Tailor Archive
Thread: Do I have to run a shop to make Master Tailor?
AyaneKimusume wrote:
I've just finished my spreadsheet to calculate tailoring prices, and with the base resource, etc price I've set now I'll never, not even at Master Tailor, need to charge more than 3k for an item. The highest price I have in there is like 2.5k I think, and I might up that a little if I feel like it. But the bazaar limit is just fine for posting any clothes I'll ever be able to make.
No, it will never work. Unlearn all your tailoring skills as the soonest possible moment, while you are at it unlearn all of Artisan too.
WHY, do people insist on crafting who have no freakin interest in making money?
Go away, shoo shoo.
I'm a tailor with no shop. I didn't play this game to take on a second job, I subsist by selling using /shout when I get low on money. I do the factory runs I need to, then scoop up the factory.
The only reason I wanted to be a tailor is so I could make something for my friends that they would use. People aren't going to change guns or armor every day, but clothes are more of a 'on a whim' item.
Money is so worthless in this game, I don't know why anybody would really care about making a lot of it. What is there to spend it on? PA hall?
Which is not to say looking at stuff like production costs and tier levels is irrelevant. It is relevant, but really only for getting a good feel for what your costs are - a baseline "if I can't sell for more than this, I'd be selling at a loss, so it's *definitely* not worth making" sort of decision.
So charge what the market will bear. But even that said, you don't necessarily want to charge the highest imaginable price. Maybe some people will buy, oh, a Spec-Ops Pack for 3500. But you might be able to, for example, sell 20 of them per week at 2000 credits as opposed to 5 per week at 4000 credits.
There's also the issue of customer goodwill to consider. Maybe you're making the first Spec-Ops Packs in the galaxy, because the relevant special ingredient has just showed up for the first time in your galaxy. Maybe you could easily sell them for 10,000 credits, even. But you might not want to, looking at the long term. If customers who bought those 10,000 credit packs see dozens available elsewhere for 3000 a week later, that might cause some resentment. And conversely, if people like you and like your brand and the way you do business, they might pay more for essentially identical items from you, even if someone else is dumping the same stuff on the bazaar dirt cheap.
It's always tricky, but I can't condemn any approach that allows for a decent profit. The only pricing that seriously annoys me are people who price at or below cost just because they're "hobbyist tailors" who make money from missions or resource sales or PA welfare support, and don't care about running a profitable tailoring business.
You need a shop/house and here is why.
When you get to master tailor you will find out the lovely little secret I found out when I got MT...EVERYTHING takes a BUTTLOAD of components. For example, a Grand Ball gown take 2 jewerlry settings, 3 trim, 3 synthetic cloth, 3 synthetic cloth, 2 synthetic cloth, and something else I probably forgot. A fleshwrap takes 300 polymer and 4 metal fasterners...these are all crated items. You will burn through crated/factory items like you won't believe, even if you are just mucking about and making clothes for yourself and your friends. (If you have one factory, you can only make one thing at a time...and we are talking a total of 5 different components are used for high level Tailoring items. Plan ahead hehe.)
If for no other reason, you will need a house for storage. You simply cannot carry around 20 crates on your person all the time. Plus you need a crafting station to make the cool stuff.
And if you have a house, you may as well plop a vendor down...even if its the basic machine. Once you start making the fancy items (and it IS fun hehe...lots of colors and things to play with) you will want to sell them probably. Also, if you have kind friends who like to give you resources like hides and plast, they can offer them to your vendor for a credit or two while you are offline and then you can grab them when you log on...I do this quite a bit.
You can be a hardcore merchant as I am, who sits in my store making things and keeps my vendors stocked with over 200 items. Or you can stick to 'travelling' which also works, but in any case the store/house is a necessary evil for storage and supplies.
Roth_Tat wrote:
WHY, do people insist on crafting who have no freakin interest in making money?
You're right, I'm not interested in making money. I'm interested in making people happy, crafting beautiful clothes, making friends and having fun. Money doesn't come into any of those equations. Right now I'm making people happy, I'm crafting clothes (and working up to even more beautiful ones), I'm making friends and I'm having fun. Game seems to work for me. 
I love crafting clothes and I hate asking people to give me money. I'm perfectly happy giving all my clothes away and living on tips if I can make ends meet like that. And I'm not going anywhere. 
P.s. Those prices I listed/calculated are my bazaar prices. In person I'm much, much cheaper. 
- A. Kimusume
"I've just finished my spreadsheet to calculate tailoring prices, and with the base resource, etc price I've set now I'll never, not even at Master Tailor, need to charge more than 3k for an item. The highest price I have in there is like 2.5k I think..."
I'd really love to see how you came up with those prices. Are you going by the 3cr per resource "market price"? I fear you're totally missing out on the things that you MUST account for in your pricing. Huge fees for harvesters (those little personal ones won't cut it after a while), constant factory upkeep (*everything* higher level takes many many factory pieces), housing and vendor fees, training costs, travel costs, time costs.
