Shipwright Archive

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KaelBloodbain wrote:

If anyone is gouging, it is the resource gatherers. The monetary cost of extracting resources is nothing compared to what they sell higher quality resources for. The crafters who don't gather their own resources for whatever reason, simply pass that cost onto the consumer. Of course, the crafter could deal in inferior quality resources at a lower cost point, but that shows in the end product, which hurts the crafter.

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This is exactly my thoughts on the matter. With a few exceptions, and you know who you are, I've seen resources sell at disgustingly high prices.

(Please keep this in mind when you speak with your friendly SW )

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cleekjc wrote:

Maybe this should be a wake up call?

The player base is tired of you bending us over with your ridiculously priced equipment. I'll bet these "lowballers" as you call them were other professions that turned crafter to make a point. I only hope to see more "lowballers" in other crafter professions.

I just bought a tier 2 black sun light fighter (not even going to try and spell it) for 50k off a guild members vendor, and a texture and paint kit for 1k a piece, that is his retail price folks not a discount and he is still making a profit.

So open your ears and listen to your customers we are tired of being shafted, just so you can make millions (there is a difference in getting rich and covering your costs and making a profit) and no you don’t deserve to be a millionaire just because you are a crafting profession.......

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Is it ethical for all SW's to agree to a price fixing of like %2000? (For instance a Mark III shield ppl try and sell for 20-50k) Why shouldnt I be considered ethical only making a %500 profit off the bazaar?

I could care less what gouging mega-merchants 2000m away from a space port vendor really think. I guess I would gouge too, but wanted to keep other skils and not surrender them for merchant, I have no choice with the limit of 6k max pirce on bazaar, if I could I would charge more, but thats the max limit they put, and I have found that ppl don't ike to travel very far from a space port, even if a merchant 2000m away has slightly better products.

Nor do I feel like competing with the vast sea of endless shipwright vendors that now permeate the populated plantes in any given direction so I cater to ppl's laziness of wanting to use the public vendor.

If a merchant wants to buy out all my products from the bazaar, its not going to snuff me out., I put it there to be bought, I could care less if someone makes a profit off it cause I made mine.

In fact, I encourage it, becuase I feel ppl should be paying more anyway, but I have no choice with the limit of 6k. Not everyone wants to surrender fun stuff like combat skills just to fit in with their competition- an ethical clique of merchants.

But they'll still make theirs regaurdless of who's lowballing what on the bazaar, simply because ppl want things right then, and if they don't find them on the bazaarr they got to a merchants vendor.

Simply put. lowballing will always exist. Just can't let it get to you.

I saw exactly the same thing when I was a de on the bazaar people were charging like 6k for an mse droid which took very few resources. So I started selling droids that I made (in a factory run of a few thousand) I was making about 2 cpu on them but the amount I was going through it made (and still is making) a nice profit
I still have a few hundred droids left I need to sell.
The main problem with shipwrights doing this is the sheer resources required no factory support and very little decay.
I'm a master pilot and I've only needed to replace one ship due to decay and that's only because I go everywhere declared in space.
What we need is a really big war in space.
and we should be able to repair peoples ships and rearm them in space.
ps the whole selling level3 sheilds on the bazaar for 6k is quite profitable for me.
However if we all did this the market would become saturated and a lot of the shipwrights would go out of business as well as quite a few resources providers.

hmmmm

My take on your questions, as a Master Merchant who's focused on the business aspect of the game for over a year now:


As long as SOE, and the player-base itself, maintain a free economy, same rules apply yes. It's not a matter of ethics on this point, though business ethics still apply. It's simply a matter of what economy is in place. If it's a free (capitalist) economy, then all the associated rules apply. If it's a socialist or communist economy, then a different set of rules would be applicable.

That not being the case, I not only see no reason for any different set of rules to apply, but I also see no way of practically maintaining different rules. Since it's a free market, a non-capitalist set of rules has no way of being enforced. Should SOE decide to control the market actively (as opposed to behind the scenes, which it does now), then it would no longer be a free market and a different set of practical and ethical rules would apply.


Is it underhanded? In part. Is it illegal OR immoral in a business-ethics sense? No.

Resellers have often been attacked by other players. In almost every single case, those players were crafters. Why do I make a point of this? Because it's at the root of the problem, in many ways...

