Merchant Archive
Thread: So how is that Consignment thingie gonna work?
Here's a cut and paste of the comment:
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How crafters and Merchants can be better tied together, for a better outcome on both ends
One Word: Consignment. There needs to be a better system for this and merchants have been begging for this since day 15.
Message Edited by ArdenStarmariner on 09-14-2004 02:55 PM
Cafa wrote:Yes that was us begging for it through the correspondents.Fivo Asia
There were no official conversations about consignment or any other non combat changes. Any conversations along those lines were off line discussions either at meals or the after hours sessions in Panthu's Cantina (hotel room)
KopaL wrote:The idea of consignment in this game is foolish. Only a complete moron would give up his stock to another player and then have to wait for payment. Especially in a game where people come and go at the drop of a hat. Consignment works in real life because actions can be taken if someone runs off with your stuff. In this game, however, if your merchant leaves the game while holding your items you're screwed.
Yet people already do it in the game without the safeguards we are asking for.
The point of the idea is to put in some safeguards that will return those items to the crafter if the sale doesn't happen or if the merchant quits or deletes the vendor. It is giving people more tools to do things they are already doing.
KopaL wrote:The idea of consignment in this game is foolish. Only a complete moron would give up his stock to another player and then have to wait for payment. Especially in a game where people come and go at the drop of a hat. Consignment works in real life because actions can be taken if someone runs off with your stuff. In this game, however, if your merchant leaves the game while holding your items you're screwed.
The whole point of a 'consignment system' is to supply the very safeguards you mention. The current consignment method is to had your items to a merchant and hope they sell and hope the merchant pays you. The new system would place items back in your control. For instance right now you 'offer' items to a merchant thru a vendor. You set the price and the merchant decides to risk the purchase and resale. Your risk is gone cause the merchant 'buys' your items and takes the resale risk.
What if there was a consignment system such that you 'offer for sale thru the vendor' and the item then appears on the vendor just as though the merchant had placed it there. Then you could withdraw the sale whenever you wanted just as you can now with offers to the vendor. From your point of view it would be much like taking an item to the bazaar terminal but without the 6k cap and without the galaxy wide advertizement.
There would have to be the ability to let you to take back your merchandise should the merchant go away and or want the vendor to go away but that is part of the full details of such a consignment system.
-Indene-
Indene wrote:
What if there was a consignment system such that you 'offer for sale thru the vendor' and the item then appears on the vendor just as though the merchant had placed it there. Then you could withdraw the sale whenever you wanted just as you can now with offers to the vendor. From your point of view it would be much like taking an item to the bazaar terminal but without the 6k cap and without the galaxy wide advertizement.
There would have to be the ability to let you to take back your merchandise should the merchant go away and or want the vendor to go away but that is part of the full details of such a consignment system.
-Indene-
Yes. I agree with this, though I would say that after the player offers the item on the vendor, it should not appear for sale until after the merchant has personally ok'd it.The main reason for this is thatthe merchant needs to have the ability to directly control what does and does not go for sale on his vendor.
The merchant will go to his "offers" window on the vendor and then choose whether he is going to reject the offer or whether he is going to let it go up for sale on the vendor. The merchant then sets the price. Now, the person offering the item set a price too, and the merchant will be required to charge no less than that price, but I say the merchant should have the freedom to charge more for the item, and if the merchant charges more, the merchant gets the difference.
But I do see one problem with this... It isn't completely secure. There is currently nothing stopping the merchant from deleting the vendor and destroying all the merchandize. To be completely secure, there would need to be a "grace" period that says the merchant cannot delete a vendor if there is an offer on it until he has given the player who made the offer a 2 week notice or something. But if that is going to go in place, the merchant will also need to have the ability to specify whether or not the vendor takes offers at all.
true. but we don't know that is so simple actually. it may seem like it, but the server that manages the vendors at location X may not be connected to the server that manages the bazaar in npc city Y in such a way that it is easy for the game to move the items from one to the other. It may be simple for the stuff to be moved from the one place to the other easily in the back ground. But it may not be. /shrug
Cafa wrote:
But I do see one problem with this... It isn't completely secure. There is currently nothing stopping the merchant from deleting the vendor and destroying all the merchandize. To be completely secure, there would need to be a "grace" period that says the merchant cannot delete a vendor if there is an offer on it until he has given the player who made the offer a 2 week notice or something. But if that is going to go in place, the merchant will also need to have the ability to specify whether or not the vendor takes offers at all.
Better yet, just make the item go into the AVAILABLE ITEMS que on any bazaar. From a reality point it's wierd, but easier than a lot of other complex solution, I believe.
Fivo Asia
But I do see one problem with this... It isn't completely secure. There is currently nothing stopping the merchant from deleting the vendor and destroying all the merchandize. To be completely secure, there would need to be a "grace" period that says the merchant cannot delete a vendor if there is an offer on it until he has given the player who made the offer a 2 week notice or something. But if that is going to go in place, the merchant will also need to have the ability to specify whether or not the vendor takes offers at all.