Tailor Archive

Hmm, I couldn't tell you what affect it's having on clothing vendors since I no longer have one. But one thing that I noticed that was *Very* surprising to me. A few times in the last couple weeks now I've gone to coronet to sell clothing on the bazar again. This is the first time I've done this in months, since way back when I was a novice. What was shocking to me was how few clothing items were on the bazar! I was looking at all the really tip-top sellers, trying to gauge the supply and whether it was worth selling them or not, or whether I'd have to drop down to sort of the "2nd tier" items (man I love having all this experience in what sells, muahahahaha). Black muscle shirt : none, black uniform boots: none, black sunguard: none, paramilitary cammos: like 1 but it was a looted one, badly damaged, spec ops dusters: one, decorative vests: none, and so forth, and so on. I was seriously expecting to see 4-5 of each of these like in the "old days". So I made all these items, priced them very very very high, and BOOM they sold almost immediately. I don't know what to make of this. My theory right now is that there are less tailors then before, AND of those tailors, fewer of them are novices because people have become such grind-a-holics.

Arthur, I think another issue is that most Master Tailors are quite willing to cede the bazaar clothing market to junior tailors. I use the bazaar a little bit, but mostly as a source of advertising, without a whole lot of thought into the sales per se. And lately I've been using the bazaar as my "outlet store", dumping stuff that has expired from my vendor one or more times. This is also semi-preparation for the Big Vendor Nerf, part of figuring out what stuff I can live without stocking once the crunch comes.

But, yeah, the bazaar is pretty lame these days. I think the macro explanation is probably close to your theory, but maybe the biggest thing is that there's a net loss of *working* tailors; for whatever reason, new tailors aren't entering the marketplace much. I'm sort of ignoring the holo-tailors here, because it seems to me that about 95% of them don't even *think* about trying to sell anything. They just want to fill up their boxes as quickly as possible so they can move on to the next holocron, and stopping to actually learn how to make a pair of pants would waste *far* too much time....

This is a relatively good thing, of course, infinitely preferable to what we'd get if the holo-tailors really did try to flood the market as they grind.

One thing on the bazaar I may do is start selling single-RFP BE shirts there. 6000 is actually quite close to my standard price point on those.

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SueDenim wrote:
Arthur, I think another issue is that most Master Tailors are quite willing to cede the bazaar clothing market to junior tailors.

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Message Edited by ArthurDentOnBria on 03-08-2004 10:48 AM

I've always had kind of a weird policy on BE stuff compared to most tailors, I think. I don't advertise them much, and only make them by custom order, on the theory that if people are paying lots of money for them, they deserve to get exactly the colors and styles they want, not just "that will do."

So for me, the bazaar would be a reasonable outlet for "commodity" BE clothes, like Lined Workshirts in black with Bleed Resistance or Melee Defense tissues, and might draw some profit out of the "gunbunny" population (possibly including even those types who wear armor 24/7), who I don't necessarily reach now.

Alot of people buying BE clothing don't even care about color, or style. I do make alot of blacks, greys, browns and olive greens though.

When I'm making BE shirts for the people who don't care, I don't feel bad about making just an all-Black Lined Workshirt, because I also happen to think it's one of the best-looking shirts we have!

Just thought I'd chip in my two cents here, since I'm finally getting used to being a Master Tailor.

In my most humble opinion, the bazaar is fabulous. Many of you have already noted that there's no clothing available on it, yet I firmly believe 90% or more of gamers will check here for clothes before looking for a vendor, since trying to find a well stocked vendor can be so hard (which is a legitimate concern, as others have noted).

Cool! There could not be a better market for tailors out there! If you know what to sell that is. For some odd reason, it seems like no one else on my server (Bloodfin) has decided to craft Bounty Hunter or Spec-Ops packs for the bazaar right now, and while I hope not to jinx it by writing this , I sell almost 4 packs of each type in both Coronet and Bestine in each day thats 20 packs at 5000 credits (hehehe...its good to have a monopoly). I can sell Uniform boots at the same cost, and they go almost as quickly as well. When the market is empty, that just makes it easier to work. (lol...I sound like such an evil money grubber)

I concede that vendor sales for tailors are going to be increasingly difficult, especially if they do cap the vendor item limit. The big disclaimer on all my joy for the bazaar cap is that I am a travelling tailor who has refused the way of the vendor. But it was pretty easy for me to do, since I started out as an Image Designer, and this is exactly how we have to do business anyway. Remember that. Tailors may soon have to renounce vendors, but Image Designers have lived (quite happily) without them from day 1.

Case in point: playing the market on the bazaar can be both fun and profitable, and so can running a vendor-less business.

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Jentari wrote:
I sell almost 4 packs of each type in both Coronet and Bestine in each day thats 20 packs at 5000 credits

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Lol...thats a pretty embarrassing math mistake...

Just thought I'd point it out before anyone else!

Jentari, good for you! You're thinking about it the right way, too - the bazaar should be a great place for people who are starting to find some good clothes, and more importantly, for you to become "their" tailor! As Aimee suggested, we established tailors wouldn't mind serving that market too, but our established clientele (and people they bring in by word of mouth) tend to keep us too busy to do everything. The current state of the game has all sorts of niches available for new tailors - there simply aren't enough of us!

I think if they nerf the vendors, we'll all become travelling tailors - and probably as secretive about our true abilities as Jedi!

Jentari I gota agree with you the bazzar is the first place most people look. Every Morning I load up the bazzar in theed with some of the more popular items under 6k. By the next morning I usually have 3-5 items left. For all the first time buyers that buy my things off the bazzar I send a thank you email to them and a little note about my shop. I have gotten alot of regular customers this way. Most of the time when I check to see what is already on the bazzar before I decide what to make there really isn't much and that's why what I put on there gets bought up so fast. People aren't willing to hike out to some place they don't know unless they know that they are gonna see a well stocked vendor but once they find one they keep coming back.