A combat-class has meaningful gain (credits/experience) from looting while gathering items to sell and has little attachment to the resulting item. Unless it's an Exceptional or Legendary loot drop, perhaps.

A crafting class only has loss from the process. Resources and credits are spent in crafting, but more importantly time and effort is spent in great amounts. Until those items sell, there's no reward. Unless you enjoy crafting over and over, which is possible. Those crafters then develop a "bond" with their product, and rightfully so. That bond tends to generate a sense of attachment that can often cause problems if one's business sense isn't in the right place. It's the difference between a crafter as an artist and a crafter as a manufacturer. An artist sometimes doesn't even want to sell their creation, while a manufacturer may take pride in their craftsmanship but is still looking for profit at the end of the day.

The problems arise not from a crafter's approach to crafting, but from their approach to business. You can be an artist or a manufacturer, but your business approach has to match that. I've addressed this in other threads in the past, and two posts can be found here and here.


Why not, indeed. It's pretty much the same question as above, so the same answer applies. However, the difference here is that the seller may be under-cutting the market. If the prices are average, there should be no problems on either side, except with sellers that wish to be notified of resale first.

If the seller's prices however are far below the market average (even if they're still maintaining profit), then you're dealing with a different situation. Nine out of ten times, said seller is trying to "give back to the community." Half of that time, the seller actually means it. In either case, I guarantee that the seller will cry bloody murder if a reseller absorbs their stock. Here you have to determine if the seller is first off genuine in their community assistance (1 credit giveaways, newbie-outfitting vendors, etc.) or if they're just using a warm fuzzy blanket to cover an undercutting of the market for profit. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against under-cutting as a business tactic. I just have something against those who choose that approach as a business tactic and then cry about it.

The problem with undercutting is that it takes a lot of time and effort. Mass-producing, even with factories, is time-consuming and most players aren't ready for that. They'd like to sell cheaper then everyone else but aren't prepared to produce as much as it takes to do that. It takes so much time to keep stock when you're selling cheap to individual players, that all it takes is one reseller to make them snap. Sadly, these sellers are prime targets for the average merchant reseller.

A merchant just starting out and/or not particularly concerned with ethics sees the immediate profit in buying an under-cutter's stock. A knowledgeable merchant can often curb his or her sense of profit and avoid buying out someone who's genuinely trying to help the community, and instead resell items bought at an average or just-below average cost for a higher price. What you do depends both on how well you can sleep at night, and what the under-cutter is trying to accomplish.

The bottom line for me will always be this. If you can accept the risk of resale while trying to provide lower prices for the player base, then by all means go for it. You'll receive praise from the community and lots of dedicated customers. If you cannot however, then you should raise your prices. Not necessarily to high ones, but ones that will dissuade resellers from cleaning you out completely and also ones that you can comfortably live with should someone clean you out. There's the triangle business theory that I discuss in the posts I linked above, which can serve as a guide to all crafters and merchants.

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Very nice set of posts. Pride, I think, is the major problem when people get upset for having their vendors bought out--if their prices are low enough that it's profitable to do so, they're probably getting their fun through providing high-quality goods at prices even the poor can afford, either because that makes them feel generous (and rightly so) or that they're somehow a better smith if they can make goods of the same quality as the shipwright down the street but sell them for 2/3 as much.

The other major reason this upsets people is no one likes having an empty vendor. While you did a great job addressing this, I think there's still a flaw in the notion that if you're selling more than you're comfortable crafting and that's making you mad, then you're letting greed get the better of you: the repeat customer side of business. A big part of being a good crafter is simply keeping stuff on the shelves--I know I start deleting vendor waypoints if the people I've been buying from don't have what I'm looking for more than two or three visits in a row--and if your stock is constantly bought out by resellers, you're losing a) future profit from a wider, more stable customer base, and b) the fun of being well-known and providing a real service to the server. Both these things are critically important to long-term success, and while I don't generally have a problem with merchants buying and reselling a low-priced crafter's stock, these are legitimate problems that a conscientious merchant should take into account.

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TomoRainer wrote:
Very nice set of posts.

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Thank you. I tend to take my time when addressing the topic, because I know it's a sensitive one. And I personally don't care for the responses outcries of the sort get, such as "Yeah, it sucks" or "Bah, get over it." So I try to explain the situation from both sides as well as suggest solutions. The particular set of posts was a day's worth of work so I tend to refer to it when something like this comes up.

