Merchant Archive

What would really boost this class is if:

-Merchants were the only ones that could have vendors. Would be a pain with the current system, though. I think they should work on a whole new vendor system that justifies only giving vendors to merchants.

-Take the droid terminals give them to every class that can craft something that can be sold and then make it so only someone with merchant skills can buy from them. This would make them into supply depots for the true businessmen.

-Give merchants an option on the vendor to set "Suppliers" and give suppliers the ability to stock a vendor and set the prices on the goods they stock (not unlike the bazaar) and pay a commission on the sale. Or if that is too hard to impliment make it an up front cost (like the bazaar) per item. Or something to that effect. Run with it.

This would be cool. Of course until they impliment or at least announce they're going to implement something like this I am forced to compete by using a vendor myself =P.

I'm not sure I understand the reason for the first item..supplier depots?

I think all of us agree that we need the consignment system supported. Suppliers must be allowed to be set up in our vendors and sell their merchandise through us without use personally touching every item that goes into the vendor. And handling the money and keeping manual records because there is no reporting tools for our vendors.

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DocSavag wrote:

I'm not sure I understand the reason for the first item..supplier depots?

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I understand him, and his idea has some merit. Part of his proposal is very similar to my Vendor Admin Proposal. The other part is a way of making it easier for crafters to dowhat they should be doing considering there is a whole separate profession for the selling skills. Crafters who are not Merchants are SUPPLIERS. His depot vendor idea is a way for crafters to stock their products for Merchants to come pick up and take to their vendor retail shops.

Here is the post for my Vendor Admin proposal:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=merchant&message.id=8203

It would be an interesting gameplay dynamic and I think it could work. It would allow players to supply and source products even when they cannot physically be online and in the same place at the same time. Some argue that this detracts from the roleplaying we are supposed to do. I hate that argument for two reasons:

• I live in Australia, I can't always be online at times that suit you. On weekends I can.


• In real life the Managers (a Merchant title) have workers to supply and source for them. They don't have to always be there to do it themselves.

However, I don't personaly like the idea because it adds in an extra step. This may be selfish of me. I am lobbying for Vendor Admin lists which would make it easy for a Merchant but your sugestion means Merchants have to walk to the Supplier. Maybe that would be a good thing. If both this suggestion and my proposal were implemented, the Supplier and Merchant could negotiate/argue about whether the Supplier comes to the Merchant's Vendors, or the Merchant goes to the Supplier's Depot Vendor.

Still, it seems redundant if the crafter uses a Merchant only Vendor just so an actual Merchant can source things to sell on their actual Vendors. Makes me screw my eyes up all funny like. Still, as I said, the idea has merit and you have thought it out well.

The ability to do a private sale on a base vendor would help towards this end. That way they could put the products on the vendor for a specific person.

Multipricing items on parameters is what I would really like to see. That way we could have PA Member prices etc.. even faction pricing would be a great roleplaying addition.

I totally support massive upgrades to vendor management. The fact that I have to babysit my vendors so much galls me. It takes up way to much time. REMOTE management would really be nice. Since most of the time I am just putting moving things from my stockroom that have dropped off, though it would be nice for accepting offers and placing items bought from offers up for sale.

"I am lobbying for Vendor Admin lists which would make it easy for a Merchant but your sugestion means Merchants have to walk to the Supplier."

Actually the supply depot was my second suggestion. First one was basically the Vendor Admin. But I think you have to note instead of vendor admin (which implies FULL control) you need to call it vendor supplier. That means as a supplier I could come put things up for sale on YOUR vendor and remove those things if I wanted. But I can't control any of the items from another supplier. Admin implies full control and would give you less suppliers because you could only set admins that trusted each other.

My supply depot is to allow it to go both ways. Instead of the suppliers having to seek out merchants who have vendors to go stick their goods on they could also have a droid vendor set up to put goods on, and those less-known merchants would have a way to break into the business by seeking out supply depots, getting goods and putting them on their vendor themselves. It would work both ways.

But in both scenerios (one where suppliers come to the vendor, other where merchants come to the supplier) merchant is the only one who gets to sell retail.