Tailor Archive
Thread: Disturbing Trend in BE Gear
I, like a lot of tailors, spend a lot of time getting the best BE tissues so that I can make garments with them on it. I've literally devoted /hours/ to searching for a BE that A) Has good prices, B) Can get me large amounts, C) Isn't going out of business soon, and D) Always has a current stock. I finally found one, and I love working with her. I don't mind shelling out quite a bit of my hard-earned money to her because she's always /great/ about getting me /anything/ that I need.
I couple that with making matching outfits to put on my vendor (for the RFP ones), and keeping on-hand a list of tissues that I have for custom orders, and always having some available.
Yet, recently, I've found a lot of that go to waste as I get tagged nearly every city that I'm in with 'I have X and X tissues. Can u make me some stuff?'.
One guy even came up to me and had an actual crate of cloths that he had. I blinked a few times and asked why, since he obviously has a tailor making him the factory of cloths, he'd ask me. He then went on to tell me that he had his friend make the tissues, and then he went and had the cloths made by a tailor who had 0100.
I'm torn between wanting to help people out and saying something along the lines of 'Look, I did all this work to make sure my vendors and stock were prepared for any BE requests. If you want that, then that's fine, but otherwise you'll have to find another friend who will make you tailored clothing'.
Anyone else experiencing this?
Any business is good business, IMO.
But, if you haven't already, you need to decide whether you're a vendor-tailor and a custom-tailor and stick with it. Or you can be both, as I did.
Good luck.
Not such a bad idea on the buyers part and since he has plenty of tissues let him accept the critical failure risk, which eliminates some of your normal expense. Then just charge him the cost you would normally charge for the clothing item, After all he is only supply one extra component and you yourself have less risk than you normally would making the exact same item.
Its actually a nice example of the interdependence that SWG is trying to encourage. I would not be willing to make but one outfit however, just in case the request is for resale.
What I do is tell them the price is the normal price I would charge for that BE item, minus the price I pay for my tissues, which is 3k. That usually works out great and I don't lose any profit.
I don't craft with customers tissues. Most folks who have asked for this haven't brought extras in case of a crit, and most of them seem to only want to pay my regular price for the non-enhanced item, not what I charge for an enhanced one, since they provide the materials.
I did it a few times, got yelled at for ten minutes once when I crit failed, and promised myself I'd never deal with that again. It's just an extraheadache that I don't really need, when I'm making plenty of money selling the BE clothes that I make with my own components.
This happens to me often on Corbantis ... could be because I used to let it. A kind of 'we teach others how to treat us' kind of thing.
Anyway...I used to feel guilty about saying no, until people started bringing 3 and 5 tissues for combines, and then complaining about the normal price of unenhanced clothing. Spending that much time, for such little profit, was almost wasteful. I enjoy working with people...but...
Then, one of my guildmates stated that we couldn't bring drinks to the movie theatre. Same idea with enhanced clothing. I'll make it - but with my tissues.
Wohoo Im a novice tailor now!
Anyhow, back to topic.
I live near a master tailor who makes skill enhancing clothing. She does so rarely, even then its only specificly asked for (unless like me, it was a x-mas gift 
) BE additions. I know she rarely crafts en masse (correct usage? hehe) but does fine work at what she does. I even offered to give her some tissues and she declined and gave me a better melee defence shirt happily.
This "disturbing trend" is exactly what it is. A trend that will die down when everyone gets what they want... or notices we can equip 0 Durability clothing. I've already decided I am going only 2 blocks into tailor *coughs25pointsleftcoughs* but I do plan on doing a few BE things for friends, one of which is a BE. I don't plan on charging huge prices, but just enough to get by. *shrugs* Kinda got off topic didnt I?
I'd be willing to do clohting for pople who would do small orders (1 or 2 at a time) for a basic peice of clothing BE enhanced. bus as for mass orders... heh Jack Up the prices
I don't mind at all if they bring me the tissues. In fact some will leave me any they have left over for free. Plus they generally tip well beyond what I normally charge on items.
I had one guy bring me in a bunch of the taming tissues and he left me with 2 of these very expensive tissues and paid me to make his clothes! Because we helped each other, I was able to make a pretty big profit off the 2 taming tissues he left me.
I also had another client leave me with some extra myoflex tissues.
So I have no problem with them bringing me the tissues, it saves my own tissues to use so I am less likely to run out.
If they bring me tissues to use, i make sure that they understand i am in NO WAY responsible for critical fails. Once they have stated that they understand this, and accept what happens, i make them the clothing. if they have been nice and polite, i don't charge extra. so far i have been lucky and only had fails on the low stuff (NOT the insanely expensive ch tissues, thank you GOD).
I really don't like to do it, mainly because i get nervous until it gets past the second screen. then i am fine and can breathe again. Other than the CH stuff tho, it seems everyone on my server is willing to let me find the stuff, and pay whatever i want to charge. I was charging 3k per tissue i use, even duplicates (it cost me) but a be i met said i was too cheap and he couldn't give me the same quality i was using for under 6-7K. And then he told me i'd want to double the price so i got my money's worth. LOL
I love people that tell me i don't charge enough for my clothes. Yep, that's why i have only 1mil credits and nothing to spend them on. I'm barely scraping by, it's all the shuttle trips to restock my vendors that are killing me, i think.
Indigo75 wrote:
I, like a lot of tailors, spend a lot of time getting the best BE tissues so that I can make garments with them on it. I've literally devoted /hours/ to searching for a BE that A) Has good prices, B) Can get me large amounts, C) Isn't going out of business soon, and D) Always has a current stock. I finally found one, and I love working with her. I don't mind shelling out quite a bit of my hard-earned money to her because she's always /great/ about getting me /anything/ that I need.
Well, the first part of your post is interesting. Let me turn the tables on you a bit. What sort of a BE would have rock bottom prices, a huge amount of stock, and be in the tissues making business long-term? I personally can't imagine such a person. In fact I would certainly expect (a) to be mutually exclusive of (d), and (c) also to be mutually exclisive of (d), but since you claim to have found such a person, that is truly amazing. But I digress...
When I was a master tailor/novice BE, making "low end" tissues I did entertain such customers that brought in tissues more advanced then the ones I could make myself. After all it would be difficult to offer someone a +7 medical shirt when they were requesting a +17 one. I didn't like to do it, as I felt it was very difficult to properly price such a service, and was kind of insulting in a way, but I did do it. Now that I do have a good stock of good tissues however, I do not offer this service. I simply offer to sell my own, or tell them that I'll make it from their tissues, but the cost is the same if I make it from my own.
I too do not do orders for customers with tissues in hand.
It is my core business it is my main and pretty much only source of income
If it comes to self serve I will be forced to look elsewhere for gainful employment.
Cannot blame the peeps for trying to save a credit or two but what can we do.
I'm happy to do custom work for folks who have BE tissues in hand - they have to agree to either:
- Hold me blameless for critical failures, or;
- Sell me the BE tissues at my retail rate, at which point I then sell the completed item to them, adding the BE tissue cost to it. That way, if a failure occurs, they were reimbursed in advance for the cost of the BE tissues. If a failure doesn't occur, they end up paying only for the cost of the garment, without having to do any fancy math.
I typically prefer the latter option, as I don't then have rude customers screaming, "that's not what I said!". I do both vendor tailoring and custom tailoring, and charge the same price either way, so it's no problem for me to accept customers' components (provided they follow the above rules.)
Filet O'Fish
Master Tailor/Master Bio-Engineer, Corellia, Keris Tava