Tailor Archive

ok first i quit the GCW because of the endless flames and taunts and pointless battles(no point of a raid if you can't control the city under your faction) and looked into Tailoring..I actually started having fun making my own clothes and selling them. I have opened up my own shop, put up a very nice clothes line display, my vendor could be better stocked, have a probot advertising my 'for hire' sign. Because i am (at the time of this writing am only on FW3 and Tailor 1) i am not charging anything over 6k max for a complete suit(once i hit master, then prices go up). I have also made some descent stuff and dumped it to the bazaar advertising my shop location..I even put up some items like backpacks and putting names on them like come to wp 2939, -2012 and give this to me and get 25% off a complete suit..good for one time use per visit per person..but that backfired when some idiot on my server bought 7 of them and when i /tell'ed him thanks for buying those items and offered the 25% discount, he said, lol hehe,so i have 7 so can i get 175% discount?..oh that pissed me off and i not only ignored him but banned him from my shop.(still getting the xps from those packs though). I even put 1 pack for 3k just to advertise my shop and someone not only bought 5 of my other packs for 300c but bought the pack for 3k as well, but never got a tell or a response to my emails with my offer.

There are even people on my server who won't respond unless they get stuff for FREE..how cheap is that, but they do spend there credits on big guns and armor. I have already spent over 100k in buying/mining resources..but this is getting rediculous..unless the other master tailors are bad mouthing me saying 'oh he's a newbee, don't buy from him or something"...i even asked a fellow tailor once if he could teach me a skill and he said sure, for only 8k, and i was like **edit**? i never charge anyone for skill teaching. how low is that?

tips are welcomed

thanks

Greetings,

The is my personal opinion so dont take it as law but here we go.

Firstly, I highly doubt that any of the master tailors are bad mouthing you. No offence intended but you won't be competition to them at the moment and not everyone who starts tailoring ever ends up as master because they hit the exact hurdle that you have. The servers are becoming flooded with master tailors, however not all of them are succesful Tailoring isnt going to be a fast track to lots of credits anymore and people have to work hard to make a name and get customers.

There are loads of novice level tailors on every server. You have to give people a reason as to why they should shop with you. At your level this is hard, your colours are restricted, your items are restricted and when people want a new outfit, they look for a master level tailor.

You have to remember at this point with no decay on clothing, people dont need to buy new clothing. They do need to buy that new gun or new armour. Both decay and as new resources become available to those classes, the stats on armour and weapons get better all the time. We can't atm compete with that. Our items dont decay, everyone has seen what we can make.

Id be interested to know what you are charging. On many servers now, master level items are being sold for anything between 2000 and 15000 credits. Personally, Im at the high end of the scale. Why? Because thats what a) I value my time at and b) If I lowered my prices I could never keep up with demand. However, for the lower level tailors, the market is very price sensitive. Really, at that level, the best way people can stand out is by charging low prices.

Id keep doing what you are doing, advertising on the bazaar, try and get the merchant exp to get to advertising 3 and go inter planetary (when it works ) Take that droid round the cantinas and city centres with a lot of resources and make people things I really wouldn't concern with how much you make right now (as long as you can *live* of course) but more about making yourself a name. Keep pushing the tailoring exp to get more colours and more items. Sadly, most people want the higher end items that you can't make yet.

As for the tailor who wanted to charge you for training. Well, I see both sides to this. Many of the "early-to-master" tailors had to pay for their training themselves and feel they dont have to give it away for free because of this. Many have had bad experiences with other novice tailors demanding training which will have ruined your chances too. Many who have only just hit master do charge people for training as a way to start recovering some of the costs it took to get them there.

Its hard for me to really comment on life as a novice tailor since I didn't sell anything until I hit master. This was my second account (and just meant as fun at that time), so I funded her training from my bounty hunter and just ground to master. Its now my primary account and I sincerely love tailoring. Life as a novice is hard though because there are so many others around Many novices give away items for free (although not so many since the practice option was implemented) and whilever you have that to compete with its a losing battle

Kind Regards,

Tally, Master Tailor of Eclipse

The key is always finding a good market. There's probably one out there for you, it just might be hard to figure out what it is.

