Merchant Archive
Thread: Okay so now I'm a Master Merchant, what good is this profession?
If you are already a master merchat and you don't have a business started then you are guilty of just grinding the merchant profession instead of playing it. Why? Merchant is one of the few professions you can enjoy alot of success at before master. Simply put you need to decide what you want to sell. Do you want to try to find crafters to buy from and resell their items? Do you want to harvest resources and sell them? Do you have another profession that either loots lots of items or crafts something to sell?
Course you could just be trolling us.. 
Do you have some good resource vendors in your area? If not, buy some heavies and mine some metals, gemstones, and ore. If you can offer high quality resources at decent prices and grinding quality resources at very cheap prices, you will build a customer base.
Do you have a power vendor in your area? If not, start pulling mass quantities of radioactive or solar power and selling it dirt cheap. Once people that need power find your business to be well stocked and reasonably priced, you will probably get plenty of repeat customers.
Same goed for crafting professions. If there is a lack of good weapons, armor, or some other item, you could try learning that profession and filling the gap.
Or, you could experience what I do on Ahazi. We have some awesome crafters that are very dedicated to their profession. They make excellent product, and are known throughout the galaxy. Hard to compete there. We also have some serious miners and power brokers, with lots of lots and millions of units of materials to sell. Hard to compete there. So, you could do what I did-- find a specialization. When I was a Master Doc, I found it hard to locate a one-stop shop that had all the doctor resources I needed for a reasonable price. So, I try to stock gas, dolevite, avian and herbivore meat, and things of that nature.
Alternately, make a "general store". Learn Master Artisan and sell stuff like vehicle customization kits and all the general/basic stuff your elite crafters may not be offering. And, when all else fails, have a "loot" vendor. Can't go wrong there. I know I can never resist a loot vendor-- you never know what you will find. I like to take down evil NPCs and sell the loot, and that's by far my most popular vendor.
you dont need master merchant for anything...
you dont even need merchant skills to sell anything....
drop it as quickly as possible and get some more useful skills
Master Merchant's useful for alot...
You get a 20% discount on all maintenance fees, meaning if you wanted to put up some harvestors and start selling resources, you could maintain these harvestors for alot cheaper (the 20% off adds up over time).
Plus your vendors cost less this way. Also, you can use merchant tents to expand your business across the galaxy.
Now the only problem is runnin out of lots....
yeah but if you are really making money off the resources the 20% is no big deal
wow you get a discount on vendors..so you are being charged less to have your "skills"
merchant tents are cute but if you want additional locations you can just get another small house and get and addtional 150 storage.
just drop everything down to biz 3...get the clunky vendor and mine reosurces and sell them out of that
or drop all the skills and just sell the resources on the bazaar...
you dont need any merchat skills to make money
Oh I dunno, I love the 20% discount. I have a couple characters, and whenever I drop harvesters or houses or factories, it sure helps when I suddenly get 4 free days of maint.
I have to drop it to make the crafting template that I want, but I will miss it.
The number #1 rule for all forums is: "Don't Feed the Trolls"Debating the merrit of actually having merchant skills doesn't seem to be the question that was asked here. The guy already has his skills he asked how to make money using them.
He could make money by dancing in his underwear in the Coronet Starport but that really isn't what he asked.
Message Edited by DocSavag on 03-10-2004 09:30 AM
well the point is no one has an answer for him..
he asked how to use these skills to make money...
these skills are of no use for that...
he was told to mine resources.
no one seems to be able to articulate HOW these skills are really useful to him.
i am just stating that they really arent.
he can make just as much money with Biz 3 as he can master
it all goes back to my main premise...It is what you have to sell and not how you sell it. Without a product this skills are of no use.
He would be better served by take the points that he has just sitting in Merchant and take up a crafting skill and make PRODUCTS.
or he can just have his 6 vending machines and run around and buy crap and resell it.
but he could do the SAME thing with business 3 and covert those skills into combat and run around and gather loot items to sell to crafters.
But aside from getting the 20% discount, please someone come up with how the Master skills actually help this guy.
Advertising does have an effect. It draws in people who might otherwise not find your store.
Multiple vendors can allow you to draw in more people because it gives you more than one entry under advertising under different categories and it can allow you to be in multiple locations which gives you a bigger audience.
Hiring gives you diversity in the appearance in your vendors which while not critical in business can be used to create an atmosphere in your store that gets people to come back. They come back primarily because of the prodcuts but a storefront that is impressive can generate word of mouth that increases your clientele.
Are any of these essential in selling things? No they aren't but saying they have no use at all is simply a very cynical view of the profession.
People in the game are looking for great products, great prices and convienience. They don't want to run to 12 different stores to find things they want a couple of places that they can find most of the things they want to buy. A good merchant shop provides that to them with multiple vendors stocked with a good selection of items. That can be achieved with several Business III vendors but it can be better served by one or more Merchants with multiple vendors and advertising skills and a little variety in the appearance of the vendors doesn't hurt.
Now I've broken my own rule because this whole post is troll food
Naufragus wrote:
well the point is no one has an answer for him..
he asked how to use these skills to make money...
these skills are of no use for that...
he was told to mine resources.
no one seems to be able to articulate HOW these skills are really useful to him.
i am just stating that they really arent.
he can make just as much money with Biz 3 as he can master
it all goes back to my main premise...It is what you have to sell and not how you sell it. Without a product this skills are of no use.
He would be better served by take the points that he has just sitting in Merchant and take up a crafting skill and make PRODUCTS.
or he can just have his 6 vending machines and run around and buy crap and resell it.
but he could do the SAME thing with business 3 and covert those skills into combat and run around and gather loot items to sell to crafters.
But aside from getting the 20% discount, please someone come up with how the Master skills actually help this guy.
Or he can have fun finding his favourite spot to place his tent, enjoying the decoration of it, getting the right outfits for his vendors, making up good stuff for the custom ad barks...
Not all is about achieving something. And I'm sure there are others who would much rather shop there than from a bulky terminal. I'm selling sliced composite and weapons which can be very lucrative so it could probably be done from any shop/vendor but I'm one box from master anyway, because I wouldn't enjoy placing bulky terminals in a deserted house.
I don't know what you're trying to achieve by trolling the merchant boards, do you?