Tailor Archive
Thread: How to make a profit?
okay this is something i am having trouble seeing, how are you suppossed to make a profit and remain in business when
A:
your items last forever
B:
it took me only 2 weeks to master tailoring and i work and goto school full time
C:
one person could if they wanted to supply everyone on the server with atleast one itemevery 2-3 days time using factorys.
it is perfectly possible that one person on a server could say produce 1k dusters and give them away free, those dusters would last forever and no one would need to buy a duster like that ever again.
seeing how you are forced to make profit off player sales i dont see how most crafters are going to be able to remain in the game with just money coming in from crafting.
I have been lurking here for a while (Message Boards and me are just a bad mix all around, serious addiction there) but have decided to respond to this post for some odd, unconcious reason.
I am not a master tailor (yet). Yes, I grind away some days, but other days, I just make clothing to stick on the bazaar or vendor and other days I run around in combat. (ed. note: While this doesn't really pertain to the question at hand, it's more or less offered as "Yeah it can be done." type thing.) I have no problem making a profit. In fact, I was on yesterday, just checking my extractors, guild stuff, houses etc, and I get a tell from another player: Thisplayer had askedme to makean item several days ago, but I wasn't the right level so I referred her to a Master Tailor who's always been friendly to me. She thanked me for the referral and then proceeded to buy a few things off my vendor.
"Can you make rings?"
"Sure, which one, metal band or signet?"
"Metal Band."
"Not a problem, what color do you want?" (I have two in a platinum color on my vendor figured I could pawn those off 
)
"Gold and how much?"
(Cripes, means I have to call moth my little droid, no biggie. I look at my pricing sheet, and then look at my little notebook that shows my customers and what they bought and for how much. Hmmm, she's pretty regular, not one large purchase, but a few small ones over time. She wanted a custom name too, which I would normally add a surcharge, if only because I won't put my label on custom engravings unless appropriate, but I figured, that I wasn't doing anything, she actually looked for me... etc.)
"1500. But if you don't like the color, you have to be honest and tell me and I will replace the item with one closer to your choice."
"Wow, ok, will be right there."
(A few moments pass, the color isn't right, I make a new ring for her and give it to her, she tries to pay me for the second ring as well. I refuse, like I said, over time she's probably spent about 25k at my vendor, I am not about ready to be greedy. She get's two rings for the price of one and yeah, I lose a little bit as far as the instant cost goes, but... and this is key, I am well rewarded later that day.)
I log off to clean the house and get some work done and then decide to log back on to do some guild stuff. I am rewarded with 5 emails, "Soandso told me that you made her this ring... etc, I bought this off your vendor and was wondering if you could make me this to match?" (Or something along those lines.
The point of this digression filled postis that if people have the credits to spend, they will spend them on "luxury" items. It's the customer service aspect that will either keep the customers coming back or going on to someone else. One of my customers has 5 pairs of uniform boots he bought off me. Why? No idea, maybe he wants to coordinate, maybe he wants to outfit a friend, maybe he just was feeling nice. My prices are on the higher end, and yet I still sell at least 5 items off my vendor a day (and those are slow days) and get several custom orders when I am on. My title is uniform marshall (will be costumier tonight) and I have the helper tag as well. (Note: I only added the Helper tag when I felt that I could satisfactoraly answer people's questions. Don't just throw it on if you don't know or can't find an answer.) Customer satisfaction is my main priority and to be honest, the only one I care about. If you buy something off my vendor, you get a personal thank you note. (Yeah it takes away time from grinding, but it's woth it in the long run.)
I don't think that profit will ever be a problem for me, not when I have a small little fan club now and not even a master tailor.
As a side bar, I give away a lot of articles of clothing, especially to guild members who give me or my boyfriend (yes we both play, and he actually had the forsight to be a BE too) resources. When someone says, "Gee that looks cool, where'd you get it?" They give out my vendor's location and my name. When I can't do something for someone, they tend to be a lot more understanding and when I try to find a suitable replacement, they are appreciative enough to either try to tip me (I refuse all tips. You don't tip in a department store in real life and I don't expect my customers too either.) or go to my vendor and buy several items.
Ok, I'm done babbling, you can all go back to your regularly scheduled programs.
