Tailor Archive
Thread: Best way to get costumers
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Aori
Wed Aug 04, 2004 7:09 am
#14
Best ways to get customers, in my opinion...
1) Word of mouth.
I'm not talking about spam. I think spam is evil and refuse to do it. I feel bad contributing to the additional lag (at Starports, etc) and upset of others just for my own personal gain and gallatic bank account. Being a new tailor can be be slow at first mainly because you haven't made a name for yourself yet and no one really knows about you yet. That's where word of mouth comes in. Now, imagine you get a customer, or a few customers, and they enjoy your vendor or your service, your selection/prices/display/etc so much that they tell their friend about it, or even their guild about it. Then you get those customer's referals as additional customers. It takes time to make a name for yourself and your shop. But satisfied customers bring in even more. If every one of your customers ends up satisfied enough to just happen to inform a friend about your vendor, you add up customers pretty fast.
2) Be Visible
If you aren't seen much by people, its hard for them to know you exist. Now this also doesn't mean spamming. Some people will purposely not go to a waypoint if their spamming/repetitive advertising is annoying. Itcan make you look worse if you start getting on people's nerves. But being visible is simple. Wear your Master Tailor title (or whatever Tailor title you have) with pride. I usually end up hanging around big cities, primarily Coronet because of it's location to my shop, and almost always have my title up. I cant even count how many times I've just received tells from people who just see my title as I frolic by them. I happen to carry everything I need to make any item on the spot, so when I have the time, I do custom orders there, or even just refer them to my vendor. When doing a custom order in person they usually end up very satisified and happy that they get the clothes they want, which makes me happy, and usually get very exicted when I let them know about my vendor, so then I score another satisfied customer.
3) Location.
Business is all about location, location, location. When setting up shop, make sure you think about what customers you will be having in the area. What is your customer base? Where will you be drawing them from? Were will most of them come from that see your vendor? I have some tailor friends who have shops on the more remote planets like Talus, for example, and they usually talk about how they have a hard time getting customers. If you set your vendor up on a less populated planet, your main customer base would be from members of playercities nearby who actually spent most of their time on that planet.It'd be much more rare to get a customer who's a random transient, because they'd have to be in your area for a reason. If you set up your shop in the middle of no where, even on a very populated planet, it may be harder for customers to find your vendors. If its too far away from a city/shuttleport, you'll have the problem of people who are too lazy to go that far. When I'm shopping on vendors for things other than clothes, I usually go to the most convinient places first. Places that I can find on the map, that are near the most convinient cities, or are in or near playercities that have a shuttleport. I used to have my vendor in a solo house outside of Coronet. Business was okay. I'd actually get some random customers, but when I moved my vendor 1000m away to a nearby playercity, next to a shuttleport, my business increased because my vendors were in a more convinient location. Also, you may want to look into joining a mall. I've gotten invitations from mall-owners to join their mall before, so I know there are people out there looking for a reliable tailor to put a vendor in their mall. With the mall location, when theres other vendors in the same hall you are able to naturally draw from their visiting customers too. For example, I'll go to a mall looking for weapons but then while I'm there, I'll see another type of vendor I find really intriguing and I take a look after I'm done.
Aori
Wed Aug 04, 2004 7:32 am
#15
hakk wrote:
My shop is located less then 1000 meters from Theed starport. That's a good location.
Maybe your spam..oops..I mean "advertising macro" is scaring them away. 
No really, just give it time. No one said being a tailor was supposed to be all easy stuff. Hehe. Maybe instead of macroing, try to talk to people personally. Socializing could lead to knowing more contacts, and your contacts may just need clothes or know people who do!
ArthurDentOnBria
Wed Aug 04, 2004 10:18 am
#16
hakk wrote:
My shop is located less then 1000 meters from Theed starport. That's a good location.
Maybe, maybe not. That could be an awful location, it just depends. How close are you to the "no-build" zone? Do you have storesbetween yours and the"no-build" line?How many other clothing stores are there in the greater Theed area? How close are you to other popular (non-clothing) stores? Do you have global advertising?
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