The Merchant � A Profession Guide by Kruppe Rift of the Northstar Alliance � Eclipse Server
This guide is based upon very preliminary findings from the merchant profession. It is also just my personal experience with the profession, and does not aim to be a complete guide to all ways of being a successful merchant. The merchant is one of the least played professions at this time, and as such information on the higher end skills and their effects is scarce.
Expect this guide to get updated regularly, as I find out more information both from the community and my own experiences.
MERCHANT GUIDE
Contents
1. Starting out
2. Artisan business skills
3. Merchant XP
4. Using Vendors
5. Vendor Maintenance
6. Merchant skills
7. Getting people to your store
8. Known Bugs
1. Starting out
Any race can become a merchant. There are no specific race bonuses that effect your progression as a merchant, and there are no attributes that assist in rising up the merchant profession. Becoming a master merchant is all about your abilities in game to sniff out a deal, and know what the market desires. However, the merchant profession is very time consuming to perfect.
The road to Merchant begins with the Artisan profession, so if you haven�t already, train in Artisan. The skill you need to progress is the Business Branch of the Artisan Profession, all the way up to Business 4.
To progress Business you need General Crafting Experience (GCXP) I won�t tell you here how to obtain GCXP, as there are many conclusive guides to crafting already available.
2. Artisan Business Skills
These skills are really the very basics of becoming a merchant, and will allow you to start accruing Merchant XP.
Business 1 � 500 GXP � This skill allows you to place Bazaar auctions for a reduced fee.
Business 2 � 1,000 GXP � This skill allows you to place premium auctions that will show up highlighted on the bazaar
Business 3 � 3,000 GXP � This skill allows you to place the first type of vendor (Terminal). See the section on Vendors.
Business 4 � 6,000 GXP � This skill allows you to place a second type of vendor (Robot)
As you can see you can start to become a merchant from Business 3, and many crafters who wish to sell their own wares, will probably stop with these Artisan skills. The merchant skills however greatly increase your selling potential.
Once you have Business 4, you need 5000 MXP to be able to train Novice Merchant.
3. Merchant XP
Merchant XP is very important, as it is required for all of the elite merchant skills.
Merchant XP is earnt in a variety of ways.
You get 50MXP per vendor per hour it is active.
You get 50MXP each time someone accesses one of your vendors (doesn�t have to buy anything)
You get 50MXP every time someone pays the entrance fee to your house.
4. Vendors
I�ll cover the basics of running a vendor before I go into the merchant skills, as vendors become available from Business 3 onwards.
To place a vendor you must have access (and administration rights) to a building. Typically this will be the house in which you reside, but could equally be any other type of player made structure you can enter. Note � you are unable to place any vendors in existing cities. � Vendors cannot be placed in private structures.
When you are in your desired building, go to the structure terminal. Under the structure control menu, you should see an option to create vendor. Go ahead and create your vendor. A dialogue box will pop up asking you what type of vendor you wish to place. If you are at Business 3, the only option will be a bulky terminal, if you have Business 4, Terminal and Robot will be available. The type of vendor you pick at this stage has no real affect at this stage, and is purely cosmetic. Place the type of vendor you want and press ok. Now you are asked to name your vendor. If you are going to sell a specific type of item at this vendor then include that in the name, a descriptive name (that isn�t too long) will enable potential customers to see what you are selling easier. Go ahead and name it something like �yourname�s Resource Salesman� or similar.
Ok now we are ready to place the vendor. Find your desired spot in the building (this can be in any room or even the corridor
Look in your inventory, and the vendor should be there, highlight it and select drop from the radial menu. Once dropped you can re-position the vendor using the standard furniture controls, i.e. /rotatefuriture left/right & /movefurniture forward/back. Play around with your location until you are happy. Ok nearly done, one last step is to select Initialise vendor from the radial menu. Once you initialise the vendor however you cannot move it, so make sure it�s in the right location (and facing the correct way).
Ok your vendors down, so how do you start using it. If you go to Use Vendor from the radial menu you will get to a large box.
There are 4 main parts to this box. The large box to the right displays the items and their details, the box to the bottom left allows you to pick a particular type of item to display, be it resources, ranged weapons, or clothes. At the top will be tabs for:- For sale, Offered, and Stockroom, And top left will be an option box to select to view items either regionally, locally, planetary, or in this specific vendor.
To add items for sale, select your vendor from the top left options box, and For sale from the top tabs. In the bottom right hand corner should be a sell item button. If you click the button, your inventory should appear. Select the item you wish to sell. A further box will appear asking you to enter a price. � Note this price is for the complete lot of items, so if your selling a 100 unit batch of resources, if you set the price to 3 this is the cost for the whole lot, not per unit!)
