Tailor Archive
Thread: First few days as Master Tailor. Worst few days of SWG.
Bought this game back in December, didn't mind the combat part, but i really wanted to get stuck into the crafting and business part(I hate doing missions). Most of the crafting professions bothered me because i had to collect specific and good quaility resources. I decided Tailor was teh crafting business to get into. I plant my harvesters and just last week i got Master Tailor.
First thing i did was make some items and slap them on my vendor. Then i put my tag on. I got no business from my vendor(i only had some cloaks and camos and no advertising apart from the sign out front) but im notangry at that.My tag was the thing giving me business.
First customer wanted a pair of shoes. After the 6th dam shot we got the colour right. What could i charge? The normal price for what i had given him which was 1 pair of shoes. This happened at least 5 or 6 times with different customers and much more expensive items.
I spoke to some people who said they tip the Tailor if they made a few wrong coloured items. No one tipped me, but i dont blame them.
Then i get one guy who i let try on some stuff(about 20k worth) then his computer "crashed" and i had to break some balls to get my stuff back at a later date.
Getting to the point now 
Why on earth is there not a bloody preview system??????
It is impossible to operate the way i am. No one knows what is available and what colours it comes in.
I think we should get every colour possible on every **edit** item. Customers dont understand they cant match their bright pink and pruple camos with a bright pink and purple Cloak. Can't we have some sort or ordering system with colours having special codes and customer choose what they want?
I think to myself now i should have done armorsmith or weaponsmith. Sure i might take a week collecting good resources, but i wouldn't have customer emailing me breaking my balls. What you see is what you get with those professions. It's lots more money and much quicker.
What do others think about this?
I guess most of you lot did it because you liked it more than you liked the money?
Yes, to make the whole thing a lot less complicated they just need to make a menu system where you can see all the craftable items and all possible colors. When the player is done selecting the Outfit they like, they click finish and out pops a list of coded numbers that a Tailor can translate into a finished product.
That would make life so much better.
The very first thing I do is find out the colour before I start. If they are not sure, have them check out the websites. I use www.swgbio.com where the customer can pick the colour he likes right on the webpage and email you the order. That is infinitely better. Then you can hand them the stuff in person, or add it to a vendor in a nice parcel for them.
There is a sticky of good websites to use as well. go here and have a look at the one you like best.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=tailor&message.id=21312
Well... because of a tailoring shortage on my server, I usually do most of my work through vendor sales instead of custom orders. I have most items in most colors up on the vendor (and *may* be able to keep doing so... depending on the vendor limits) and so even if people send me a tell about outfit in x y z, I'll say "I'm 'off-planet' at the moment but I think I have 2 on my vendor." Usually people will ask color questions by e-mail after looking at the vendor, and then I'm more than happy to say "such and such comes in a limited pallette."
Here are a few rules I live by to ease my pain (keeping in mind that I'm also a master ID)
- AFK flag on.... always. That way if I get busy and forget to put it on, I won't have to put it on AFTER I get the initial tell, and that person will KNOW I'm ignoring him/her
- unsearchable. Always.
- I don't craft in my shop. I have a private house/salon. This also prevents customers interrupting when I'm in the middle of an ID
- Tells:
- I only answer tells from people I don't know that 1) state what they want to begin with and 2) use relatively proper grammar. I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but you can just know who is going to be a problem client from the initial tell:
- do u make cloths
- hi (hi is my favorite because you don't know what is coming next)
- u there? (use the friends list doofy)
- r u talior
- where r u
- tells I do answer
- pardon me, but are you still an image designer?
- so and so recommended me to your shop, do you have time for a custom order?
- can you send me the waypoint to your shop?
- do you have time to answer some questions about colors?
- It boggles my mind that when people get an afk message to a tell, they don't think to e-mail what they want. I always answer emails, although I have gotten some problem clients that way.
- If someone wants something very specific (i.e. cannot be sold to anyone else), I'll only make it on the spot. Unless I know the person really well, I'm not going to crank out a set of inscribedwedding rings and put them on the vendor. It's not like I can resell them if the person flakes
- Never trust the customer who says "make me something cool, I'll like whatever you make." He won't like it. Alt-tab out that boy and send him to a tailoring website.
- I have "warning" backpacks in my house with the following messages:
- Some items are gender-specific, ask if in doubt
- Flip to the next page when there are 100 items in a category (arrrgh!)
