The Art of Deception

[PostBot]

Throughout the game you'll see various items that attract you from one thing to another. Its marketing in its simpliest form, but how do we make the rough edges seem smooth and turn it all into a way for you to make money and you to gain attraction to your product, no matter what it is. Simply put, we exploit human nature, and we bring people into a false world, that we know they want to see or interact with. Now this tutorial will briefly describe some parts of the marketing ploys out there, but it will not however reveal many of my own personal trade secrets.

To start off, lets look at advertising the general items in this game, the crafted ones. These items no matter how hard you try always can be sometimes beaten by a looted one, but you know what, there are advantages to crafted items, things such as speed, the customizable look of things (such as armor) or choice on furniture. How about the items such as clothing, and others. Now the best way to truely bring forth your goal for the world to see is to make your goal seem meager, and simply to give the customer what it wants, and without truely revealing your plan for global domination, or atleast to win over their business and make a few credits in the process, which may in turn screw over someone else out there in the industry. Now, to truely put things in the really easiest form to comprehend, its considered badmouthing someone else's goods. To do so, you need to find weaknesses, and strengths, and exploit the weakness while still making the strength just not seem as good as your own. Here is a list of possible things to badmouth, and i'll go into each with a little more detail:

- price
- function
- availabiltity
- support / speed to accomplish purchase

Price: You want to always make your item seem like the cheapest around, or the best deal. No matter if it is or isn't it makes no difference. Your going to want to always pick the people who charge the most out of the crowd and compare your prices to theirs, while leaving those who charge less then you out of the picture, and you want to always bring up your slogans as almost saying "why get screwed over with X when you can come to me and see the deal you've hoped for". Basically, make stuff up, and turn yourself in the almost crafting god, or godess. Your going to want to make yourself seem like the person that really has the price they want, the affordable one, that doesn't quite break the bank, but still remains well under the limit that was set for the item. Now, the limit of the items price is usually seen by going to the trade forums of your server, and always requesting price checks, you will only need 2 or 3 responses to clearly get an idea as to what you should set your range to. Remember, never put yourself at a loss unless you know in the long term the items associates, or counterparts will turn a profit to make up for the loss. You want to always set your prices in a range of 50 to 75% of the max you can get for the item. By doing so, you attract attention to yourself for being almost rebel to the pricing of others, and then ontop of that making yourself the number 1 deal on your server, and also a fierce competitor in the market, sometimes hated by others for taking their business, but who cares about a few angry vendors here and there, the buyers will back you up, and will support you through those rough times. Its worked for me, and it can work for you.

Function: Now I want to clear this up with a quick definition as to what "function" would mean in this case. Simply put, function in this case would refer to quality, or ability to perform. In harvesters for example it is the extraction rate, and in armor it would be the protection levels. Always make yourself seem like the things are higher then you normally get, if not the max. And tend to make yourself seem like the quality is the max, or somewhat near it. If your a munitions crafter your in luck, you got the easiest time doing so, but you also got a problem with other vendors out there who may be able to experiment higher then you. Thats why, use your crafting experimentation bonuses, such as items like Bespin Port to accomplish the take over of them. And make sure you don't go into business looking for a fight until your ready for the throw back, the costs, and the time. Your going to want to make yourself seem like the one with the say "the fastest weapons" with the average mans, damage limits, almost the person who does more damage per second. Regardless if it does or doesn't you want to always make your case as being fast, powerful, and able to take down one profession, you can use jedi as an almost universal example. Now onto harvesters and housing, and even starships. Make people committ to something, orders are your goal. You want to achieve the maximum number of them to accomplish your goal of holding their money, with their money in your hand, your free to produce whatever you want. Always make the first items you put into the trade window the best, unless you can afford to make them all the same quality (maximum), such as BER (base extraction rate) 13 Heavy Harvesters, or BER 10 Mediums. Now let me explain why the first items in trade window should be the best. 9 times out of 10, the average person checks 1 out of each item thats there, and merely glances, if that, at the other items in the trade window. Also, always make your trades quick, and try to use packs when you can, along with placing them on vendors. Remember, CSR warned them, there is no rules against selling a pack of crap on a vendor for 5 million even if it says its someones order or not. You can merely say, that was put up by mistake, and then just take their money. However, I would not recommend ripping people off in general over quality products as you will lose business, and turn a reverse effect rather then a positive one, unless ofcourse your leaving for a long time, then you might as well rip off the entire server (always a great goodbye galaxy gift). You can also always achieve the credits you needed by ripping them off with alternative means, by simply selling something at a higher cost, or simply selling a lot of something at a lower cost, a lot of the items you already have paid for, so who cares if you take a loss at the back end of this every once in a while, you can't hit negative credits in this game, so you might as well try to make some sort of gain, but if you don't, who cares, only you will see, but the further your customers gain their loyalty in you, that loss will seem like nothing on a few items, when everything else, your most popular your selling out of. Remember, you gain customers over quality and you can raise prices. But not a moment too soon, you can drop customers simply by raising even 5 to 10% on the pricing. Despite the fact you may still be lower then everyone else.

