Vendor Cost: Holy Crap, Highway Robbery!

[hen]

There's nothing wrong with vendor fees the way they are.

If your high priced slow moving items are costing you money, add some fast moving lower priced items to your vendor. These will increase visits and pay for your overheads.

If your vendor is costing you money then you are overpricing your goods.

If you can't find what you need on your shard this is due to low game population, not anything to do with prohibitive vendor fees.

If you want to run vendors and are finding it difficult, ask yourself why and then speak to people on your shard that run successful shops.

The vendor system in this game works perfectly well. No auction house is needed. My vendors in fel on a quiet shard more than pay for themselves, anyone is more than welcome to come round and visit.

 

[Thunderz]

I think vendor fees are kinda fair, id rather we didint have them!!! My total vendor fees atm across every shard i play are over 8 million gold per day but i still make a profit on the items i sell.

For instance selling regs at a fraction above the NPC price covers the cost of the high end items that might take a week to sell but when it sell its pure profit.

The easiest option is to use that illegal web site to see the prices and sell yours 10gp lower and youll be the first to sell it


Thunderz

 

[Madrid]

Many of you posting here need to get out and explore some of the less populated shards. In fact go play there for awhile...a month or two.

Then it'll be...."Oh yeah I get it now".

The way fees are implemented right now it promotes shops going out of business which is not good and it has even more of an impact on less populated shards. You end up with ghost towns and shards that look like they're dead.

Your all okay with that eh'? As long as your little shard is okay....then everything is okay everywhere.

Anyone who thinks vendor fees are fine they way they are currently implemented suffers from tunnel vision.

 

[hen]

Many of you posting here need to get out and explore some of the less populated shards. In fact go play there for awhile...a month or two.

Then it'll be...."Oh yeah I get it now".

The way fees are implemented right now it promotes shops going out of business which is not good and it has even more of an impact on less populated shards. You end up with ghost towns and shards that look like they're dead.

Your all okay with that eh'? As long as your little shard is okay....then everything is okay everywhere.

Anyone who thinks vendor fees are fine they way they are currently implemented suffers from tunnel vision.

Lack of shops is down to low population not vendor fees.

 

[Wizal the Fox]

Lack of shops is down to low population not vendor fees.

On those same low population shards there are still bunch of players trying to sell stuff on general chat. Why don't they put their stuff on vendors?

Lack of shops is due to current vendor fees not beeing sustainable without a huge amount of players for the sales to go fast enough to cover vendor fees.

In the end, it is still the vendor system which is not working correctly if it only works when there is a huge amount of buyers.

 

[hen]

On those same low population shards there are still bunch of players trying to sell stuff on general chat. Why don't they put their stuff on vendors?

Lack of shops is due to current vendor fees not beeing sustainable without a huge amount of players for the sales to go fast enough to cover vendor fees.

In the end, it is still the vendor system which is not working correctly if it only works when there is a huge amount of buyers.

I have my 'stuff' on vendors on a low population shard. Why are vendor fees working for me and not other players?

 

[Wizal the Fox]

I have my 'stuff' on vendors on a low population shard. Why are vendor fees working for me and not other players?

You don't get it do you?
It is EASY for a SELLER to sell only stuff that sells fast and make profit.
It is IMPOSSIBLE for a BUYER to buy stuff that don't sell fast because sellers don't put them on vendors due to the fees

This thread is so filled with one sided shortminded views that it is unbelievable

 

[hen]

You don't get it do you?
It is EASY for a SELLER to sell only stuff that sells fast and make profit.
It is IMPOSSIBLE for a BUYER to buy stuff that don't sell fast because sellers don't put them on vendors due to the fees

This thread is so filled with one sided shortminded views that it is unbelievable

Fees are easily covered by the fast selling low priced items.

What is it that buyers can't find?

Lack of vendors is down to the slow death and depopulation of the game. If you take away vendor fees then there will be an increase of vendors, but these will be storage facilities and junk laden bric-a-brac nightmares trying to sell Frostbringer or Fetid Essence statues for 10 million each.

 

[Wizal the Fox]

Fees are easily covered by the fast selling low priced items.

What is it that buyers can't find?

All nonjunk BODs, high end runic crafted weapons, shall I go on?

Plus now nearly anything that can be turned in for points instead of having to pay fees for leaving them weeks on vendors...

Lack of vendors is down to the slow death and depopulation of the game.

