Merchant Archive
Thread: Merchant Hurdles
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LonelyGhost
Wed May 26, 2004 10:12 am
#1
This is not an jab atanyone or anything, butrecent posts havehighlighted an issue that runs rampant in the game, and will be a major hurdle the Merchant community will have to overcome in order to be able to really "become" a Merchant.
People want to sell everything themselves.
No one seems to understand the value of distribution. Traffic drives sales, and the more a Merchant can offer, the more traffic they generate. Crafters will benefit incredibly by allowing a Merchant Group to sell their wares for them. It seems the biggest reason people balk is that they cannot sell the stuff at full retail cost. The thought is (paraphrased from several people in my Guild)...
"Why sell to you for 30% or 40% less than I can sell for on my own?"
This is going to be a big problem. Re-selling has gotten an unjustified evil reputation. But that is exactly what Merchants do! I truly believe it will take the Devs stepping in and forcing people to adjust their templates. I think the first vendor should be at Master Artisan or at the minimum Business IV. I think Master Merchants should be able to drop up to 12 vendors.
Until crafters have to choose to dedicate themselves more to the "art" of selling, they should have to hawk their wares on the streetcorners. As it is, people can be a Master WS/AS/Architect, and STILL have access toup to5NPCvendors. (no survey skills or Dom Arts skills). WHy have Merchants!?
The Merchant profession needs to have skills that make them attractive to the Crafting community. The customer end of it is only part of it. The Supply end is more important! If no one wants to sell to us, then we wont be able to fill the roles we expect for this profession!
rexan
Wed May 26, 2004 10:52 am
#2
I agree with you. People feel that they are entitled to 100% profit from what they create. They feel that selling bulk to a merchant at 80% and getting their money upfront while the merchant deals with stocking vendors selling to the public means they are getting ripped off.
However, I think that the business 3 vendor is fine where it is. An investment of 24 skill points seems reasonable for the use of a single bulky vendor. Although item caps that increase with Business4, MA and Merchant skills could be interesting. The developers have stated that vendor caps are coming. However, I hope that once the remove vendors from people who don't have the skills, the vendor database issues will resolve.
Balkstar
Wed May 26, 2004 11:25 am
#3
Merchants have not been able to give value-added services simply because the the services that are supposed to be added by the mechant class has been stolen by crafters that have the smug attitude that they deservethe whole enchilada of services to craft and to sell. It's not becausea vendor is so cheap to buy. It's more that they are grabbing a vendor then using the skill points elsewhere
Advertising is one of the most powerfulskills we have in the game. Have you ever taken a look at the global map had guessed how many of those advertised vendors are actually from non-exploiting merchants? My guess is less than 10%, otherwise there would be a hell of a lot more people in this forum actively posting and a hell of a lot more players with Merchant tags up in the game. The fact is that most crafters that feel that they need tosell their own goods exclusivelyare stealing merchant skills in some form or another. And it is beating the rest of us to the ground, simply because of a percieved fear of merchants. They do not realize that SOE's intention for the economy of the game is to be a manufacturing-distribution model. So much for player interactions in a MMORPG.
Through the exploitation of simple little bugs, these game players have ruined the entire vision of the economy. The best way to return to that model is to return the skills exclusively to the members of the intended profession.
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