Shipwright Archive
Thread: Need an honest 'guess' at your customer demographics...
Coran_Sienar
Wed Jan 05, 2005 2:11 pm
#27
95% of what I sell is munitions and expendables, i.e., things that I can craft with factory support.
4Bidden
Wed Jan 05, 2005 3:36 pm
#28
I mass produce hundreds of components in a weeks period. I hardly get custom orders. Out of 300+ ship/component sales in the last week, I think 2 were custom orders. There you go. I dont consider someone who sends me a tell to make them a armor plate with high armor stats a custom order, cause thats pretty much what most of my customers want, and those are already on my vendor. A custom order to me is when someone contacts me to make them, lets say, a experimental blaster with all points going to mass and the rest in reactor drain...that sort of thing that is not normal.
FuryoftheStars
Wed Jan 05, 2005 7:29 pm
#29
Rogue1970 wrote:
Also, the ZERO Decay for PvP is really killing our market, it needs to come back - at least at 50% decay. There is zero penalty for dieing right now - is that fair to the game or us?
There is 0 decay for PvP deaths on the ground as well. Really the only "deacy" armor/weapons take in this case is from normal use. But to be completely honest with you, myself and many other people that I saw posting on the forums while PvP decay still exisited were actually avoiding PvP because of the decay.
TomoRainer
Wed Jan 05, 2005 8:01 pm
#30
-Padre- wrote:if this thread is going to be used in making a point to the Dev's about factory support and its relationship to vendor sales vs custom orders, i would like to know what basis you and/or the dev's have for thinking a vendor has anything to do with factories? they have NOTHING to do with each other whatsoever....custom crafting vs factories has absolutely NOTHING to do with vendor sales vs custom orders. custom crafting is just that: load your vendors up, create email lists, provide discounts to your best customers, surprise your best customers with a free item now and again.....stop pushing for factories. factories will RUIN the SW business, just as they ruined the arch business.
QFE
About 5% of the items I sell and 10% of the profits I make come from custom crafting. I'd like to do more and expect that as pilots gain more knowledge of what makes a good component for their ship that we'll see some increase. If I can think of ways to encourage custom crafting, I'll definitely add them here, but let me add: factories have nothing to do with custom work, they aren't broken, and they don't need a fix. If this discussion isn't about factories, great--but the first post implied it was, so let's make things clear. Is this thread about factories?
Kalano
Wed Jan 05, 2005 10:10 pm
#31
Sorry, cat sat on the keyboard and double posted me.
Message Edited by Kalano on 01-05-2005 11:19 PM
sbob
Wed Jan 05, 2005 11:27 pm
#32
The thing with armor and me when I fly is there are those time when yoru shields just dont have ability to soak it all up and something comes through. If you have armor even a little it will take the hits over the better interal componets. And as you repair it gets less and less to point that have to repair it more and moreoften and better to just replace. That is probably why so much in armor sales. Armor is that extra safty net that many can fly with so that incase something gets though the shield you other items not getting hit. Does not happen alot for me but can and does and much better to replace an armor plate than a Cap or booster or Engine
Kalano
Thu Jan 06, 2005 12:22 am
#33
Your right, i did group to many in my assumtion. but there is way to many people saying they need crates of armor. Now if your going thru armor that fast, you might want to rethink things.
When i get an hit on my armor, i instantly start thinking about why and how to cure the problem. Either my ship is sub-par, which has happened, or i need more back up because i got to many enemy that i can't handle at that time, which is now happening in increased tier levels.
sbob
Thu Jan 06, 2005 1:11 pm
#34
Was not trying to justify the use of 'crates' of armor just trying to explain why of all compoents armor tends to be the more common return business bar none. I do not think hat many people have bought crates but have had a few repeat buys. Though maybe its just me but I dont bother to repair the armor till its taken a lot of dings first. Though have to say early one when was first trying the tier 4 misions my being stuborn and trying them solo lead to myself going though lots of armor but that to me is one of the benifits of being a MSW myself. But think we have gotten a bit off topic from origianl purpose of the post.
Little-Green-Guy
Thu Jan 06, 2005 2:47 pm
#35
For the 'sake of everything holy'..please let the "additional factory support needed" threads die... (some of us can read between the lines).
btw, 50/50 ....tons of customers orders here...
There is NO Need for additional Factory Support!
ty kindly,
Jagged-F3l
Thu Jan 06, 2005 3:17 pm
#36
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?
Don't have to advertise, except I do register my vendors on the planetary map.
Most of the time I end up hearing from folks that do a search for a master shipwright and I end up coming up in the search. They like my work and refer me to friends and guildmates.
Sometimes, folks come in my shop and don't find what they're looking for and ask. They ask because I have a sign up in my shop telling them to do so.
I don't do a multi-million credit per week business. I'm lucky if I clear a million credits some weeks. However, I prefer it this way for a few reasons. First, I'm a "one man show" and there is only so much I can do. Second, I'm somewhere between a casual and power gamer. And finally, I have other things I want to do.
Would factory support help me? Only to deliver high quality product to more pilots. I want limited schematics that I can create as a result of one of those amazing crafting sessions--you know, the kind where you end up with 3 or 4 amazing successes and just gasp at how well the component turned out. I would love to be able to put between 10 and 25 of those on my vendor, or save them up for custom orders that come up.
Fishbreath
Thu Jan 06, 2005 4:01 pm
#37
Zigmund,
Thanks for what you do as our representative to the Devs.....
I am starting to get more custom orders. I think the space-faring public is mostly un-aware that our profession is designed with the "custom" order as an integral part of the plan.
I think most of our customers seeus as another Armorsmith or Weaponsmith inthat we just mass produce items and place them on our vendors. Most people I converse with seem truly surprised whenI tell them we have no factory support for our components.
I think most of our customer base is vendor sales only because thats what the SWG population is used to. As we in the profession educate our customers more about our profession, and as they become more familiar with flying and differences between ships and components, they will "warm up" to the idea of a custom made ship, so I see custom orders picking up.
For the record, I like things the way they are....I think it keeps the Shipwrights who are 'serious' about the profession to stay andit does play more into the philosophy of custom orders. I think full factory support will just lure resource miners, or groupsinto the profession for the quick buck and because it would be"easier" (with factories) and not necessarily because they like to build ships and components orcare about the profession in general.
BlkHwkDwn
Thu Jan 06, 2005 10:21 pm
#38
Probably about 80% buy direct from my vendors and about 20% buy as custom orders. Those numbers change drastically when dealing with my guild, probably about 50/50 there. So total SW crafting is probaly about 60 vendor and 40 custom. That is with between 70-100 items sold per week on my vendor.
My opinion on Factory support if it matters here, is that it is unecessary and for me very unwelcome. I like that this is a real crafting prof. The idea of this game is not to be self sufficient and to run a SW alt that requires little work from the player. The idea is that people run that character and that is what they do. If you don't like crafting don't do it, if you want to make money, well to be honest you can make more off loot and missions.
4Bidden
Fri Jan 07, 2005 1:50 am
#39
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?
You cant.. You either advertise, or you don't. I had 1 custom order lastnight. I spent quality time with a customer and his YT-1300 to find the right combination of parts for his ship.. But to be honest, it wasn't a "true" custom order.. He ended up getting parts that were identical to the ones I already had on my vendors. To me, a custom order is something you make that is completely different from the ones you've normally had to make for the rest of your customer base. Just because someone contacts you ingame and asks for you to make stuff, doesn't mean its a custom order.. When that order falls within the 90%+ of my products, I guide them to my vendors.