Tailor Archive

Great post Cytherea!

When I heard the person in the cantina today talking about this tailor and how cheap they were, I almost hung up my tailor hat. I am also a dancer, and you know it'snot that easy to make a good living just as a dancer.

I do have fun playing dress up with people though, so that is very rewarding. But I also don't want to be driven into the poor house.

Thanks Cytherea. I had a dancer character in beta and felt exactly the same way. The high ticket clothes were special because not everyone could afford them right off. They were something to work towards. When I could finally afford one, it felt like a real accomplishment, and that was a better feeling even than getting a good deal.

It's nice to know that there are other non-tailors that still feel that way.

Hmm... maybe we ought to cross-post this to the merchant boards. I mean, isn't that what being a 'pure' merchant is all about? Buy low, sell high!

First, I just want to take a moment to thank the vast majority of other tailors on Starsider. On the whole, I've found it to be a great group of people, willing to accept that our profession may never make us the wealthiest people on the server, but glad to fill a niche that makes people happy and always willing to treat each other with respect. I've met many of you, and for the most part, have always walked away considering you colleagues instead of competition.

As far as people like Snowleeper, who never fails to amaze me by saying something even more aggrivating every time he posts, well, there's not much we can do about it. He'd like us to believe that he's just another cog in a realistic economy simulation. Of course, this doesn't take into effect the very unrealistic ways he gets his resources or finances his operation. In reality, he's just another form of griefer. Or, as my fiance put it, "Some people just get off by s---ing in everybody else's ice cream sundae." He wants to defend himself by saying he's not breaking any rules, which is in part true. Certainly he's doing nothing for which he could be banned, at least that we know of. But how brilliant of a business plan is it to sell something for 2000 credits that would sell equally well at 5000, and still be well under any reasonable tailor's price? It's not. Oh, sure, he may be "turning a profit", but surely he'd turn an even bigger profit by selling that item for at least half it's actual market value. But that just wouldn't irritate everyone else enough to please Mr. Leeper. And I'm singling him out only because he's the self-righteous, vocal culprit on my server... there are others on other servers, and I'm sure they're no different. And while they may not be breaking any written rules, I'd call failure to be a decent human being a pretty notable violation.

So now we have players signing on, running 4 newbie missions, and affording grand healer's robes. Well, yeah, you folks sure did a number to the economy. Congrats. While the rest of us were giving people something to work towards while selling our very best items at 5% of what master architects sell their ultimate wares for, you've taken it upon yourselves to bring that down around everyone's ears. SOE did us the favor of allowing the players to control the economy, and you've proven soundly that we're not up to the challenge because a few of us are too busy tearing things down to fill that little void left when dad didn't pay us enough attention. Ah, yes, you certainly are powerful, irritating many people around the world. Even bad attention feels good when you don't know any better.

The most ironic part is, I joined Starsider on day one expecting it to be a more mature server. Evidently, I was an idiot.

Well, I tried reaonsing with our undercutter who is doing the same thing that started this post... on Tarquinas. He's selling his stuff for 2k-3k credits for MasterTailor items. His response is that if I feel it's right to price gouge people then that's my way of doing business So I guess that's his way of doing things... but this disapoints me greatly... I know I already have a good name on my server and many customers that come to me to buy their things even from other planets. I think I 'm very fair with my prices, I even sell newbie packages to new entertainers that come in and have other accomplised dancers that have bought my higher priced items swing by to pick them up for their new newb (those diaper over the underpants thing and red shoes uck! But I still feel, as most of you do that the Master Tailor items AT LEAST should be worth much more for the simple fact that most of us trained ourselves, have to run a a shop, our own harvestors (or buy resources), our factory, keep maintenece up on our homes and vendors etc. These things should simply be worth more!! ... Well ladies n gents on Tarquinas hold your customers close, as most of them are your friends now as well, and dont' stoop to this low. Hopefully this guy will get burned out quickly from mass orders and losing money...