- Long gloves do not work with long sleeves orjackets
- Dresses and bodysuitsdo not work with jackets or cloaks
- I have a "tailoring time" for guildmates when I'm doing custom orders. Kind of like "last call for alcohol." Once I put down my pack in my house, I'm done for the night. If they decide later (and they were online before when I made "last call") that they want x y z, well I'll do that tomorrow. Remember that your time is as valuable as anyone else's.
I maintain some hard rules to protect my sanity.
I guess most of you lot did it because you liked it more than you liked the money?
Yep.
If you enjoy the profession, hang in there and use this forum to learn the tricks of the trade. If it's all about creds for you, back to grinding on Armorsmith. 
Some here I haven't used yet. As far as being flamed... it would only be by those who have no clue to the profession and the type of person who you wouldn't want as a client in the long run anyway.
I suppose my smartass "yep" isn't much help.. I've been spending far too much time in other forums lately. Thanks for the reminder that we all stick together, n'Jessi.
Personally, my time has been so limited that I've had to stop doing custom orders for a while. I hate it because there is nothing more fun to me than a clients reaction to a final product when they thought there was no hope. 
I'm praying that they do not slaughter the player driven economy with the rediculous vendor limits. I'm a huge advocate for a fully stocked vendor and you are going to have to advertise. I adore my clients and to not have a full vendor I feel is a disservice to them. They constantly come back to see what's new.
Again, if you are here because you enjoy this, you can and will succeed and make profits. You'll never have 30million like most armorsmiths, but you can be quite comfortable.
Sorry for being an ass and hope this helps bit too.
Well I don't know about that... I did sell a suit of clothes for 10 million credits. (That's right. 10,000,000 credits) And I regularily sell suits for 1 million credits.
The suit in question was a +100/+100 taming outfit. I know that there is a +25 limit on clothes, but that's what this guy wanted, and that's what he got. The +100 medical suit is also in high demand, because the doctors that use them swear to me (and their doctor friends) that it literally doubles their buff average. That alone is worth the difference they say.
So you go on back to your simple armoursmith profession and leave the tailoring to people that enjoy spending a few minutes getting the colour right. I have never gotten the colour wrong more than twice on any item, as I can usually help get the colour set in the customer's mind with some descriptions or questions. It's not that hard.
I don't use vendors. It's custom orders only.
What I do, and I've found this helps a lot, is decide on about 15-20 "basic" colors that I'll use for most of my stuff, and put them on a "shirt rack" that customers see as they enter the shop. So they can see for themselves the difference between my "Dark Green," "Pale Green," "Green," and "Xtreme Green" colors. There's still room there for some annoyances, like matching a customer's item that isn't one of "my" colors, and the like, but I find it helps a lot.
This can even be taken to greater extremes. I visited Smi (aka on these forums, Crudson) on Lowca last night. He's got a large house filled with 250 shirts, each displaying one of the 255 colors we have available. It's really quite impressive!
First thing i did was make some items and slap them on my vendor. Then i put my tag on. I got no business from my vendor(i only had some cloaks and camos and no advertising apart from the sign out front) but im notangry at that.My tag was the thing giving me business.
- at first your vender won't get much buisiness till people start seeing your sign& remember where your buisiness is located... give it time they will come.
First customer wanted a pair of shoes. After the 6th dam shot we got the colour right. What could i charge? The normal price for what i had given him which was 1 pair of shoes. This happened at least 5 or 6 times with different customers and much more expensive items.
- i use to have this problem & still kind of run into it sometimes... best bet and im sure it will come with time, is to learn to work off certain colors... there are like 3 shades or red on somethings... learn to only use the best red and only that red... that way if someone buys a dress & wants shoes, you already know what color the shoes will be to match the dress. thoe it doesnt work when trying to match to other peoples colors. most stuff i make that isnt the right color goes onmy venders...
I spoke to some people who said they tip the Tailor if they made a few wrong colored items. No one tipped me, but i dont blame them.
- i can only remember a few times i got a tip in them situations.
Then i get one guy who i let try on some stuff(about 20k worth) then his computer "crashed" and i had to break some balls to get my stuff back at a later date.
Getting to the point now
Why on earth is there not a bloody preview system??????
- Would be nice to have one but not sure if its possible.
It is impossible to operate the way i am. No one knows what is available and what colours it comes in.
I think we should get every colour possible on every **edit** item. Customers dont understand they cant match their bright pink and pruple camos with a bright pink and purple Cloak. Can't we have some sort or ordering system with colours having special codes and customer choose what they want?
