Tailor Archive
Thread: End of the Month, March Business Report...
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Alliaya
Sun Apr 04, 2004 7:24 pm
#1
Hello all, it's your friendly neighborhood Tarquines Tailor! 
Some of you may remember I created a spread sheet w/ excel sometime back and have been tracking my sales using this. Well, it's end of the month for March and just thought I'd share my figures w/ you and talk a bit about what worked this month and what didn't. I gave a mid-month update a few weeks ago, but here we go for how everything ended.
Bottom line: sold a total of 152 items on three different vendors and using bazaars. Pulled in a total revenue of 337,800 and had total tailoring expenses of 68,000, which left me with a profit of 269,800.
I'm very happy w/ that, compared to Feburary's pitiful numbers of 40 items w/ a profit of 75,700.
Top selling items this month? Well, what an interesting mix of things I sold. My top seller for March was, are you ready for this... shorts ... Yes, you read that right, plain ol' ordinary shorts, the ones you get w/ domestic arts. Sold a total of 10 of these this month. I renamed them Go-Go shorts and they have been selling like hot cakes! Other high sellers:
1) Go-Go shorts (Shorts): 10
2) Sports Bustier: 8
3) Specs-Ops Duster, Link Steel Gloves: 7
4) Large Pockets Pants, Muscle Shirt, Flex-Form Shirt: 6
5) Striped Pants, Sandles, Men's Dress Shoes, Sriped Slacks, Cloak: 5
I had several items which I sold 4, 3, 2, and 1 of, not going to list those here.
So, what did I do this month? Followed a lot of the suggestions I got here on this forum, thanks all. Have most of my items done in spring colors (White, Pink, BabyBlue, BabyGreen, Lilac, Lemon, and Peach), these have sold very well.
Leveled up, I'm now 3-4-3-2 in Tailor. Leveled merchant up as well, now 2-0-1-4. This gave me Ad Barking, great feature, used it to advertise my new spring colors. I also send out a thank you card to all customers who buy an item off the bazaar and include an invitation to visit my nearest vendor. Changed the decore of our guild Mall and began using displays of the clothing and outfits on my vendor. Tried to run a selection of limited edition St. Pat's gear, that unfortunately for me did not sell so well. I know other's had a good experience with that, but for some reason it flopped on my server. 
Oh well.
Oh well.The biggest change this month was the opening of our guild's Mini Mall on Corellia outside of Coronet. We placed a small generic house and all our crafter's have placed vendors in it. We had our Main Mall (guild hall) on Dantooine, but have just recently relocated to Naboo. Hopefully this will increase sales as well. We have decided we are going to open a second Mini Mall on Tatooine as soon as possible and have plans to expand Resurrection Mini Malls on as many planets as we can, hehe, gonna conquer the galaxy.
Other than the move to Naboo no other major plans for April, hope to get some suggestions from the rest of you as to what you are planning for this month. I'm going to keep my spring color line for this month as well and then begin introducing Summer Colors by end of the month. Haven't decided what I'm going to focus on yet for that, but like the idea of keeping my customers guessing. Also plan to rotate displays regularly and going to try the idea of themed displays this month as well. Anyway, thanks in advance for any feedback and suggestions.
Stumpet_Rakingclaw
Sun Apr 04, 2004 7:33 pm
#2
compared to the 5.6 billion dollar profit that weaponsmiths make...yay
sorry bout the negativity there...but i find it depressing that tailors make so little when they have so much to offer...but i do appreciate your post it was very informitive as well as being quite interesting...how did you set that excell sheet up...you might also try the utility the merchants friend...someone posted about it a while back and its what i use and its very very good for tracking sales...by date, time, person, etc...the one problem is it doesn't count for sales made in person...so i can't keep track of how much custom business i do...anyhow i am a master tailor and perhaps your profits will be higher at the master lvl i would appreciate being kept up to date even if you don't post here on the forums...just would like to know how business is on other servers....
