Weaponsmith Archive

What is your opinion on having another weaponsmith shop in the same area as yours?

IMO:

The bad is of course that they might buy from him/her instead of you.

But the good thing is that you might attract more buyers. People ar lazy (at least I am). If you need a new weapon and you know there are several vendors in the same area I rather go there than going where there is only one vendor. That is if you doesn't know if the vendor has the item in stock.

Even worst in some ways since I am not a master, and I have a master nearby... but I do pretty good sales because my weapons are almost master quality and much cheaper..but anytime (most of the time) people ask for DX2s or T21s I send them over to his place, its not too bad

It's a good thing for the MWS who is trying to get his foot in the door. It allows you to shave off a piece of business from well known Masters who've been around a while and have a solid customer base. Keep in mind that this only holds true if there's something to distinguish you from him. You can't move in next door to a MWS and start charging the same price for the same weapons. Lower those prices and give people a reason to buy your wares instead of his.

People are more likely to come to an area with 2 or more Weaponsmiths than they will a solo smith.

Why?

Vendors go out of stock. 2 Weaponsmiths means twice as many guns, and thus twice the likelihood of finding the gun you want, without running all the way out in the middle of nowhere to one vendor to find it empty.

I live in the same "neighborhood" as two other Master smiths (guildmates). One lives right next door to me, the other lives directly across from me. This area has turned into a very, very high traffic area, possibly the highest traffic of player-operated area on the server. And I chalk it up to having much more availability, not just with the other two smiths, but also having Architect vendors, Tailors, Armorsmiths, Stimpacks and pet vendors all within an arm's reach. So in the end, we get tons more customers and it evens everything out without a loss of business, and the customers are happy because they don't have to spend two hours flying all across the planet.

The catch is, don't compete with each other. Use all of the same materials so your guns are always the same, swap tips and resource waypoints, and you'll never have to worry about losing all of your sales for a week because your neighbor had a better Steel.