Tailor Archive
Thread: It spreads like a disease..
ArthurDentOnBria wrote:
This phenomena hasn't hit Bria yet (as near as I can tell, rarely look at the bazars anymore for clothing, and certainly don't put any there) but one thing did happen to me this weekend that was a first.
For longer than I've been a master tailor, people have sold master items for 3K on the Bria Theed bazaar. After doing the calculations of the true cost of the items (including critical fails, factory cost, etc), I came to the conclusion that price would make a loss, so I won't charge it. The fact there is this fairly constant supply of 3K master items hasn't stopped me charging more, and it's been going on for a long time now.
In turn, Icharge less than some of the other tailors on the server, and they still get trade too.
There really is a much bigger demand for clothes than people seem to think. The number of orange clothes I've sold for hallowe'en is a good example... people like change, and there will never be enough clothing in circulation to fill that demand (a fair bit does get destroyed, and it's hard to get a matching second-hand outfit).
, all those people who grind to master cause the holocron told em to do so. They'll factory produce a bunch of master items before they surrender and flood the market with em.
Oh, goodiee. Another pricing rant.
My vendor has been empty for weeks now, except when I'm using it to hold a couple of custom-order items for pickup. I do all of my business on the bazaar, which means that except for special orders, I sell nothing for more than 3000 credits.
No, I don't sell master-level items for that price - although I do get tons of hate from some other tailors over the fact that I sell gunnie's dusters for 1200, bounty hunter packs for 1100, and bikinis for 2050. (My highest price for a non-enhanced item is 4200.)
Let's face facts, though, shall we? There are tons of us out there, in all professions, who are not willing to deal with the following:
- Until player cities with shuttleports and full facilities becomea reality, there just aren't that many places where you can place a vendor and count on heavy foot traffic. On the other hand, since that's where the banks are, everybody passes the bazaar terminals several times a day.
- Nobody in this game feels that they have "spare" skill points. It takes9 skill points just to have a Bulky Terminal, and unless they fixed that it costs a fortune to keep items on it. The cheapest real merchant terminal ties up 14 skill points. And NPC vendors that you can dress up cost an absolute minimum of 34 skill points.
- Right now, one seventh of your inventory has to be restocked every day. Some time end of November or early December, that'll drop to one thirtieth - but if you take more than a day and a half off from the game, you'll still lose expensive inventory when it ages off in the stockroom.
Running a shop in this game is a job for full-time merchants, not dabblers, and very few of us have the patience to put up with the bugs, hassles, and designed-in flaws of being a merchant in SWG. Which means that we sell in person and on the bazaar, or we don't sell. And that means that unless we can deliver it in person, we sell it for 3000 credits or less, because that's all SOE will let us charge.
However, to pick one egregious example, a Revealing Fleshwrap uses no organic materials, no planet-specific materials, and no high-quality materials, so what it costs to make is 420 units of material at about 2 credits per resource, plus whatever overhead you have to charge to cover the cost of your factory and your shop, plus less than five minutes of your time. No matter how you figure it, that Revealing Fleshwrap costs less than 1500 credits to make. Which means that 3000 credits is still 100% markup. As competition increases, I could easily see retail price dropping even lower. What's to stop it? Price-fixing cartels never last.
Brad,you sell revealing fleshwraps for 4200 credits. So, I guess in the eyes of the person selling fleshwraps for 3K, you are one of those evil rip off tailors! What *is* the galaxy coming to?
The "price based on resource" bit has been done to death. Maybe someday SOE will drastically increase the # of resources required for master tailor items - I'd throw a party that day. But until then, I'll charge market prices. Lately I've seen more and more of your stuff showing up on the Naboo bazaars for close to full price (in other words, the horrid prices the rest of us tailors charge). I don't know if you are selling to resellers, or if people have just discovered a way to make some quick cash - either way, money is being made off your cheap prices.
Frankly, I don't find being a merchant all that tedious. I keep 400-500 items on my vendors.. I sell enough on a daily basis that I never need to relistmore than 40 items. It takes a few minutes of my time. The only thing that does annoy me is the email spam, but I just delete those. For me it'd be a whole lot more difficult to try to make a living just off the bazaar and face to face sales alone. Especially since I live on the East Coast, and most of my sales seem to take place after I've gone to bed.
BTW, this wasn't justa "pricing rant".. it was a "don't dump boatloads of the best stuff we can make on the bazaar at lower than prevailing prices" rant. There *is* a difference.
"" 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 think its as simple as this...
some people do tailoring for money, others for the fun of it. its easy to tell te dirfference 
and i think tha tmore than justifies the price hike
Brad,
Agreed about merchants, I really wish there were "real" merchants in this game. I looked long and hard for one and came up empty. Everyone that is a merchant seems to be an artisan who is primarily interested in hawking their own wares, which is kind of a travesty of the whole merchant idea imho.
hehe, well we all know our pricing schemes are 180 degrees apart, that has been well established. Cost of materials really doesn't figure into my pricing much at all, except that when I used to put things on the bazar, obviously I would tend to put things on there that would a) sell well b) cheap to make. Pants, shirts, boots, bustiers, stuff like that that required 2 components or less to make were ideal.