There are no less vendors than 7 or 8 years ago, only now they are all concentrated in the same places and selling the same things.

If you take away vendor fees then there will be an increase of vendors, but these will be storage facilities and junk laden bric-a-brac nightmares trying to sell Frostbringer or Fetid Essence statues for 10 million each.

Just count the items on vendors in the house storage capacity

 

[Pfloyd]

Many of you posting here need to get out and explore some of the less populated shards. In fact go play there for awhile...a month or two.

Then it'll be...."Oh yeah I get it now".

The way fees are implemented right now it promotes shops going out of business which is not good and it has even more of an impact on less populated shards. You end up with ghost towns and shards that look like they're dead.

Your all okay with that eh'? As long as your little shard is okay....then everything is okay everywhere.

Anyone who thinks vendor fees are fine they way they are currently implemented suffers from tunnel vision.

Without derailing the thread, low population servers have ALL kinds of problems other than finding items on vendors. I'm just trying to say that the cost of vendor fees isn't why people on those shards give up on vendors. They give up for LOTS of other reasons but just the price of trying to sell something imho can't be it. If it were then low population shouldn't factor in at all. If the demand is there from one customer the demand will be there for more than one customer.

 

[Madrid]

Fees are easily covered by the fast selling low priced items.

What is it that buyers can't find?

This thread is getting pretty ridiculous....

Let's take a shard like Sonoma or Baja which are not even bottom barrel shards. You can't even find an LRC suit for sale...

This is just one example. The problem is far far worse on the barren shards.

This is not good for new players (not that we're getting any) or players hopping shards.

I don't think many people are understanding it's not about the fee or even how much that fee is. It's how the fee is implemented...

I don't even have a dog in this fight as I'm not hurin' for GP but I do want to see the game do well and they way the vendor fee system is currently set up it's not set up to promote the growth of new players or item availability to all players.

 

[Madrid]

Without derailing the thread, low population servers have ALL kinds of problems other than finding items on vendors. I'm just trying to say that the cost of vendor fees isn't why people on those shards give up on vendors. They give up for LOTS of other reasons but just the price of trying to sell something imho can't be it. If it were then low population shouldn't factor in at all. If the demand is there from one customer the demand will be there for more than one customer.

Maybe just maybe if on those low populated shards players we're able to leave their items on their vendors and even more to the point be able to leave their vendors up period without having to lose their ass then maybe....

other players may have stuck around and not said....F this...this shard blows...this game blows...this game is dead.

You all gettin' this?

UO need everything possible going for it.

 

[hen]

There's a big difference between having a vendor to make money and having a vendor to provide a service. I feel that low end bods and lrc suits fall neatly into the second category.

 

[Zluka]

The vendor system in this game is absolutely idiotic and only caters to power gamers and people lucky to have houses in Luna.

Sure you can find someone and rent a spot, but on some shards it's near impossible. Keep in mind those cheating sites everyone is using only check Luna on regular basis. Hence no vendor for you unless you're wealthy and play many hours per week and have plenty of time at hand. That to advertise your shop located in some wilderness.

 

[Madrid]

The vendor system in this game is absolutely idiotic and only caters to power gamers and people lucky to have houses in Luna.

Sure you can find someone and rent a spot, but on some shards it's near impossible. Keep in mind those cheating sites everyone is using only check Luna on regular basis. Hence no vendor for you unless you're wealthy and play many hours per week and have plenty of time at hand. That to advertise your shop located in some wilderness.

Personally I think those sites are great because I want to know what people are charging so I can charge accordingly. I also want to get the best deal possible when I'm buying goods.

Your absolutely right however about Luna. If you don't have a vendor in Luna where the 3rd party sites can display your wares your severely disadvantaged.

I don't understand why we can't mention those 3rd party sites. Overall the function of what they do is good for the game. I don't have to spend hours looking for the item I want and I get to see the lowest price in Luna.

The problem is that functionality should be a system implemented by the DEV team and it should be shard wide on both facets to level the playing field for all players.

I'm not sure coding such a thing is even possible. You'd have to build some type of database and link all vendors throughout Sosaria to it.

 

[old gypsy]

For the buyer, if you can't find what you're looking for on a vendor, it's often helpful to inquire on your home shard forum. More often than not, someone will tell you where you can acquire the item or, in some cases, even offer to make it for you.

For the seller, stock what sells best (at a reasonable price) and take a few minutes out of the day to mark and drop runes. It's really not that hard.

