Shipwright Archive
Thread: Need an honest 'guess' at your customer demographics...
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Tricki
Fri Jan 07, 2005 12:54 pm
#40
styx66 wrote:
Sitting here thinking about factories and solutions... Thinking about what the devs have said (at least to me) about why shipwrights are factoryless - shipwright is thought of as more of a custom order personal interactive type crafter.
I have 0-2 custom requests a month
I have very little business like that. Mostly (and from what i can see of other shipwrights) i stock vendors and make some stuff for guildies and friends and myself. I have had my vendors on the map, a good name, a reputation, and an ad bark advertising i will do custom orders. On top of that my stuff is about the best you can find, as i use very high quality resources, and i sell at a very reasonable price.
I've watched foot traffic come and go, many buy things, some dont. I've never once gotten a tell or an email saying "I need a reactor with XXXX power but only XXXX mass" or something similar. Not one custom order...
So for me, my guess is that 90% of my sales are on the vendor with no interaction with the customer. The other 10 is from guildies who i mostly just recreate my cookie cutter stuff for anyway.
99.9%+ for me
So my question is, primarily (whether you are for or against factories), what percentage of YOUR customer base is custom orders?
~0.1%
Please try to give an honest answer (i.e. if you are against factory support and are afraid to say you do 90% vendor sales). This is by no means a 'vote' or some deciding factor in to whether factory support is changed. It's just that if most of us are doing most of our business that way then thats not fitting in with the 'design'.
Experimentation has to little effect to justify useing on anything but the primary effectiveness stats
Also i see little content in space - but loot grinding for truely decent parts...
Phaelyn
Fri Jan 07, 2005 1:09 pm
#41
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?
Actually, it's quite simple - I don't stuff vendors cram packed with identical parts. I made a selection of parts using the various different arrangements of sub-components - And gave these to people to test. As with WS and VKs (Damage vs condition vs HAM costs), there are those that prefer a chassis with more mass, and some (Although I don't know WHY) prefer higher HP.
The easist way IMNSHO is to give US more options to craft with. Right now everyone is Mass happy, or damage happy. But what if we were able to offer a line of weapons extremely useful against specific shield types? Along with that, different types of shielding. I think you see where this is going - By offering our customers TRUE diversity in the way they set their ship up, we gain customers looking for that certain item - And we get more custom work.
IIscandar
Fri Jan 07, 2005 3:41 pm
#42
I'd say 10% of my sales are walk in customers. 90% are people who once placed a customer order either by a referral or searching for a "master shipwright". After that first custom order, they tend to return for parts as needed and get them off the vendor. Still, most of my business is custom ordered components with specified mass/energy drain limits.
Mal
Kalano
Fri Jan 07, 2005 5:00 pm
#43
Isrem wrote:
My customer base is 99% vendor grabbing only. The only custom orders I took from strangers were in the very first days. Nowadays I am neither asked for custom orders nor would I do them because I am too busy trying to keep my vendors stocked.
The only rare custom orders that are left are those from guildies, but mostly they just buy from my vendor and get half of what they spent back.
And for all that need special parts I have my space loot vendor full with low level stuff so that I need not craft them and full with nice higher level loot to make some of the credits back I spent on the purchases of the loot.
And I still pray for full factory support to be able to spend some time with my friends instead of sitting at the station only
Raise your prices if you want to spend more time playing with others. Factory support is not the solution. Raising your price to reduce sales will not cause you to loose income, and it isn't price gouging, nor is it Monoplizing at all. The value of your parts is the amount someone is willing to pay.
I said it before, but unstocked vendors is not a reason or an excuse for factories. Its because you are the cheapest or one of the cheapest sellers so your most likely being bought out by another SW who sales your parts for higher prices. You are not required or need to stock the freaking galaxy. sheesh.
Mr_Desert
Sat Jan 08, 2005 1:32 am
#44
I would have said I have the best vendor business on Chimeara. 1 for chassis, 1 for components, 1 for re-eng and 1 for missiles and kits. Its all there, every last component, evert last missiles in crates or singles. I do not do any custom work at all on the basis that the first week of JTL was spent crafting and craft and crafting. I only get to play weekends normally so my time is very limited and the last thing I wanted to do was craft all the time I do get to play so after a week and a bit of solid cradting, making loads of sub components I have reached the state where as master merchant I cannot load any more onto my vendors.
I have components by the hundreds, all levels with different exp to suit all tastes, this is the same for other items also. 4 of each Chassis in the vendor so all I have to do is check what sold and replace.
Crafting to order is a joke, no-one knows whats possible and im not going to make 10 items tweaking here and there to sell 1 item. Make the 10 items and throw them on a vendor, place it on the map in a great location and just let the vendor do what its designed to do. Oh and im not playing 24/7 so I can make a living at this profession. I can cope with no factory support and do not want to see it turn into another weaponsmith / armoursmith profession.
For me there is no issue with the hand craft of components. If you know what you are doing then making items that people want isnt an issue. For example on a cert 5 blaster dont go experimentating on reactor energy drain for example.
Leave it as hand craft
Forget about personal sales unless thats all you ever want to do again
Vendors are you friends but so is advert 2 and a good location
The key is know the profession, do some flying and you will then be able to make the items peeps want for the vendors.
100% vendor sales
Isrem
Sat Jan 08, 2005 5:40 am
#45
My prices are already higher than that of most SW. I only saw 1 (one!) SW with higher prices than me. So there is no way that I will increase my prices any further. I teamed up with guildies to cope with the high demand, and it eased my play a little. We will see how it evolves.
Brilyn
Sat Jan 08, 2005 9:35 am
#46
The vast majority of my business, credit-wise (ignoring chassis), are custom orders.
I get 2-4 a month, for a complete ship (or two) each time.
I have a couple vendors setup too, and I sell quite a lot of RE'd goods, and chassis, off the vendors.
Credit-wise, my business is 90% chassis. 
MMKia
Sat Jan 08, 2005 12:59 pm
#47
I can say that my business is about 60/40 vendor to custom orders. Most of the ppl i craft for need very specific needs to outfit their ships, espically with weapons and shields. Armor isnt so much of an issue.
Mr_Desert
Sat Jan 08, 2005 6:12 pm
#48
I just had a real bad feeling about this thred after replying to it yesterday and agreeing with most others it seems that its vendor sales all the way.
If I ever get a message "you cannot load that item onto a vendor" im dropping the skills faster than I tried to grind them in the first place.
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