Merchant Archive

Howdy everyone,

Not that I am trying to steal secrets or anything, but I was wondering what some of the business models you guys were using. Months ago, I was running a business based guild that used a simple contractor type business model. It wasn't overly successful, but it produced enough to keep everyone funded and having fun. Which, I assume, is the goal of everyone here. What I mean by contractor type is the following: My guild, or company, would purchase goods for half market value from our guild members and sell them on company vendors spread throughout the galaxy. This would provide our crafters with a wider distrobution and a more stable income. As I said, it worked well enough, but it didn't make boat loads of cash. So, I was wondering what all everyone else did to keep their vendors stocked and the fun money rolling in. Also, our guild was a general trading type company. We sold everything that was to sell in the game. Maybe specialization in one crafting field or the other makes a difference.

Maybe, if this thread produces some good comments, it can be rolled into a noob FAQ or something of that nature to help those that are wanting to start up a business.

Ma'Cus Jallitus
Master Shipwrite
Freedom Alliance
Kauri Server

I have always just run my own business. I do well, but not great. I have about 20 million in credits, probably wasted another 10-15 million on skill tapes and faction bases....

What I currently do is look to buy in volume and resell:

For instance:

Buy any and all resources for 1.5 cpu and resell for 2 cpu. I have 3 - 4 people supplying me and I do fairly well with this. From time to time a really nice resource comes in, and my guys still only charge me 1.5 cpu but I can sell it for 4 or 5 cpu. I am also gambling that in the future lot swaps might be nerfed and resource prices will climb. I carry a lot of inventory, but I figure some day it may jump in value.

Buy any and all loots and mark them up. In particular I focus on paintings and things to decorate with. I buy Endor paintings for 500k to 750k and sell for 1 million. I buy the Sean paintings for 250k and sell for 350k. Most people don't check the boards, so you can buy things in auctions on the boards, and sell for much higher on a vendor.

SEAs, I buy lots and lots of low quality SEAs for 2k-5k each and sell for 5k-10k each.

I also make a fair amount of my own goods, furniture, molecular clamps (from my alt), vehicles.....

I am a master architect, master artisan, master merchant. So I focus on architect and vehicles. I am amazed how people burn through vehicles, I keep selling out of them, even at higher prices.

Goliath
Master Shipwright, Master Architect, Master Artisan
-=V=- Shipworks 3 Locations Theed, Coronet and
Tatooine by Krayt Graveyard 5909, 4373

3 vendors at GF6 11/11 - Shipwright, Architect, Resources

I'm a solo player who actually got into the game for the player-run economy, an idea that fascinated me. I refuse to pay for an alt or cheat my way into controlling more lots than I should. I started in the resource business, harvesting and selling my resources. I made sure to place my vendor in a mall so I'd see more traffic. I invested every dime I had until I had a full fleet of heavy harvesters. Once that business took off I invested in more heavy harvesters and gave them to people I had met to harvest for me. I would send them a waypoint and they would place the harvesters, pay the maintenance and power, and sell the resources to me for 1.5. I'd turn around and sell them for 2-3 depending on the quality. Then, as a bored millionaire, I received a holo for <ahem> Hannukah and it said BIO-ENGINEER, which I wanted to try anyway.I started getting into thechef and tailor tissue business. I harvested my own flora and began looking for hunters to supplyme with meat. I was able to supplya little of my own meat, as I was slowly turning from a TKA/Ranger into a BE/Merchant. By clever networking and close record-keeping, I began to turn my flora harvesters into factories by providing flora harvesters and waypoints to a well-paid gopher. I now own a house (2 lots), a merchant tent (1 lot) and 7 factories. All of my flora is harvested by my 'employee', although I still survey for the location (My current goal is to find a reliable, well-priced supplier). All of my meat is provided by hunters, who I also consider employees. I send out very professional Hunter/Gatherer reports to my hunters, and occasional newsletters to my clients (i.e. "BE Tissues by Isscossk: New Vendor location 7/15").

Isscossk Osli, Master Bio-Engineer / Master Merchant (Naritus)
Caji, Master Ranger / Master Rifleman (Shadowfire)

[As I was typing this it kept growing & growing... apologies!]

The most basic business model doesn't seem to have been listed here... the sole crafter producing and selling his or her own goods on their own vendor.

I suspect that the vast majority of such businesses are run by Master Crafters, who will have two main strands to their business: maintaining levels of standard stock items and taking custom orders (the ratio of the two will vary dramatically by profession and by individual preference). A typical Master Weaponsmith might have a house (two lots), a permanent factory (1 lot) and the rest of their lots given over to harvesters and the occasional additional factory or generators when there aren't any decent or rare resources in-shift at the time.

The Weaponsmith's life centres around resourcing resources... it's the sine qua non of a decent smithy (the same goes for other professions, of course, but I suspect that WSmiths have the widest range of resources to collect, some resources having multiple uses that rely on different combinations of stats).