Viola, your first item is up for sale. If you select your vendor, all, and for sale from the options, you should see your item in the large box on the right, where it will tell you the item name, price etc.
The offers tab allows other players to offer you items for sale. Any player can access your vendor and offer to sell you an item. They offer the item(s) to you at a price. When you access the offers page, and select your vendor and all, all offers will be visible to you. When a player offers you something, it is held in your inventory until you accept or reject the item. If you accept it, the item is moved into your stockroom, and the relevant cost is deducted from your bank account. The item is now yours to do with as you please, use or relist for sale. If you reject the offer, the seller is informed, and can retrieve his item from your vendor. A player can have a maximum of 25 offers active to you at any one time (across all vendors).
Note, it is courteous not to destroy a vendor when there are items in the offers tab, please ensure everyone has retrieved their items before you destroy vendors.
The stockroom is the area where you can store items that you do not wish to put up for sale, it is also where items you buy through the offers are placed. From here you can list items for sale (and give them a price) and also store items for future sale. All of your vendors in the same building share the same stockroom, so it is an easy way of moving items from vendor to vendor (for instance if someone offers resources to your weapons vendor).
5. Vendor Maintenance
Vendor maintenance is a big issue. Vendors require a maintenance pool similar to any structure. This pool is spent over time, Should it run out your vendor condition will deteriorate, and eventually the vendor will destroy itself (and you will loose any items for sale).
To pay in maintenance, select pay maintenance form the vendors control tab. You can retrieve money from the maintenance using the slide bar control at any time.
Maintenance of vendors is expensive (Although there is a Merchant skill to reduce this). Generally maintenance will cost you 1 credit per 100 credits listed for sale PER HOUR. This is very expensive, for instance if you have 100,000 credits of structures listed, then expect to pay 1,000 credits in maintenance PER HOUR � that�s 1% of your profit going every single hour.
Note: See Section 8 Bugs.
6. Merchant Skills
To begin, you need to have 5,000 MXP to train in Novice Merchant, you also require 6,000 Credits to pay the NPC trainer, as the Novice Merchant skill cannot be learnt from a PC. Training novice merchant will also let you place a second vendor.
Many of the merchant skills may just seem like window dressing to begin with, but they are all valuable skills to learn as they will help to increase sales.
Merchant Skills come in 4 varieties, all of which need MXP to advance, namely Advertising, Efficiency, Hiring, and Management
All skills require 10,000 MXP times the tier of the skill, i.e. advertising 1 costs 10,000 MXP, Hiring 3 costs 30,000 MXP, and Management 4 Costs 40,000 MXP
Advertising
Advertising skills give vocal options to your NPC�s allowing them to greet customers and converse with them, at higher levels, Advertising lets you place your vendor on the in game planetary map.
Advertising 1 � Vocal Training
The first advertising skill will allow you to assign a geeting message to each vendor that they will say when a PC gets within a certain range. This message is selected from a list of potential greetings.
Advertising 2 � Advanced Vocalisation
At this level you can programme your vendors with strings of text to say in certain situations.
Advertising 3 � Planetary Ad Campaign
Lets you register your vendor for display on the in-game planetary map � this costs money to maintain!
Advertising 4 - Advanced Planetary Ad Campaign
Lets you register your vendors on the planetary map for a reduced fee.
Efficiency
Initially an important skill for the merchant. This skill will greatly reduce your expenses and therefore increase your profits.
Efficiency 1 � Market Efficiency
The Merchant can list items on the Bazaar for reduced bazaar fees (20% reduction)
Efficiency 2 � Vendor Efficiency
The Merchant�s Vendor Maintenance fees are reduced.
Efficiency 3 � Increased Market Efficiency
The Merchant can list items on the Bazaar for greatly reduced fees
Efficiency 4 � Structure efficiency
The merchant can maintain structured for a reduced fee. (20% reduction)
Hiring
Hiring is an interesting skill that will increase your vendor options.
Hiring 1 � Selective Hiring
This skill allows the Merchant additional options when selecting Vendors. Additional types of vendors become available.
Hiring 2 � Expanded Hiring
This skill allows the Merchant further additional options when selecting Vendors. Additional types of vendors become available.
Hiring 3 � Uniforms.
This skill allows Merchants to give their NPC vendors clothes to wear. You can use this to customise your vendors, and give them �uniforms� note all clothes given to Vendors in this way cannot be reclaimed.
