Merchant Archive

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DesktopSaki wrote:

I dunno. I used to work retail, and while we did inventory once a year, we never had our shelves compulsively eject all its goods onto the floor every 30 days, forcing us to restock it all.

Well, there was this one cassette tape rack, but then we stopped carrying Mariah Carey tapes.

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A re-listing button i think is a sorely needed feature in the merchant UI. I don't mind restocking my shelves every thirty days, earlier I think it was a lot less time. The only thing I mind is recomputing all the prices for my resource stacks. Ironically if you look at the details in an item in the stockroom, you can see the price you last sold the item for but no button to relist . Simple things like these that aren't implemented yet seem common-sensical make me wonder what the developers are thinking sometimes, either that or there was a severe lack of playtesting to discover these problems.

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gubbie wrote:

Hey,

I've been a merchant for a long time. Sure having to restock a huge amount of items every 30days is verry annoying but I think this adds a more realistic feel to the swg merchant feel. Restocking is an important experience in running a shop, if they just take away all the pain I think the experience will be lessened. Now don't get mad or flame at me I am just giving my views,

Thanks For Listening,

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I agree Gubbie, fully.

as a Merchant, what and where is my time suppossed to go if not to my business?

3 clicks and stuff is right back up for sell again
sure thousands of items will take a few hrs,
but really4-6 hrs out of the entire month of play
does not seem like that much time to me.

I have 10 gals I relist once a month like everyone else
I have my restock time spread out over a 1 week period.
Oneor two vendors a night for that week
about 6hrs total for the entire time...

While a relist button wold signifacantly reduce that time,
I personally think it is a small amount to begin with.
and I must add that relisting does in fact give us that moment to think
'How long has this been up? Should I pull it? Should I reduce it? Do I need more of these?'

EDIT: personally I find thesuper simple deletion of emails that come from unlisting more annoying then the process of relisting.
I would rather have an option to opt out of getting these and the system messages from delistingthen a instant relist option one.

Message Edited by Ani_cul on 03-11-2005 08:15 AM

Restocking 1 or 2 vendors a night may be ok for you if you have that kind of RL time to spare, a lot of people do not. As someone said above, yes in a real business you have to keep an eye on what is selling and restock accordingly, pulling lines or respricing items that do not sell - but you shouldn't be forced into using out of game methods (spreadsheets etc) to manage this. The in game interface should allow you to track x items of a sold at y cr total ... etc. You then have the option of relisting all remaining at the old price, increasing/reducing, etc.

I have no problem with having to restock items every 30 days (damn site better than the old 7 days). I just think the interface could be seriously improved upon to make it less of a chore and require more of a business head which is what this part of the game should be about.