Tailor Archive
Thread: Pricing and demand for BE enhanced clothing.
I have recently added BE enhanced clothing to my shop, just to gauge the demand for such items. I'd like to know what your experiences are!
I've started by selling Entertainer suits with +14 music/dancing wound healing enhancements. I was able to get a supply of such BE enhancements for 50k a crate (2k per enhancement), and initially I added 4k per enhancement used to the base price of my clothes. Most clothing items use 1 or 2 enhanced synth cloth, so I end up with prices ranging from 5k for simple items to 16k for complex items.
I've been told that my prices for unenhanced clothes are fair (a bit on the low side perhaps), but people tell me that my prices for enhanced clothing are way too low. What would be a reasonable price range for enhanced clothing? I don't need to rip off my customers but I also don't want to deprive myself of potential profit 
Haven't gotten any complaints, though also haven't gotten any comments that my prices are too low. One thing with me is that I look at BE enhanced clothing as a sort of "value-added service" as opposed to a profit center in itself. I only make them in custom orders, and don't generally "push" them, except on friends or good customers who I want to make something nice for.
First off, BE enhanced clothing is a tremendous Boon to the community. Show me another way to permanently boost your skills. No, buggy skill tapes are not an option. The desire to make your toon diff from everyone else is very strong. BE clothes are one of the few ways to do this. Do not undersell this ability in the least. Comp armor easily sells for over 100k and provides only protection. It does nothing for your actual skillset. Being a BE and a Tailor, I can honestly say that in my mind, it is just as difficult a crafting process as armormaking. That being said, I charge 1000creds a point. I charge nothing for the clothes themselves. If it takes two factory sheets, then the second is half priced. If a Mod has two skill benefits on it, like Injury/Wound healing, I only charge for one, thehighest one.
Example...Spec ops duster with a +12 Bleed Def +5wound healing+6Injury healing. This will come to 24,000 creds. Two+12 synth cloths, second one half price, highest mod on the Biosensor.
I think I will cap my cost though as it "could" get totally outrageous. 30,000 is gonna be my limit. This is a very "doable" price.Believe me..high quality resourcesto make the enhancements are not that easy to come by. Eggs, seafood, and milk are in that bunch. Tailors picking up "cheap" crates from BE'swill soon find themselves without mods I fear as theBE thrill of actually being able to sell something dies down and the BE realizes what a pain it is to track this stuff down.
Dridstar wrote:
I think I will cap my cost though as it "could" get totally outrageous. 30,000 is gonna be my limit. This is a very "doable" price.Believe me..high quality resourcesto make the enhancements are not that easy to come by. Eggs, seafood, and milk are in that bunch. Tailors picking up "cheap" crates from BE'swill soon find themselves without mods I fear as theBE thrill of actually being able to sell something dies down and the BE realizes what a pain it is to track this stuff down.
That cap includes clothing with active and passive tranquilizers? I usually try to collect the really rare resources (like milk and good eggs) for my BE friend who makes my tissues, and it takes forever to get a stack of milk big enough for a single tissue!
Demand for BE enhanced clothing remains very high. I purposely don't stock TOO much of it, keeping around 10 items in the vendor at any one time. I want to keep the demand high for such items, and mostly I do custom orders.
Entertainer healing is probably the least popular of the tissues I can tell you from experience. I've had clothing items with that bonus stay on my vendor for a couple of weeks before being bought, however pretty much any other bonus item will stay on the vendor no longer than 48 hours, and often times won't even last a half hour.
As far as prices go, you should realize that 50k/crate is on the very low end as far as tissue prices go, so you might want to take that into account when setting prices. You may have trouble getting future supplies at that same cost.
Bio-Enhanced clothing still seems to be one of the “hidden gems” in the game - the bonuses these items provide are invaluable to the user, and yet almost no one knows about or uses them! Back before everyone had a Master Doctor in their pocket (or second account), I would continually get tells from players who had purchased my enhancements that went along the lines of: “How did I ever play without buffs! This is amazing!” BE clothing is the same way, in that once you have that +25 Wound / Injury treatment you wonder how you ever healed yourself for 25% less, and didn’t mind! Which leads me to the meat of the question ...
