Merchant Archive

I am strategizing on a particular merchant problem and thought I would get some input from you folks.

The wife and I have 3 vendors clusters setup in 3 different malls. We specialize in Talus resources and artisan goods. We know and love Talus well.

We have made good money over the months, enough to be wealthy enough not to have to worry about money woes or have greed be a driving force in our merchant decisions. Our mainstay has been Talus water. Due to merchant efficiencies, many lucky power shifts and many harvesters, we sell Talus water for 2cr a unit, and have made millions doing so. Pre-exp patch we were harvesting up a consistent 60-80,000 units a day, post patch exp heavies increased that yield significantly.

The Talus water attracts a quiet but consistent group of medics and buyers. These regulars also buy our other Talus flora resources (Oats, eggs, berries, whatever was in good quality) and a smattering of gas and chemical. Along with the Talus goods, I enjoyed making various common electronics, batteries, crafting tools & stations and droid components. The wife fishes and gathers hides & foraged herbs for sale as well.

Recently I got hit by a resource wholesaler. I term wholesaler as someone who cleans out your stock repeatedly. No biggie. Then a second one joined in. Grinch could not have cleaned out our resource vendors as thoroughly as these two were doing. When I put up a carbosyrup for 10000 credits that had a crafted name that tried to explain to our customers what was going on, one of them bought it (shakes head chuckling).

Now don't get the wrong idea here, I have no problems with merchants doing this. It is what merchants do, look for "undervalued" resources and items, buy them up and sell them for a profit elsewhere. I do this myself. While I have a deep respect for the players behind the avatars who choose to play a merchant, in game this is a merchants PvP, or maybe CvC is better (Company vs Company). It's actually quite fun. We had some long bitter battles on the bazarre in the early days where we managed to drive many of the water dabblers out of the market altogether. Since Malling in September our enjoyment has increased, often in a friendly competition with others Malls. I have no compunction at going for the jugular in an honest trade war. Selling for a loss for an extended period is about the only rule I won't break.

Our problem is not that we keep getting bought out as quickly as we restock. We could just raise prices to fight that. It's that the repeat customers used the other 2 vendors at every mall, and the wholesalers do not. Our sales of alternate items has dropped dramatically, the vendors appear empty hours after a restock and the regular old friends are beginning to send email asking what is up. Our new baby makes being on when the regulars are on quite problematic.

So how do you effectively fight a wholesaler that wants to turn you into their private miners without your consent, but keep your good repeat customers?

I can only think of 2 tactics so far to use. One is to raise prices, then just banktip back the difference to the repeat regulars. We would make money selling Talus water for 1cr a unit, so 2 always seemed more than adequate profit to us. I think more than 3 is not taking advantage of our skill-given merchant efficiencies well. We CAN afford to produce it cheaper than many others. This rate hike keeps our current stock up, makes the regulars happy with water actually in stock after they run out to our malls (but sad at raised prices) and keeps the wholesalers out, but makes turning new customers into regulars difficult (prices being same at the 5 cr wholesalers, they have no particular reason to come back to us, not knowing we would start giving discounts).

The second tactic is to just ban the wholesalers from the Mall. This gets dicey to me, almost too drastic. It could hurt my fellow Mall merchants losing out on purchases, and would certainly just make them try alternatives to get in and cleanus out even more.

So, advice, my fellow merchants? How do you combat corporate vendor raiders? What other tactics could be used that serves the customer best?

My first call would be to mail those doing it, and explain that you don't want the vendors cleared out due to your other customers. Offer to sell a certain amount of your stock to them directly, if they leave the stuff you put on the vendor. If they refuse that, you shouldn't feel bad about banning them if you need to. It's your business and your customers that will suffer in the longterm... I doubt one or two people will impact the other vendors in the mall that much, and your business is not a public service. It's your right to deny service to someone, and I would do so if someone is making life difficult for my loyal customers. It's better to have ten customers that all buy something, than one that buys everything.

I agree. Send them a friendly email, and let them know what is going on. If you have extra to sell them, give them the same rate, just explain. If they don't like it, banning is always a viable alternative. These two wholesalers will just have to deal with you, or go back to finding the product somewhere else. I wouldn't think it would hurt your business in the long run. Good Merchants thrive on a reputation, and your reputation is at stake. Tell these wholesalers the truth, and if they don't like it, a quick ban is easy to do.

You could even set up a special vendor for them somewhere else, offer them discounts on large orders or continual patronage, notification when new resources and quantities come in so they same time, and any other benefits you can think of as enticements to continue business with you but not ruin you.