anyways the link to merchants friend is http://www.geocities.com/illiya_darklight/ sorry if it didn't pop up as a clickable link i am just kind of being lazy today
sorry bout the negativity there...but i find it depressing that tailors make so little when they have so much to offer...but i do appreciate your post it was very informitive as well as being quite interesting...how did you set that excell sheet up...you might also try the utility the merchants friend...someone posted about it a while back and its what i use and its very very good for tracking sales...by date, time, person, etc...the one problem is it doesn't count for sales made in person
...so i can't keep track of how much custom business i do...anyhow i am a master tailor and perhaps your profits will be higher at the master lvl i would appreciate being kept up to date even if you don't post here on the forums...just would like to know how business is on other servers....anyways the link to merchants friend is http://www.geocities.com/illiya_darklight/ sorry if it didn't pop up as a clickable link i am just kind of being lazy today
ZahrIna
Sun Apr 04, 2004 7:48 pm
#3
WoW!
Sounds like you had a big month with all the moving and such. Grats on the new mall and good luck on the galaxy take over. 
As long as the creds are moving forward.. you're doing just fine. It's hard when you're not a master so I'm quite proud of your devotion.
I'm not one much for giving advice.. I don't follow my own. 
I do encourage you to try to stay positive and motivated. Heh, reading this.. I think I'll go in game and craft some "non socket needed" clothing.
**pat on the back**
/cheers!
NJ62
Sun Apr 04, 2004 8:55 pm
#4
Sounds like things are picking up... The important thing is not to be discouraged by low sales and make sure to have the basics in stock at all times. Uniform boots, long uniform gloves, red bustiers, fash pleated skirts, hawtpants, lekku wraps, lux gowns and grand ball gowns, and dress slippers in every color. If they find dress slippers that match, they will buy them! For some reason I've sold quite a lot of lux gowns and grand ball gowns lately. Many are guys trying to buy cool stuff for their respective females... and sometimes they can't put the skirt/shirt thing together (hence the all-in-one dress).
Those shorts will fly off the vendor! It's obscene.
I think the single most important lesson is that if you decide to carry a color, make sure to be able to complete outfits in that color. If you make things in red, for example, you need to carry red bustiers, red skirts, and red shoes in various styles. A real deal-breaker can be "I like this bustier but nothing here goes with it" and they're afraid of being unable to match it later. If this means only offering 1 shade of blue instead of 2, so be it.
Good work, and I look forward to seeing what next month brings.
Alliaya
Mon Apr 05, 2004 4:27 am
#5
Stumpet_Rakingclaw wrote:
compared to the 5.6 billion dollar profit that weaponsmiths make...yay
sorry bout the negativity there...but i find it depressing that tailors make so little when they have so much to offer...but i do appreciate your post it was very informitive as well as being quite interesting...how did you set that excell sheet up...you might also try the utility the merchants friend...someone posted about it a while back and its what i use and its very very good for tracking sales...by date, time, person, etc...the one problem is it doesn't count for sales made in person
anyways the link to merchants friend is http://www.geocities.com/illiya_darklight/ sorry if it didn't pop up as a clickable link i am just kind of being lazy today
Yea, i saw that post, unfortunately for me I already had my spread sheet up and running and spent way tooo much time putting everything in it, hehe. I thought about using the merchant tool, but decided to stick w/ my spread sheet for now. It's not that impressive really, just two main columns; (Item name) and (Price), i have all the schematics I have right now listed then the price for each item in the next column. Then I have a column for each month (Feb, Mar, and Apr) so far. May swich to the merch tool after i end this quarter.
I set the spread sheet to tally the total number of items sold at the bottom. Unfortunately, I then figure out the revenue generated by hand, ugg math, thank you calculator. I keep a running tally of my expenses and at the end of the month pop that number in a cell under revenue number and have excell to the subtracting from the revenue to give me my final profit number.