A-Ti
I think what's really going to jump start the tailor economy is when skill enhancers start dropping again, and when they actually work. As people get more and better enhancers, and run out of sockets, they will come back looking for more clothing to put their new enhancers in. Also, anyone out there who has less than 4 socket clothing will be motivated to get 4 socket pieces so they can put in the maximum number of enhancers.
As people change professions they will need different skills enhanced. And those who have two diverse professions (like me) might have an outfit for skill enhancements for TKA, say, and another one for Tailoring, or Pistoleer, or whatever.
So there will be incentive to have high-socket, specialized enhancement clothing. If they fix the skill enhancers, and if they drop enough that they matter.
Art,
Makinga proft at this point in time, on my server, is not actually a problem, but of course with no item decay will become tougher over time.
All you say is true, but realistically, the critical component to tailoring is not materials, or factories, or ..., it is simply time, and convenience for customers. Since tailoring is probably the most "hands on", and "service oriented" of the artisan professions (with the exception of probably image designer) one or two or even three tailors can't possibly meet all the demand in a single decent sized city. Some people do buy outfits through the bazar, yes, but I've found that an awful lot of them simply like the experience of going to tailoring shop, doing a brainstorm with a tailor on a new outfit, and trying stuff on. That experience as much as anything, is I think what we sell.
ArtMaggot wrote:
okay this is something i am having trouble seeing, how are you suppossed to make a profit and remain in business when
A:
your items last forever
B:
it took me only 2 weeks to master tailoring and i work and goto school full time
C:
one person could if they wanted to supply everyone on the server with atleast one itemevery 2-3 days time using factorys.
it is perfectly possible that one person on a server could say produce 1k dusters and give them away free, those dusters would last forever and no one would need to buy a duster like that ever again.
seeing how you are forced to make profit off player sales i dont see how most crafters are going to be able to remain in the game with just money coming in from crafting.
It seems to me that a lot of people are/were making posts about what are we going to do about making profit, prices will raise/drop, items last forever, business is decreasing, business is eventually going to stop... etc etc etc.
All I have to say is that... I have not seen a decrease in my business.
at all.
What about you other Ahazi tailors?
Although I support the clothing needs decay movement, I'm not really worried about it right now. Yes, some people aren't fickle, and stick with the same outfit forever and ever and ever... but some people DO like change. and there will always be people who like change, and there will also always be new players who need clothes.
On another note...I would like to know if anyone else has been logging the complaints about decrease in business etc... Is there any sort of trend? such as server, planet, city...
People really don't mind spending money on luxury items. There are a lot of people complaining that there is nothing to spend their money on. You've got to sell the idea that it's fun to buy new clothes.
I started as a tailor after the first master tailors had appeared. There were a lot of them by the time I opened my shop (at the time, I only had field wear one). My business is increasing steadily, especially among entertainers. Getting master tailor saw a spike in the business increase. I'm getting regular customers, and they send other people my way. Especially two-tone items are great, as noone could store a full range of the possibilities... I make grand ball gowns in a different colour mix everytime, and a lot of people that buy one, will come back and buy another later.
I suspect we only see one side of the story. Someone's business is failing. Is it because the clothing market is saturated, or someone is selling for less next door... or is it because they offer a poor selection on their vendors, the location of the shop is bad,they aren't friendly to customers, their prices are way too high for their target market, the way they organise/label clothing is disorganised, or their advertising is poor? I think the main point is there is now competition, so every aspect of the business has to be working well to succeed. It's easy to blame a business failure on lack of clothing decay, when it might be that something else needs tweaking to get the sales.
I actually kind of disagree to a a certain extent that people will stop buying clothes because it degrades. Eventually it will, but I find that the more boring the game gets and the more money people seem to hoard, the more people seem to buy clothes to relieve the boredom. The people in this game are itching to buy something because frankly there isn't a whole lot to buy in SWG.
I mean after people buy the entire wardrobe in black, red they seem to go to odder color choices. I know I have made quite a bit of money from customers who want a little bit of originality, therefore I tend to offer different shades of colors. Like, for instance I offer 4 shades ofthe 29th row of blue (which I call Royal Blue). That particular shade of blue has some amazing gradients. I understnad that eventually the clothes market does dry out but at least it will extend your business a bit. I don't know if all of you agree but that seems to be my take.