The only other items in the game that give you a straight bonus to your skill (SEAs and items with SEA-like bonuses) often sell for hundreds of thousands or even millions of credits (granted the one that went for a million was an experimentation tape). People who know what these bonuses really can do are willing to pay the price, meaning your shirts could easily be worth 100,000 a pop (more if they have a bigger, better, meaner bonus). Remember that the melee and combat-support classes who will jump all over your +Bleeding, +Melee, +Stun, +Taming, +Mask Scent tapes are making 20k a mission all day long. Your items will make those missions safer and faster, putting more money in their pocket. Don’t be afraid to charge what they’re really worth.
But more than pre-made items, I suspect the custom orders are where you could really turn the big bucks: some fancy-panty fighter who never touched a crafting tool wants to look snazzy in his new duster, and he wants to be protected while looking snazzy. Charge by the point of bonus gained, and you’ll both walk away happy, and the customer safer and better looking!
Even with the enhancements, it's hard to sell clothes. Hopefully it will change and folks will just say to heck with it and start spending again. I really have no idea what they are saving their money for anyway.
Dridstar wrote:
I like what you're saying, but the decay issue is really hampering alot of enthusiasm for clothing right now. The Underwear Wars have begun unfortunately.
I haven't seen that at all dridstr - folks that know what bio bonuses do ( and especially since clothing decay doesn't MATTER - at least right now) form a steady parade to my door.
That's the main focus of my shop - and was always intended to be so, nice after 5 months the stuff finally works.
I only charge 500cr a pt - but I charge for all points, so it's pretty much on a par with someone that says they charge 1k on the highest one in a double- maybe a bit cheaper - I think I'm screwing myself a little on the few single bonus items - but that's ok.
The majority of my items come in between 5, 6kish and oh 30k- only a very few ever go above 30k.
Bio bonuses getting attention has reinfused tailoring - but I really don't expect this to last much more than one more month max. How many clothes can someone have that never disappear? This hopla over decay is a nonstarter for clothing - since it apparently never disappears - and apparently works just fine forever....still.
Akaara wrote:
The decay system seems to weed out the cheapskates quite nicely for me. I also like to buy some lower end tissues and offer clothing at a reasonable price so newbies can take advantage of the BE clothing as well as masters.
I agree completely, on both points! 
I have two BEs that I buy from, a higher end and a lower end one. My pricing is similar to the method above, 1000cr per bonus with a markdown on multiple bonuses. But I also slightlymarkup items that "waste" tissues in the factory component slots. And I only charge 500/point for the lower end bonuses to keep at leasts some level ofBE things affordable for newer characters. I just recently entered the BE market, so I'm not sure how well this will work. I'm kind of far out on Rori, so it will take awhile for business to start growing, but I have sold a few things and heard no price complaints so far.
I asked my combat friends if my higher-end prices were too high, and they just kind of chuckled at me and told me how much they had in their bank accounts. Must be nice to be them. I've never topped 150k for more than a day or so. I'm hoping this new BE focus will change that. 
Dridstar wrote:
I like what you're saying, but the decay issue is really hampering alot of enthusiasm for clothing right now. The Underwear Wars have begun unfortunately.
I haven't seen this either. Sales are as strong as ever, but unfortunately due to the vendor bug they are going to cease very soon as I am no longer stocking my vendor. I Have yet to see anyone running around in their underwear actually although I'm sure there are those that do. What I have been seeing however is people buying extra clothing, and people buying clothing repair kits. One customer came the other day, gave me a bunch of her clothing and said "please make me an extra set of these". Then proceeded to buy a bunch of extra items. When I offered her a clothing repair kit she declined, saying that she doesn't bother with insurance and looks at decay as a way to change up outfits every so often.
Re: lower end BE bonuses:
I've actually found a great use for lower end bonuses. There are quite a number of clothing items that have 2 or more slots for synthetic cloth. Recently I've been buying up some really crappy (i.e. cheap) bio materials and making some +11 or +12 medical tissues from them, or some cheap +5 myoflex tissues from them. When inserting these very cheap tissues into such clothing items, because of the new stacking, you can attain > +20 medical bonus, or > +10 entertainer bonus at a fairly low cost. And of course customers love them, not onlybecause the bonuses are high, but also because these tend to be the popular "high end" clothing items that they would choose anyway. Definitely a "win-win". Those tailors holding out for the +17 tissues, and paying extremely high prices for them might want to reconsider this a bit. Not that those tissues aren't desirable and have their use also, but the "low end" ones in the end, can be just as useful if not more so.