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Pride, I think, is the major problem when people get upset for having their vendors bought out--if their prices are low enough that it's profitable to do so, they're probably getting their fun through providing high-quality goods at prices even the poor can afford, either because that makes them feel generous (and rightly so) or that they're somehow a better smith if they can make goods of the same quality as the shipwright down the street but sell them for 2/3 as much.

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But bragging rights also garner attention, eh? You're definitely hitting one of the nails on the head there. There's nothing wrong with pride of course. In fact, I'd be weary of the crafter that didn't take pride in their work. However, one can't expect everyone else to abide by the same principles, and to do so is not only naive but often has a painful outcome. When discussing a similar situation recently, Ciredor said "We're not all playing the same game." There's a lot of truth to that. For instance, some play by real world values while others take on a more idealist approach that wouldn't really hold in real life. Because it's a game and we're all here to enjoy ourselves, one can do that. But not everyone's on the same page, nor can we get upset when we find that out.

Also, keep in mind that both professions have different perspectives. I've touched on that before, but the long to short of it is that a crafter wants to craft quality pieces first and then sell them. A merchant's mind is only on the sale. The priorities are very different there, and both are classes in the game with valid reasons for doing what they do. Most view the merchant profession as a mule for crafter and looters, but I can tell you that many players play the profession as a true class. Speaking for myself, I know I do.

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The other major reason this upsets people is no one likes having an empty vendor. While you did a great job addressing this, I think there's still a flaw in the notion that if you're selling more than you're comfortable crafting and that's making you mad, then you're letting greed get the better of you: the repeat customer side of business. A big part of being a good crafter is simply keeping stuff on the shelves--I know I start deleting vendor waypoints if the people I've been buying from don't have what I'm looking for more than two or three visits in a row--and if your stock is constantly bought out by resellers, you're losing a) future profit from a wider, more stable customer base, and b) the fun of being well-known and providing a real service to the server.

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You're very correct in that keeping a vendor stocked is important for business. However, I'm holding to what I stated in those two posts about greed, and I'll tell you why. Greed comes into play when you expect to service most of the market. If you want steady, loyal customers who come to you, and only you, then you're going to have to limit your audience to them. Either raise your prices or focus on custom work at a low cost. If you want to service the masses, then over-stock your vendors and make the prices average enough to sell well without being low enough to have resale value. If you just want to sell as much as you can, then drop your prices and wait for resellers and the occasional walk-in to come knocking. And don't think that resellers don't provide repeat business as well. Not only do they spread your name across the galaxy, but they usually come back to shops that have low prices to buy them out again. Greed comes into play when you want all three. A steady, loyal customer-base that will always find you stocked, as well as fast sales from the masses. You just can't have that, I'm sorry.

Almost 90% of all resale "victims" are well below the average selling price. Only a professional and experienced merchant would clean out a vendor with average prices, one that had an exceptionally good finger on the pulse of the market, and I can tell you there are very few of those around. Most of the resellers are just after a quick profit and don't bother with stock that's too high to make a definite and substantial profit.

What most of the people who complain would like to be, is Wall-Mart. Cheap prices, average quality, always in stock. Unfortunately, what they don't realize is that to do that you have to also have the under-paid slaves grinding away for you day and night. If each Wall-Mart produced its own stock, I can guarantee their prices wouldn't be what they are. That's the fundamental flaw in the business model applying in SWG. If you want to sell quality and always be in stock, you're going to have to be Armani (not that they don't use slave wages, but that's besides the point). The triangle does hold true, Tomo. People just don't want to have to choose 2 of the 3.

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Both these things are critically important to long-term success, and while I don't generally have a problem with merchants buying and reselling a low-priced crafter's stock, these are legitimate problems that a conscientious merchant should take into account.

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As I stated in my prior post in this thread, a conscientious merchant does have things they need to consider when buying for resale. However, expecting every merchant to be conscientious is not just unreasonable... It's bizarre. They're merchants. Sure, 1 out of 20 is fair and honest, but really is that the image you have in your mind when you think of a merchant? Or is it the shrewd miser with profit gleaming in his eyes? Money does strange things to people, you know...

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While I do not think this is "ethical" I see no real reason why people should not do it, it is a free market after all.

If someone did this on my vendors, I would pocket about 12million credits. It might take me a few hours of crafting to replace it, but hey, the person selling it is doing me a favour, free advertising, loads of cash...what more could I ask for