Tailor Archive

Lost one of my customers because he bought a schematic of 75 reinforced fiber panels on the bazaar for 3k. blech. **edit**? That hurts, looks like i'll be buying a bunch of schematics so that **edit**ing piece of **edit** doesn't underctu every **edit** tailor on the server

Calama

Dont get me to rant on undercutting prices. It pissed me already off enough to see that people sell 800+oq fiberplast for 2.5cr/unit and such stuff. Same for highlevel tailor items for 1k-2k cr.

Thats not undercutting, its sheer idiocy. I found another guy selling 100 unit schematics for 2k, whats this world coming to? Guess i'll try to make some money off of them

Calama

Well people have the right to undercut if they want, since it is a player economy. But I still think it's really rude! Some folks don't seem to have any idea what their goods are worth, and they usually raise their prices once they realize they can do it and make more money while grinding less. But there are some players that really seem to be happy about undercutting everyone and are obviously going to continue doing it.

I've heard some folks saying that they confront players like that in game, but it's just not worth it to me. One or two undercutters in an area won't hurt my sales that much. If you spend time providing solid customer service, people will appreciate it. And most folks once they choose who they like buying from won't change their minds only based on price.

I was negotiating a sale with a customer once, and told him my price out loud (these days I only use /tells when quoting prices), and another tailortook a break from hisown transaction to offer my customer the same outfit at under half my price. Both my customer and his told him exactly how rude they thought that was, and questioned the quality of his product based on his super bargain prices. He explained the whole "no item decay means our item quality doesn't matter right now" thing and they said they preferred not to buy from someone who was both that rude and took no pride in making quality goods. So I not only kept my original sale at my price, but the second customer said he'd prefer to do business with me as well. Both of them gave me even more than my asking price for the outfits.

Obviously this is an extreme example, most undercutters probably aren't rude enough to jump in on another player's sales, but reputation does matter. And although I have met a few exceptions to this, most undercutters aren't the type of people who offer superior service.

I'm going to weigh in on the cost of undercutting since some tailor contacted my partner and g/f stating our prices were too low and we were "hurting" ourselves and the server.

I am co-owner of the business Nyarien Fashions, Inc. (NFI) on Radiant, Corellia.

Items are worth a combination of factors: reasonable charge for the materials involved, reasonable charge for the skill it takes to make an item and the time involved and a combination of what people are willing to pay.

Here's some price quotes:

Gunman's Duster/Spec Ops Dusters: 3k, Cloaks: 2k, Infiltration Suits: 3.5k, Sports Wraps: 2k, Lekku Wraps: 1.5k, Spec Ops Packs 1.5k; Light Bustiers: 1k; Other Bustiers: 750; Hot Pants: 350; Wookie Smocks: 1.5k, etc.

We're considering a flat fee of between 10k and 15k for most Master items when we get there.

We've been told we're hurting the "server" with these prices. Umm, Nyjae and I have spoken at length about our prices and we've decided our prices are reasonable for our time and efforts and that most tailors tend to try to "gouge" people for as much as they can get for items that are still "rare" on a server. I think, on the otherhand, that our prices are very long term stable, whereas I think 5k for a Duster is overly high and subject to no long term stability. Demand drops over time and because of that, so will prices. Maybe if decay begins hitting clothing, that will change. Who knows.

My prices are reasonable for my time and effort. We keep 3 vendors in our store with approx 225ish items when fully stocked. On a typical day we sell about 100-150 items, doing probably some of the highest volume of business on the server, making many items on request, in the store, and only completing sales after dropping items for display and review. I have never received anything but complements on our customer service and have developed a very nice size group of regulars, and regularly get business from offplanet, especially from Talus and Tatooine and from Wookies, many of whom complain that Radiant tailors do not cater at all to Wookies.

Am I hurting myself with my prices? I'd say the 150k average weekday business and 500k we tend to do over the weekends say I'm not hurting myself at all, but that's just my opinion.

This post was not meant as a self congratulation. It is meant as a warning for people who discuss price undercutting. I agree that some price undercutting has gone too far (mostly from people who skill up and dump items ont he bazaar at absurdly low costs), however, I would suggest that people be very careful about who they approach and complain to about costs and "hurting" others. NFI does very good business and we have fun doing it.. and when we're not, we log or go hunting. Your time may be worth more than mine, but I consider my prices quite reasonable and make a very nice profit from them. We strive to remain professional and hey, if I take your customers because my prices are better, well that's just the nature of friendly competition, no?

I agree. Your prices are reasonable, and while I charge slightly more for some of the items you listed, I almost always will throw in a matching pair of shoes or a bangle to complete the ensemble. A lot of the complaints of undercutting area ruesult of some merchants trying to gouge the populace--and reasonably priced merchants are making that difficult.

If someone wants to sell for less then I do, I have no problem with that. It's their time, their resources, their effort. Mine is worth something to me, and hopefully to my customers. It seems to be. I can't keep up with the demand.

Maybe I need a partner. Any other master tailors on Tarquinas?

Lyrra

Master Tailor

Tarquinas, Naboo

We've been told we're hurting the "server" with these prices.

