Merchant Archive

I purposely haven't been following the debate. I figured that not having pre-concieved notions may help me to look at it more open minded. Well last night I logged on and turn on the search for my vendors - I thought how could you not turn on the free advertising that all my competitors get to use? Afterwards I wandered over to the bazaar and played for a little bit. These are some thoughts I have after sleeping on it.

1) Currently I usually name things after my business ie Rurry Inc 13BER Heavy mineral etc. My normal method of searching things I usually sort by alphabetical order. When it was just my own products on my own vendors..no problems. Now I can see where it may be of big benefit to name them differently. -a Rurry inc.... I can see al lot of people starting todo this - trying to get to the topof the page.

2) I figure that some folks will sort by price. him do I sell a house for 12000 or 11999 to get above my competitor? when he drops to 11998 then I go to 11997? Many folks have discussed price wars - enough said about that.

3) How do I ensurer that I get as close to the first page as I can? Do I try to listsome of each catagory of main sellers every day to try to get the most coverage on the pages? It does seem to me that where you turn up on the search results will dictate if your items get sold or seen.

4) Would it be best, and I am leaning this way, to ensure that I have the maximum items listed at all times to ensure that I get as much "advertising space" as possible? IE splitting down crates further, splitting resource stacks smaller...etc.

5) One of the things I liked to do occationally was to shop remote areas in search of deals that I can find. This took me to many places and I saw many things that I would not normally see. I can see me not doing that nearly as much, as there is no need to canvas all the remote vendors.

6) Should I now drop the advertising line of merchant? I suspect so, as there is no inherent value in it at the moment that I can see. The buyers can get waypoints from the vendor without ever having to pull up the planetary map.

7) I think one of the biggest things that seperates SWG from the competition is the crafting and economy systems. But I wonder if this change enhances either of these systems for the players who operate in it -ie crafters and merchants. I think that overall it may have a negitive effect if it remains in the current configuration.

8) I remember that one of the big points of the vendor nerf was to remove them from uncert'ed people. This seems to undercut some of that.

9) If there are ways for the system to not search your vendors there is really no recourse. If the vendor search system fail to list your items in a fair and even way, then you may not get sales. There is no way for SOE CSR's to address that. So the people who figure out how to game the listings first will be at a huge advantage.

At this point I am holding my breath and hoping that further changes to this feature are coming soon.

Added issue: crates. You can't look for a crate OF anything, and if you look for something besides a crate, you won't see the crates. I sell stims, usually crated. Now, if I want to be seen under Pharmaceuticals (another issue, categories) I need to pull some from crates. I did so, and the uncrated ones sold fast. I know how useful having the items in crates can be, there's no way I'm putting my entire stock up in singles...

...has mastered the Pilot profession

Kryxal Lightsky - Radiant - Cancelled Dec. 7
Kagami Lightingdark - Radiant - Cancelled Dec. 7
Kikuko Inoue - Starsider - Cancelled Dec. 7
Momoko - Radiant - Cancelled Aug. 22