Crafters - Please don't accept default GTN prices!

[IsraelZerg]

A three weeks ago I was selling companion gifts for 2k-10k over what the mission cost. Recently after a few days of my stuff bouncing back I went through and actually searched what was going on and I found out I now have to sell them at 100-200 credits over the mission cost.

 

It's a shame, but that's how the market is right now and I have to deal with it. We can't teach people how to use the GTN to make a profit.

 

You're right.... You could wait 'till the market has changed

[SpankyMcFlych]

meh. A good crafter keeps track of the pricing trends of the mats he uses to craft the items he sells, and prices them accordingly.

 

Unfortunately in this game it's more profitable to sell mats to endless crafters who don't do so.

[Laokoon]

Doesn't work. You cannot establish a guild type situation. The quantity of people that read the forums regularly is a small percent of those that play. And most of them won't bother either.

 

Also, what exactly defines minimum price of materials anyway?

 

And, really, who'd want to make a single credit profit?

 

There's no controlling it. Different people value their time/efforts differently. And they have different goals.

 

You can't control them. All you can do is not join in. Find the market segments they aren't in. Wait them out and then return to the market. Price your goods at a fair price and get the occasional sale when the cheaper stuff runs out.

 

 

It's a shame, but that's how the market is right now and I have to deal with it. We can't teach people how to use the GTN to make a profit.

 

The problem here is that it is not just people making a tiny profit, there are people actively losing money on what they sell and they just keep doing it. My only guess is they have no clue what they are doing, they just figure that if they sell something they are therefore making a profit, not taking into account the cost they had in acquiring the item. There is a difference between selling an item that it costs you 2K to make for 2.2K and selling it for 1.8K. There are people who sell tons of companion gifts at a price below the cost of the actual mission to get the gift. You literally cannot make money doing that. I am not saying "lets price fix to make crazy money." Sure, I would like that, but I don't think there is any argument against saying, "lets price fix so we sell things such that we don't lose money on the sale." That is how an economy that survives works, people sell things for more than they cost to make, not less. I can't force other players to price their items correctly, but if they don't they hurt themselves, other crafters, and the economy as a whole.

 

 

One credit is not enough profit, btw, I was just using that as a basis (people should want to make a profit otherwise why are they selling items on the GTN). If someone offered me a contract for 100,000 MODs at 1 credit profit each, I would decline because my time is worth way more than that.

 

What if we say, "don't sell items for less then the cost of the materials on the GTN?" If you can sell the materials for more than the item, why are you selling the item itself?

Edited February 9, 2012 by Laokoon

[Saldrex]

I assume the OP is doing a comparison of the prices of mats on the GTN with the price of finished products on the GTN. As far as vendoring, crafting it into something will increase value.

 

The problem really is that materials are inherently more valuable than the finished products unless crafting is exclusive, pain in the ***, hard to come by, has some sort of skill to quality component, or best in slot. Crafts need crafters to be rare for them to have more value than the materials. Mats on their own can be transformed into any of the gear they make, they can be used for skill ups or REing new patterns, they overall have more uses and a bigger market. If I craft an aim piece I have limited the market to people looking for aim pieces. When people can farm the mats and use them for skill up, any price they sell at is profit, yes you may have been able to get more money selling the mats, but that is not the point. There is still a gain of money and a skill up selling at low prices. As I said before the vendor price is higher than the vendor price of mats (this does not necessarily apply for blues or purples) and the GTN bases prices off the vendor price and is also higher than the vendor price. I do not see any significant loss there at all if you gathered all the mats yourself. The only investment in self gathered mats is time. Blue and purple mats are not necessarily the same with the cost to harvest them but they also inherently more valuable as mats for the reason.

 

There is also the fact that to raise a crew skill people need to craft a surplus of gear which leads to massive flooding on the GTN if not vendored and for most probably crafted from free self harvested materials.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Saldrex

[Xenozen]

Crafters beware!

 

Default GTN prices are a loss for many if not all crafting professions. A significant loss! Be sure to actually consider your costs when making the item that you are posting. This is especially true when posting blues which require mission drop components.

 

Tholena

 

I agree but then I don't. I'm not money hungry and I will sell things for even lower if I want. Late game stuff sure ok. But unlike a lot of people I want to help people so I sell stuff for cheap because I know someone will people will buy it and there is plenty of creds to be made just doing dailies or questing if not 50. I made like 200k on taris just cuz. Not like creds really help end game except for crew skills. Everything good is commendations.

[MarcosAguila]

For Synth,

I price what crafted items I do list based on what it took for me to get the resources and what type of item it is. If its orange, 5k from the get go, plus at least 1-3k for the resource mission and maybe another 1-2k for the 15 seconds it took to craft the item. Not to mention whether or not the schematic was paid for. I will never gouge any player and list items for 50k when they dont take 50k to get nor make.

 

Right now to me, resources arent easy to come by. Resources take priority. When we get to colorize items, thats another rounded estimate, 1-5k to the total depending on the color. No mods included.

 

I dont worry about purples, dont really care, it wont matter in the long run if everyone is seeking orange or wearing modded pvp gear with no chance of losing either. Not to be rude, but without more gear loss variables, this thread about items is unnecessary with the exception of resource sales. I dont sell resources and so, it doesnt matter.

