Merchant Archive
Thread: Thought some new merchants might like this: (a guide)
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Csin
Wed Feb 25, 2004 11:11 am
#1
I found this in my Word documents, something that I wrote to one of the millions of "How do I get started?" merchant threads, and in many ways it has some advice for any terminally poor player. Since I am playing less these days as we approach the last days of my wife's pregnancy, I thought I'd get this out before I forgot it again. Good luck!
Csin Csity's Guide to Becoming a Successful Master Entrepreneur/Merchant
Before I begin this guide, there are three groups I have to address. Group one is all the people, some now gone, from Bloodfin who helped me get my feet on the ground. People like Atari, Nox, countless droid engineers, miners, and others without whom I wouldn't have gotten this far. I thank you all. The second group I need to thank are my current associates and business partners like Sai, Miira, Rezz, Rayban, Shim, Sam, and all my current suppliers whom I can't name for security purposes, but you know who you are. The last group is all the merchants who've opened up around Csin's Bargain Csity to benefit from my marketing: I will teach you everything you need to know. but I won't teach you everything I know. Perhaps some of you will learn the important next step and move away from Coronet to establish your own names, but at minimum you will learn to keep better stock. And with that said...the Guide:
Step ONE: GETTING STARTED
This guide is aimed more at people who want to become an entrepreneur merchant, vs. a crafter/merchant, so if you're looking to become a crafter you might want to skip ahead. For those who want to become a real entrepreneur your journey starts right from character creation. As a merchant you will have to travel to every planet, sometimes deep into the wilderness. You can also get just as dead running from your store to the starport. Thugs and aggressive critters don't care that you're on a business trip. Don't neglect basic combat skills or you'll spend more time looking at the clouds than making progress. Pick a brawler for maximum hitpoints, or a marksman for defensive firing while fleeing. Regardless of what you pick you can always migrate stats later, but a good starting template helps.
Once you've made your character, pick a city and get ready for some hard work. I suggest avoiding the more remote cities unless your server is incredibly full. Most people are going to be in Theed, Bestine or larger cities like that. Some people might suggest trying one of the more adventurous planets like Talus, Rori or even Dantooine, figuring the players there have deeper pockets. This can be difficult and I don't recommend it unless you have a big starting bankroll.
First Steps:
Now it is time to get to work. Join groups and get a few missions under your belt if you can. Kill Meatlumps, Swoops or your local thugs for cash and junk items. The people you meet can be very helpful, but don't beg. If you can make yourself useful to them you might end up with a better gun, or some cash, or even some goods to sell. Whatever you pick up DO NOT THROW IT AWAY. A cool-looking looted shirt can sell as well as a master tailor's goods to the right buyer. If you find a satchel or a backpack during this period hold onto it like gold. You'll want that extra storage.
Step Two: Your First Deal
You have a measly few hundred credits in your pocket. Count yourself lucky! You have no expenses and you now control what economists call capital. Your job is to tend this seed of capital until it becomes a forest of opportunities.
Look around town now. Find people with 'Novice' over their head: Novice Tailor, Novice Artisan, Novice Droid Engineer, and Novice Chef. These poor folks have a long journey ahead of them, a journey that involves making piles of 'unsaleable' items. Fortunately many of these individuals may be pretty far ahead of you in the financial food chain. Talk to these people. Find out what items they're grinding and what they're doing with the results. Tailors for instance may have shirts, shorts, pants and whatnot sitting in bags waiting to be thrown away or sold for a few credits a piece.
My first deal was with a trainee droid engineer making MSE "mouse"droids. I would purchase them for 100 credits a piece (just over cost for the DE), and resell them for as much as 1000 credits a piece. This allowed the droid engineer to grind more mice, and gave me the perfect toy to sell. MSE's are cute and useless without a medical, crafting or storage unit, but they have great 'pet' appeal. I used one deed, gave it a cute name, and visited everyplace that people congregated in my city, talking/yelling out loud about having a 'droid of your own' and how they were trainable and adorable, all the while trailing this cute squeaking mouse behind me. I sold them to dancers, doctors, Creature handlers, and other classes who just wanted to say they owned a droid. It worked like a charm and probably still would if anyone had the patience to do it today. The key is to point out the advantages of what you have to sell, and then price it where you can negotiate from strength. Cakes, pies, Jawa Beer, shirts, pants, fireworks, powerups, Bofa Treats, newbie creatures and other level one items can all be sold creatively at amazing margins.
In only a few hours you'll have met hundreds of players, explored your whole city, gained some combat skills, and gotten more enjoyment out of SWG than most players get in their whole player-lives. And with any skill you've turned your few hundred credits into a few thousand. You can continue this way ad infinitum, but for the real Merchant Lord (or Lady) in training, you'll quickly tire of the nickel and dime market and want to move on.
Step Three: The Grind
After the excitement of running around one or two cities making money from bored, wealthy characters, the prospect of doing some grinding yourself cannot seem too tempting, but the powers that be have placed Merchant above the Artisan tree, so you're going to have to do grin and bear it.
Find a newbie trainer and get yourself Novice Artisan. Yep, you're finally spending money, but this is an investment in your future. Next find yourself a Mining Survey tool, and a Generic Crafting tool. Artisans slightly ahead of you will typically give these away to get additional experience from your using their tools.
