Tailor Archive

Hi all.

The other day I had a request to put BE mods into some clothes for a custom order..ok no problem with that..then later after i complete the order and sell him the clothes..he tells me that he is going to sell it to people for 100k+!?!? when I charged him like maybe a total of 11k for the entire suit order. Most of the mods were made by a master BE and they seemed pretty good..to be honest if I made the mods myself I would charge the price of the clothes +1k per point on the mod..so lets say a RF Jacket I would charge like 2k for the jacket and if it had +10 Bleed Protection then it would be 10k so it would come to 12k for the jacket. He tells me that he knows people who are paying him 100k or so for these orders and I think he's ripping them off. He said as more orders come in he will be cutting me a deal.. What I told him is that I would like him to be my steady supplier of Inertpetro Chemcial, steel, fiberplast, polymer and even copper. He says he has no artisan skills. Now I was thinking that with all the money he has been making that he could go out and buy me a heavy mineral or heavy chemical extractor (I only have 1 medium mineral and 1 medium chemical) so I can increase my mining instead of getting 2k per day pull out of resources per extractor.
Now should I continue dealing with this guy and placing deals with him or tell him to buzz off? I know who his BE Dealer is (name is on the stuff he gives me) and I could turn around and try to co-op with this BE guy.

This ishalf of the reason that I don't craft with a customer's tissues (the other half being that even customers who say they understand crit fails have yelled at me over them). Sometimes they're just trying to get a price break, but a lot of folks who are neither BEs or tailors seem to have jumped on the profit bandwagon. Don't get me wrong, I'm a Merchant also, and will fiercely stick up for the practice of reselling. And it's good that this guy was honest with you about his intention to resell. My regular prices are high enough that I don't think I'vehad my non-BE vendors hit by a reseller.But out of the handful of times I've used customers tissues, at least half of them have told me the items weren't for resale, even when I caught them later yelling about BE clothing sales.

I don't really have a huge problem with them reselling my stuff, except for the lying part.If they want to profit off my work, fine. But they're going to pay my regular price so I still make my normal profit margin. Sonow I only use my own tissues. If someone I know (only guildmates and very special people) brings me tissues, I'll buy them at fair market price then charge my normal BE price for the item, but that's the best I do. And anyone trying to sell at prices like your resellermentioned would be able to make a decent profit even paying my regular price for BE goods, so please, Radiant Merchants, buy BE clothes from my vendors and jack the prices up if want to!

It all depends on what you want to do I guess. If you want to get into the BE market yourself, I'd say don't bother with him. Your idea for a pricing structure sounds pretty similar to mine, and I make good profit on all my BE items. You can pick up your own tissues, charge a more reasonable price for the finished items, and be making money for yourself instead of for someone else. But if you're not really interested in the work ofsetting up a BE shop, why not take a cut and let him do the legwork? That is, as long as he understands that crit fails are possibilities and agrees not to hold you responsible for them.

hey thanks for the advice. To be honest, there is a work order right now waiting for me, but last night I was too tired to deal with him or anyone so I resisted the urge to log in because I knew he would send me tells. This is what I think I might do..When we talk about prices, figuring that he is making 100k of my 10k order because I put the BE stuff in his order, what I can do is charge him as if I made the BE stuff myself.. Like my example earlier where I would charge him 2k for the RF Jacket and 1k per point on the mod for example of the Bleeding protection of +10 giving me a grand total for the jacket of 12k. I know this will probibly tick him off but of course his probibly made over 200k on my last two orders while I will have probibly banked about 18k
I'll have to come see your town some day..my guild is in a city on RORI right now but I decided to stay out of it for now.

With hologrinders on the rise, tailors (and to a certain extent bioengineers)are becoming harder to find (though the BE market has improved b/c of better pets) - for this reason alone he is able to make that much money on items pre-combined. But, at the same time, a lack of tailors may give you more bargaining power than you think. I don't know how the situation is on your galaxy, but where I am - I'm the only tailor on the entire planet of talus, and there are 5 cities on the planetary map (and I'm not in any of them!). Even so, not only do people from Talus come to my shop - half the coronet cantina will make the ride out there, and I have an entire guild coming from Dantoine on a regular basis. At least on my server, BE's now are searching for tailors, not the other way around.

If he won't renegotiate with you, cut him loose. He can find someone else to rip off. You're not losing money by getting rid of him because it's not like you get extra money beyond the usual sales for working with him.

Regardless of whether you have bargaining power to change the financial arrangement between you and this dork, if you don't like what he's doing with the resales, it's your right to say no. Personally, I wouldn't deal with this guy, just because he seems like a big hassle, and I wouldn't want my name (even in the examine window) on clothing that is disgustingly overpriced.

Not a flame but 2 points

1. There is no such thing as 'normal price' in a player economy (perhaps you need to charge more?)

2. This is what Merchants do (well pure Merchants anyway). I buy probably 90% of my stock from other crafters who arent aware that I'm going to resell it and who, in my opinion, are underpricing (but I dont specifically approach a crafter with orders I just buy what they are selling)

He's not a merchant..by profession..but as a side unskilled one(since when did you need merchant skill to resell something?). So basically what I will do is make him an offer of what I need and if he says no or the usual FU then he will be cut loose and I will inform other tailors about him.


thanks again guys.

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ASHRID wrote:

I buy probably 90% of my stock from other crafters who arent aware that I'm going to resell it and who, in my opinion, are underpricing (but I dont specifically approach a crafter with orders I just buy what they are selling)

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Maybe I'm being a little picky, but buying from vendors or the bazaar to resell is a little different thansetting upcustom orders, only wanting to pay a fraction of what the item would sell for if the tailor were trying to market it themselves, and then charging considerably more than the tailor's normal price for that same item.

That can be standard merchant practice, it's true. But any tailor trying to run their own BE shop wouldn't really benefit from that type of arrangement. They could just use their normal clothing distribution network, and earn a larger profit margin, for a small amount of extra legwork (picking up the tissues from a BE themselves).

bumbie, ask him to let you make him another and this time say you crit'ed and lost all the tissues, then combine em for reals and sell them for 150k

Laize faire's a bitch, ain't it?

It would be bad for business to have CF's for ALL items..I already had one..which he was nice enough to over look.

My thought is you;re getting the money you're asking for. End of story. If it bothers you this person is going to resell, make a contract with them. Tell them you will sell them the item for half of what they are going to charge for it (be sure to ask how much it will be sold for first )
Is he ripping people off? If they're paying him, then I have to say no.