It simply isn't necessary to recode the entire vendor system to please players who don't want to utilize the foregoing options.

 

[Wizal the Fox]

I don't understand why we can't mention those 3rd party sites.

Because they all rely on a specific illegal scripting tool? Because they all sell UO items and gold for RL money?

The problem is that functionality should be a system implemented by the DEV team and it should be shard wide on both facets to level the playing field for all players.

I am not sure a shard wide system would be a good idea. Every single good item at a decent price would be bought by traders and there would be no way for a normal player to find them at broken price in an obscure shop anymore.
I suspect the only ones who would benefit from a shard wide system would be the traders.

For the buyer, if you can't find what you're looking for on a vendor, it's often helpful to inquire on your home shard forum. More often than not, someone will tell you where you can acquire the item or, in some cases, even offer to make it for you.

What you are saying is basically that from a buyer's point of view the vendor system is not broken because you can find what you want if you don't use it. Sounds pretty weird to me...

 

[old gypsy]

What you are saying is basically that from a buyer's point of view the vendor system is not broken because you can find what you want if you don't use it. Sounds pretty weird to me...

Actually, for the buyer (or seller), the option to interact and negotiate directly with other players on their shard has always existed, even when there were vendors sitting on nearly every doorstep in Britannia. It's nothing new. Admitedly, the stalls in Magencia need tweaking, but other than that, no, I don't think our vendor system is "broken."

 

[Tina Small]

Because they all rely on a specific illegal scripting tool? Because they all sell UO items and gold for RL money?


I am not sure a shard wide system would be a good idea. Every single good item at a decent price would be bought by traders and there would be no way for a normal player to find them at broken price in an obscure shop anymore.
I suspect the only ones who would benefit from a shard wide system would be the traders.


What you are saying is basically that from a buyer's point of view the vendor system is not broken because you can find what you want if you don't use it. Sounds pretty weird to me...

Wizal, something I do sometimes when I'm playing on some shard where it is hard to find even basic stuff is to write a note on the bulletin board of any shop I can find that seems to still have a player running the shop. For example, a few weeks ago I jotted a note at one shop saying I sure could use a few full spellbooks and some BOD books. Within a day or two, the items I had asked about were on sale on one of the vendors. If the shop has a mailbox and you use the classic client, you could also try writing a note in a book, including your ICQ number or another way to reach you, and drop it in the mailbox. (Unfortunately, it's near impossible to read books written in the Enhanced Client if you don't also use it.)

 

[Herman]

If you take away vendor fees then there will be an increase of vendors, but these will be storage facilities and junk laden bric-a-brac nightmares trying to sell Frostbringer or Fetid Essence statues for 10 million each.

Just count the items on vendors in the house storage capacity

At first look this sounds like a good idea but then when u think about it u see it have big holes in it

It would be the end to big vendor houses who would rent vendors anymore if it only take 20-30 full vendors to eat up an entire 18x18 worth of lockdowns
This would make it even harder to find what you are looking for than it is now

Ok lets say rented or not the item count on the vendor would count towards your storage capacity not the house owner It would still be the end to the basic vendors the most important to the game
who would waste 400-500 lockdowns just to help the community by selling repair deeds and recall scrolls probably no one

But do keep the ideas coming if u find a realy good one that is better than we now have i m sure the devs would be intrested

 

[Tanivar]

If your house is in the boondocks on your shard then set up a group of vendors that sell what people want at a lower than Luna(tic) price and spread advertising runes every weekend at each bank and moongate. You can make the runes quickly by setting your house name to the advertisement you want on the runes and mark all the runes while in your house. Also sell marked runes on your vendors for those who can't mark runes. Once you get known as a good source at decent prices, your rune will wind up in your customers runebooks of good shops and they will come to you. Out of the way shops don't tend to rip off their customers as many Luna vendors tend to.

 

[MikevonHammer]

I wish I was playing UO on a regular bases. If I was, I'd be making a killing. I *fainted* when I had to purchase 100 arrows for 2k. If I remember, back when I was playing regular, I would charge 1gp per arrow. so 100 arrows or bolts would be 100 gold.

Then again, I always sold cheap. As making arrows/bolts is easy to do. Just go kill a bunch of harpies, and hit a few trees.
I used to sell mibs for 4k a bottle.

My shop used to be on Fire Island, and I had a decent amount of "business".

