Pricing in the armory

[old.Hendrick]

<It was a rainy day. Don Hendrick sat in his office, when his loyal servant Luca Bresi stepped into the room. "Don Hendrick", he said, "there's people who dare undercut your prices on the weaponsmarket. People charging different than you. People crafting for free. And some even charge higher than you."

Don Hendrick sat motionless in his chair. His eyes watched the crackling fire that warmed the room. Slowly he turned to face his loyal servant. He stood, and gently patted the big Luca on his face. "Luca, my dear Luca. Go... make them an offer they can not decline.">

I just wanted to state on what I think is the general pricing agreement for weaponcrafters on Prydwen, Albion. Carnelian and I once came up with 80% of merchant price, I have since settled with this and talked to as much other crafters about it. I think such a price-agreement suits all of us. I don't know if we should enforce real competition, mainly because there's so few crafters around anyway, and we all want to see at least some profit from our long hard work, especially in later stages, where materials get expensive.

As the pricing-system in our new shops (www.markedangel.com/daoc) works a bit different, I just thought I'd bring the point up again. 80% of merchant price means about 20%-25% increase from cost to make. If you don't want to bother with the qualiy-pricing the shop-site offers, just set all your markups to the same percentage.

I personally have a markup of 20% on mithril, 25% on adamantium. I may change that in the future to 30% for adamantium, maybe even 25% for mithril (really expensive to make, not many customers, <sigh>). For materials below mithril, I think 20% is a good markup.

I prefer not to craft low-level stuff, yet I still included it in my list for guild-reference (they of course get stuff from me). I want to encourage all of you seekers of new weaponry to find the right weaponcrafter for you. While I will gain neither much money nor skill from an alloy weapon, another crafter will receive both.

I would like to see us crafters agree on pricing, so that we all can get along nicely and everyone can find the right crafter for his level. Of course, handling of guildmates is completely independant from that. I can't and I won't enforce pricing. If you are a high-level crafter and want to give low stuff away for free, do so. I usually ask people to find crafters suited to their level, if they persist then I ask them to get me the materials and I just make the stuff (I propably will never keep a stock of all materials, though I am planning to do so somewhere in the future, but I never find the time to organise my vault). I really think we should help each other out, and direct people to crafters who actually gain a reward both money and skillwise from the stuff they make.

I do not know whether armorcrafters have similiar agreements, but I think it would be good.

All in all: It's a tough business, and we gotta stick together. Just my two copper coins though.

 

[old.Veritreus]

Personally I stick to a 20% markup on everything. Makes it nice and simple.

Except for guildmembers of course

Of course, I'm a Hib so I'm not competing with you anyway

 

[old.stroke]

Oligopol? Shady agreements? I like it!
Or atleast Sluugh does.
It's true, crafting nowadays isn't about competition or profit. You get enough money to raise the skill a few points, Albion gets a trader with a few more skillpoints=Everyone benefits.
While giving away stuff for free is nice to the lowbies, it's not nice for the lowbie tradeskillers as they can't sell anything then. On the other hand, it's not really needed to sell stuff in the early 100s to make things go around.

 

[old.Alwych]

On that site i went to the armour crafter fattus gitteous i think it is and i dont know if its just me but when i click the chain menu it brings up plate and when i click studded it brings up the chain stuff. Anyways whats the diff between chain or mail? Is there a better absord rate on mail legs than chain legs of the same component?

Also on fattus site he quotes mail adamantium at like 20 gold more than chain adamantium but on the shop site its exact same ratings and exact same price as each other?

Hmm a bit confused, also when i did try to order it had an error page cannot be displayed everytime despite being on broadband.

 

[old.Veritreus]

Not really the place for it, we're trying to organise a traders' union here

But the answer to your question is:
Leather 9% abs
Reinf 18% abs
Chain/Scale/? 27% abs
Plate 36% abs - only available in albion, you cheeky so and so's!

 

[old.Hellskor]

Well, all should check this out http://www.kwyk.net/keltor/tradeskill.html.

You can set the markup from either materialcost or from merchant prices, really handy.
Mine are set to 20% from materialcost and rounded to Gold. But normally selling for a bit less ... so damn few ppl know how much money they'll need for good equiptment (i.e. Oh! let's buy that nice dye pot for 30G !)

 

[old.Hendrick]

Keltor's Spreadsheet is great and I've been using it for quite some time, but I feel that the numbers given on the Armory are actually more accurate, especially considering hint and information about real dps/uality relation, and info on what level your weapon is actually good for. You can set up price markups too for each weapon tier, it's just that it does not mark down from merchant prices. If you do not like the price-markup-for-better quality-thing, just enter the same xx% in every space.
But again, Keltor's spreadsheet has a few mistakes in it, weapons like the guarded rapier are actually listed with less money than it costs to make them (on mine, where it's all 80% of merchant price). That's why I will completely switch to using the Armory-pages. After all you can print out your stuff there too.

 

[Orin Askhammare]

hehe

Nice site! I've ordered some AF 72 booties at Wagn's shop, let's see how well this works

 

[fatgit]

Alwych:
Just checked the site, appears to be ok at the moment
Looks like they updated it a bit, so maybe you checked it as they were upgrading

On the subject of markups, I personally do 20% on tier 1-6 and 30% on 7+
This is mainly due to the running about, problems finding a tailor etc, and the fact that one cloth loss at that level can mean 30g+ lost in a pop :/
Of course, alliance members get at 20%

 

[old.Cayleb]

Well I presume that this thread is kind of directed at me Hendrick, since I've offered Bronze & Iron for free at my shop

I think the reasoning behind my decision is valid and as follows:

I'm part of a small guild (apart from me there are now only two active members) and as such I don't have the benefit of funding from a large pool of guildmates. I'm also now the highest level by quite a long way, which further scuppers funding options. I very much doubt that I'll ever get much further than 650 skill when consignments end.

Even without the benefit of external funding, it's not too difficult to get to 300 skill in Weaponcraft, I didn't even begin consigns until I hit Steel.

I won't be making any Bronze/Iron/Steel unless someone happens to catch me in Camelot, which given the time it takes to level these days, is not that regular an occurence. Even so if there's a lesser crafter available I'll point the customer in their direction. It's my experience that if someone can't get what they want there and then (particularly low level stuff), they'll just go ahead and buy it from the merchant anyway - nobody wins.

The highest cost of any Iron weapon is 50-odd silver, which isn't really going to get me very far into Adamantium crafting - I'd rather give the money away now in the hope that the customer will come back to me when they do need a 'worthwhile' weapon.

Anyways, I've amended my shop home page today so things should be a little clearer now.

http://www.markedangel.com/DAoC/Prydwen/cayleb/

 

[fatgit]

Personally I dont actively make <mithril armours, as I believe there are enough up & coming armourors to fill these orders, and these armour smiths could use the business & gains from them.
That said, I DONT refuse if someone asks, and depending on my cash situation (and the manner of the customer) , the charges vary from nothing to cost price