by Ploute McFairin, New Freeport, Naboo, Flurry
There is something unique about the Tailoring profession over the other crafting professions, and that something is the lack of rigidity. When you are a Tailor, you have so many options set out before you in what you can make. Unlike other crafting professions, you don’t have to worry about going out and finding the best of the best. All you have to do is just get hide and assorted other chemicals. Because of this, the Tailoring profession will frequently attract those that enjoy the more personal side of being a shop owner.
You may be asking, “What sets you apart from the other Tailors on the server, especially if you are trying to make a name for yourself?” Well, there are two ways to do that.
The first would be to have LOTS of items on LOTS of different vendors in all different colors. People can look through and make sure you have the most competitive prices, but the unfortunate thing about that is you see the results around the whole server. You can always tell the people that bought their own clothes off of a vendor or the bazaar because it doesn’t match right or it just doesn’t look right with the rest of their outfit.
The second option, however, is to become a Tailor that does mainly specialty orders. I am mainly the second type, so that is what I am going to talk about today. I am the main Tailor for FEDS on Flurry. Of course, being mainly a specialty order Tailor you are going to have less business in the beginning, but once your name gets around I guarantee you will have some VERY happy customers that will come back to you often.
There are a few keys to being a good specialty order Tailor, the first being that you must be willing to say no. These people are paying you to make them look good. Usually they will have an idea of what they want, but whether that is an exact color and item or a general idea of how they want to look depends on the customer. You will have those people, however, that have no clue what they want. One thing you have to be ready to say is, “No, I don’t think that would look good on you,” or something else along that line.
Remember, your image as a Tailor is on the line every time you make an outfit. Your image as a Tailor, especially if you are doing specialty orders, is bigger than any profit you are going to make, because if you don’t have an image that people want to come to then your business will quickly die. Don’t worry, though: there are some easy ways to keep up your image.
A great way to make sure that your image stays up is to ally yourself with a well-known merchant guild, or at least a guild full of people that can get you the resources you need. As there are few true merchant guilds left, try and find one that has a good reputation on your server. Doing so will help your image right away, and if you are the only Tailor, just think of all the people that you already have as customers. Not only will you have all the people in your guild, but anyone they talk to that wants something from a Tailor should hopefully get sent to you first.
Another way to keep up your image as a good Tailor is to start outfitting Newbies for free. The server you are on will affect the number of Newbies there are and where they are spawning, but you should be able to find some around cantinas and such. Take your ingredients with you and keep your Novice Tailor or even Novice Artisan name tag up, and begin advertising that you are giving away clothes for Newbies. You will, of course, get asked to make things that you can’t make yet, but keep track of their name and what they want so that you can contact them when you do have the skills.
One tactic I used as a Novice Tailor was, that when I was giving away my clothes to the Newbies, I would say that all they would need to do was put me as their “Personal Tailor” in their biography. Now you have walking advertisements, and of course if you did a good job for them then they will recommend you to others too. There is nothing better than word-of-mouth advertising. So make sure you make them good-looking outfits.
One more way to help yourself get noticed more is to make up a “brand” name, and put that before the name of the clothing. That way when people see your “brand” name they know it came from you because no one can change the name of a clothing item after it is made. Another thing that this helps combat is the practice of other players reselling your items as their own. They will be less likely to resell your items on their vendors, and yes, this does happen all too often.
Make sure it’s a short brand name (e.g. three or four letters long). The goal is to not make it too long and to make sure it’s not one that’s already taken or is the acronym for a guild; you would hate to be associated with someone you didn’t want to be. Also, if it’s different from the guild name you have, then you can take it with you if you ever have to leave the guild.
There is another thing I suggest doing and that is to make sure your shop(s) are on a main planet. Putting a Tailoring shop on Lok where there are few dancers does not make sense at all. Remember you need to supply your items where there is the most demand for them. Don’t worry if there other Tailors on your planet; concentrate instead on making sure your reputation is better than theirs.
When setting up your shop(s), the best idea is to make it inviting with lots of lighting but also show off what you can make. That way, you can have people go to your shop when you aren’t there and they can order EXACTLY what they want.
Of course people that aren’t tailors don’t know much about the profession - and that’s okay! Let’s keep it that way. All you have to tell them is exactly what you need in an order to fill it correctly. I have set up an “information” vendor that tells people how to order things by putting some items on there for 9,999,999 credits and having those items’ descriptions tell people how to order.