Personally though, I don't think there is much (if anything) above a level 3 box that I sell for less than 3k, and certainly nothing in the master box that I sell for less than 10k, and I just don't see that changing. I'm stubborn that way, very rarely give discounts, and would rather walk away from a deal then try to get caught up on price. I have too much respect for the profession and what it took to get to master to demean myself like that. If I ever got into a situation where I was losing business left and right because customers were choosing a lower-cost tailor to me I'd simply move on to something else since it would no longer we worthy of my time. I don't see it happening though. Custom orders I usually get tipped 2k-5k or so above my price which tells me customers are not cost conscious at all.
How can you justify selling stuff for low prices in bazaar because it's a pain to keep a merchant? I agree that it's a pain, but how is it an excuse for low prices? Same, if you only make business through bazaar, which is fine with me, why do you have to sell master items there as well when you can sell other items that are worth 3k or less?
For the fact that items should be sold for less because of what they cost to make... yes and no. First, items that require higher level of skills are rarer so more valuable than the novice ones. Then there is the market price, and what people are ready to pay for an item. And money is flowing in the game, as well as resources really, what isn't flowing is the number of people able to make an item - that is what is worth the money. It takes a whole hour for a newbie to get enough money to buy a complete outfit nowadays. People have lots of money and nothing to spend it on but clothes. It just makes sense that they have to pay a minimum as WE took the time of learning the skill and of making the clothes.
And saying that people that are charging more are doing tailoring for money is totally stupid, why do you think you need money for when you already have more than one million in bank? If it was the case most tailors would have quit a long time ago. Actually, I'm inclined to think that it's the people who sell cheap who are doing it for money - they sell cheap to make sure to get lots of sales and make more money this way. The main different is that some people value their own time, and some don't. I kinda pity them.
I sell bioenhanced clothing on my vendor only.
I use the baazar to sell lower level tissue +1 - +5 enhanced items more as a way to gain attention to myself.
The other reason for some customers they do not even want to travel 600 eters outside of town.
I am hoping creature mounts will make folks want to leave and travel more often.
AnitaSWG wrote:
Lately I've seen more and more of your stuff showing up on the Naboo bazaars for close to full price (in other words, the horrid prices the rest of us tailors charge). I don't know if you are selling to resellers, or if people have just discovered a way to make some quick cash - either way, money is being made off your cheap prices.
"" 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!
Hahaha, oh man, that's cool, I always love hearing that. I used to take advantage of what I considered "small town, hick tailors" as well back when I was doing the bazar thing. There was one tailor in particular on Dearic, and another on Tyrena who became unwitting suppliers to me on many occasions.
One time in particular it was hilarious. I was in Dearic selling a bunch of my stuff when I noticed this idiot was selling bounty hunter packs for 900cr on the bazar. This was outrageous especially since the steel needed for those hadn't been around in a good long time, and I kept getting /tells from people in various cities practically begging me to sell them to them (and I had none to sell). There were 3 on the bazar,looked and had been on the bazar for less than an hour, no-brainer, I bought em all. Then I was busy putting other stuff of mine on there, and a few min later noticed that there were now 3 more on the bazar, same price. Ah well, must have missed those, very cool, I was certain I could sell em, "click click click" buy em all. Then back to my stuff, anda minute laternow one more has been put on there, same price. Ok, now this is getting funny, so I closed down all the inventory/bazar windows that are filling my screen and looked around, and there is that idiot tailor standing right next to me! I gave him an evil grin, opened back up the bazar terminal, bought his last pack off him, waved to him, then went and did some harvester runs. When I came back, I checked, and no more bounty hunter packs, muahahahaha!, I had completely bought him out, so I put half those packs on the bazar for 3k/ea and the other half in my hometown bazar on Coronet for 3k. All were sold within 48 hours, 200% markup. Thanks dude for making me so much money!
ArthurDentOnBria wrote:
muahahahaha!, I had completely bought him out, so I put half those packs on the bazar for 3k/ea and the other half in my hometown bazar on Coronet for 3k. All were sold within 48 hours, 200% markup. Thanks dude for making me so much money!
Ah, that is just wicked! And oh so funny. I used to do that when I was a novice tailor, buy super cheap high level goods listed on the bazaar just so I could stock my shop with things higher level than I could make.
I sell on the bazaar a lot. I keep a list of everything that I charge 2500-3000 credits for and list those items in various styles everywhere I go. I've actually stopped paying much attention to whatever else happens to be listed. I used to examine the listings and figure out what was missing, but no matter what I put up, my sales rarely last more than 2-3 days, so now I don't bother. I'll have to start checking for master items at bargain basement prices. I hope this hasn't infested my area yet...