How do you solicite your services?

[Theleos_the_Ranger]

Being a fresh new 250 tailor, I'm just now trying to get a feel of what the market is like on my server. I didn't come into this trade expecting to make a Gabillion plat but I do understand there is money to be made if you know the right places to look.

My question is how does it work? What is fair to charge someone for services. For example: Say someone says in ooc,
Looking for a GM tailor" what do i charge him for the combine? It cant be for free of course cause its 500k or 6 months of farming 4 hrs a day on average to get 250. And it wouldnt be fair to the other tailors. So how do you guys do it? The tailoring community on my server (and I would go as far to say other servers as well) is very minimum on their 250 Tailors. Being such a rare breed, I can only guess, that we would be reluctant to undercut one other, thereby shooting ourselves in the feet.

Any idea would be most helpful and much appreciated.

[Sir CromBattleAxe]

First try your server boards.

Most servers have one or two.

Check with a few of the larger guilds if they know anyone with a high tailoring skill.

Always be sure to check with the other high end trade skillers and set a price that works for all of you. Dont vary on this if at all possable.

Hopefully there will not be any one on your server that ruins this basic form of price fixing and monopoly for the rest of you.

" Nasty rants and flames abound about this subject "

From what I have seen normally flamed by the ones with no tradeskills. Just a general statement there to inflame the Socialists.

Might sound sarcastic and mean however you either stick together or end up flooding the market and haveing to mass produce everything to make a small profit.

The classic supply and demand works if the supply is small and controlled " example gold and diamonds " people pay well. If there are tons for sale " example tae ew shields on emarr selling for about 5k " then you sell alot of them after spending weeks skilling up a few more weeks gathering materials and barely break even on plat if at all.

Breaking even on plat of course referring to what you spent skilling up.

[Silound]

Most of hte time for any tradeskill, I see peopel ask 500pp per combine for very high end stuff (ie the rare or high trivial stuff, and that's assuming they brought you **ALL** the ingredients). If it's something simple and common with a low trivial, taht depends on your sense of generosity. I normally ask 100pp (or a full round of buffs if its a cleric/shaman/enchanter) for those types

Silound

[Trentazra]

Never made a profit off tradeskills but I can tell you what process I went through when I was actively looking for a 250 tailor.

I gathered up all the stuff for 2 Velium Mastodon Cloaks (back when the quest was first completed) and went out seeking a tailor. I needed one cloak for myself, and one for my boyfriend's characted. I knew of 5 tailors, all of whose names I had gathered from my server's message board/eqtraders board. I had a big wad of platinum to spend on these 2 combines as well, just had to find one of the tailors online. I was prepared to spend up to 30k for these 2 combines. Had no idea what the cloak itself was going for, since just a handful of crowns existed on the server at the time and those few who had either wouldn't/couldn't tell me or "had a friend/guildmate do the combine".

Anyway, I checked often for these 5 tailors, and finally found one of them online after several days. I asked him about his service, and got a short and rather rude "can't be bothered attitude" reply, but I pursued it anyway. He flat out told me that he charged a complete extra set of materials for every combine. Wow. At the time, that would have been his 150k+ profit for my time spent farming 8 more pelts (among the loads of others farmers in WW) and mana vials. I know tailoring's expensive, but that wasn't happening. He was not happy to hear that, and argued me on it, but.. well.. life's tough Unfortunately for him, had he not spoken to me so rudely I probably would have coughed up just about any platinum amount. Niceness is everything! I continued my search.

A couple days later I found another tailor who agreed to do it for 500pp a success. WOW~! This sure beat that first tailor's approach. I was sold! She succeeded on both my cloaks, and I was so thrilled I threw more than triple her asking fee into her trade window along with a pile of various gems I had seen her auctioning for earlier. I then trotted off happily with my cloaks into the setting sun.

Moral of the story!
1) Be sure to put your name out on eqtraders and your server's board.
2) Scale the cost of success based on the difficulty of the item, how much is provided by the customer, etc. Obviously someone who brings you a bunch of planar+ goodies to be combined can reap a bigger profit off YOUR skill, so charge em more! Someone looking for a much easier combine, or a combine that results in an item that hardy sells for 200 on a good day, charge em less!
3) Always, always, always, be nice! The person is about to pay you money and you don't want to scare them off with a buncha tells with the "I don't have time for you n00b!~" tone.

Enjoy! Congrats on making 250, that's certainly not easy... and good luck making a bit of a profit off it

[Kongming]

i think it all depends on what your making, you can't charge 500pp for a solstice robe combine since those sell for 500pp maybe. But if it something like robe from Plane of Fire(name slips my mind now) you can certianly ask for more then 500pp

[Silound]

You are correct, I coudl not charge 500pp for a Solstice Robe combine, but since those are flooded on most servers, I consider those junk combines. I doubt I'd charge anything if they provide me the materials. It's reall not any cheaper to have one made than it is to buy one for 400pp in the bazaar though

SIl

[Jeddia]

10% of total value of the combined product (on success only, of course).

I do this with JC, Tailoring, and Research. I used to just wing it until someone asked me to combine Funeral Pyre for them (they'd read on the necro forums that I was a 200 Researcher). And after I'd combined it (and he hadn't donated a single cp), I saw him auction it for 40k...