- alot of it isknowing what colors things come in and dont come in, itjust takes time to learn... you as the tailor just gotta work the customer & pretty much know how to deal with them... if they want a red & black shirt and pants and red boots, you just gotta tell them ahead of time that boots dont come in redand thatblack would be a good color to go with... most people have no clue what they really want or what you can do for them, so it takes you having to kinda guide them thru the process... and sometimes it is a process hehee
I think to myself now i should have done armorsmith or weaponsmith. Sure i might take a week collecting good resources, but i wouldn't have customer emailing me breaking my balls. What you see is what you get with those professions. It's lots more money and much quicker.
- i agree tailors do kinda have to really work their profession... and there is no money in it anymore... at first there was money to be made, but i cant remember making any real money since they added decay. if your in it for the money you should go right into making BE enhanced clothes... if not you may wanna reconsider armorsmith hehee... a friend of mine told me how much he made in a few hour of selling in coronet, it was more than i made in the last 3 weeks.
What do others think about this?
I guess most of you lot did it because you liked it more than you liked the money?
- yes i like making clothes... grats on Master & welcome to the club...
Yeah, I'm a tailor because it's, for me, the funnest part of the game. I just love helping people customize their avatar. The way I keep myself sane when dealing with customers is by only making clothing for people that fall into these categories:
-Is a close friend
-Is a guild mate
-Is well informed on the product, polite, and intelligent
-Is willing to pay 10 times the regular price while I deal with their idiocy.
Most of my work goes to the first two categories. The third is once in a blue moon, but always a pleasure. The fourth sucks, but hey, a fool and his money. /grin.
Honestly, this is probably the single crafting profession that's best entered into because you want to spend time with customers, rather than for the cash. There is money to be made, yes, but it can be a real headache if you don't want to be chatting with customers pretty frequently -- regardless of afk signs and vendors. I don't say this to discourage anyone, but only because I've met so many people with similar stories who would never have chosen the profession if they'd known this ahead of time.
Regarding colours -- if there's nothing they want to specifically match the item to, I find it helps if I give them some simple narrow-it-down questions. Green? Okay: dark or light? Dark: okay, blue-green or yellow-green? And so on. That's helped a lot.
"Make me something, I'll like whatever you choose." Ugh. I hate that. I don't generally do it for people I haven't designed for in the past -- and if I do, I make something in black, generally. Most folks settle for black just fine. But I really hate doing that.
People who want to try clothes on.... don't get to. Unless they're a repeat customer or a friend I've known for a while, their option is to see the outfit hung on a wall, placed for display in a vendor, or modelled by myself. There is no reason why you should feel obliged to hand 20k worth of goods to a stranger, ever.
None of these guidelines really apply to regular customers, though, for whom I'll go to great ends to make them very happy. In the end, since we all have the same designs and the same colours, customer service is really what it's all about. But honestly, never get stuck in the trap of thinking you are constantly at every stranger's beck and call; it's a great way to get burned out... *winces* Have fun with it!
DarcyJ wrote:
"Make me something, I'll like whatever you choose." Ugh. I hate that. I don't generally do it for people I haven't designed for in the past -- and if I do, I make something in black, generally. Most folks settle for black just fine. But I really hate doing that.
I love that. Of course, I ask them about colors, and the purpose of the outfit. They want combat gear? Casual clothes? A party dress? Exotic outfit? For a warm planet, or a cold one? "Waterproof?" Etc, etc. There's some room for a bit of roleplaying there Most of my customers will answer some of these questions, and I will then design them an outfit... most of them leave happy. Oh, and if the color is unspecified, I stay away from black. Let them try some other good-looking colors; often they will like it.
People who want to try clothes on.... don't get to. Unless they're a repeat customer or a friend I've known for a while, their option is to see the outfit hung on a wall, placed for display in a vendor, or modelled by myself. There is no reason why you should feel obliged to hand 20k worth of goods to a stranger, ever.
I've never had a problem with that. People can always try my outfits on... if they want bio-enhanced stuff, I will make unenhanced versions first to get the look and color right.
I also don't mind customers who make me do 6 tries before they get the color they like. They are still charged for only one item; the rest goes on the vendor and usually sells within a few days.
Wow great responses, thanks. I gotta get to work
On a kind of side note, everything i put on the bazaar sells. Is this un-ethical?