Yet Another Shopkeeping Thread

Iosyne

This discussion was created from comments split from: Ankyrean Anguish - Aetolia-based RAGE.

Moirean

Not a rage so much as a "Why..." - shops that sells stuff for cheaper than the comms it costs to make it. Like, there's undercutting and then there's just wtf, why not just donate the money directly to your org or go buy chests or something?

Erzsebet

I can't speak for anyone else, but usually, when -I- do it, it's because I'm making extra elsewhere and balancing prices with a big picture in mind and/or because my overhead comm price for the given item is non-existent.

Ishin

Moirean said:

Not a rage so much as a "Why..." - shops that sells stuff for cheaper than the comms it costs to make it. Like, there's undercutting and then there's just wtf, why not just donate the money directly to your org or go buy chests or something?

Lot of people donate items/materials to shops, especially guild shops. If you donate it, you could sell it for 1 gold, and it'd still be a profit. Terrible profit, but profit nonetheless.

Rashar

Plus, I mean.

I have hundreds of some comms that I've never even bought before because of chests and all that stuff. I don't even know what half of my things are worth.

Moirean

You shouldn't be stocking a shop if you don't know what stuff is worth. That's one reason shops are kinda a crapshoot and our economy is borked - people are throwing stuff up at silly prices that don't make any sense.

Look at the Syssin shop as an example:

Arrows are stocked at 7 gold. Even if you are buying wood directly from comm shops (21 gold) and steel from the city at a guild bulk discount (60 gold) that's 8 gold per arrow. They are being sold for 7 each. They are being sold for less than it costs to make. Why not just donate the gold directly to your guild, instead of tanking the economy?

Ishin

Because we don't have gold to begin with - we have the commodities. So we make what we can, put it in the shop. It sells, at a profit to us, no less, and the guild profits. I sincerely doubt our one shop is tanking the economy though

Trager

I think it is worth thinking about the draw it brings. I am more then happy to take a small dive in say, massing or mending prices, but I also believe that just getting them to come to the shop is a good thing. "Oh, turns out I need more of this, may as well while I'm here." Arrows are something people are always looking for in my experience.

Damonicus

Trager said:

I think it is worth thinking about the draw it brings. I am more then happy to take a small dive in say, massing or mending prices, but I also believe that just getting them to come to the shop is a good thing. "Oh, turns out I need more of this, may as well while I'm here." Arrows are something people are always looking for in my experience.

This is actually a standard practice for real stores. Take grocery stores for instance. You know most stores sell pepsi at a loss because they know, "Hey they will buy this 2 ltr at $1, but end up buying more." For my own shop, I maybe go to a 5 to 10% increase of what the value is of the item, then put some stuff below cost. I can harvest ink, I can dissect corpses, so all undead cures are pure profit gold wise, countering time spent doing the work. Double that, when I consider I am a Bloodborn as well. Will I take a loss at some things when I will sell a ton of all my other things at a profit, Yes, many times over.

Moirean

I understand drawing people in. However, when everyone else is selling stuff at 5-10x as much as that undercut price, it makes no sense for the price to be so low. It just creates this nasty tailspin where prices are pushed lower and lower - it's why herbs ended up at 1g each. Even if the stuff is being donated, there's no reason to stock it dirt cheap and below cost, as opposed to just lower than elsewhere, unless you are really just trying to shoot down the economy. Aetolia is a fairly small economy and one or two shops can swing the price scale of things. I'm not even going to start detailing the weird differences we have here compared to the real world. I mean, gold falls out of corpses here. We're all mass-murdering muggers.

Rou

Syssin have access to cheaper-than-commodity arrows at five hundred a day. That being said, other shops might low ball stuff because they're tired of looking at it in the stockroom. Might be on sale just not specifically marked as such. - I digress with Chocolates need longer than 30 days! Especially with this.promo.

Moirean

They do? How? O.o If it's a shop mob in their guildhall, that seems like a wonky oversight from before fletching was put in, and should probably be looked at. NPCs should never be undercutting players.

Zsadist

Moirean said:

You shouldn't be stocking a shop if you don't know what stuff is worth. That's one reason shops are kinda a crapshoot and our economy is borked.