Availability: Always be the one on your server with the most stocked vendor, even if everything on there just isn't what people are looking for. Even make false orders, find people that are no longer playing, and sometimes put a pack or 2 with random items, say just as storage and say its their order. Now, no one is going to go out and double check that, but if you got more orders on your vendor, makes you seem busy, and occassionally the best person to come to for larger orders. Also, try to make up false dates, and change the names on those false packs occassionally, even add item descriptions. And if you put them at a reasonable level pricing, compared to other things on your vendor, people may actually buy that pack, just out of curiosity, despite it has nothing valuable in it. Its simple curiosity, and your exploiting it. Now, you also want to do filler items, such as poor quality things at cheaper prices, to make you seem like the best at the range, maybe guns with crappy stats are one part, where you also have some really good stuff here and there. The more stocked your vendor is, the better. Also, always try to gaurantee people, a nightly restock, even if what they are looking for isn't there after you said you suppousedly restocked, they may find themselves buying the next best thing, or anything for that matter on your vendor. Its getting people to go to your vendor, and a lot of the time, people can't help themselves but to indulge in items, that they may or may not want, or need at all. Remember also to put notices on trade forums with specials. You want to seem like your the one with the sales, your the one with the restocks all the time, with new items becoming available, but when people ask, just say your either retocking on the resources needed for it, or completing someone elses larger order at the moment. Makes you seem important, even if your slacking off going to go krayt hunting or take some time off from the game. Make stuff up, it simply covers you for the time you need off, and still makes you seem like the important person that you are to others. Remember, the more you seem to sell, the more you seem to be respected by people who don't even know you. Its just simply toying with the community into believing things that are't so. Its deceptive, much like a lot of the things you'll learn from this tutorial, but its the key to sucess.

Support / Speed to Accomplish Purchase: Always when you get an order in that you are able to complete, do it immediately, the longer someone waits, the more they are looking elsewhere to find something, leaving you with the goods on occassion, and no credits for completing the custom order. Its hell, yes, but its part of the trip into being a crafter, or even any type of salesman. Just try to cover up these times by sending out e-mails saying you got something that you made, and are willing to sell, saying it was for display, best stats, but you rather get the credits. And remember, get price checks, and sometimes put these up for auction on the sites you visit, mainly the galaxy trade forums for whatever server your on. Now, support, thats a tough one, but usually when your selling crafted items, or even loot you will want to go out and explain the answers you give for people's questions. Mainly try to know something about how you achieve something, despite if you sell it or not, make you seem like your the one to come to for advice, and in the future, more then that, sales. If you help people with their questions, others may turn to you also to get you their items. Try not to make stuff up, until you get to the pricing they want to pay for something. You can make up the pricing on something, but try to get your pricing down to something agreeable between you and the customer with you still coming out ahead. I recommend always that you take losses on things sold very often, and make up for the loss with a huge profit on items you don't always sell. You need to keep static prices, or almost static, on the major items you specialize in. And try to sell bulk when you can. You never know who will need 25 swoops, or even a bunch of components. Its never too late to start branching out, and is actually recommended by anyone, but it helps to keep a static thing you are good at, with possibilities to do more with other things. I know I am repetative, but its important that you know to always keep your goals in reach with a fallback option at all times if you over extend yourself a little too much. Like putting a lot of credits behind something that turns out not to sell.

Now, onto loot and other items.

You'll want to always follow the same steps almost with crafted items, but remember. The harder something is to get, or the longer the lockout timer on it is, the more money its going to be worth. And it even helps to be in a guild with a good leader or following who will get stuff for you. If your one of the best salesman on a server, and you are looking for a guild, the ones out there already established, recruiting or not, will want you in there to help with making money, and bringing revenue to sometimes a very costly guild war, or hunting expeditions that may happen.

To go further in with loot, remember, trade forums. Its your #1 tool besides word of mouth. Always get your pricing on an item first from the people you got it with, or the people you got it from. They can help you to establish things in the future of the same general range of the item your now trying to sell thanks to them, or thanks to people who know about it. Your always looking to get ahead, and sometimes, it takes time, but once you know enough you can do almost anything. Remember, the mind may be a complex system of nerves, and other tissue, but its a muscle in my mind, and its the perfect muscle to build, you gain knowledge which is now your protein, and you build your muscle until you know nothing is too tall of a task, and nothing is too heavy to lift. Work at the methods you use, and be sure to experiment like I tell everyone. Find whats best for you, and exploit the hell out of it.