Tailor Archive

I am a novice tailor on Lowca (4-4-2-0), and I am currently making enough in bazaar sales to cover my vendor, harvestors and factory. Almost all of my sales are comming through items that I sell on the bazaar, and almost no one ever comes to my vendor. I have put items on the bazaar that advertise my shop, and I send out mail to everyone that purchases reminding them of the location of my shop and how I do like to do custom orders.

I don't really want to take the step of near giving away my clothes, as I feel that would make the climate worse for every tailor on my server, but I need some ideas on how to increase cash flow, and how to get poeple to run the 1200m from Mos Espa and come into the shop. Any ideas out there from smarter folks would be very much appreciated.

Thanks for your time and input (if there is any )

One way would be to train some Merchant skills so you can put up a advertise on the planetary map.

Takes 3 boxes in Merchant to get that feature, it's kinda buggy and needs to be reseted everyday though but still it puts your shop on the map atleast.

You can also include the location to you shop in your signature on this forum

I don't have the advertise skill myself yet, but when I try to find a vendor that's the first place I look atleast. I rarely look on the bazaar to find shops.

That's some ideas, but I'm sure there's some more ways to do it aswell.

Well, here are some thoughts I have...

Is your shop in a good location? When you are just starting out, people may not want to run 2400m round trip just to come to your shop. Early on your neighborscan be a good source of business and referrals. I placed my shop near another successful business, and in an area that seemed to have a lot of food traffic.

Is it easy to get there, or do you have to avoid a whole bunch of aggro mobs on the way?

Is it worth the trip? Is your shopdecorated (a few pieces of furniture and some flowers go a long way), with a decent selection on your vendor? There is nothing worse than running a long distance only to find an empty house with a vendor with a handful of items on it.

For a long time I thought my shop would never generate much in the way of sales - but the time I spent (and it was a lot of time) scouting a location seems to have paid off. My neighborhood seems to be adding more houses every day, and sales at my shop are way up.

"" 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!

On location, I'm not sure if I was just lucky or what, but I seemed to stumble on a good one. Basically, I bought a small house as soon as I could afford one, pretty early in the game. My placement strategy was pretty unscientific method of "walking due south from Kor Vella star port and building in the first spot the computer will let me." I seem to get a smattering of walk-in traffic, but a lot more people who are specifically coming out to my shop.

Word of mouth is, I think, my biggest asset, though it's easy to say that, not so easy to generate it, and I don't think there's any magic formula. I think a lot of it is to get out there hustling. Hang out in the cantinas or other places with lots of people, get to know them, make clothes for them, have them leave happy and ready to tell people where they got their cool outfit.

Something I generally try to think about: Is buying an outfit from me fun? Is visiting my shop fun? Remember, SWG is a game - entertainment for the people playing it. Ideally, you want the shopping experience to be entertaining, providing positive "fun value" to your customers, or at worst a neutral experience. Again, I don't think there are any magic formulae to doing this, but if you keep it in mind, you'll probably end up doing it.

Thank you for your thoughts. Unlike a lot of posters, I'm still having fun with tailoring, and your help is very much appreciated.

I have a similar problem. I have lots of money, that isn't at issue, and I get lots of custom gigs and bazar sales are good, but I get almost zero walk-in customers who buy from my vendor. I'm in a fairly good location (not great) near a very big city (Coronet) but very few people venture out there uninvited. As skill-point strapped as I am, what I decided is to completely give up on the vendor. I haven't nuked it yet, but as I need skill points I'm going to start selling those back my business skill and merchant skill. For my business, I just feel at this point that I can do enough business outside of my shop that my skill points can be more valuably used elsewhere offering better products and still allowing me to have some combat skills which are fun for me. I also contacted a "true" merchant last night who is looking for skilled artisans to supply him with goods, so this may be a perfect situation for me.

Dunno if this helps answer your question or not, but this is my solution to a similar dilemma.

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FuzZ2006 wrote:

I am a novice tailor on Lowca (4-4-2-0), and I am currently making enough in bazaar sales to cover my vendor, harvestors and factory. Almost all of my sales are comming through items that I sell on the bazaar, and almost no one ever comes to my vendor. I have put items on the bazaar that advertise my shop, and I send out mail to everyone that purchases reminding them of the location of my shop and how I do like to do custom orders.

I don't really want to take the step of near giving away my clothes, as I feel that would make the climate worse for every tailor on my server, but I need some ideas on how to increase cash flow, and how to get poeple to run the 1200m from Mos Espa and come into the shop. Any ideas out there from smarter folks would be very much appreciated.

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One thing to consider is not only how convenient your shop is to a major city, but also how close it is to other shops that may draw their own visitors. If your shop is between a popular armorsmith and a successful weaponsmith you're likely to see a lot more walk-in traffic from people who were passing through the neighborhood.

Also be sure to befriend the local entertainers. They usually play the role of tour guide and information booth to those new to town, so try to get on good enough terms with them that they'll pass on your waypoint to people looking for a tailor. I know some tailors give free or discounted clothes to entertainers in exchange for advertising, so that might be something to consider as well.

Novice tailors are in a difficult situation because most people seek out Masters.... But you can still make if you WORK hard. Is your shop in a neighborhood type area? Mine is in a nice spot where many people pass by and its also near a mission spawn location which is good for buisness.

Also, go right into cantinas and medic centers. Look for players and talk, be as friendly and open and honest as possible, people like helpful friendly tailors the most.

Also, is there a dedicated wookie tailor on your server??? If not it is wonderful market for a novice tailor. I startedthe famous wookie shop (on my server)and it flourished and grew, I still get new wookie customers as well and they also bring their non-wookie clients in.

If you see someone who might benefit from a new wardrobe, then by all means offer it for free, they will usually tip or be very greatful for it. A struggling dancer may really appreciate a new pair of shorts and a top... then she will remember your kindness and seek you out!

Never turn anyone down, be friendly, be helpful and KNOW your product inside and out!

The game has been out for a while and yet I can still impress 'difficult' players with outfits! Don't be afraid to try color and new styles and combinations.

I had almost no customers before I made master. I tried everything and it didn't work, then when I got master tailor and moved to a better location (directly west of Bestine, a 1 minute run) I started having some traffic.

Planetary advertising is a good idea but I foundit just doesn't work right. I would put in 40 days of maintenance to it and would have to re-register almost every day. Plus I don't use vendors to sell clothes so I traded back all my merchant skills. It was nice to get 41 skill points! Now I do manic dancing in the cantina with my new entertainer skills and probably get more business from doing that than all the pain of try to be a "businessman", plus it is a load more fun.

Smi

I did that too, it worked quite well, but eventually you can't go far in entertainer at all if you want to be tailor and keep some fighting skills, so I had to give up dancer *sigh*. Tailor doesn't take so many boxes but if you count all the artisan ones it adds up pretty fast