Sooo, no more Ms. Nice Necro. 10% or find someone else. Gotta stay consistent or you get pounded eventually.

Now, there are always the wierd non-appraisable combines (like quest stuff or whatever), and those can't be helped. Just hope the person is smart enough to realize how *huge* of a service you are providing.

[Theleos_the_Ranger]

wonferful stuff.....

Great insight from many diffrent angles. Keep the post coming. It's really interesting to see the diffrent avenues you can take. Definately not one set road by the looks of it. I guess the old saying is true there's more then one way to skin a cat........can I just have the cat's pelt when you done?


Sorry old habits die hard >

[Chenier]

When I was still playing and getting close to 250, I solicited custom stuff with the afk message on my seller mule and then replying to the tells. I made a few sales that way, but it was fairly painful.

[Antoin]

My rate, and my tailoring is only 162, is 100pp per piece for any cultural pre-work. That's low, and I'll probably up it to maybe 300-500. But I haven't spent much (mostly farming w/ XP so no skin off my nose). That'll change very soon. Right now it's one client (who keeps having failures on the attempts so I keep it flat for him, I have this thing called "pity.")

I don't fail so I can afford to charge more, but some people want to see that big '250' before they pay ANYTHING.

The woman I know who does cultural charges 3K for her pre-work + combine if you bring her raw components only (except for enchanted bricks and imbued gems; those she doesn't budge on being a Shadowknight and not an enchanter. Erudite cultural btw..)

She's a GM. I'm not. I'm sure she gets a few people who pay that.

I brought her everything for the final combine, and after signing an agreement to eat failures, I got them for free. But I'm her friend, so that doesn't count.

Other jobs vary; I got 500p for a plat beige ribbon on demand (after telling him the cost and letting him decide the price. I would have charged 300-400; you can find some for 250ish on bazaar on FV.)

Since FV is usually full of nice people with a bit of money and very few alts to feed, I just often just take donations. Works for me.

[Moonlilly]

Originally posted by Jeddia
I used to just wing it until someone asked me to combine Funeral Pyre for them (they'd read on the necro forums that I was a 200 Researcher). And after I'd combined it (and he hadn't donated a single cp), I saw him auction it for 40k...

And you only charge 10%?

I'm 50% of market value(if you provide the components) or you can go raise the skill yourself. If you don't provide the components you might as well buy one in the bazaar for full price.

[eniamn]

what pissed me off the other day was a tinkerer. i asked how much he would charge to do the COMBINE if i brought components for the collapsed bag. he would charge 1k. thats what he was selling for. i bring components and 1k and have to eat a failure or buy from you. that upset me. i dont think 500pp would be bad though.

[Crystara]

I just take donations, could care less what people pay me personally. Catching me around and not busy is a difficult enough task.

[Bakamon]

I have a hotkey with the following that I hit every few minutes when I sit in the bazaar shopping. I find it gets me added to peoples friends lists and it gets me a fair amount of business.

/auc High Elf Grand Master available..250 Tailor - 250 Blacksmith - 250 Potter - etc...

I have two basic payment plans.

One: You bring me a full set of components for a combine and its 10% of the value of the finished product if I succeed. I've had few people turn that down, and I also have a lot of repeat customers.

Two: You bring me more than 3 full sets of components and the first success is yours, the second success is mine; no other charges. If I have no desire for the finished item, then its 10% of the value for each finished items successfully made.

Be polite, but be firm. Non-trade skillers dont always understand our investment in our abilities. It is better to ignore than to argue, I just add them to my /ignore list.

If you have agreed on a payment, and you succeed on the combine, never, nerver, Never give them the product until you receive payment. You only have control of the transaction as long as you have the item.

I also have a 7/24 vendor mule. The AFK messages basically state "ALL my crafted items are made by my main who is a 250 Tailor...blah blah...." This has also gotten me a good number of customer.

[Littlun]

Tailoring services

The above replies are good. Let me reinforce with my 2cp...

- You worked VERY hard to reach 250 Tailoring. Don't apologize for it. It's a valuable skill so you should be compensated for it.

- Every server is different. When I was going for 250 my server was the wackiest around because the 1st to 250 was UBAH and would basically do everything for free to be the 1st to 250, and then wouldn't do anything for anyone. The prices were "whack". On other servers there was collusion and oligopoly pricing prevailed. The few 200+ tailors would set a price and hold to it. This allows younger tailors in non-ubah guilds to prosper.

- What do you WANT from tailoring? Do you want plat? Do you want ingredients (this is more an issue for 200-230 tailors)? Do you want twink gear? Do you want new friends? What you should charge should be based on what you want from EQ. I did lots of combines for friends, and even gave free full suits to guild mates because that's what was important to me. For others I asked oodles of ingredients for guaranteed results. It's up to you.

- Be careful when you agree to do combines. I was a little naive at first and if someone said they had a combine (which I was doing for free at the time), I'd leave my group and port ASAP. Sometimes it was OK, but every now and then it sucked. I once had to chase some guy halfway to the bottom of the Hole (no kidding - just past the fort) and THEN he wanted to argue about payment. Yup, he wanted to argue about FREE! "What if you fail?" - BAH! I wasted an entire night on this and what did he give me when I succeeded 1st time? 100pp. Lesson learned - When you have a skill - choose your customers.

Welcome to GM tailoring

Littlun.