Lola Cabana your lovely Master Tailor

Lola,

If you don't mind I will be contacting you in-game to discuss the tailor prices. I have only briefly talked to other Master Tailors...who all seem to be on Naboo...but you had mentioned price standards on Tarq. and I would very much like to get you opinion. I don't have a vendor of my own and usually only do custom work...but I would still like to be consistant with the rest of Tarq.

Thanks

Well as a tailor is that is just up the road from Snowleeper (so to speak), I am not worried one bit by the pricing he does.

Good example why happened last night.

I was helping a customer in my shop with a custom order (he flew from Dathomir just to meet me) ... when another customer came in who was a regular. The new customer though started asking why I was charging so much for my Fleshwraps (10k) when the *other* tailor was charging so little (5k she said). I responded that that is the price I need to charge to maintain a big inventory here.

She huffed a bit ... but then proceeded to buy about 15-20k worth of clothing from me (non-Master items). I asked why she didn't buy them from the other tailor and she responded that he didn't have the selection I did.

So ... as long as I can continue to have loyal customers flying in from far flung planets and have folks that still like having a large selection to choose from, I don't worry a bit about him.

I'm dissapointed to hear that this guy wants to steal all the business away. Hopefully he will get burned out and move on. I refuse to stoop to his level.

I have two tailors 2 doors down in different directions from me. You would think I would try to undercut them. I don't. I sell my stuff for the same price. I just try and keep a different variety of things in my vendor.

Maybe we should all get together on Tarquinas for a tailor's union meeting.

Zephyr, I will also keep in contact with you so that we can keep our prices about the same too.

Hey LoraJ, did you happen to be in at the Moenia Cantina?

If so thats probably me.....I'm not goin to hide.

If you honestly think that ANY Master Tailor level item is worth 10k,....well I feel sorry for you. And no I dont unsually charge 3k for master level stuff, I probably gave them a break on that item, thats what I do for my loyal customers.

My master level stuff usually goes for 5-6k but never for more. Im not trying to drive anyone out of business, matter of fact, Ive been a master tailor for a couple of weeks now and no one from this supposed Master Tailor Union has approached me about setting fair prices, so I set my own prices to what I thought it was worth to me.

And by the way Niveas prices are outreageous.

Nivea's prices may be outrageous, unless you've ever taken an economics course. Laws of supply and demand, you figure out how many of an item you want to (or can) supply and find out how many you can sell at a particular price and where those things intersect is where you price it. It's a bit of a balancing act, but guess what, I can sell 2 revealing fleshwraps at 15k per Nivea to get 30k credits or 5 of them at 6k credits. The time it takes me to make and sell 2 of them is much less than your 5 and frankly that's about all the time I want to put into crafting revealing fleshwraps...and I sell them, so why would I ever ever charge less than that? Your pricing basically floods the market with cheap goods when there is no reason to do so. It's not unfair, it's not price gouging, it's pure, simple economics. Selling that cheaply is STUPID. There is no other answer. That being said, sell it for whatever you want and I'll still sell my two to the people who like my brand name. Demand is thankfully higher than supply and I've already made my fortune.

Ok now I'm stupid.

And I thought we were having an interesting discussion.

Actually, I didn't say you were stupid, I said your price was, which is a large, but very important distinction. Perhaps the economy of your server is different than mine and they won't sell for 15k, but rather for 12k or even 10k, and you're selling for 6k. Ignoring what this does to everyone else, because, frankly, they aren't your concern, you're stealing from yourself by the lowball price. You'd sell just as many of them at 10k with more profit for each, or perhaps you'd sell one less, but if you sell one less, even better because the difference in price has more than made up for the lost profit from one sale AND you still have those materials to make another sale tomorrow. Just think about it.

Stealing from myself, thats hilarious.

If we were to use the .65 credits per unit of resource model that seems to be popular, it only costs me 199 credits to make a fighter flight suit that I sell for 5000c. And I'm stealing from myself. LOL

Of course I hope none of my customers read this, and find out how much profit I'm making with my prices. Much less yours.