I submitted this editorial to EQ Enchanters a short while ago. It was
posted but isn't linked right now for some reason. Check out his site if
you haven't already as it is very useful and he puts alot of time/effort
into it I think.
http://www.baelish.aust.com/everquest/
So, you think you want to sell cheap jewelry?
Azara, level 8 high elf enchanter
I've noticed a disturbing trend where jewelry prices are falling as more
enchanters delve into jewelcraft now that it has been revamped. Using my
trusty jewelcraft chart (thank you EQ Enchanters) it is easy for me to
calculate what an items base cost is and charge accordingly. The problem is
many people are selling the same items for just a tad more than base cost.
Here is an example:
+2 Strength rings = 3125c
amber = 2p6g2s5c or 2625c
silver bar = 5g or 500c + time to enchant (about half my mana per bar)
I sell these for 6p or 2 for 10p. I know some people sell them for 5p which
is OK just not my choice of price. The people that bother me are those that
sell for 4p or less. Even at 4p there is a profit of only 9g per ring.
This brings me to my next problem (which is related): why do we fail SO MANY
times on items that are trivial to us? It makes no sense to fail a
significant amount of time on a jewel/metal combination that is trivial. If
there is no skill gain possible why not lower the chance of failure (about 5
fold)? I wear two +2 wisdom rings when working to raise my wisdom and
hopefully lower my chance of failure. At any rate with a jewelcraft skill
of around 40 I failed 4 times in a row with amber (a worst case I think), a
loss of about 12.5p.
3125c per attempt * 4 failures = 12500c
9g profit per ring = 13 - 14 extra rings to make up losses (assuming no more
losses)
I'm sure I'm not alone so let's look at the 4p stength ring again. Assuming
I make 9g per ring and then have 4 failures costing me 12.5p total, how many
sold rings does this equal? About 14 rings! And this is just to break even
assuming you have only those 4 failures (plus no more failures on the 14 to
make up for the previous failures). Additionally, forgetting the 4 failures
for a second, by selling so cheaply you are setting yourself up for more
failures because you will need to make and sell more rings to build up a
decent amount of money. But, the failure ratio is the same whether you sell
high and create a few rings or sell low and create a lot of rings. Let's
assume a 30% failure rate (sad but true sometimes) for worst case and let's
say I want to amass 10p profits.
# RINGS REQUIRED to AMASS 10p
failure rate = 30%
selling at 4p get 9g profit ea:
11 rings w/o failures - my target is to make 11 rings then
11 * 30% fail rate = 3 failures
3 remakes * 30% fail rate = 1 additional failure or remake (which hopefully
won't fail again!)
So, to make 10p profit you need to sell 11 rings w/o failures but we WILL
have failures.
But, we see statistically that we may fail 4 times for an additional cost of
12.5p.
Selling our 11 rings for 4p ea we get 44p.
Subtract the cost to make: 11 * 3.1p = 34.1p
Subtract the cost of failures: 4 * 3.1p = 12.4p
Total cost to make: 46.5p!!!!!
Resulting "Profit": 2.5p LOSS
Do you see??? You LOST money after making all those rings. You went and
collected the jewels, enchanted the metal, and got yourself to level 8 so
that you can enchant and then you gave the jewelry away.....
Now let's look at selling 6p per ring.
# RINGS REQUIRED to AMASS 10p
failure rate = 30%
selling at 6p get 2.9p profit ea:
4 rings w/o failures
4 * 30% fail rate = 1 failures or 1 remake (which hopefully won't fail
again!)
So, to make 10p profit you need to sell 4 rings w/o failures.
But, we see statistically that we may fail 1 time for a cost of 3.1p.
Selling our 4 rings for 6p ea we get 24p.
Subtract the cost to make: 4 * 3.1p = 12.4p
Subtract the cost of failures: 1 * 3.1p = 3.1p
Total cost to make: 15.6p
Resulting profit: about 10p
So, to summarize:
Don't undersell your competitors if they are already selling for a
reasonable price.
There is no bonus for ramping up production. Your fail rate is constant.
Therefore the more you make the more you will fail.
You will fail some of the time. You need to make enough profit to pay for
the failures.
People want better jewelry which comes from higher priced gems. You will
need LOTS more money to try them.
If you sell for too low a price you hurt not only yourself but the other
jewelcrafters as well.
You aren't doing ANYONE any favors selling low. Don't subscribe to the "you
just want to make money" mentality. A suitable response is "you just want
to get more magic stuff". Of course we want more money and they want
stuff.... that's why we have a trade skill to sell. If you give it away
you won't get the prices back up.
Case in point - let's look at giant snake fangs. In the beginning they were
sold for the ridiculous price of 5p ea. God I wish I could have been
selling them at that time. This price came about I believe because you
could buy them for something like 6p from an NPC merchant. Are they worth 5
or 6p? I don't think so really. A more reasonable price is 1p - they are
GOOD weapons for new people. However, people started selling them to
players for 5gp ea (I have no idea why). This is stupid as a person with
good charisma can sell them to NPCs for 4g8s. Why in the world am I going
to waste my time wandering the zones to sell snake fangs for a 2s profit
each? So I sell them to NPCs and get on with my life. The point? You who
want snake fangs could readily buy them from me if you make it somewhat
worth my while. But if you expect me to kill Asps at great risk so you can
have a cool weapon for 2s profit to me after I just took 5 minutes or so to
try to sell it you are mistaken. I tried and tried to sell fangs for 8g -
1p but everyone said "everyone knows the price is 5g". Not from me it's not
and if enough people would work together we could find a fair medium. But
instead we have people who want to make a quick buck not looking to the
future. If you are selling jewelry for a few gold more than it took to
make, with the current screwed up failure model (failing on trivial items)
you will either lose money or break even (most likely) and will not make
enough money to research the high end jewelcraft items. In other words you
will work yourself out of the market because we will be able to sell only so
many low end items. Yes, new characters/people will need low end/cheap
jewlery but the vast majority of the server will be ready for gold and
platinum enchanted rubies and diamonds but you will have enough money to be
dabbling in malachite electrum saying "jewelcraft sucks, you can't make any
money. why doesn't anyone want my stuff..."
Azara
Shawn Alley