Browse over to the crafter's guides to get tips on making the GCXP you need to speed up the Business tree under Artisan. I will only add here that you can multi-task while you work. A quick look at the guides to Macros can give you some ideas on how you can hawk your wares and craft at the same time with little effort. You also have a survey tool. If you are creative you can survey, craft, sell, and chat at the same time, making you a super-self-sufficient experience machine. Keep your spirits up. You won't have to grind for very long, and when you've reached your goal you may miss it and decide to continue in Artisan.
Step Three: Making Your Name (or location, location, location)
At business three you get your first vendor. The bazaar is always available for making some Merchant experience, but nothing makes you money or a reputation like a well-stocked vendor. There are some good guides like Draznar's Guide that give details on how to use a vendor ( http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id= merchant&message.id=10442), or Kruppe's Guide which I am liberally referring to here, with many thanks to Kruppe.
More than just knowing how to use a vendor, you need to think about where to put it. A small generic or planet house can be purchased for as little as 4000credits. With some negotiations you might be able to get one for less or even free if you are creative and honest with the architect. This is a great starter store because it costs little to maintain and can fit in most anywhere. Choose your location wisely. Even if a location seems like it might be a good idea, your biggest audience is going to be a nearby city or a heavily trafficked destination. Don't assume because you are near or inside a player city that you're going to be overwhelmed with foot traffic. While you might have 100 loyal guildmembers who will use you exclusively, nothing beats having thousands of people pass your store every day, or being close to a starport so off-worlders can quickly come and visit you.
Name your vendor something like "Merchant Lisa's Food Market" or whatever brand name you want for your store. When you get to the higher Merchant skills you may want to put this name on global advertising, but more realistically you will want people to know it's your vendor and that they're in the right place. Stock it as full as you can with your favorite goods (droids, spices, foods, powerups, etc like you've been selling all along). In the future you'll want to stagger your vendor-stocking over several days to avoid re-stocking your whole store once a week, but for now you need to jumpstart your business.
Now step out to your new front porch and take a deep breath. You're about to embark on a new enterprise. Make a waypoint for where you are standing. In your datapad rename your new waypoint "Lisa's Merchant Market" or whatever your brand name is. Notice that I'm brand-naming everything. This is how you build your business. Make an email that explains very briefly what you do. Add into it that you have a small 1 credit entrance fee to keep out aggressive creatures. Offer to repay the one credit, most people will laugh at this gesture, but it will diffuse the few people who won't pay on 'principle'. Attach your new waypoint to it and mail it out to everyone on your friend's list and anyone you've ever met. You can use semi-colons between people's names to send it to multiple recipients. Send one copy to yourself and keep it in your mailbox forever. Forward this email to anyone who talks to you about business, or who shouts in the starport that they want to buy something that you sell. Soon there will be a strong core of people out there with your waypoint tucked into their datapads.
Think this will make you rich? Not by a longshot. If you quit now you'll have a few visitors every day, but no crowds. Now hoof it over to the starport and let everyone and their mother know that Lisa's Food Market is open for business. Don't be a spammer. Set yourself a pace of a shout every 4 minutes or so in order to not be a pain in the butt. While you're there put a few small items on the Bazaar, suitably renamed to advertise your vendor. If anyone asks you a question, forward them an email first. Answer their questions, but encourage them to check out your vendor regardless! You get a tiny bit of experience for each browser, a bit for each 1 credit entrance, and a bit for each hour your vendor exists. Currently there is no experience for sales, but my suggestion is that you act as if there was. More sales can equal more repeat customers. You're not just grinding experience; remember you're building a fortune.
While you're waiting to build experience and cash, keep your ears open. Opportunities abound at starports. If you can buy something for 500credits and sell it for 1000 don't wait, buy it now. Feel free to keep a few items that you don't keep on your vendor on hand for quick sales. Make yourself the 'go-to' person for everything. Remember the names of other artisans or merchants in the area and refer people to them. Those referrals may come back to you one day.
***:: This is as far as I got, but I thought some people might find this information useful in starting their own businesses.
DocSavag
Wed Feb 25, 2004 2:15 pm
#2
Thanks Csin. I'm forwarding a link of this to Q3P0 he was looking for guides and such this is a very nice start for an excellent guide to how to be a merchant.
Csin
Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:36 am
#3
Ask him if he needs any full-time writers..I'm getting sick of my RL job..
DocSavag
Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:49 am
#4
They do..its called " Correspondant " and roughly translated that means unpaid writing talent.
DocSavag
Thu Mar 11, 2004 11:17 am
#6
Csin wrote:
Dammit..if I'm gonna write it..someone is gonna read it!
You do realize this is now linked from the "Advanced Guides" right?
DocSavag
Thu Mar 11, 2004 2:04 pm
#7
Csin wrote:
From this forum or online?
I haven't been able to log onto the game btw family and business stuff.
Sorry to hear that. From the Advanced Guides section of the starwarsgalaxies.com site.
Csin
Fri Mar 12, 2004 1:57 am
#9
From this forum or online?
I haven't been able to log onto the game btw family and business stuff.
edit:** never mind I found it!
Message Edited by Csin on 03-11-2004 01:05 PM
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