And yes, I well be posting again next month, and will continue to post until my business gets sooo crazy that I can no longer keep up with it. *crosses fingers and hopes for that day* hehe
*crosses fingers and hopes for that day* hehe
SueDenim
Mon Apr 05, 2004 10:04 am
#6
I use the Merchant's Friend along with my own spreadsheet - they're quite complementary in my case, anyhow. The Merchant's Friend extracts the e-mails and gathers customer-oriented data that I never have tracked, while I input the specific sales into my spreadsheet, which is mainly for inventory tracking and "I'm restocking - what should I make now?" type questions.
Songe
Mon Apr 05, 2004 10:20 am
#7
NJ62 wrote:
I think the single most important lesson is that if you decide to carry a color, make sure to be able to complete outfits in that color. If you make things in red, for example, you need to carry red bustiers, red skirts, and red shoes in various styles. A real deal-breaker can be "I like this bustier but nothing here goes with it" and they're afraid of being unable to match it later. If this means only offering 1 shade of blue instead of 2, so be it.
It's what I do too... I mostly stick to forest green, navy blue, bright blue, purple, mauve, red and dark pink, and of course black and white but almost everything I can make is in these colors. Look at what people buy at the same time, and you will know how to put both in matching colors on the vendor (bustier, skirts and slippers, but also two tone formal shirts and decorative vests for example). I used to offer gold, orange and green as well but they don't sell so well so I gave up.
And thanks for the reminder about shorts... Forgot to put them on sale lol
ArthurDentOnBria
Mon Apr 05, 2004 11:40 am
#8
I think it's really refreshing to hear from newer tailors that are actually *playing* as a tailor, tracking sales, and worrying about fashion and such rather than all the "I just ground to MT this weekend and what do I sell, I need to make a million by theend of the week" kind of tailors. Thanks for sharing this
I just started my clothing vendor up this month in a "serious way" again after a couple months off. I still don't have it, what I consider "fully stocked" but it's up to about 200-250 items right now I think. I've been mainly focusing on the "old standby" colors: black, red, navy, bright blue, pink, white. An occasional purple, orange, and green thrown in for good measure.
Your top sellers are an interesting read as well, as those differ a lot from mine, but perhaps I'm just not "pushing" those types of items all that much. In particular the items that surprise me on the list are the shorts, large pocket pants, and link steel gloves (none of which I even have in my vendor at this point). So I'll have to re-introduce them again. The spring colors idea sounds cool too. Hmm, I'm going to have to give that some thought.
Thanks again for sharing.
Drazic
Tue Apr 06, 2004 8:26 am
#9
CONGRATS!!
I have been tracking my vendor sales, but only for restocking purposes, not for how much I am making. Most of my business is direct sales, not vendor at this time. I have been toying with the idea of opening a branch elsewhere (was offered a spot in a small city) but my computer is so slow, travel is often too laggy to even contemplate.
Will have to look for this Merchants Friend program - thanks
I have been tracking my vendor sales, but only for restocking purposes, not for how much I am making. Most of my business is direct sales, not vendor at this time. I have been toying with the idea of opening a branch elsewhere (was offered a spot in a small city) but my computer is so slow, travel is often too laggy to even contemplate.
Will have to look for this Merchants Friend program - thanks
tarneel
Tue Apr 06, 2004 1:35 pm
#10
It just so happens that I kepta record of my sales since March 1st as thats when I started my vendor
Since March 1st I've sold 128 items totalling 328,950 creds. That's on 1 vendor and no bazaar sales.As thats my first monthas a vendor I have no idea whether it's any good or not. I'm certainly happywith it
Alliaya
Wed Apr 07, 2004 5:31 am
#11
tarneel wrote:
It just so happens that I kepta record of my sales since March 1st as thats when I started my vendor
Since March 1st I've sold 128 items totalling 328,950 creds. That's on 1 vendor and no bazaar sales.As thats my first monthas a vendor I have no idea whether it's any good or not. I'm certainly happywith it
That's excellent, in my opinion, Tarneel. My first full month tracking I only sold 40 items and made 70k, I was insanely happy thinking I was raking in the dough, hehe, this month blew that away. You must have your vendor in a good location, keep it, keep it, keep it.
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