Shipwright Archive

I get such /tells or ingame mails everyday I log in to the game, styx. So many each day that I don't even use the MSW titel on my character.
People are coming back to me each and everyday and if it is only to ask some questions about components, missions are tactics. Or sometimes just to have a smalltalk with your fellow neighbour shipwriter
I will let run out my component vendor until I only have launchers, missles and countermeasures in it. From that moment on, I will make custom orders only.

I do that because I figured out, that the wishes of the customers are so different, that it is not possible to put for every wish a component into the vendor. And I also figured out, that my customers really love the interaction with me and the result of it within their ordered component.

Maybe I'm one of the very few, who wouldn't use a factory to craft engines, shields, boosters or even upgrades.

cheers
Exi

I am surprised about the ratios I read here - with me it's 90% (or even more) custom business. On Vendor I only sell some Chassis sometimes (last 2 weeks i didn't sell one).

The reasons for this are:

1) I am not willing to burn my HQ Resources to get a fully stocked vendor. As the number of master pilots increases and "novice" pilots decreases more and more the demands of components changes too fast, and i don't want to be kept sitting on my lvl3 blasters etc... Of course this doesn't count for armor and missile packs :-)

2) For me it's more fun doing business that depends on service and communication. There are still many pilots that even don't know the possibilities they have on their ships (f.eg. many still have problems with their capacicator energy and keep looking for bigger capacicators instead of looking for blasters with only 16-17 energy user per shot). I more like the idea to give the customer a variation of new ideas and alternatives to redesign their ship to get a better result in complete. Of course my second toon is a master pilot and i tested many self-crafted components in many different combinations to get the knowledge about what ship with what mass can be stocked in better ways.

I'm still in the process of creating/enlarging my customer base, but by now every time i log in i get mails and tells for custom orders (or even just questions how to optimize their ships) to keep me on crafting till logging out (and thats why i even cant find the time to produce items to stock my vendor :-) ).

Some customers get annoyed at first because of the many special questions i ask them while crafting their components (starting from "what color should your new blaster be?" to "i managed to make the reactor with your desired stats, where do you want me to use the last 2 experimentation points on?" - but most of them like this special service after first the time and (hopefully) get back to me if they need anything else. I Even offer to craft them components just for test-purposes and give them the possibility to return the stuff if it doesn't fit to their style of piloting.

I think i could do some more money with filling my vendor with all possible stuff (and doing nothing then harvesting, harvesting, harvesting to get the resources for that), but this way it's more fun for me.
And yes, many of my customers are guildmates or neighbours in the city i live in.
I even didn't need (although i wanted) to put missile-packs into my vendor, because now i get more and more orders by mail, and these orders are about bigger amounts.

btw.: it's gotten the same way with my weapons (my second toon ist master smuggler, so it fits even better) - looks like even with weapons people like the ability to take a choice on customizing stats of their stuff


I hope i'll find the time to at least make some factory runs for missile-packs to put anything in my vendor, hehe...

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styx66 wrote:

k, so far most people are doing mostly vendor business and not much custom orders.

more questions:

If you are one of the few that do a ton of custom orders - how are you getting that kind of business? are you advertising heavily, hanging out in major cities with Master Shipwrigh tag, etc etc? Is it just customers that see your vendors?

If not... Without turning this into a factory issue... How can shipwright be improved/changed so that it demands more of a custom order atmosphere without harming our product?

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I did a lot of advertising at the beginning of my SW career. But haven't sold much than.
Most of the people saw my one day SW titel tag and /tell 'ed me almost instantly. I 'lurked' them into my shop. I never gave just the coordinates, I always send a mail with the waypoint. 1. It's much easier for the customer and 2. they can forward the same mail to friends.

When my first customers came to buy special made parts for them, I had a lot of interaction withem. I did a lot of explanationes about the component, what effect which subcomponent will have, from what subcomponents they can choose and so on. They were impressed. Not only of my explanations but also that I have good pilot skills. So I can guess, what they really need or what could fit best to them.

Every customer was more than pleased with the items they bought and I told them, to spread the word of my shop. Such propaganda is still the best. The best example I can give, was an order for a reactor. The customer gave me very close boundries. It was a Mark3 reactor (or Mark2? can't remember exactly). The customers target was, that the reactor output must be at least 14k and the mass should be as low as possible.
I took me two tries until I had the wished reactor. It ended up with a reactor output of 14001.2. So customer was so happy, that he came back next day with a friend. The day after the next day, his friend gave me a /tell with additional orders.

Thats the way I came to the 95% customer business.

cheers
Exi

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Ackew wrote:

I mastered s/w on day 2 and started a vendor the same day. 99% of my sales have been though it or the 4 others i now have. I stoped makeing chassis a couple of days later when i found out resource quality did'nt really matter. Now and then a master pilot will ask me to make him some missle launcher and missles I did'nt usualy keep as they did'nt sell very much (ie mk2 spacebombs) I aslo did stuff for guild mates. I have never advertised or spamed anywhere. Its been all word of mouth or repeate business. I do make some of the best stuff on my server must be why people keep comeing back I like haveing no factorys it gets rid of the lowballers MUCH more quickly

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Bump, you do manage to make stuff better than me some of the time

On a serious note, yeah I agree with the factory non-support argument, these are big purchases (most of the time) so should reflect the time to craft in the items price.

• I believe strongy thatmy revenue splitstems from theI just don't keep my vendors stocked in a manner that my customers probably would like to see. I just don't have the time to keep my vendors stocked with a well rounded set of components. I'm a "one man band", balancing time between surveying for new resources, checking harvesters, taking inventory, backfilling that which I have sold, and filling custom orders.
  


• On the other hand, my happiest customers are those that I work with one-on-one. I have developed a raport with some customers where they just send me the mass capacity of a new chassis (and possibly other preferences) and I craft them a set of components to satisfy their needs. This tactic is catching on quick, and I have some loyal customer referring their entire guilds to me. Personally, I prefer this type of business, as I have made a great deal of new friends this way.
  


• But, on the other hand, in the process of crafting components for those custom orders, I will sometimes have that awesome crafting session that I wish I could turn into a manufacturing schematic, even if it is a limited schematic. I don't charge extra for components that turn out amazing, but do enjoy customers that let me know that such-and-such amazing component is giving them an incredible experience.

For me it is a bit hard to track. I keep my MSW tag up when am on and do get tells and mails from time to time. I have done many custom orders (over half of my sales have been custom) but also sell a bit from the vendor though several of my vendor sales started off with a custom order. Also do lots of crafting for my PA some of which supliment what I make for them with buys from my vendor as well. So in actual get a tell and do a full custom order its lower but the custom order has led for me at least to more business for my vendor. Myself do not mind the time working on custom orders as it nice way to meet people. As for how get my vendor out there I do not heavily advertize it outside of the tools I have for merchant. I have the merchant sign on the house with name set stating have vendors inside and listed on the planet map. Also list it in my sig but I do not have barker droids or an afk toon that leave logged in at the starports shouting. I do also have the vendor bark that do custon orders for when people do come by. Hope that helps and is what you need.