@Moirean, I'd also like to point out that shops are a crapshoot and the economy is borked is because you have some people who have like 5-8 shops all in the same city or throughout Aetolia. Shops wouldn't be AS rigged if you had a larger group of people who owned them.

Alot of times that is why that kind of serious undercutting happens, because people are wanting to make sure they get the sales instead of someone else in their plentiful amount of shops.

Erzsebet

It's hard to know what things are worth sometimes. Some things vary wildly in price, others seem to be priced the same across the board, but in general, I've noticed a trend of you personally selling all of the bull's eyes/phoenix hearts/etc at substantially lower prices (like >1k) to everyone elses pricing of 3-5k or so, as far as 'reach shops go. There are outliers in everything, being my point.


Edit: Rage: Being life-side. Where the hell are you people allowed to bash.

Moirean

Delos and Duiran were selling hearts and eyes stupid low, so I had to drop the prices to stay competitive. 3k-5k is simply not a viable price for those anymore, with the influx we've seen from giftbags and chests. People may try pricing them at 5k but they aren't going to sell at that price. They barely sell at 500-1000.

Regarding pricing in general, you can use the directories to easily assess common prices. I check them every few days to adjust my prices based on what the current market prices are.

Erzsebet

My point was -not- *WHINE* YOU'RE UNDERCUTTING PRICES. My point, was that there's no difference in electing to price them so far below what everyone else is, and in someone selling arrows at 7g per, or w/e.

Haven

Why not do an RP thing ICly to discuss this among shop owners?

Toz

Because this is the rage thread, for all our (ir)rational problems. That nobody (myself included) can stop from commenting/arguing.

Erzsebet

I don't see that going well, personally.

Also. Fffff. I hate bashing so much. Eeesh.

Haven

Toz said:

Because this is the rage thread, for all our (ir)rational problems. That nobody (myself included) can stop from commenting/arguing.

I understand that. I wasn't trying to imply that the point shouldn't be raged or argued about or commented on. That wasn't my intent. I was trying to offer a solution. Besides, why wouldn't this be an active discussion in the game too? It's a legitimate concern for any merchant after profit.

I personally think it'd be cool and interesting if someone tried to set up a merchant empire or cartel of sorts or set up extensive contracts or even try to enforce regulations or something for goods.

Erzsebet

I think it'd get griefy, quick, personally.

As an aside: Alting in the past day or so has reminded me how much I cannot stand playing on the light side of things. Ugh.

Haven

Erzsebet said:

I think it'd get griefy, quick, personally.

As an aside: Alting in the past day or so has reminded me how much I cannot stand playing on the light side of things. Ugh.

How so?

Moirean

Erzsebet said:

My point was -not- *WHINE* YOU'RE UNDERCUTTING PRICES. My point, was that there's no difference in electing to price them so far below what everyone else is, and in someone selling arrows at 7g per, or w/e.

There is a difference, though. First, I priced mine on par with the prices elsewhere in the game. It's not random undercutting, it's meeting market value. Second, the pricing comes from a long-term look at what price the stuff will sell at and an assessment of the current surplus in the market, due to their source being dramatically increased. Third, and really the crux of the issue here, things like hearts and bulls-eyes do not have a creation cost - ie a baseline worth. Things like vials, arrows, etc, have a base cost to create. Things like hearts and bullseyes are basically a side-effect created as a result of gambling. The amount of arrows or vials in the game only fluctuates when someone sits down and makes a bunch or uses a bunch - and that amount created doesn't change the cost for the raw materials. Their value may rise and fall based on what the raw materials are currently priced (if wood, for example, went through a shortage, the price for woodcrafted materials would go up), but there is always going to be that baseline that it costs to make them. Undercutting beneath that is not the same as selling junk items from a promo for cheap because the market is saturated with them.

I guess my frustration is that shopkeeping, for many people, seems to be just a vanity/fun thing, versus an actual way to make money, and it kinda kills the economy.

