Forum Activity for @tatiana-dokuchic

Becoming a Merchant: The Art of Pricing

QH Resources & Guides

If you don't want to be bothered selling it yourself, the Co-op may buy it from you at wholesale prices. We're trying to fill up the boxes already out so if you see some that are empty there's a good chance the Co-op will purchase it. Check with Tatiana before just to make sure there's enough funds for the sale.

If you want to sell meals yourself, yes you put it in the appropriatevendor (see Becoming a Merchant: Setting up Vendors ). The vendor scripts send you a message when something has been purchased. You can also look at the "Units Available" to see how many remain in the vendor.

I hope this helps to answer your question. What else are you trying to keep track of?

Becoming a Merchant: The Art of Pricing

QH Resources & Guides

Some thoughts on the "Art of Pricing" for our particular situation.

One of the hardest aspects of becoming a merchant can be devising and then maintaining a "profitable" pricing strategy. It's an art, long studied and difficult to master. With the QH Co-op the intention is to profit in a number of ways including having fun & interacting. Slaying the "competition" and/or hoarding Coins will definitely be detrimental to this goal. We want to keep the economy growing and the money circulating.

I have a few thoughts on how to accomplish this and we'll just have to see how they pan out.

RETAIL PRICING

In most cases, the Estate Manager will be setting the retail price of Co-op items fairly high. I've been scoping out the current pricing from one of the largest G&S markets and intend to use those as a base.

The intention here is to allow regular merchants some breathing room where they can set their prices lower (how low is another discussion & ultimately up to the merchant) and therefore attract interested buyers first.

Co-op items sold by the Estate Manager may also be made available for L$. This would benefit someone new coming into the community who has no intention of farming. A chef, for example, could still buy all the ingredients needed to prepare a meal.

Some exceptions to "higher pricing" are necessary at this stage of the game the best example being the sale of Fish. Their price is currently rock bottom compared to the world at large but it does help our poor pioneers gain energy as they wait for their first harvest. It will be interesting to see if fish prices should eventually be raised as the community matures.

Another exception will probably be the sale of grain. Right now farmers can sell grain to the Grain Merchant for around 30c and buy grain for around 40c. It may be more strategic for the Co-op to sell at least some of our own grain back to the community for 30c. This will allow us to keep our hard earned harvests in circulation but requires a Wholesale Pricing strategy.

WHOLESALE PRICING

Once the Co-op has accumulated enough coins (we're not there quite yet), the Estate Manager may offer to buy items at wholesale prices directly from the producer (farmer, artisan, etc.). This will allow producers who are not interested in selling to the public an income. It should also keep the economy moving. It's a theory ... let's see how it eventually flies

Questions? Comments? I really should have paid more attention in that one Economics course. It would have come in really handy now!

updated by @tatiana-dokuchic: 20 Oct 2016 10:00:51AM

QH Becoming a Merchant: Setting up Vendors

QH Resources & Guides

Your first harvest is in and you're ready to start selling your produce/products for the first time. Here's how you set up a vendor.

Pick up your Vendor Information  from the Vendor Sign  at the Market .

Vendor Information includes Instructions and two example vendors:

• QH Co-op Vendor "Coins" EXAMPLE
• QH Co-op Vendor "Coins & L$" EXAMPLE

A QH Co-op Vendor consists of main two parts:

• The container that holds both the items to be sold and the scripts.
• The scripts that handle the transaction

The container can be plain or fancy but you must be able to modify it.

Though they look different they both of these vendors perform the same function.

FANCY CONTAINERS:

It's always fun to dress up your containers and you may want to customize your own.

Another alternative is to purchase "ready made" storage crates. These are being sold in the Market via an affiliate vendor with 20% of the sale price reverting back to our Estate Manager.

The choice is yours on the type of the container you wish to use but remember that you may be limited by LI costs i.e. each Co-op Member currently has a total LI allowance of 10.

I'm going for a practical mix of containers. Some really fancy, like the barrel of fish and some not so much. I'm even going to break down and buy a few of those storage crates as I figure the time I save not having to create them is well worth the price.

Modifying the Scripts

Each container must contain the script:

• API Coins (RP-HUD [G&S]) version 1.3

Each container must also contain ONLY ONE of the following:

• G&S Vendor Script: Coin [QH CO-OP]
• G&S Vendor Script: Coin & L$ [QH CO-OP]

Pick and modify your script accordingly.

COINS:

You will have to make some simple modifications to G&S Vendor Script: Coin [QH CO-OP].

Change Line 6:  integer PVP = 2;  To the price of the item.

Change Line 26: llSetText ("Your Product Description"  To the name &/or description of the item.  Make sure to leave the quotes there.

COINS & L$:

You will have to make some simple modifications to G&S Vendor Script: Coin & L$ [QH CO-OP].

Change Line 4:  string PN = "Product"  ~  To the name of your item.  Make sure to leave the quotes there.

Change Line 8:  integer PVP = 100  ~  To the price of the item in coins.

Change Line 12:  integer PL = 1  ~  To the price of the item in L$.

