Tailor Archive
Thread: Tailoring The Dying Profession!
MaggieMay wrote:
Anemonie, we think too much alike. It's scary!
I have been a tailor from day 1. I never did grinding. I always have had such a constant business from day one that I have never lowered my prices, and my vendor constantly sells out. I'm one of the ones that the other tailors scream about, saying I charge too much. Am I afraid? No.
See I provide a service. There is not a customer who leaves my shop that is not satisfied with his purchase. I make sure of it, and I provide that service in a friendly professional manner. You can come by my shop and most nights there is an entertainer or two hanging around playing music or dancing. Last Saturday was Warm Hat day. Every customer left with a free warm hat, no matter the purchase. It was fun to go to Bestine and see all the people wearing those silly hats. It's all what you make of it people. This is a game I play to enjoy. Try different things, give away hats. Hire entertainers to come hang out or give a new entertainer clothes if he/she advertises your wares in his macro. Get a large house and decorate it tastefully. It MATTERS. Why would people want to buy clothes in a place with mismatched furniture?
The days I go out and hunt, or do questing I get many tells wondering when I will be back in my shop. It's all what you make of it folks. Customer service is where its at folks, anddo not undervalue yourself. You provide something they want. Also please consider your starting artisans and wanna be tailors. If a master tailor sells something extremely cheap, how the heck is the new guy on the block going to even have a chance?
Well said! I wholeheartedly agree that the customer service part of our careers can't be stressed enough. I had a customer point out tonight that a shop nearby was selling the master-level items (and only master-level items) at around half my prices. It was the customer herself who pointed out, "You know...if anyone could afford the top-level items by doing three or four missions, they wouldn't really be so special anymore." Instant mood-lift. 
I dont think tailoring is dying at all,,its changing,,but not dying.
Price discounting:
1. I find that if someone substantially undercuts the current pricing structure one of two things happen,,either they sell so many they get tired of making the same product and stop, or they they sell out so fast that if you watch the bazaars, just place your items for sale when the cheap ones are gone, or switch cities to place your items,,,this happened to me as I was doing travel packs, suddenly my 500 pack was being undercut by a 300 one. I just waited til his were all gone and then began selling mine again at 500.
2. A certain amount of price discounting is to be expected anyway. New tailors have to find a way to attract new clients and one of the surest ways is to offer a lower price ,,especially since if you are not master you really cant offer the complete clothing line, but I am quite sure that as I reach master I will also gravitate towards a more common pricing structure not only to maximize my profits but to also reduce the amount of time I spend making items so that I can socialize more and have more fun over all.
3. I personally hold the idea that a custom made article should always sell for more than a vendor pre-made,,mainly due to the extra time it requires to interface with the client to understand exactly what they want crafted and to also offset the "rejections" you inevitably have when the color is slightly off or the article once equiped isnt really the item they wanted in the first place. Some tailors , me for one, really enjoy this interaction, some dont ,,So there will always be a demand for personal attention and personal crafting sessions and our pricing should reflect the extra value we provide when doing so.
4. I also believe that the market is not nearly as price sensitive as some might think. I find that many players will use ,,"I am almost broke" as a negotiation strategy and if I accidently trigger their interest in another item they suddenly seem to have the credits to pay for it. For the truly needy ones I have allowed them to pay later and amazingly almost always will get a tip sometime later,,usually within the next hour or two,,,So its not necessary to discount even to the newer player,,just offer a " buy now pay later" the ones that do far outnumber the ones that dont.
5. Last and maybe most important ,,and this is the fun and challenge of being a tailor ,,get creative, find an area that no one else is serving and use that to offset the competition, I am very happy with what I have accomplished so far in tailor and I have yet to reach master or even develop a neat shop to attract clients, but I will,,,,but tailoring is not dying ,,its just changing
(Yeah, I know, I shoulda kept that to myself)
jodocow wrote:
man why do most of you instantly assume low prices means horrible customer service.
I charge 1k for BH packs right now while thoranium is available and they sell ok. I feel if i bumped them to 3k they wouldnt sell at all.
I also sell infiltraion suits for 4k which sell like crap and may be getting a price reduction.
I sell my BH packs for 3-3.5k (depending on sockets)and they sell just fine too. HoweverI use a good quality thoranium that's worth about 30cpr and I should have mined more when I had the chance because I am running out 
Altough I too don't have any muck selling infiltration suits unless someone wants a skin-tone match so they can walk around and trick everyone into thinking they are "in the buff" 
Sorry if it sounded like I assumed too much with my previous post. However, when people don't charge for their time and effort it really makes me wonder. Why don't they think they are worth more? It's perfectly reasonable to charge a little extra for your efforts, so why not? How do you value yourself? Do you value yourself? Do you value your skills? What quality resources do you use? Do you tend to your customers hand and foot? All these questions come to mind when I see someone selling master items in the 5cpr range.
There's nothing wrong with pricing competitively, and I know everyone has their own pricing scheme, but there are people out there who charge less than half the going rate and don't use good material for their wares.
Maggie who do you buy your resources from? I've had no luck trying to find people who sell resources with high oq and decay resist.
jodocow wrote:
man why do most of you instantly assume low prices means horrible customer service.
I charge 1k for BH packs right now while thoranium is available and they sell ok. I feel if i bumped them to 3k they wouldnt sell at all.
Well ... wasn't trying to throw rocks at the low price folks but if you stop and think about it, there are really only 4 motives to select one vendor over another:
Price ... Selection ... Convinience ... Service
Obviously I do not offer lowest price ... yet I get tons ... and I mean TONS of business (going over the 3 mill credit mark now and have only been a master a few weeks). Most folks on my server know about the low priced tailors as some will ask why my prices are where they are every now and then. Yet my clientel is growing.