For example, don't forget that every server has new players coming in, and old players leaving. Both present potential opportunities. Do those new players have an inexpensive (but *quality service*) option for clothing?

I have a pretty dominant position on my galaxy's Kor Vella. But I can't serve every potential market equally well. Lately, I've noticed that a lot of local bazaars have become pretty light on clothing. Half of Kor Vella's bazaar clothing listings are my stuff, and the other half mostly a random selection of looted junk. I'd love to be able to list another 50 or so items there, but I can't. I bet someone who listed a bunch of well-chosen "staple" items (e.g., boots and gloves?) from lower level Tailor boxes (and below!) at affordable prices could do pretty well. Finding a small pond to be a big fish in might be an answer.

Or consider other angles. How about jewelry? In most of the bazaars I look at, there's not a lot of it listed - often, none at all! Or Wookiee clothes, maybe?

I was able to turn a nice steady profit selling clothes at every level starting from Domestic Arts III. Granted, I probably had it easier than someone starting now, as I've been playing from day one, but I still think anybody can make a profit as a tailor if they think it through and stay open to new possibilities.

Gaps in the market: Jewelry, Wookiee items, basics (like tipless gloves, uniform boots, flex form shirts)

You won't be able to compete with dancerwear since masters have the cool items and the pretty colors. So stick with the areas they miss, and things that look good in neutral tones And yes, stock up those bazaars!

There's even a (small, granted) gap in dancewear - newbie Entertainers. I'll often sell them a nice but cheap outfit (e.g. Shorts and a Flex-form shirt) that looks better than the newbie outfit, but isn't nice enough that they'll want to wear it forever. Granted, it's mostly done as a sort of advertising and enticement by me (i.e., "when you have more money, visit my shop for the really cool stuff"), but there are some minor opportunities there.

Since you're focusing on FW first, the cantina idea may not help you so much, but something you can try is spreading your bazaar sales out at places that get more combat traffic, though they're out of the way. Mos Taike (sp?), Wayfar, Imperial Outpost, any place a little out of the way never has much on bazaar, so you can be pretty much guaranteed to be the only clothes they see. It will cost you more in travel, but it will get your name out, especially if you make a point to send thank-yous for your sales with the wp for your shop.

This won't get you rich quick, but it may get you some steady customers.

Hmm i assumed when he / she said FW they were referring to formal wear (i still sell loads into the cantinas) - never thought they could have meant field wear

Kind Regards,

Tally, Master Tailor of Eclipse

Thanks for the information..as to what i am charging..I think for now since i am still a novice, i am charging 4k for all the suits on my display and tell my customers that if you want a custom made suit (same suit on display but with diffrent colors), then i charge them an extra 2k so about 6k for a custom made suit. I make it very clear to them that i am limited in colors and that i cannot make them look like that guy in the movie. I have gone to other tailors shop every other day to see what they are charging for clothes and the minimum i have seen for 1 item was like 10k. I have told my customers that i am willing to trade my clothes/make orders in exchange for the materials needed to make them plus a little more for my self. I am aware of the other tailors who macro there characters all day thats why i don't buy from them. Just yesterday i saw one item on one of the tailor's vendor's that cost roughly 75k just for a shirt that had some protection on it against bleed i think.. and some other useless stuff like a flesh wrap that had health health mods on it, but i was like why does a dancer need health protection while dancing?

When I am at my shop grinding or setting up a new display I watch my radar very carefully, as soon as i see someone coming near my shop i step outside, send them a private /tell and ask them if they need new clothes for a good price..sometimes they say no, other times they stop and check me out and even get a order like i did the other day. Just yesterday a naked wookie came by and i stopped him and told him that he won a contest and he is getting new clothes...he told me he had no money and (judging by his starting player pistol, i believed him) so i made him a set of wookie clothes from my new FW3 line and didn't charge him for it because it was the first time i have done wookie clothes.

As for my market, i see people liking the dusters so thats what i am making now..

