Pricing

[iasmin]

Though I know I risk getting into a philosphical debate with some people, I'm curious to know how people decide to price their items they craft in alchemical skills.

As a beginning alchemist (shaman) with limited cash flow and play time, I'm either forced to sell back to the NPC merchants at a substantial loss or take my chances with /auction and /ooc hoping I can break even. For the most part I've done the later and not the former because I've seen prices comparable to breakeven or a little loss if you take into account failures.

I think that's the thing that kicks me ... taking into account failures. I've never really done that in my limited experience with the other tradeskills, perhaps because they've not yet been so expensive for me.

With obvious consessions for server differences, do you price your wares to include failure costs? Do you have a formula for pricing, say, component costs times two? I'm curious to know how you determine your prices and what else you take into account other than market rates.

[GraemeFaelban]

I sell in the bazaar, so, I look at what the prevailing prices are, and decide whether or not it is worth bothering with doing at that profit level.

[Teedyo]

In _general_, I price as follows:

SP = Sell Price
CC = Cost of Combine
SR = Success Rate in decimal
ln = natural logarithm

If an item can be mastered (<= 250):
SP=CC x 2 This does not account for failures.

For combines > 250
SP=CC x 2[1 - ln(SR)] which does account for failures. Max works out to around 12 x cost.

I'm probably going to move to using the second formula for everything.

Note that I don't base cost on anything purchased in the Bazaar: only on items that must be purchased.

EDIT: Didn't notice that this was in the alchemy forum. I can't do alchemy. It's still a decent formula.

[GraemeFaelban]

Well, except that you will never sell any potions at even 2xcost, as there will be plenty of people undercutting you significantly on the potions that people actually do buy, and nobody will care about the others, because nobody buys them anyway.

Most potions that actually move in the bazaar do so at a much lower profit than your formula would indicate.

Gate potions typically sell for 290 to 310pp on EMarr.
Quintessence for 150pp.
10 dose Blood of Wolf for 75 to 80pp.

[Lunasombra]

First, I don't do SoW anymore. Too many morons undercutting the market so badly that 1 failure makes it not worth putting on my vendor charecter. IVU, Lev, etc.. don't sell enough and the same with DS potions (those I think if the word got out would be bought more for farming purposes, but whatever I'm easy )


Gates: 300 per, 1500 per 5, 3050 per 10. 1 failure and I still make a hair on it . 300 is 20% profit so for me that's a boon.


Quint's: I do these only on request. IIRC it's no fail and I can't mark t hem up enough.


I won't do illusions for money, again the sale is too slow.



Gate is about all I'll do. SoW should be 100-125 for any profit, Lev, IVU and Shrink SOMEWHAT sell (darn Gnomes..)

[Lupoman]

illusion pots

In a RARE move on morell Thule the shammies in the Bazaar selling illusion potions have come to an agreement, 150pp bare min for common illusion such as oger,troll,DE, gnome. and what ever over 150 for rare ones such as barbarian,val shir, iskar (they typically sell for 190 - 220 per.

I was never into price fixing, i am into moving product and being the lowest in bazaar. BUT in the potions case, i was the only one selling lower and one of the shammies sent me a tell. and asked if i would match him and the other 4 shammies in the bazaar. Well i felt a lol bad since i was the only one breaking the profit for other shammies. So i matched theirs.

So far for 4 months its been working, my potions still sell well, not as fast as before, but am willing to spread the weath a bit.

It works. Yes ocasionally we get a shammy selling a cpl of potionslower, but we usually jus buy him out and make a profit. We havent had anyone mass produce and undercut us yet. If it does happen, i will revert back to my old ways lol

[tashine2000]

Pricing

Price fixing on some high cost potions such as gate has helped to maintain a decent price on my server. However from time to time a noob trader undercuts everyone by one plat and then a price war ensues.

Generally though I price the majority of low end potions at 100% on top of cost. They may sell slower but ultimately they do always sell (I have a trader up 24/7). I have always taken the view that if the plat made on a 10 dose combine is less than say 100pp then its not worth making. However my skill is maxed so I don't need to sell fast to make money for more combines.

I would suggest keeping an eye on prices for a few weeks whilst selling a different prices to see what works for you.