor. I liked to shop and see if anything struck my fancy. I ran my shop in the same way. I took pride in being well stocked. I hate seeing tailor vendors with just a few items. I soldsets in packsplusat one point I was pretty much selling everything in a wide variety of colors. The current system gives a merchant a max of what, 3,000 items? Obviously if they allow a person to sell 3,000 items, it's a given thatsome itemswill need to be relisted. Excuses of "you're charging too much," "you're not stocking to meetdemand," or "take special orders"sound likeworkarounds to a broken system imho. This is a game, it's supposed to be fun...show me someone that enjoys relisting.
NJ62
Wed Jan 26, 2005 10:09 am
#11
There are different ways of running a tailor shop, and each way will attract different customers. There are customers who prefer custom orders, this is true, but there are also customers who prefer vendor sales. It is a perfectly legitimate business practice for a tailor to carry a large stock in order to cater to that market of customers who would rather just skip getting a new outfit than send in a custom order.
These are customers who maybe like to shop on their own time (time zone issues). They may have limited playtime and need an outfit immediately. Most importantly they may not be sure what they want, in which colors, until they see it. Some customers can't really visualize a completed outfit in the color that they want and would feel uncomfortable sending in a custom order.
These are customers who maybe like to shop on their own time (time zone issues). They may have limited playtime and need an outfit immediately. Most importantly they may not be sure what they want, in which colors, until they see it. Some customers can't really visualize a completed outfit in the color that they want and would feel uncomfortable sending in a custom order.
DocSavag
Wed Jan 26, 2005 11:25 am
#12
You guys might have missed a very important phrase in my initial email. "If you are constantly relisting the same items." That isn't talking about normal churn of items in a high volume shop or professions like tailor which CAN be played in a style that has a lot of inventory.
I fully support methods for making it easier for you to manage the relisting easier. But I can understand why the devs don't want items to just be put on a vendor and stay there forever. And making the solution that the whole vendor poofs sooner (because you remove my ability to put maintenance on it for months ) doesn't seem to be better to me.
A good merchant shop with a lot of business is going to have a fair amount of churn becuase of the number of items that are for sale. If there were a quick way of relisting those items I don't think you would mind as much having to relist them. Its the absolutely awful way we have to relist things at the present time that makes this so painful.
That being said I don't play merchant with a ton of inventory. I just don't spend that much time crafting to have tons of everything. I have a few of each of the items that I know sell. Occasionally I'll throw something new on the see if there is a market if it sells I make more of them if it doesn't it usually ends up expring out of the stock room because after the second time of relisting it I just skip it since its obvious to me that no one is interested in it. That isn't to say that your playstyle much match mine it just gives you an insight as to why I don't deal with this issue that much. (Even I have 100's of restock items every month..they just don't all come at thae same time)
I fully support methods for making it easier for you to manage the relisting easier. But I can understand why the devs don't want items to just be put on a vendor and stay there forever. And making the solution that the whole vendor poofs sooner (because you remove my ability to put maintenance on it for months ) doesn't seem to be better to me.
A good merchant shop with a lot of business is going to have a fair amount of churn becuase of the number of items that are for sale. If there were a quick way of relisting those items I don't think you would mind as much having to relist them. Its the absolutely awful way we have to relist things at the present time that makes this so painful.
That being said I don't play merchant with a ton of inventory. I just don't spend that much time crafting to have tons of everything. I have a few of each of the items that I know sell. Occasionally I'll throw something new on the see if there is a market if it sells I make more of them if it doesn't it usually ends up expring out of the stock room because after the second time of relisting it I just skip it since its obvious to me that no one is interested in it. That isn't to say that your playstyle much match mine it just gives you an insight as to why I don't deal with this issue that much. (Even I have 100's of restock items every month..they just don't all come at thae same time)
LaurnaRose
Wed Jan 26, 2005 11:44 am
#13
im not saying that to keep a well stocked tailor vendor is a phopa by any means. kutos to those of you who have the time to keep a well stocked clothing vendor. especially with the addition of ithorian clothes. i love that we have so many styles to choose from, but it makes it nearly impossible to stock a wide range of colors in a wide range of clothes all the time ... and is even more discouraging to do so with the relist system the way it currently is.
i chose to do my business the way that i do because with my hero outfits, i mostly deal with male toons and males playing female toons, who, in general, like to have a bit of feminine advice on what makes a good outfit. im not saying all of my customer are men, nor do they all like to be given advice, but ive not had one complain yet who wasnt prepared to offer subsequent advice on their outfit.
i wish that they would give us a way to auto restock or remove the purge all together so i could be sure i wasnt spending the majority of my time restocking (which i tried when i first started tailor and is why im currently running business the way I am), cause if they were, you could bet id be stocking more items on my clothing vendors.
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