Because that's what they're doing to you. One day they'll stop buying because they decided to move on or chase holocrons. But all your regular customers will be gone by then. You'll be SOL trying to build your business from the ground up again. Diversify - many eggs in many baskets instead of all your eggs in one basket.

Be professional, but explain your predicament and desire to continue doing business with them. If they won't play, you have no option but to ban them, ride the wave and lose your regulars, or move somewhere else.

Banning can have limited effect, because if they want to grief you, you've banned them, but not all thier friends. It can get real stupid real quick.

Remember that they may think they've lucked out finding a steady supplier, and they may also think they're helping keep you in business by buying everything. Maybe exporting off world.

Or they may just be merchant mercenaries. In it just for the money. Taking your reasonably priced resources and marking them up to stick it to everyone else.

If you can get a quick feel for their goals, it may answer several questions on how to deal with them.

Ban them from your store

hire a bounty hunter to kill them

Pull the wholesalers aside and make them an offer. If as you say, you're making profit at 1cpu, but sell now on the vendors for 2cpu, the wholesalers you're having trouble with should leap at the opportunity to get set amounts, delivered on a regular basis for 1.5 - 1.8 cpu. This should keep them out of your retail vendors - unless their long term goal is something different.

Can I pipe in?

I have occasionally made purchases (sometimes repeated ones) that could be seen as utilizing this tactic... Except I'm NOT. I'm simply looking for large quantities of good materials, and when I find it at a decent price, I snap it up. Whenever I pass a shop that offers resources, I look at the stock. It's not uncommon for me to drop 100-300K on all there is of a single resource on a given vendor. I just need that much stuff.

I wouldn't go banning anyone just yet... You might just have found yourself a voracious customer, who needs all the water you can supply and then some.

I'm dealing with this also. I have 4 repeat customers that like to by power 1 million units at a time. I could make a good living supplying these four players and not operating ANY vendors at all, then I could surrender all the merchant skills and use the skill points for something else while skill making a great living in the power biz.

Unfortunately, operating a public retail business is what I WANT to do. So, I'm facing this issue and I've thought about the same options you're considering. I've also engaged in heated discussions on the Scylla board about this issue and the practice of merchants banning customers for liking his/her product too well.

I believe that my amswer is the correct one, but it's not the popular one because it's the most difficult to implement. But I just cannot agree with banning, restricting, or otherwise negotiating with a customer to BUY LESS of my product. That's the easy way out, the lazy way out, the coward's way out. My respectful apologies to anyone I offend with this opinion, but that remains my opinion. Anytime I see a retailer placing rules upon the customer (either in-game or in real life) it's always plain to see that the merchant is taking the esy path.

Your problem is not that these high-rollers buy too much - the problem is you don't produce enough. See...it's far more tempting to attach the demand-side of the problem, isn't it. But you can't fault your customers for needing and wanting more of your product, can you? The true answer is to find the way to meet your demand - ALL of your demand, both the big-spenders and the smaller customers.

In my case, I've been able to recruit a team of some 35 other players - some casual gamers I rarely hear from, others 50 hour-per-week players like myself - that all opertate their own fusion generators and sell to my a 7% below my selling price. I still operate my own, naturally, which is really where my profits come from, the rest that's supplied to me is only for me to meet capacity and maintain a server-wide visibility as a major power vendor on the server. But I am now much closer to meeting 100% of the demand. I just could never justify telling any customer that I won't sell to him because he's already given me too much of his money. There's just no distortion of logic that can make that right.

OK, some very interesting ideas.

For Polenth, Osskibi and SunLao, as you said, communication as the first line seems the most logical course. This will probably work to build a business relationship with normal folks, and can tie into DE_Rho & Faelyn's ideas about selling more instead of less. One of the wholesalers is now working with me in a very nice way, as they are trying to supply their guild. The first wholesaler, however, refuses to discuss or even acknowledge my tells and emails. They are supplying a mall, and the Mall CvC logic is to have more selection than the other guys, and in Mall PvP you make them have nothing if you can. Make your competition have empty vendors, and their business drops off quickly as word about town changes from "Oh, go to Mall X, they have everything" to "I ran to Mall X again to see only empty vendors".

Look what happened to the Theed Galactic Mall. In August and early September, if you wanted anything, the TGM had it in abundance. I spent hundreds of thousands of credits there. Now...it's like a crypt. Now i don't know why it went from THE place to shop to it's current state, looks like other forces at work than direct competition, but I have stopped checking there all the time for deals, finds and needs. There are 5 other Malls in the same area that offer greater selection and greater competition to us than TGM. I will always respect what they accomplished and that cool name though. They were the ground breakers on Kauri for Malls and set the standard for their time.