No. I would consider those low and would probably be a bit irritated by them, but they're not lowto the point where I think it's dumping. The only one that jumped out at me are hot pants at 350 are a steal. Even without hides, that's close to resource costs.

Well I plan on going full master but I plan on basing out of Bestine on Tattoine.
Currently im limited because I have no Factories (Working on fixing that currently). I hope to top off my Formal Line within a week and gain the rest over time through sales.
If I end up doing full time work in my shop as well then I probably wouldent be much help to you though. Already have a good customer base and ive only had a shop for 2 days. Most of mine were all "Private Orders" because people heard of me through word-of-mouth.

And yes, I have been to your shop as well. Had a special request for some Formal III dresses that I needed Factory SynthCloth for. So I made a special planet hop and stopped by to pick some up. You have a really nice shop. Hope to have one as nice as you someday.

Hi Lyrra,

Not quite master...abit aways actually (Field III is my highest almost at IV), but looking for a partner of some sorts. I so not have the time to stock all three lines required, and would love to focus on one (and even run factory crates of items vs just components, though it is a bit tricky to get t them to work) and whoesale out the crates to other Tailors, as well as buy crates wholesale.

That way I can focus efforts on custom clothing vs vendor stocking (the fun stuff in my opinion). i am also thinking about opening a shop on Tat to help with sales, as currently they are slow for me outside of a very few wonderful and loyal customers I have for custom work.

/tell me in game if interested.

Doupe on Tarq. just North of Keeren, Naboo

I don't understand why you are upset about undercutting. First of all it's a free market. Many times people give out stuff for free, or cheap just to get people to buy from them. Also if any of you are upset why not just buy the item yourself and destroy it, or resell it. That's what a "free market" is all about. Otherwise you might as well just have npc vendors and cut out the profession completely.

In my humble opinion, being a tailor is less of selling an item and more about selling a service. I drum up a lot of orders because I prefer to be more of a fashion consultant than a mere crafter (not that I'm making fun of crafters I think crafting is one of the toughest things in game).

I will sell an item such as a duster for 4-5k, but I am in person and I discuss the look the player is going for and I will offer accessories for free or at a discount rate. Though each of my sales takes maybe 20-40 minutes, I am proud to say that my customers get what they pay for and I get a lot of return business because of it. In many ways, the actual price of the item is not my main concern, the main concern is making sure the customer gets the look s/he wants.

And although I get undercut on the bazaar when I sell items I still get repeat business from those customers I took the time to truly help out.

When you consider that money is CONSTANTLY flooding the market because of the zillions of missions players run and the only way for that money to leave the market is for a player to spend money on an NPC trainer or on a cloning/insurance terminal then you can pretty much figure that the value of a credit gets less and less as the weeks go by.

I made a full look for a player that included a lot of high value items. Normally I would charge about 9k for all the clothes I sold him, but he gave me 15k instead and said money is not an issue. This made me truly wonder about how will this market work a few months down the line.

sooo.. in closing 8-D, if you provide a service you will become successful. Maybe aos you should get together with some of the tailors on your server and see how you guys can complement each other instead of selling "against." I've been trying to do this on my server with some small success and I truly hope we can all pull together. I mean armorsmiths and weaponsmiths pretty much are necessary to players while us tailors are but a passing fancy, sad to say.

Anyway good luck to all me tailor brothers and sisters and if you are on the Tarq server and need help or need an ear let me know. 8o)

Ja'mes Dera
Tarq. Server

I've seen some serious price gouging going on with Master Tailor items these past few days.

A few factors are involved here I think:

1) The glut of cash from missions.

2) The fact that high level items from other classes involve lots of specific materials and lots of resources plus experimentation, leading tailors to believe they can get away with charging outragious prices on master tailor items.

I'm not exactly a casual gamer or a power crafter so I have only about 4 tailor skillboxes right now so about the most exiciting thing I can make right now are swoop helms and tipless gloves. My policy up to this point has been to value hides at 10 credits per unit, and other resources at1 credit per unit when computing my "cost" in my mind. I then double this cost and add a bit of markup for higher skillbox items.

When my good friend, the dancer told me she spent $40,000 on two items from a master tailor I was shocked. I just checked swgcraft.com to look up the resources required for these items and found, lo and behold, they did not requre thousands of resources...in fact the only thing that seperates them from a swoop helm or a cold weather jacket is the skill required to make it and the use of factory produced cloth.

Don't get me wrong, there is something to be said for paying a bit for the services of a master tailor, but a 18000 credit markup on an item is simply unacceptable for me.

When I hit master that metal bikini that costs me MAYBE a few hundred credits might sell for a couple thousand, but I'm not going to gouge my customers in this way, even if they have the cash to buy these items.

If I earn the ilk of other tailors, so be it. I know what a pain it is to craft a suit of armor, and I know hte resources required for a large house, so I can see charging thousands of credits for this item...it makes sense! Charging 20,000 credits for an item that takes you virtually no effort to craft is a joke, and I won't be a part of that.

I've seen some tailors on Chilastra selling Dusters for 1kcr, I lost a sale because someone said "what! I bought this one for 400cr, his name was Nos"

So I messaged good ol Nos and he said "oh I did that because he was low on credits"

I'm glad to see people 1 day into the game and they can buy one of our best pieces!