So of the remaining three reasons (Selection / Convienience / Service), something must be vastly valuable in what I offer my customers.
In some cases it might be my huge selection .... my prices allow me to afford 5 vendors and the resources to keep them stocked with 500 items. Perhaps it is my location ... my shop is only 1 minute outside of Bestine (the busiest city on my server). Or perhaps it is my customer server ... refund policy of no questions asked and I love doing custom orders.
All I know is that some combination of those variables allows me to stand tall in a sea of low price tailors ... and to thrive at that!!!
good quality thoranium that's worth about 30cpr
This is one good reason why universal pricing wouldn't work. When Thoranium finally popped on my server, it was on at least 4 different planets, and stayed up for over a week. It's even respawned once since. The day it spawned I threw a few BH packs on bazaar at 3k, then did a galaxy wide search and saw at least 50 listed in 3 Tatooine citiesat 1500. Within 3 days, thoranium was selling in massive quantities on the bazaar at 3cpr. Today I can find BH packs on bazaar as low as 800. Before we ever saw Thoranium, I'd estimated (conservatively) that it wouldn't go for less than 10cpr, and as it turns out my neighbor couldn't manage to sell it at 6.
Economies are just too different between the servers and between the planets on each server. On some my prices would be absolute rock bottom everyone hates me. On the other hand, I've been in at least a dozen shops that undercut me on Chilastra, mostly in high population areas on other planets, some that charge 1-2k more, and some charging 10x's my prices. We have some real extremes, while other servers seem to have a happy medium, but what it comes down to is what works on Tatooine Bria may be so far removed from Naboo Starsider, there's no way you could find a scale that would work across the board.
If you use good quality and decay resist resources, then Nivea's prices seem about right. However, if you use the *best* resources, then higher prices are certainly justifiable. It's not easy scouring the earth to find the really really really really really GOOD stuff. I'm having a hard time finding high oq metal suppliers.
I am on Flurry and currently I have seen 4 Masters throw in the towel. I fight daily just to break even. Expenses are killer. Three vendors that want 5K each daily. You cannot sell if you don't have a good selection of clothing. There is also maintence on the house, factory (s), and harvesters, wind machines. If you don't have them, then you are at the mercy of the pricing on the Bazaar for your needs, which include hides too if you don't hunt them yourself and with the current price war, this would definately put you out of business.
We are doomed unless we try to do something. But what can we do?
Wow, 5k each daily. I got myself to novice merchant (and no further) just so I can use 2 NPC vendors. They look really nice, add a really nice atmosphere to the shop, and they essentially work for free, lol. It is a tough decision however, since by selling back all my business skills and the novice merchant I could free up a ton of skill points (that I really really could use) but oh well, that is the choice I made.
Money-wise, my experience is much different than yours, but yea, if I was paying 5k/day that would change things. I have no trouble selling everything I put on the bazar, and that adds up fast, and get plenty of custom orders, and some "walkins" to my shop, so money is really not an issue for me.
My advice is to get to know what opportunities you have to sell, and take advantage. Thank goodness for the 25 item limit in bazars, that's all I can say. I sell items in 5 different cities in the bazars, and so I've learned what the demand is in each city for certain items, and look for optimum selling opportunities. When a tailor in one of the cities regularly charges far far below what I do for a certain item, I just let them have that market. I wish they didn't do that, but oh well, lots of other items that sell well. Occasionally a tailor will charge much more than what I charge (although this is rare) in which case also a good selling op. But more often I look for items where there is demand and no competition. That is definitely the "sweet spot".
I honestly can't say I've seen a dropoff in sales in the past week or two. Sales are very good, no complaints. Of course I do worry about the longer term though. No clothing decay really really hurts, as does the fact that not more is being done with the bio components (fixing them, making them more attractive etc.). I was real disturbed to read yesterday that they are actually removing our most useful bio-component from clothing (the medical use one).
Anyhow, I say no to price fixing (won't work, no real need for it), but certainly wish there was clothing decay and better bio components which would could potentially cause a new flurry of clothes buying.
jodocow wrote:
man why do most of you instantly assume low prices means horrible customer service.
I charge 1k for BH packs right now while thoranium is available and they sell ok. I feel if i bumped them to 3k they wouldnt sell at all.
I also sell infiltraion suits for 4k which sell like crap and may be getting a price reduction.
But ask any one thats bought an item from me in person, I give excellent CS remaking items to match offering different items that may look better.
Ahh well just my two cents on the hey his price is lower then me issue.
This is a lie that makes them feel better. "That tailor obviously doesn't do custom stuff." They never answer your question, they just keep repeating it in other threads.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Charge what you want and if someone doesn't like it, tough.
Ghartan wrote:
Perhaps it is my location ... my shop is only 1 minute outside of Bestine (the busiest city on my server).
If you're based out of Bestine, you're going to have to stop playing the Martyr by bringing up my name. I'm based off of Mos Entha. I've told you repeatly in threads that you're complaining about another tailor (one that charges more than I do). Look like you've just proven that.
Jowimalla wrote:
What worth si good materials now? There is no durability or decay.. It make effect teh number of sockets..but so far I have found this not to be true. Can someone correct me on that one?
In my experience better materials usually = more sockets and less crit failure- however there's been someweird stuff going on with one of the last patches and a lot of people's crit failure rate is borked now.
I know experimentation was taken out and that decay isn't in yet, this doesn't stop me from using good resources. Why? Because at some point decay *will* be put into the game.I don't want the clothes I craft now to fall apart in once decay is in. People remember who they buy from. Using poor quality materials now- even thoughdecay will be patched in the near future- is going to bite you in the butt.