 

[dungpile]

to keep your vendor fees low and still make several mil per day try this. place low items that range from 10k to around 1 mil per item and place a higher end item. and just check back every day or a few times a day when high item is gone put another on. this way here you always have items on your vendor. once players see that you always have a high end item or a few items there all the time you will get repeat customers. and those low end items that ya sell that most toss out is what pays for your vendor. thats how i do it and my items are always being bought.

 

[Zluka]

C'mon, I couldn't find a 100% LRC all 70 suit on Drachenfels for WEEKS!!! I didn't know about so called cheater sites. I had to carry regs for all that time. I spent hours looking for it at vendors till I found some shop in wilderness selling them 600k a pop.

DF was such a ghost town I had to actually move on Europa, where I quickly found 10's of all kind of LRC suits (all-70, non-70, +25mana, + mana regen and what not). All much cheaper, 30-300k depending on quality.

Why wouldn't UO dev team implement a search system akin to those cheater sites are using is beyond stupidity. They could easily grab a huge slice of revenue that is stolen by these cheaters right now.

Right now if you don't have time to play much and have no Luna vendor you're screwed and forced to pay exorbitant vendor fees.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

i believe if there were no vendor fees we would see a price increase in all items on vendors simply cuz there would be no penalty for over pricing

 

[Tanivar]

i believe if there were no vendor fees we would see a price increase in all items on vendors simply cuz there would be no penalty for over pricing

/This

 

[Theo_GL]

i believe if there were no vendor fees we would see a price increase in all items on vendors simply cuz there would be no penalty for over pricing

Or would prices go down because people would not have to overcharge to cover vendor fees and the 'free market' system would allow MORE people to supply the item.

If it didn't cost me more in vendor fees than the sale of the items - I'd run an armor shop. As it is - a good quality armor piece priced very competitively will sit for weeks until someone comes by that actually needs that exact piece. In the meantime I'll pay more in fees than its worth. Thus, I run no shop.

No vendor fees, pay 2% when item is sold and global vendor search - I mean GLOBAL - would fix most of the sytems problems.

Someone could put powder of fort out for 500k - it will sit forever if I can global search for the guy selling for 150k and then the guy in the middle of nowhere selling for 145k, and then the next guy undercutting at 140k etc.

More vendors = lower prices, not higher.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

i believe if there were no vendor fees we would see a price increase in all items on vendors simply cuz there would be no penalty for over pricing

/This

Completely and patently incorrect. If an item is too overpriced it simply won't sell.

 

[Zomeguy]

There should be a rent based on shop location and a tax (perhaps different value based on type of good) when item is sold. Nice and easy.

 

[TullyMars]

Or would prices go down because people would not have to overcharge to cover vendor fees and the 'free market' system would allow MORE people to supply the item.

If it didn't cost me more in vendor fees than the sale of the items - I'd run an armor shop. As it is - a good quality armor piece priced very competitively will sit for weeks until someone comes by that actually needs that exact piece. In the meantime I'll pay more in fees than its worth. Thus, I run no shop.

No vendor fees, pay 2% when item is sold and global vendor search - I mean GLOBAL - would fix most of the sytems problems.

Someone could put powder of fort out for 500k - it will sit forever if I can global search for the guy selling for 150k and then the guy in the middle of nowhere selling for 145k, and then the next guy undercutting at 140k etc.

More vendors = lower prices, not higher.

With vendor fees, we have people that buy, mark up, and resell...thus driving prices higher and higher.
Without vendor fees wouldn't this go unchecked?
Say I am one of those types (I tend to be the guy bought out and marked up, but a little role reversal never hurt)...
I see the 145k PoF.
I know that I sell it for 500k.
I go buy it out...in fact I do this for every pof I see every day.
Perhaps there is an illegal program that will do it for me.
In essence I have driven the price to my market value and because I do it so efficiently you do not have the opportunity to buy it at the cheaper prices.
If it doesn't sell, it doesn't hurt me. I have no incentive to move my product. I know sooner or later all the cheap PoF will be gone (either by me buying it or simply due to demand of the stuff and people not wanting to do the bods.) and that you will have to come to me. In fact unless another player takes it upon themselves to make sure they always have the cheaper PoF...I eventually win...knowing sooner or later someone is going to hit that search, not see any cheap PoF and come to buy mine because they don't want to do the bod work themselves.

So I don't think prices would fall without vendor fees. Too many people in this game (or at least on Atlantic shard) want to get rich off other peoples hard work by just speculating on items and prices.