Hope this is enough information to get you started.

Happy selling!

updated by @tatiana-dokuchic: 27 Oct 2016 06:40:29AM

Baking for the First Time

QH Resources & Guides

Many thanks for this, Elisabeth!

Once we've mastered the grilled fish, I think we will all be looking forward to trying out more complicated recipes

Baking for the First Time

QH Resources & Guides

On the bright side, if you do make a mistake in your selection order you still receive something called "Algo" that gives you 3 energy points. Not great but better than nothing

Baking for the First Time

QH Resources & Guides

Too funny!

Baking for the First Time

QH Resources & Guides

Thanks for the warning.

Baking for the First Time

QH Resources & Guides

Rather a devious design, isn't it

Baking for the First Time

QH Resources & Guides

When you first put on your G&S HUD, it will not have any energy in it. Yet you must have energy to be able to tend the crops. How to get going? Lets go into the Kitchen first. Its right by the Office.

First of all, look to your right once inside the door. There is a collection of cookbooks on the wall right next to the door; if you click on it, it will give you a menu of ingredients. Each button can be clicked to give you a NC for a different ingredient; the NC will list all the recipes which include that ingredient. For this dish, all we need is Fish, so you will scroll through the menu, find that button, and click it. Once youve accepted the NC, scroll down it until you find Grilled Fish. The NC tells you that this will give you 21 EP (energy points) and requires 1 Fish. You can collapse the NC but until youve successfully completed the dish I recommend keeping it visible in the viewer so you can refer to it if you need to.

Now, where to get a fish? You may have received fish in your welcome pack; there is also a barrel of fish in the corner of the Kitchen, where they are available for 2 coins. If you look at your HUD, you have 15 coins, so more than enough to buy 1 fish to get you started! Stand close to the barrel and click on it. You will get a menu asking if you want to buy or cancel. Click buy; the barrel will take 2 of your coins and deliver one fish into your inventory. Now to the oven!

G&S calls the oven (or more properly the stove) a Magic Kitchen. As in the picture shown, you want to rez your fish pretty close to the, um, oven. Usually it will find your ingredient but if it doesnt, just click the oven and then click the Search button. Now, later on when we are making multi-ingredient recipes, it will be very important to rez items and add them in a particular order, but right now we dont have to worry about (happily). Click the button "Fish". Once the fish is shown within the blue menu, click the COOK button. Some pans will appear on the cooktop and the oven will tell you that it is cooking. When it is done, the pans disappear and a message will appear over the cooktop telling you to click the oven before your food burns. Click it and it will send the completed food to your inventory. Note: The name of the food item will be in Spanish first, then English. Spanish is the language in which the system was developed but if you dont have any Spanish, usually an English translation is right there.

Time to eat! Rez the Grilled Fish, then click on it. 21 energy points will be added to your energy meter. Now you are energized and ready to do chores!

updated by @tatiana-dokuchic: 20 Oct 2016 09:36:35AM

Artisan: Winemaking

QH Resources & Guides

You've harvested your grapes (or bought a basket) and now you're ready to try your hand at making wine. Here's how!

Everything you need is located at the new Winery

The wine press is located on the left. Place your barrel near the press. Touch the press and voila - a barrel of grape juice will be sent to you.

The equipment on the right (in this image) places a custom label on your barrel. You can see an example of this label on the casket to the right. Here's a closer look ...

Place all of the barrels that you would like labeled near the bench. Touch the bench and every barrel within a 10m radius will be changed. This is excellent for doing many barrels at one time but you must obviously be cautious with those that you don't want changed.

I've designed two slightly different labels so that we can distinguish Co-op owned wine from your private stocks. The "private" stock label will be the default available. Unfortunately, I have to physically replace one label with another in the bench so it's going to be a bit more difficult to get your own custom label on the barrel should you want one. More about that later.

The Aging Process

Right now you have a barrel of grape juice. Aged for four days and it becomes wine. After that it may go on to become "reserve" and after that it may go on to become "grand reserve". I believe that the quality of the grapes has something to do with this process but it's all a bit foggy right now (for all I know it's just based on some dice roll). I'll report back when I find out more.

Wine will not mature when it is in inventory. Taking it into inventory preserves it at its current state.

I would recommend that people mature their wine at their own homes. If you haven't got a spot to place your wine barrels contact Tatiana for further information regarding rental of warehouse space.

Custom Labels

Vinologists may want to stamp their own brands on their barrels.

First you must design your label. It should be an alpha texture that is 512x512. This allows the wood underneath to show through. If you don't want to use an alpha texture it will still work but you won't see the wood that is underneath the label.

I played around with this by putting an extra prim up close to the bottom of the barrel and trying different designs to see how they looked until I was satisfied.

If you're going to be doing a lot of wine, I would recommend buying your own labeling equipment. Otherwise, perhaps we can arrange for private labeling on an infrequent basis but unfortunately I cannot guarantee my availability for this. We'll do the best we can.

updated by @tatiana-dokuchic: 20 Oct 2016 09:36:35AM