Tailor Archive

here's a great little story for all my fellow tailors. a couple nights ago while i was out hunting on lok/talus, i received a bunch of emails saying i sold a lot of my stuff to ALASKANHAMMER (note this name). i finally made my way back to my shop north of anchorhead last night, restocked my vendor, then headed to AH to check out the bazaar. to my surprise, ALASKANHAMMER was reselling my goods, sometimes for over twice as much as i was selling them for! i was shocked and angry. here i was, keeping my prices relatively low for all the noobs that come to AH (i.e. field wear 3 gear for 2k or less), and this person was taking advantage of me and my business! i was eventually able to contact the person, and his/her reasoning was what they do with my goods after sale was their business. now i agree that after sale the buyer is free to do what they will, but how can he possibly take advantage like that? especially since my tailored goods have MY NAME on it.looking for a quick way into the business without actually putting in the effort or the resources, that's total bs! so after i told him politely to please stop his parasitic ways he immediately bought my items on the bazaar and put them back on sale for much higher prices. argh! what did i do? put him on my ignore list and banned him from both of my shops. and i will personally warn every tailor or crafter class of ALASKANHAMMER's ways. has this happened to anyone else? please let me know what you guys think, i'm sure this probably happens on other servers as well (i'm on Bloodfin). how do you handle this when this happens? any comments/flames/quips/rebuttals are welcome. thanks for listening!

Well, while tacky - he's doing exactly what a free market system is setup to do. Buy/produce low - sell high.

Yes, it's polite to ask, but they don't have to.

I'm positive that a good deal of my business is then being resold elsewhere.

I'm fine with that - if they want to pay my NORMAL prices and take the risk of reselling themselves, let them knock themselves out.

If they want to get my name out on more items in more locations than I'm willing to setup shops (I only have one location) so that when people think they need a tailor and look on their clothing and see MY name, bless his little black heart.

This is also a pretty good guage of if I'm selling something WAY too low. If there is THAT much demand you simply cannot keep something stock - it's time to price adjust a bit.

I must agree...having seen several of my cloaks bought for a perfectly ordinary price and resold -- and having had people who'd seen my name on them requesting sizable custom orders from me the next day. *grins* I'm certainly not about to complain.

Raise your prices so he has to pay you more to accomplish this. Take advantage of who is taking advantage of you. =)

--Jewel

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how do you handle this when this happens?

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I'd contact them and ask if they want to buy in bulk. Orif they were buying so much that I couldn't keep up with them, I'draise my prices. I'm happy as long as people are buying my products, what they do with them later is there business.

I think you are going to profit from this more then you think.

How is he harming you? You are selling product and you're getting name recognition. Two things that every business person would love to have. If for some reason you really have a problem with it, beat him at his own game. Put your shop coordinates on every piece of clothing you sell.

Moryn Felwithe (Corbantis/Naboo) Master Tailor and Weaponsmith (0-1-0-3)

"here i was, keeping my prices relatively low for all the noobs that come to AH (i.e. field wear 3 gear for 2k or less), and this person was taking advantage of me and my business! "

Obviously the "noobs" are willing to pay more, and you're putting yourself at an disadvantage by selling so redicilously low prices if people are willing to pay more. You have no one to blame or be angry with but yourself. Either raise your prises or ban him from your store and live happily in your world of lost profits.

It just means that your goods are being sold below market value. This may sound a little blunt, but what right do you have to complain about this? You listed your items at the prices that you wanted them to be sold at. You weren't scammed out of your clothes--you recieved the exact price that you asked for them. If you're upset that someone is making money off of your hard work, the simple solution is to raise your prices so that it won't be profitable for them to do that anymore.

I don't really understand your problem with this. You set the price you wanted, and got it. You can list more items at your price, and chances are that other person won't be on to buy them up all the time. You're limited to 25 items on the bazaar at one time, but if he bought and relisted all your items then you can have 50 items listed with your name on them.

You say you were trying to keep prices low for noobs. This is just my personal opinion, but I don't think that noobs should be able to afford every piece of high-level clothing in the game. But that's not even the point. If you're selling at what's well below market price for your server and area, it's smart business for someone to buy and resell. In fact, the whole Merchant class is based on selling. Many of them don't limit themselves to selling only what they make, and they shouldn't have to.

there are a few things you can do:

1) put your price on every item. however, if you decide to raise your prices later, that might be problematic.

2) raise your prices.

3) put advertisements on bazaar (ie an item for 3k on auction with your name/shop location/etc), so people can see your shop and go there.

4) get ad 3 in merchant and put yourself on the planetary map.

5) any combination of the above.

almost every piece of clothing i sell is in the format "original name (color/color) - Pappi Inc", so if someone resold my stuff, i would at least get free advertisement

Simple solution:

Rename your item to reflect the price

For example: Link steel gloves: 200 credits by snowleeper

Then when the reseller tries to resell, it shows up on the bazaar with your name and price on it. People will send you tells to fill the order at your prices. I did this and not olny did the reselling stop, but I got more business for the reseller's 20 credit bazaar add for me.

well, thanks for all of your opinions. as i stated in original post, i DID ban him from my stores, and DID raise my prices accordingly. now it's all up to the buyers to decide if my prices are "just right." normally i don't have a problem with people reselling my goods but the least he could have done was tell me i was selling too low after cleaning out my vendors. heh, oh well, learn something new everyday.

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kingern wrote:

ALASKANHAMMER (note this name).

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While I advocate and encourage buying out undersellers as an effective tool for keeping prices at a reasonable level, and while I am in fact from Alaska, it's worth noting that I don't have a character on Bloodfin, and I'm too much of a roleplayer to use a name like that.

Actually I destroy most of the underpriced junk I buy to deny the makers both experience and name recognition, and I've stopped doing it except in the worst cases. For example, I bought a bioengineered tier II item a few days back for 100 credits. That's just absurd.

While anybody has a perfectly legitimate right to price their wares at any level they please, the market will deal with those that price below market value, often in ways that are not pleasant. I found this out the hard way back in UO, when the carpentry wares I was trying to price low for my local player community were bought out day after day and turned up on a vendor halfway across the continent at much higher prices. I learned.