Eleanor

I long ago came to the understanding that shopkeeping was more about providing fun RP stuff than it was about turning a profit. Kinda sucks, but without seriously throttling supply of gold and comms on the administration side of things, the economy really isn't going to get any better, and the admins would be nuts to try and enact that because the sheer amount of crying would stress them into early graves. It's easy to see that their decisions lean toward 'give everyone all the things' rather than 'aggressively remove things to force a fix' (see: pushing the harvest cap up, planned enchantment casks) and that's their call entirely, but it does cramp what we as players can do about it.

Rashar

I mean. How do you fix the economy when there are players with millions and millions and millions of gold and others who are bashing Tiyen for refills.

Side note - Trager and whoever he was talking to had it right.

I threw some funds at someone to help buy a shop a while back, and I did it pretty much with the understanding that I was tossing the money out the window, but it was for an acceptable purpose (having another avenue for RP, giving people something to do) and what's the difference between that and a house? A minipet? A -real- pet? That being said, I'm fairly certain the shop is doing pretty well. Will it take a while to make back 3 million? Sure. But at this rate, it will happen.

I guess my sleepy, just woke up point is that A) If you're trying to make a big profit off a shop, you might be looking at it the wrong way, but It is possible to make money off them, even with selling some things under value.

Ok, coffee is done. I'll stop flapping.

Phoenecia

I've helped buy shops for people in the past or given them the gold for it because I know how hard it is to even find one available in the first place, and how insanely expensive can be to buy it. Even as a shopkeeper myself, I don't make most of my money from my shop - I make most of it from bashing, and I think I charge a little higher than most shopkeepers for some things. You're not likely going to turn a profit in a shop unless you stock primarily curatives. I mean, you can TRY regulating the prices shopkeepers set, but if you try creating something like a player-run merchant circle, it'd be really hard to enforce price ceilings because guaranteed, there's going to be people on both sides refusing to work together because of the whole Light/Dark dichotomy.

Rashar

Ooh an underground merchant circle where people start getting whacked for not going along. We need the bash brothers to be the ones that travel around and rough things up.

Cole strolls into the room and tips his hat back, glancing around with a real friendly expression showing through the cigarette hanging unlit from his lips. Boots clicking on the smooth tile floor, he walks over and pulls a shelf full of vials from the wall, sending them scattering across the room with a loud crash and the sound of shattering glass. "Ain't aimin' t'be a prick," he drawls, "Figure y'shoulda jes paid t'[beep]' fee, though."

Zsadist

I'd like to revert back to my previous point of one person owning multiple shops. Lets take @Eleanor for example, I know she has 4 shops in Spinesreach. I'm a new up and coming shopowner (I wish, would love to own a shop as it would give me more RP and more to do than bash/lesser fight)... I'm going to do research on what I plan to stock: vials, refills, curatives, inks, etc. If she is selling empty vials at 20/22/24/28 gold apiece (which is nowhere near the cost of a wood commodity with it being 38 gold for a piece of wood in BL) then yes, I'm going to cut my prices even lower, likely to 15 gold apiece just so I can outsell her.

This kind of economy is what causes the fluctuation and undercutting of prices far below that of what it takes to make them.

Xavin

Your shops profits will be determined by the things you offer. Consider that some things are longer-term purchases. Stuff like clothing and vials only need to be replaced every, what? Three real life months? I was raking in gold with my shop in Duiran pre-enchantment changes because resistance rings weren't long lasting. However that was the bulk of my income from the shop. Now that resistance rings don't fade as quick, I'm not making as much gold. Still exceeding taxes but still.

Areka

Keep in mind that many dual-owned shops in cities are due to organizations (I used to own two in Enorian, one the guild's, one my own - sold mine so while I currently own one in Enorian, it isn't really mine). Though, there are a few certain folks who own multiple shops (coughdelos) and do not really have varied wares between them, and that bums me out.

I think shops could be moved to another thread though, there's an interesting discussion in profit. I make a decent profit on Forging, but it is largely due to having the corner of the market, and even then, my real profit's at about 50% to what sales are.

Sessizlik

I was really lucky getting my shop for free. Everything I make is profit, but I mostly just do it for rp anyways and the shop is doing really well. Still raging about how tough it is getting a shop in a neutral spot, cause that would open up for a lot of fun things for me.