The health mod in the fleshwrap wasn't for their protection - it's to let them heal mind faster. Don't discount the bio-engineered stuff, because if you can hook up with a good BE for a steady supply of mods, that is where you will be able to make a lot of money. The patch on test is retro-fixing all the mods, so even the ones that don't work today, will work after the patch. The shirt for 75k does seem a bit high, but it's something else you should check into. Even if you're stuck for now selling in all black/white until you get more colors, white spec-ops with medic mods and shirts and bandos with combat mods will make you some money. Start checking now for a BE partner, and you could get the jump on a lot of the non-masters if you have enough cash left from your combat days for tissues to get you started.

Bumbie,

I'm also a novice (but soon to be master at 4-4-1-3) and have not really sweated my shop too much. I get occasional visitors in there, and sell the occasional item, but generally it serves more as a place where people can work with me on custom outfits and try on a lot of stuff.

Here are my suggestions:

1) work on that level 4 box asap. When you get it, you get a new "title" which you can wear, which will distinguish you from the "newbies" of tailoring. Wearing "novice tailor" screams newbie at customers, and nobody wants to deal with a noob. I've gotten a lot more /tells since I got my first level 4 box, and people know tend to start conversations with "I'd like ..." rather than "what can you make?".

2) Get casualwear asap. One real surprise to me in tailoring is that my casualwear (in particular the stuff in the level 3 and level 4 boxes)has probably outsold the fieldware 4/1 at least. This is odd since of course there are so many soldiers, but I guess those people tend to buy less clothing, and there are more tailors offering, which makes a lot more "gaps" for me to fill in the casualwear side. That's been my experience anyhow, your milage may vary.

3) Don't sweat the store too much yet, it's probably premature to worry about it until you get a bigger selection. I am on a server (Bria) and area (Corellia)with a lot of tailor/master tailor competition, and I still sell probably 20k worth of clothes a day, primarily on the bazar. I could probably sell double or triple that if it weren't for the 25 limit, and I tend to rotate my offerings to make people "hungier" for what I offer. The trick is knowing what the value of everything you can make is, knowing what the demand for that is, and filling in the gaps. Sometimes you don't even have to make the clothing yourself, you can often buy low and sell high once you've figured out the angles.

That's a good point. Knowing who you are targeting your sales towards. If I go into a cantina, I'm sure to get orders for casualwear. However I've done a lot of fieldware sales hanging around out in front of the very bustling starport in Coronet.

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KazeyW wrote:

Since you're focusing on FW first, the cantina idea may not help you so much, but something you can try is spreading your bazaar sales out at places that get more combat traffic, though they're out of the way. Mos Taike (sp?), Wayfar, Imperial Outpost, any place a little out of the way never has much on bazaar, so you can be pretty much guaranteed to be the only clothes they see. It will cost you more in travel, but it will get your name out, especially if you make a point to send thank-yous for your sales with the wp for your shop.

This won't get you rich quick, but it may get you some steady customers.

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Just a quick hint for your bazaar ad items. When you name an item something like "Visit Bumbie's Clothing Store" or whatever you call it, and go to list it on the bazaar, choose auction instead of instant. This is probably the only time I'd ever use the auction function, but it guarantees that your item stays up the full amount of days even if someone bids on it. I also usually try to choose an ad item that no one would want for 3000cr.

If someone accidentally buys my ads, I always offer a replacement item that's named normally, and I tip them the price difference between what they paid and what I charge. Most of them don't care about the item name, but it's a nice excuse to start a conversation, see if there's anything else they need, and make a positive impression. One customer actually said that she'd like to keep the ad item because it would remind her to visit my vendor!

Bumble,

When I was first starting I found musicians and dancers and gave them free clothes if they advertised me in thier dance/music macro. That brought me a lot of business. Next, check your surrounding cities. Make sure you are at a city where there are not many tailors around. Try to get as close to the city as you can.

Now that the game is established, instead of flooding the market where you are with clothes on bazaar, travel to places like Endor or Dathomir. Put your bazaar items there. Since there are rarely items on the bazaar in these odd locations they might sell better. Also, interior design helps a lot. People who come to my shop always compliment me on my house. They like to shop in beautiful places, look at it like this. People would rather shop at Neiman Marcus over Walmart if they can afford it.