For WSs focusing on having stocks of standard weapons, the large number of sub-components required for every single weapon (apart from CDEFs!) mean that factories are going 24/7 churning out vast numbers of gun barrels, rifle stocks, sword cores and the like. Storage of these crafted components becomes a problem straight away of course... lot trading and using vendors for storage are commonplace amongst weaponsmiths, even though many frown upon these practices.

Smiths who do more custom work are more likely to spend their energies tracking down looted enhancements & subcomponents... and more commonly now, looted limited-use schematics. These are often provided by combat characters who will provide a 3-use schematic -- the WSmith may provide one weapon for them, and use the others himself to create more weapons to sell. Much of their time out-of-game is spent browsing the trade forums -- often they will also auction their own weapons as well, sometimes for vast sums. Staging & monitoring these auctions must take a fairly large time commitment, in addition to the time needed to track down & trade with auction winners in-game.

For non-master crafters, custom orders are less likely to be a part of their business (e.g. I've never taken a custom order! I've been offered, but have had to turn them down as I don't have the experimentation points to produce the quality required).

As a non-master weaponsmith, I focus on supplying weapons to new players - not terribly lucrative, but does mean that I don't have to grind, which I dread. The weapons are of a very decent quality considering I've only got 7 experimentation points and don't use advanced subcomponents in them (which keeps the price down, as the advanced subcomponents require some very elusive resources) - I've decent stocks of high-quality resources.

My permanent factory does endless runs of subcomponents, but all the products on my vendors are finally hand-built - I need the xp after all! Of late I've also taken to doing small factory runs of DL44 pistols, DLT20 rifles and DH17 carbines which I sell on the Mos Eisley bazaar at slightly inflated prices (inflated compared to my shop - still often the cheapest on the vendor... I can't believe any of those 6000-cr CDEF weaps ever actually sell!). I turn over about 20k per day (30k on Saturdays & Sundays), but the only overheads I have are maintenance (building / harv / factory) and power for my harvesters. I'm slowly upgrading my harvester fleet from self-built BER4 personals to BER10 meds. Next step is the heavies!

Initially I spent quite a lot of my profit on decorations for the shop (I believe people will remember and re-visit a well-decorated shop -- it's good investment both financially and in terms of storage) and decent crafting equipment - hopefully this phase is over now and I can pour all profits into harvesters until I've 7 heavy minerals harvs and at least 2 chem and 3 gas harvs. Given prices I've seen locally, this will set me back about 1.2 to 1.5 million. Ouch. At least 2 month's profits, if I spend on nothing else.

Business recently suffered when a merchant moved in next door (adjoining lot!) to me and started selling weaps supplied to him by a Master Smith (often sliced -- what would the Empire think?) at very reasonable prices. My neighbour's a really nice bloke, it must be said, and it's fun to have company so I'm not complaining... but this is why I've started doing the bazaar sales as a sideline, to boost income. At the moment, I'd guess that when I'm able to keep my bazaar stocks up (that 25-item limit is a real obstacle to my plans for galactic domination, it must be said), the bazaar accounts for about 40% of my sales (and about 50% of my income). No idea how many people will seek me out after having bought one of my weaps of the bazaar -- not a large factor, I wouldn't think.

---

Aethal Sar, Weaponsmith. Retired from game - probably missing it already!

Links you may be interested in:
The SWG Links Library; the Doctor hunting list; and a summary of resource stat caps.

My business model? That's easy. Try to keep my head above water.

I was already workig hard to maintain stock with another long-time MAS about 100m from me, but he's taking a 4-month break and now I'm bearing the brunt of all of the armor shoppers in our very large player city. I stocked up with 90 suits of comp, some misc parts, and about 200 PSG's on Saturday, and I was already getting tells last night from people at my vendors asking me when I was going to restock!

Not sure how long I can keep this up.

The artist formerly known as Ittov

I've tried a few models and been successful, on various levels, with a couple of them.

I made my first fortune by reselling. I hooked up with a network of newbie scouts and had them harvest meat, milk, and hide for 30-50

% of what I knew someone would pay for it, then I sold it straight to the buyers. Eventually I started a resource vendor and started selling them for myself.

I bought resources at a discount and sold them. Also had a fleet of heavy harvesters (16 BER13 mineral, 16 BER 13 deep crust, 3 heavy natural gas, 4 BER 14 fusion). I just closed the resource vendor because it's too hard to stock, and I need the resources for my other businesses now, but it had a great run.

Around the same time, I started buying things from vendors and the bazaar when I found them under market price and reselling them. I continue this today, but now I have the finances to buy up a vendor if I come across it. I bought out a mall once (THAT generated some email). I also sell loot and drop items gathered by my main combat character.

Third, I got together with a friend and guildmate and started selling the droids and vehicles he made. Recently, other commitments have made him unable to keep up with the demand and I bought a third account and mastered artisan, and soon DE. I now supply my own vendor for vehicles, artisan items, and droids.

What made the most difference in my business volume was locating my vendors in a mall already populated with well-known crafters. The foot traffic they got made my business go up, and I started getting repeat customers.

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Every time I log in I'm terrified they changed the game to Dance Dance Revolution without telling anyone after holding a "focus group"