Ok, i need to learn how to figure out the cost of building stuff. What are the guide lines to deciding cost of building something. I know it costs me a bit to send my guys on missions but they usually return good amounts of stuff. Im not good at the marketing aspect of anything lol, so please explain it in special ed terms.

Ok, i need to learn how to figure out the cost of building stuff. What are the guide lines to deciding cost of building something. I know it costs me a bit to send my guys on missions but they usually return good amounts of stuff. Im not good at the marketing aspect of anything lol, so please explain it in special ed terms.

 

1) You need to keep track of the cost of the material you buy / get from missions. This will give you your cost to aquire the material.

2) You need to look at the GTN to see what others are selling similar items for.

3) Decide how much premium you want to charge over your cost and still be in the market. If your items are always listed for 10 - 20% above the market you likely won't sell anything.

4) Contemplate the seller's charge on the GTN into your price. I think the charge is 6%.

 

This is where things can get very frustrating. It seems that most players strugle with this concept and they will sell items for way under their cost let alone at a profit. When I see the GTN filled with under priced items I typically don't make that item(s) or wait until they're of the market. I hope this helps.

Edited June 16, 2012 by Isxossk

i am not really good with economics also, but what i understand is the price of something is what ppl would pay for it.

So instead of figuring out how much it costs you to send the companions to gather the materials, instead try to figure out how much the materials sell for.

 

example: it doesnt matter if you can get 1 desh for 18 credits, what matters is ppl will pay 49 credits to buy one.

 

so when you create an item that is made by 10 desh, you shouldnt charge less than 490 credits, if you do you should instead sell the desh directly.

i am not really good with economics also, but what i understand is the price of something is what ppl would pay for it.

So instead of figuring out how much it costs you to send the companions to gather the materials, instead try to figure out how much the materials sell for.

 

example: it doesnt matter if you can get 1 desh for 18 credits, what matters is ppl will pay 49 credits to buy one.

 

so when you create an item that is made by 10 desh, you shouldnt charge less than 490 credits, if you do you should instead sell the desh directly.

 

Good point but don't forget that there are many instances where what people will pay is less than your cost. This is due to people not paying attention to what it costs them for the material, let alone their time and then putting stuff on the GTN at a loss. To each their own.

Due to this games horrible economy easiest way to make money is to get archaeology, scavenging, and bio analysis, just sell the mats for archaeology in particular sell the artifacts they generally sell for the most.

Personally, I don't try to figure out the cost of items I craft down to the credit. What I do is throw an item I've crafted up on the GTN and see what it gives me as its default sell price and use that as my cost value. I then take that value and round it up to the nearest multiple of 25 credits so a 205 credit item is rounded to 225 after the rounding I then multiply that by 2, 3, 4, or 5 depending on how well stuff seems to sell on the GTN. Armor seems to go best at a X2 or X3 multiplier while Artifice crafted Modifications seem to go well at X5. Cybertech Earpieces also seem to do pretty good at X5 multiplier. Anyway, my artificer is the richest of all my characters right now and he's not even my main.

Personally, I don't try to figure out the cost of items I craft down to the credit. What I do is throw an item I've crafted up on the GTN and see what it gives me as its default sell price and use that as my cost value. I then take that value and round it up to the nearest multiple of 25 credits so a 205 credit item is rounded to 225 after the rounding I then multiply that by 2, 3, 4, or 5 depending on how well stuff seems to sell on the GTN. Armor seems to go best at a X2 or X3 multiplier while Artifice crafted Modifications seem to go well at X5. Cybertech Earpieces also seem to do pretty good at X5 multiplier. Anyway, my artificer is the richest of all my characters right now and he's not even my main.

 

That is the problem here. People start counting from the GTN default sell price. Its very bad.

Let just grab cybertech earpieces that you mentioned. Purple 49 lvl default earpiece price 3375. Even with X5 multiplier your price is lower then 20k. But to craft earpiece you need 2 Mandalorian iron, which price is minimum 10k each in GTN. And you need some other resources too. Plus you need to charge for work.

 

And other example is that Armorings and Mods use the same amount resources, but Mod default GTN price lower then Armoring in 4-5 times.

 

My suggestion for pricing:

1) Figuring out cost of the materials that you need to craft (just to verify for yourself not to work in minus, because in some items GTN can be crazy)

2) Check the price of the materials on GTN (Why craft when you can sell mats for better price?)

3) And then add some charge for your work (I'm multiply for 2, sometimes lower, sometimes higher)

4) Check the price of your crafted items on GTN and figuriing out can you drop some price or can you add some. Or maybe better sell mats or other crafted items.

- Dont look prices for non-crafted items. They are one-time items

Edited June 18, 2012 by Dart_Xi

First, I try not to buy raw materials off of the GTN they are usually way over inflated in price. I'm also willing to spend some time jumping between all my crafting characters sending out all my companions to gather the resources I need then ending up on one of my characters that has an extra companion I couldn't send out to go adventuring with. I just rinse and repeat this process whenever I'm in a relatively safe place to switch characters.

 

Second, I find I make a decent amount of credits catering to the lower level crowd and those starting to level alts. So most of what I sell is between level 8 and level 30 or sometimes level 40. Too many crafters are focused on the end game items, I can see it being hard to make some credits or quick sells in that category.

 

Third, at least on the server I'm actively on right now (planning on using that character transfer this week), finding any resource worth while on the GTN is a matter of the heavens opening up and aliens coming to take me away...