UO Second Age

Hey guys & gals, imagine you are a customer for a moment. You are looking for something and you want to find it as fast as possible. You don't care much about price as long as it's fair, so you are running from shop to shop looking for this item.

Now imagine your vendor setup. How long does it take this customer to find the item they want? Are your areas labeled properly? Do you have some kind of item marker to designate item areas? Are the items your selling easily accessible? Can customers click through your vendor organization and find it quickly? How many times do they have to click to find it, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 times???

If someone opens your vendor and see's what they want right away they're more likely to buy it. If they stick around to click inside a second bag, they'll probably still be interested. If they have to click 3 or 4 times to find an item chances are they've already moved onto another shop.

If you look at the most successful vendors in our shops or on UOSA in general they have their items in main vendor bag area, or in one of the first bags underneath (2 clicks max) these are the guys/gals who sell the most items. Chances are if you have items laid in 3 or 4+ levels deep this is too much and you're losing sales.

Just my opinion, feel free to chime in here guildies/otherwise.

so what exactly are you proposing Dren?

just a tip & request for comments

Acquire a guildie, ask them to go to your vendor and locate a certain item, They need to find this item within 5 seconds of looking for the item or they give up and go.

Its a win win situation when you make things easiest to find. Keep your vendor organized and something to show whats for sale when possible. ( a dagger for fencing weps, or an ingot for smithed goods are just an example ) . I wont continue to shop somewhere if I have to open more than 3 bags to get what I need, or if its poorly stocked.
Very good advice dren

A general rule of thumb, make sure to pay your vendors so you can take all the collected money off and they won't drop. I always collect 3-5k and drop it on the vendor, then collect the rest.

A few more:

Keep your vendor stocked
Check the stock levels of your vendor using a schedule that you can commit to. Personally, I do a check / restock on a daily basis (in the morning, before I go to work IRL).

Price reasonably
Too low - can be difficult to keep your vendor stocked.
Too high - slow (or no) sales.

Learn from the Greats
See Theograd's excellent article "Thoughts from a Merchant".

I have taken this discussion, as well as Theograd's and made a rating system for vendors.
The goal being to simplify the way people think about laying out their vendors, so that they can have competitive A+ vendors easily.

The maximum number of points a vendor can have are 5/5; meaning the vendor layout is optimal.
Any additional points should be considered bonus points. Scoring D rating - 2/5 or less is a poor vendor set up.
Achieving greater than 5 points does not imply your vendor is more likely to sell than someone else who achieved 5 points.
That said there are 7 points total available to be earned from any vendor layout. Points also may be deducted for various reasons.

Vendor Checklist - Rating System - Goal: 5 points

How many levels deep? - (1 point available, multi-point deductions possible)
+1 point - 0 Levels, Every item or container is sold in the main area
+0 points - 1 Level, some items are sold individually in containers
-1 points - For each level deeper than 1 level, e.g. 3 levels is -2 points

Are containers & items labeled? - (1 point available)
+1 point - Every container is labeled, items are labeled as required e.g. Invul arms, Full Spellbook, etc.
+0 points - Containers are not labeled properly, many items are unknowns

Do you have item markers (multi-level)? - (1 point available)
+1 point - Everything inside a container has an item marker
+0 points - Some containers have no item markers

Is this a single category vendor? - (1 point available)
+1 point - The vendor sells a clearly defined category (or sub-category) of items e.g. Carpentry: Furniture
+0 points - The vendor sells multiple or a loosely defined category of items e.g. Weapons, & Ammo, Armor, plus Clothes

Is the vendor well stocked regularly? - (1 point available, -1 point deduction possible)
+1 points - The vendor is stocked appropriately for it's restocking schedule.
+0 points - The vendor has moderate stock, and is restocked as time permits.
-1 points - The vendor often has poor or no stock, it's rarely restocked.

Are the prices reasonable? - (2 points available, -2 point deduction possible)
-2 points - The vendor is selling at ridiculous prices (more than 300% profit off base cost)
-1 points - The vendor is selling at high prices (more than 200% profit off base cost)
-1 points - The vendor is selling far under market price (less than 30% profit).
+0 points - The vendor is selling at a reasonable/common/historical market price.
+1 points - The vendor is selling at a competitive retail price (50-70% profit), beating some vendors.
+2 points - The vendor is selling at a wholesale price (30-50% profit), beating most / all vendors.

The following formula is assumed, where firmly established market standards are lacking.
Sale price = [cost of item ÷ (100 – markup percentage)] x 100.
Retail price may be based on wholesale price, in the case you are buying an item to sell.

If you somehow scored very low - F rating, 1/5 or below --
you are losing sales, supporting your competition, and your customers are likely leaving your vendor unhappy.
Fix it. Advertise, interview your customers for suggestions/requests and watch your sales skyrocket.
Suggestion: Add some other specific points you find are important for rating your vendor. Create your own checklist!