Hiring 4 � Corporate Image
More details soon
Management
The management skill enables the Merchant to employ additional vendors at each stage. The merchant receives 1 vendor at Artisan Business 3 level, and a second at Novice Merchant level
Management 1 � Additional Vendor
The Merchant can place an additional vendor (3 total)
Management 2 � Additional Vendor
The Merchant can place an additional vendor (4 total)
Management 3 � Additional Vendor
The Merchant can place an additional vendor (5 total)
Management 4 � Additional Vendor
The Merchant can place an additional vendor (6 total)
Master Merchant
The cost of becoming a master merchant is 620 apprentaship points. The master merchant receives yet another reduction to his bazaar listing fees, and allows you to place a 3PO type robot vendor.
7. Getting people to your vendors
So you�ve got your vendor, and you�ve got some wares to sell, so how do you get any customers? Your merchant is stuck out in the middle of no-where in a house on its own. � Passing traffic is non-existant.
The only real option is to get out there yourself and advertise. Speak to people and tell them about the shop and what it stocks. Offer to e-mail them the way point.
Your biggest influence on the number of visitors to your shop will be repeat business. If you always have good quality items in stock at reasonable prices, people will return to your shop. Word of mouth is what your after, and that�s not easy to accomplish. It takes time to build up a reputation, and hard work to keep it. This is where the corporate image (i.e. dressing all your vendors the same) will help as it will render your vendors instantly recognisable, even if you have vendors spread across multiple buildings, people will see the uniform and recognise that vendor as yours.
If you have a PA, ask them to promote your store to any people they group with.
People will use your shop if you stock it with things people need. Ask people what they want, if you don�t currently have it tell them you will get some in stock over the next day. Get some and make sure it�s listed. If you say you will stock something do it. Find out who your neighbours are, and what items / resources they use frequently � if you next door neighbour is a medic or doctor, make sure your vendor is stocked with the resources they require to create medicines.
Make sure your house/shop is attractive � furnish it with good furniture � another tip is to add crafting stations that are free for all to use. Crafters will love it if they can not only purchase resources from your vendors, but also craft their items then and there. You will also get a lot more offers of sales by having crafting stations in your house too.
If you are about to place your house, make sure you do so near to others, join in with a player city, anything to increase your client base, and the possibility of getting more visitors.
If you place items in the bazaar, don�t forget to add the location of your shop to the item description. � make it something like �If you like this item, please visit my shop on Naboo at +700, +6500 where I have many other items for sale at great prices�
There are lots of things you can do to get people visiting your shop. The main thing to remember is to never false sell anything. Don�t forget the case of the merchant, who created a small house, renamed it medium house and sold it for 40,000 credits � yes he made a quick buck, but no one will trust his wares again. He is now out of business and forced to run delivery missions all day, just to maintain his house.
Try to negotiate exclusive supply deals with crafters, offer trades, say you will supply the resources to make a batch of 100 super blasters, if you can exclusively sell them in your shop, and retain a % of the profits?
Keep on top of the market, find out the local prices, and what people want and you will be a successful merchant.
The merchant can be an exciting class to play, if you love the cut and thrust of market forces, cutting a deal and turning a profit.
Becoming a merchant is easy; becoming a great merchant is very hard. Strive for excellence. !
8. Bugs
The merchant profession is unfortunately blighted with many bugs � some of quite devastating significance. (as of 16th July)
Below is a list of bugs that are known at this time.
� Premium auctions appear no different to normal bazaar auctions.
� If you delete a vendor with items still in it, those items appear in the stockroom, but cannot be retrieved by either the merchant or a purchaser
� NPC maintenance costs are stuck at 1 credit per hour regardless of items listed.
� When your vendor is listed on the planetary map, server downtime will wipe that listing, which will have to be manually re-entered.
� Resources that have been split become bugged on your vendors and cannot be retrieved, either buy a purchaser, or by yourself.
� Often when retrieving items they become stuck at the �Retrieving item� please wait� screen. A workaround exists where the majority of items will be retrievable if you cancel the retrieve after a few seconds, and then try to retrieve the item again. Keep repeating this until the item is retrieved (commonly 2nd / 3rd attempt.)
� Merchant Auctions do not appear on the global Bazaar (Note this is as intended according to Sony CSR, but the majority of the merchant profession regard this as a bug as it WAS a feature in Beta.)
� Hiring 3 skill is broken and the cast majority of vendors will not wear clothes, or those clothes will not be mapped to the vendor properly.
I�m sure there are more bugs to be found (especially at the higher skill boxes) � but these are the known issues as it stands.
Version 1.2 � 19 August 2003
Kruppe Rift � Eclipse Server
Version 1.2 Update
All Sections Updated
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