Right now there are over 300 items that a Master Tailor can make, so even without any furniture you wouldn’t have enough room to display them all in one medium house. So, by the time you reach Master, you will have to come up with some way to display them all. Whether that is by not putting some up, putting some in a second store, or putting some at 9,999,999 credits on a vendor is up to you; if you can get a second store from your guild that is great. The best way to procure one is to make sure that your shop attracts people to the city, even if they don’t buy from you.
Make yourself known around your galaxy and make it so that people want to come to your store to do business with you and thus will look around at the other stores in the town, giving your other guildmates more business. One thing I suggest that you do in your shop is to make sure that you put an “office” in one where you and your customer can go and talk about what they do or don’t want on their outfit(s); make it comfortable and inviting. If you need some suggestions, go look at other shops and see what you do and don’t like, and “borrow” ideas from them as long as it’s not something that you know is specifically their own.
As a specialty order Tailor you’re probably thinking, okay, great, I don’t need to do much Merchant now, and this is where I say “WRONG!” There are many important advantages to being higher in the Merchant tree.
As a shop owner, you need to at least to be able to dress your vendors, make them stylish and make them look like you want them to. One thing I suggest is pick a race and stick with them; don’t do a hodgepodge of different races. You don’t want people to look at your vendors, you want them to look at your clothes hanging on the walls. ~Side note on that: it’s 30 from where your item drops if you are at the wall to where it’s actually sitting on the wall, so don’t forget to push them back 30~
Also you want to make sure your vendors can bark, too, so that one of them can welcome your customers in, but don’t make them all say things – then it just gets to be too much. Stick to one at a time.
You also want to be able to not pay as much for your shop and your vendors to be put up on the Global map because that’s how 80% of your new customers will find you, it’s up to you to make sure they stay your customer.
You want to make sure that you have a couple of vendors for different things. There are certain things with VERY few options that can be “vendorized”; one of those is backpacks, another is cloaks, and lastly, your mess-ups. I mean, if your customer doesn’t like something, don’t worry about it. Don’t say, “Hey, you ordered it, you get it!” Just take it back and make one that they will like, then refund them their money and sell the rejected one on your mess-up vendor. You will still make the money on it because eventually someone else will buy it from you.
Of course, this brings up a good point that if you are making something that is BE’d (Bio Engineered) and it’s going to cost a ton to make, then hold off on making it until you are SURE of the colors wanted. Otherwise you may end up having to eat some of your profits to resell it. The old adage “measure twice, cut once” works well in SWG Tailoring too.
The only dumb questions are the ones that tick off your customers or the ones that are not asked in the first place. Don’t worry too much about upsetting a customer. Just explain you want to make sure you get it right for them so they don’t have to come back later.
Lastly, on vendors: make sure you have a vendor for special orders only. Put it upstairs or somewhere it’s not easily seen from just walking into your shop, and don’t list it globally. Put special orders there in backpacks with the customers’ names on them. You want to make sure they feel comfortable picking up their orders when you aren’t there.
Another thing you want to make sure of is that you keep track of who picks up the special orders. If a different name picked up the order than the one who was supposed to, contact them and ask them about it. Also, contact the person for whom the order was made and see if it was a friend or an alt of theirs.
A good way to eliminate confusion with such things is to make it clear to your customers that they must pick up their own order. Always contact your customers the second their order is done with an in-game e-mail telling them that it’s done, and include a WP to where they can pick it up.
Refusing to hand deliver their orders to them is okay because it takes up your time and money, and also, it’s a great ploy to get them to come to your shop and potentially impulse-buy something else.
Now, back to your shop. One thing when setting up your examples is that you want to make sure they aren’t the ONLY thing besides vendors in your main shop. Make sure it’s inviting and to put your “brand” name on the store’s name outside. Also another great idea is to categorize your items by Formal/Casual/Field, or you can even break that down a bit more. It’s up to you how to arrange and array your shop in the best manner possible.
When setting up your examples, also try and make sure to use two separate colors on multicolored items so people know they have to give you multiple colors for those items. You should have all of this spelled out on your information vendor, as well as how you want people to tell you their desired colors. You can either do a grid on a webpage (though keep in mind that it is tough for some computers to do two things at once), or you can just have them tell you either bright/muted/true or whatever you think will work.
Remember, when it comes down to it, it’s your judgment call as to what looks the best. You are the tailor and you know the color options; they don’t. Some items only give you limited color options, and you are in charge of letting your customers know that and offering alternatives.
Well, I think I’ve told you about as much as you’ll need to know to get going as a good – no, a GREAT! – special order Tailor. So go out there and start making a name for yourself. I welcome the competition and if you see me around on Flurry, do try to say hi. If this helped you in any way, a thank you would be nice too.