If all you're doing is saying "well, jeez,Exotic Leotardsonlytake345 resources, so at my cost of 2cr per resource that's only 690cr! Why are people charging 15k for one!" than you really need to step back and think about the costs involved in being a high level tailor. That item requires three different factory components, that's 12 hours of factory time about, or 1200cr in maintenance fees and 600 power or so. Plus there's the 30-60K you spent in the first place to get the factory, the extra costs of having to use larger harvesters since a lot is being taken up by the factory and so on..
"Never need to charge more than 3K for an item", bah. You start at a price that'll cover your costs (which I assure you, you are not doing in the long term), than bump it up to what people are willing to pay. It's supply and demand.
Time to chime in again.
First of all, if we're going to sit here and argue prices, then we really should take this to another thread... But since the thread is already hijacked:
Using the above posts as a reference I charge "those who price based on production costs" (Ogre6369) and "whatever maximizes your profits." (Sue Denim). Firstly, Maximizing profit (a task I have spent LOTS of time on and have a wonderful discussion about it going on the armorsmith board about synth cloth) is more complicated then just selling more. Consumer goodwill, Price, Volume, Overhead, What people will pay; all of these are part of the equation. If I kill goodwill, I kill repeat coustemers, I kill profits. I charge more than what people will pay, people don't but, I kill profits. Sell 5 packs at 150 or 2 packs at 500, the high price actually pays more, but 1 pack at 800 and I loose money. It's all part of the equation. Difficaulty tier and current market standard (If that exsist, and it doesn't) need to be factored. Adequate profit ratios, acceptable losses: all part of the overal view. If one person is finding entertainment (Notice: ENTERTAINMENT, it's a game. Success is usually a quality of entertainment in an MMORPG, but some people are masichist and enjoy failure) at the lower price, because it draws large numbers of people to their store that they can talk to (It is a social game after all) then more power too them. The 'craft 100 ribbed shirts and sell them' method really doesn't suit my tastes, but if they want to do that, they are more than welcome to. If, say, a weapon smith is selling great pistols for dirt cheap, but is a jerk, I still won't buy from them. Same with us. If someone can sell off their labor with a smile, that's their right. I ain't gonna do it myself, but if they want to, let 'em.
In any case, the traveling tailor is a fun one (I do it myself some times), just make sure to get a crafting droid.
Goodwill is throwing in 1-2k worth of accessory items when someone makes a decent purchase from you or is a repeat customer.
Gross stupidity is charging 2-3cr per resource and is hurtful to the rest of the community of crafters.
You, dear, are the reason that pure crafters can barely eek out an existance. You, dear, are the reason that for a tailor to turn any kind of profit they need to pound out Field 4 and mission like a mofo to be able to afford a factory.
Unfortunately by the time most people around you will have reached their mark, unless they are extremely well funded, you'll have ruined any market.
The combat classes make oodles of cash doing missions, that is what they do, it is our job to supply them with the Armor, Weapons, Medical supplies,Food and Fashions they desire and turn a tidy profit so that we may continue to do so.
I charge middle of the road prices and I make a good living doing it, but it annoys the **edit** out of me whenever someone like you is around practically handing things out to people and I have to deal with the aftermath.
Clothes aren't necessary -- the player who desperately wants that black duster won't suffer any for the lack of it. It won't impede his gameplay in the way that the lack of a good weapon or armour might. He can absolutely do without it, and it's for this reason that I don't see any reason to make my prices *ridiculously* low.
I do bargain packs for newer players (matched colours, but with a discount from what it would cost to buy them one piece at a time); I throw in free belts or gloves (or sometimes even both) for the bigger buyers; repeat customers always get a freebie or some kind of discount -- just as a way of saying "Thanks, I appreciate the business". Because I do.
It would be no fun if I could sell nothing at all. When I see packs (which are my reliable seller, my bread and butter) going for at least 500cr less than my going rate (and I understand *I'm* reasonably low-priced)...yup, I tend to shudder a bit.
Four delivery missions (two to Mos Eisley, two back) will net a player an easy 3k. Why they can't afford to expend some more of that on the pack they so very much want is beyond me.
DarcyJ wrote:
Clothes aren't necessary -- the player who desperately wants that black duster won't suffer any for the lack of it.
The ironic truth to to THAT matter is that there is one profession where clothes are not just nessicary, not just manditory, but essential to the continued existance of their character. The problem is: They're the ones that make the clothes Tailors live and die on these unnessicary items, and if it wern't for the fact that the travel pack costs so much material as compaired to a millitary pack, people would only seek out domestic arts IV artisans for the only truely nessicary tailoring item.
Lucky for us, people are vain. Without vanity our profession would be pointless.
Ultimately, the issue is that clothes do not wear out. Once someone gets a cool outfit, they arent too likely to buy more.