So direct communication worked for one, but not the other. Communication in CvC battles is pointless though.

Progman63 wisely suggests diversification. The Mall format itself already provides greater diversificationthan a shop. We diversified to Malls on Naboo, Corellia and Tatooine to further "diversify". I try to offer a great deal of alternate resources as well as water as the major draws. With the wholesalers in my problem, theyare buying every resource on the one vendor. Emptying. Even the crumbs ). If they emptied all 3 vendors, I would not be here asking for ideas,we would be restocking and living the good life fishing. But their focus on resources only leaves 2 other vendors with diverse offerings not getting visited, not making sales like they do when the resource vendor is stocked, and regulars missing out on a needed item. In Malls you also have to be mindful of encroaching on your fellow vendors sales offerings. The three malls we are at are cooperative, and the manager works hard to avoid merchant duplication. This makes us much more friendly and we often work together to help each others sales and with red spawns. I have seen the direct competition malls, and I don't like the way it often divides merchants agaisnt each other for the same business. In CvC good neighbors make a stronger community, bad neighbors divide and isolate the players likea movie monster picking off the loners.

So short of taking up another master crafter class, I can't diversify more than I do already. I thought about ore resources, but if you think water gets cleaned out fast, try stocking metals ). Malls in CvC should already be diversified enough to survive isolated wholesaler incidents. Now Mall buyouts to cut the competitors stock and boost yours......

DE_Rho, there is a marked difference between what you describe and a wholesaler that comes back time after time after time cleaning you out. The point at which you are using another vendor as a slave miner without discussion is the key difference here. While the tactic with resources is understandable,I really feel for the tailors who get cleaned out. No selection is crippling to them.

So we continue to enjoy and praise large volume buyers, they often chat a bit in person or tells and makes being a merchant fun.

Banning got far more acceptance and support than I thought. It might be a reasonable tactic in certain situations. I agree with some of the posters though, if they have friends and guilds it is almost pointless.

I do not like the "strike a deal for 1.5-1.8 credits" proposal. That sounds like strong-arm extortion to me ). Pay up or we empty you out. It might work for some, but it feels like getting backed into a corner to me.

While I mentioned we would make money selling at 1 credit, it would be the equivalent of working for minimum wage in SWG. If the economy ever gets that tight we will do it, but 2 credits is about as low as we care to go compared to mission payouts and the player bank accounts as they exist in the game at this time. Selling for less than 2 credits on anything but power is simply treading economic water or recouping grinding costs at the moment.

Faelyn has the most intersting angle. The wife and I had thought of temporarily pooling all our water resources in the one Mall in an attempt to see just how deep the wholesalers pocketbook was. Even if they are filthy rich, they will eventually go broke fighting against our multiple account harvestor capability. This is not Faelyn's "grow your supplier side" idea exactly, but close. I really like Faelyn's idea from a business perspective. Unfortunatly, Talus ranks second on the most disliked planet list, overshadowed by only Lok. If it wasn't for Aryean's Respite we wouldn't even have a viable player city. On the average evening you are lucky to find 35 people ON Talus, much less mining water. Add to that the typical water resource area is lightly populated with single medic harvestors getting personal stocks and a handful of PA harvestor farms to supply their guilds healers. There is not a large miner crowd to pull suppliers from, fewer still the merchant miners that can do it as cheaply in large scale.Folks like the wholesaler in question here will offer slightly more credits per unit to suppliers than we currently sell it for, so growing the business in this fashion means higher prices for the customer.

CvC battles open up the opportunity to steal the competitors suppliers, but growing the business OVER the wholesaler seems the best advice so far. In the chess game ofMall battles, it sounds like the aggressive winning move over the more defensive banning. It also, as Faelyn mentions, is the path of greater work and effort.

Thanks for the ideas and debate. I hope this thread discussion stays this interesting!

I say leave them their own vendor and email them, asking them to use it. Call it the wholesale vendor or something.

Definitely the first step is to talk to them. See how they respond. Their response alone might make you feel just fine about banning them, or you might work out something that works for both of you.

Honestly I would raise prices.

There will always be an economic space btw. what you think stuff should go for and what the market will bear because SWG is still in an inflationary spiral.

As long as mission credits, duped credits, and whatnot are entering the economy you will find that selection and service will far outstrip price as the motivating factor in people's purchases

Diversify your vendors, raise prices and make it easier for crafters to buy from you because you have stock. If you price the competition out of your vendors..you'll find that you get more 'retail' traffic..not less