Tailor Archive

Do people really buy twice as much when stuff is half the price?

I've been happily selling bustiers for 1750 credits on the bazaar for the past 2 weeks or so. Not selling them by the hundreds, but a few a day. Sometimes one person would buy two or three, in different colors. Now one of the local "value priced" tailors has started listing bustiers at1000 credits (while I still had 4 up at 1750). So, I'll be looking for some other item to sell to supplement my shop income and do a bit of advertising with. There's no way I'll drop my price when I know what the "market value" of a bustier is.

But here's what I really have to wonder.. do people really buy more when stuff is inexpensive? I've kept a detailed list of all my sales for the past six weeks so I feel like I have a pretty good idea of buying patterns. What I see is, people want a black outfit they buy black boots, pants, shirt, cloak, and gloves. Or cloaks seemed to come in fashion, so I sold quite a few black ones. The people who like variety and want different looks would come into my shop and buy a variety of colors and styles. Price never even comes up with those folks. I usually discount when someone purchases multiple pieces, and more often than not they wind up /tipping me an amount equal to or greater than what my pre-discount price was.

Do people really have a set clothes budget like in real life? Do they say "I'm going to spend 5K on clothes today so I'll go to the least expensive tailor I can find and buy exactly 5K worth of clothes?" Or, do they say "I want a black cloak like that guy is wearing, and I'll just buy one off the bazaar terminal at whatever price as long as it's listed right here?"

"" Ri'a Ocoli
"" Master Tailor, Kettemoor
"" Fine Attire by Ri'a is 1km north of Keren at 1190, 3770
"" .. my door is always open, stop by any time!

Actually...this is probably not typical, but I have quite regularly had customers come to me with a set budget. Sometimes it will be a player buying for his (or her!) in-game sweetheart ("I can afford to spend anything up to 20k on her"), or someone who's come from offworld specifically on a shopping trip. I do get people asking me what sort of outfit I can make for them, for 5k or so.

Well, that makes sense entirely.. although I haven't had that experience myself (yet).

In the example of the 5K customer, if you put together a nice outfit for 4K, does the customer spend the additional 1K on extra items?

I guess I'm thinking more about the bazaar.. if a person head to the terminal thinking he's going to spend 2K for a cloak but finds one for 1K.. does he keep shopping, or just walk away with that one item, saving himself the 1K for whatever?

"" Ri'a Ocoli
"" Master Tailor, Kettemoor
"" Fine Attire by Ri'a is 1km north of Keren at 1190, 3770
"" .. my door is always open, stop by any time!

I would say it depends on the customer and if he/she knows exactly what they are looking for. If a customer enters my shop and asks for a certain jacket in a certain color (mostly black *sigh*) and a certain pants in a matching color in most cases they pay and head off. Sometimes they discover something they like from the display that would match the outfit they had in mind and buy that one too.

The "best" customers are (sometimes, not always) those that just enter and have no idea what outfit they want. I had customers fall into a shopping frenzy after they saw the display and could try several different clothes on Of course these take much more time as you prepare several different combos, discuss colors with them and have them try two or three outfits but usually is pays ... literally.

When I shop for stuff on the bazaar, I really don't pay much attention to the price. I'm more concerned with the look of the item (i.e.color, style ) and with the location of the item. I'll pay more for an item if it is conveniently located to where I am when shopping.

I haven't really found any pattern to buying. I think sometimes people come in my shop, find something they want, leave and do some missions then come back and buy what it was they saw. I did have one female that bought all of my fire-orange outfits!

Sometimes on custom orders, when I tell them the price they go 'thats it?" But usually they don't ask me for something thats expensive to make. I mean a simple vest, lined shorts, sandals and sunguard is not gonna come out to 20k. heh.. the guy goes 'So what the cost on this outfit? 20k?' I was like no... so he tipped me really well

Well I'm gonna try not to worry about it.. as it turns out, my black small bustier sold for 1750 and their 1000 one is still there. Go figure!

I guess I'm just having flashbacks to when I sold Military Travel Packs for 500 and this guy started selling them for 300. He'd put 10 on at one time, so I'dwind up withdrawing my 3 or 4 because I didn't want to tie up my bazaar slots for that long. Then if I found another city with no packs and listed a few there, he'd come along and list 10 more at his low price so I'd wind up pulling mine off again. I finally gave up.

Anyhow, I'm just gonna stick with my current strategy and see how it pans out.

"" Ri'a Ocoli
"" Master Tailor, Kettemoor
"" Fine Attire by Ri'a is 1km north of Keren at 1190, 3770
"" .. my door is always open, stop by any time!