Edited February 9, 2012 by MarcosAguila

[atteSmythe]

It isn't hard to earn credits selling things people want, the hard part is keeping the price reasonable for the level of the item. Selling a low level mod for more credits than a low level player can afford is just stupid but if you sell for too low some lazy reseller is going to come in and buy it out and resell it for more.

 

I always thought a system that binds items sold on the GTN to the buyer would prevent the wonton reselling and keep the market values of items down to a reasonable level. Otherwise, prices tend to get out of hand pretty quickly.

I'm afraid this wouldn't help. Or at least, it would help, I doubt to the extent you think.

 

What 'a low level player can afford' is only true for the first character. After that, many (most?) folks just send credits to their alts to buy the best of the best when they level. It's been my experience that during the early days of an MMO, when population is still high, but after the first wave of characters has topped out, inflation due to 'trust fund alts' can quickly push good low level items outside the price range that a first character can afford at those levels.

[Splaktar]

For my crafted items, greens only sell for GTN default price or less about 5% of the time. Blues only 20% of the time. Orange about 25% of the time.

 

This is usually after I've priced them for a small profit and they did not sell or there were numerous duplicate items on the GTN for the default price.

 

There is WAY too much supply and NOT NEARLY enough demand so far on the GTN, at least for Augments and Armormech crafted gear.

 

Maybe I should have done Synthweaving even though I can't use any of the stuff it makes. At least then I might be included in the economy??!

[GnatB]

Well, first off, for all the crewskills I've dabbled in, the "default" pricing for pretty much everything I craft to sell is actually profitable*. (only things I've noticed where the default price wasn't profitable was consumables, but I don't craft those to sell, as... well... I put some up at the minimum profit point I'll accept, and they didn't sell.)

 

 

*assuming I'm not paying the rediculous prices of mats in the GTN, but am getting them from running missions myself. I find it hard to believe anybody actually crafting to make a profit is buying mats from the GTN though, (except for possibly the grade 6 mats). I assume the people actually buying them, (assuming they are actually selling for the listed prices) are the lvl 50's powerleveling their way to make themselves BiS BOP/skill required items.

 

Hopefully, Bioware will fix that by removing said BoP/skill requirements on said items.

[drhay]

Wish this wasn't possible, I detest people who leech of others' efforts.

 

It's a lack of effort that causes people to post things up for dumb prices anyway. The person who is watching for badly posted items, buying and re-selling them, does way more work than the idiot who sells it for 50% of the cost to make the item.

[Maxell_Snow]

The OP is simply complaining that people need to change the way they play TOR. If a crafter wants to put up items for the default price, that is apparently wrong.

 

What the OP doesn't seem to realize is that these people will eventually quit crafting because they are either powerlevelling or will realize they cannot make a profit and the gtn isn't an easy "i win" button.

 

What the OP doesnt realize is that he should be stockpiling his items for when the markets mellow out a bit.

 

Maybe these people are doing that to the OP, wanting to push you out of the market....

[Trojan]

Wish this wasn't possible, I detest people who leech of others' efforts.

 

clearly you're one of the 99%

[HanzBlix]

Now that everyone switched to biochem, I can't find 90% of the items I want to buy on the GTN while leveling my alt (or for their companions). A lot of the time I finally find what I'm looking for, I end up paying LESS than I would be willing to pay.

 

My alt is biochem, and now he can make consumables for my main (who is an armortech).

 

IF people want to MAKE MONEY from their profession, they need to start selling item modifications/gear in the mid range levels. I can assure you that I am not the only one that wants to twink out my alt. PS, there are a lot of people making alts right now, so the market is right.

 

As far as my armortech goes, I've been making money hand over first the last couple of days. I don't usually sell stuff unless I need money, and when I upgraded to my T3 speeder I wanted to make some money back.

 

Been selling blue 49 pieces for 9500 a pop, purples for about 15 to 19k a pop, and I just put up an augment slot purp for 28k, I'll see if it sells. People seem hungry to buy, and when everyone switched to biochem, it created a great market for those of us that held on.

 

The key to Armortech I'm learning is volume. Sell at a price that nets you an OK profit and sell a lot.

[ChunkCohen]

Wish this wasn't possible, I detest people who leech of others' efforts.

 

Then I suppose you detest practically every capitalistic venture that goes on in the Western world.

 

Take a comic book dealer (which I am), for example. Now say someone comes to me with a big longbox of books he wants to flip. Out of the books that hold inherent value (1% of them, in most cases), I'm willing to pay a certain amount to take them off his hands. If the buyer agrees to my offer (no pressure whatsoever), the books get marked up and resold at prices I believe I can get for them in my market, while still turning a reasonable profit. I created a risk for myself by purchasing new items to stock that may or may not sell.

 

In some cases, people don't know what they have. But in the end, it's the job of the seller to do proper research and understand the risks involved before conducting the transaction. Capitalism 101...

Edited February 9, 2012 by ChunkCohen

[DarthWalt]

I dont see this as much of an issue and frankly those that just toss items up there for whatever the AH says helps add to the GTNs viablity.

 

 

There are many Items I sell for what the GTA says and there are many I dont. The only difference is the stuff I just put up I dont care about the stuff I price I want to make that amount and no less.