As a note, most high-level combat classes aren't really concerned about a few K price difference. I would personally be glad to pay 5k (or more) for an article of clothing instead of 1k (or heck, even free) if it was more convenient or closer to what I was looking for. 5k credits is about 6 minutes of running missions, for me. My time and convenience is a LOT more important to me than a few thousand credit differencial in price.

It doesn't make sense to shop around for half an hour to save 5000 credits if you could have spent that half hour making 6000 credits... especially if there's no guarantee that shopping will locate the item you want in the color you want at the price you want.

People will base their purchasing behavior on a variety of factors; service, brand recognition, location, aesthetics and of course convenience. Price is not alwaysthe determining factor -- in fact, I'd say in an affluent society (as SWG is), price is almost never the most important factor.

I sell my bustiers on the bazaar at 3k each in coronet. I have no idea what anyone else is charging because I've never looked. I've also never had a bustier not sell within the 7 day period and usually within a 2 day period. I think that good color and good reputation mean more than price on the bazaar where the upper limit is 3k. I've also sold them for 2500, 2750 and finally moved up to 3000 because they just keep selling. Don't sell yourself short on anything because "Everyone else is." If stuff sells, sell it for what you charge. If you go 5 days without a sale, then worry about lowering your price.

Well, I kinda differentiate the bazar buyers from the custom clothing buyers. They seem to be very different types.

A) Custom Clothing Customers

When people set up appointments with me and come to my shop, or have me make up an outfit for them at the cantina 9 times out of 10 their pocketbook far exceeds my ability to satisfy their clothing needs. Their satisfaction seems to not depend on price, or value, but on my ability to give them something that makes them feel and look really good, and if they paid a lot for it they feel it is money well spent. These people's standards tend to be extremely high.

Keep in mind that I am not a master tailor, so the most expensive items that I sell only cost 3-4k, and the cost of such a session rarely exceeds 15k or so, so perhaps master tailors have a little different perspective on this than me.

So, for this type of buyer, my answer is NO, 9 time out of 10 they are gonna buy whatever you have that they want and really like, and that they have more budget than needs.

B) Bazar Clothing Buyers

Here is what I think the typical bazar buyer behavior is:

someone wants some "nice" clothing made by a tailor to differentiate themselves from those who wear the "newbie" or "artisan-made" grind. They are not really sure what they want, they don't have any particular color scheme in mind, and maybe don't even feel comfortable going to a tailor, but just to geneally improve their appearance. They scan what is available based on price (anything under 1k they gloss over as being "newbie" clothing and certainly nothing that they would want,assuming the list of clothing is relatively large) then once they find something they like "ooh, I like that shirt!", they see if there are multipes of that on the bazar and select one based on price & style (ugly ones won't sell regarless of price, but may hurt the sales of better looking clothing of the same style clothing if it is priced higher).

So, for this type of buyer my theory actually is that higher prices stand out in the bazar and help promote the clothing's desirability.The items that I price the highest are the ones that generally sell the fastest and I don't think that is coincidence, so that right there tells you that people are primarily fashion conscious, not price conscious.

Well I'm definitely not going to lower my prices.. I think if I was in a higher traffic area I'd probably wind up raising them. But Keren is asleepy town on a not very busy planet so Ithink I'm where I need to be. Most of my bazaar stuff sells within 2 days or so. Sometimes I'll put something a little different up just so I know I'll have some advertising for a few days - but then I'm usually surprised and the item sells quickly. :-)

I guess I was curious to see if people felt that lower prices result in more sales - I have a feeling it has little impact. The difference between 500 credits for a shirt and 750 credits may be 50% on paper.. but in reality 250 credits is pocket change. I have a friend who just started playing SWG three or four days ago. She already has 15K in the bank and a couple decent weaponsfrom just doing the "kill 15/30/45 chuba" quests.

It's like I tried to explain to the discount backpack seller.. people only need a finite number of backpacks.. they won't buy more just because they are 300 credits instead of 500. You might as well make the extra 200 credits when you can. It fell on deaf ears, though.. the same guy was selling uniform boots for 400 credits last week and I think his cheap tech packs have killed the pack market on the planet.

/shrug

"" Ri'a Ocoli
"" Master Tailor, Kettemoor
"" Fine Attire by Ri'a is 1km north of Keren at 1190, 3770
"" .. my door is always open, stop by any time!

Oh, and it is entirely possible that people don't look at what items sell for.. I just got in the habit of really watching the bazaar as I was working my way up so that I could find "niche" items to sell and fund my business.

"" Ri'a Ocoli
"" Master Tailor, Kettemoor
"" Fine Attire by Ri'a is 1km north of Keren at 1190, 3770
"" .. my door is always open, stop by any time!