Economics, Investing, and The Basics, Part 4
Day 1,220, 12:13
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Published in USA 
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by
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by Teucer
Branding
Until the recent change over to a unified inventory, the value of a company name meant nothing. In real life we go about our shopping with brands constantly on our minds. You may like Oreo cookies or Nike shoes and your loyalty (or disloyalty) to certain brands helps make many choices for you. Before the switch to unified inventory you had to dig into companies to find out who ran them and the lack of product differentiation made it pointless to do so. With the switch to citizen names on the market there is a new trend. Your name is your brand.
Quality’s Effect on Branding
In a real life scenario, the quality of a product could be associated with a brand. For example, Ferrari makes high quality cars and that is what sticks in your mind about their company. The Ferrari logo on the car makes a person feel cool or sexy and subsequently allows Ferrari to charge premium prices for their vehicles. The opposite could be said of a person driving a Dodge Neon and how Dodge markets their car. This is critical to branding and eRep lacks it.
I wouldn't mind taking that for a test drive...
The reason this doesn’t apply to eRep is because there is no quality distinction in most markets. Food is simply a pricing game at all quality levels because five Q1 food is the same as one Q5 food. Moving tickets don’t really compete against each other because players only buy the exact ticket they need and do not look at the other quality levels. Who really cares if they lose one or two extra points of wellness when they move? Weapons are the opposite because of the scaling of their firepower and uses, but the markets are so dead that anyone can pick up a Q5 tank with no problem right now. In the end, quality means nothing in terms of branding because nobody gives a damn if they get kills with a pistol (Q1) versus a tank (Q5) or if they eat a loaf of bread (Q1) versus a gourmet meal (Q5). This is why it all comes down to your name.
The Value of Your Name
Before unified inventory your name carried little economic weight. You might be hated politically, but that never hurt your company’s sales (under what were usually anonymous company names) or vice versa. Now, we as players have the ability to better target who we purchase items from. I make it a habit to try to purchase from friends and avoid players I don’t know. I would prefer my money end up in the pockets of friends than some stranger. With that being said, I doubt the majority of players look at anything beyond price, but the ability to use your name as a tool to sell more goods is certainly interesting. Let’s hope more players embrace a system of purchasing from friends and known players instead of any random Joe who gets the gold to make a company.
In The End?
A lack of true branding makes competition among players extraordinarily weak. Everything comes down to pricing and it allows even competition among both bad and good businesses. Because of that reason (and work as manager), nobody ever goes out of business due to a lack of sales. In the end, the markets are dominated by price wars, which means any undercutting idiot can make a buck. I have been asked by some less knowledgeable players why I don’t address undercutting and what I have just presented to you is the exact reason why. Sometimes it is the only way to get the sales you need, even if it is immature, impatient, and stupid. Until the markets become something beyond the simplistic shells that they are, this will continue to be the case.
I love to hear opinions and comments, especially if they are contrary to my own or from young players who want to learn this game!
A silent nation is a dead nation. Speak up and be heard!
Until the recent change over to a unified inventory, the value of a company name meant nothing. In real life we go about our shopping with brands constantly on our minds. You may like Oreo cookies or Nike shoes and your loyalty (or disloyalty) to certain brands helps make many choices for you. Before the switch to unified inventory you had to dig into companies to find out who ran them and the lack of product differentiation made it pointless to do so. With the switch to citizen names on the market there is a new trend. Your name is your brand.
Quality’s Effect on Branding
In a real life scenario, the quality of a product could be associated with a brand. For example, Ferrari makes high quality cars and that is what sticks in your mind about their company. The Ferrari logo on the car makes a person feel cool or sexy and subsequently allows Ferrari to charge premium prices for their vehicles. The opposite could be said of a person driving a Dodge Neon and how Dodge markets their car. This is critical to branding and eRep lacks it.
I wouldn't mind taking that for a test drive...
The reason this doesn’t apply to eRep is because there is no quality distinction in most markets. Food is simply a pricing game at all quality levels because five Q1 food is the same as one Q5 food. Moving tickets don’t really compete against each other because players only buy the exact ticket they need and do not look at the other quality levels. Who really cares if they lose one or two extra points of wellness when they move? Weapons are the opposite because of the scaling of their firepower and uses, but the markets are so dead that anyone can pick up a Q5 tank with no problem right now. In the end, quality means nothing in terms of branding because nobody gives a damn if they get kills with a pistol (Q1) versus a tank (Q5) or if they eat a loaf of bread (Q1) versus a gourmet meal (Q5). This is why it all comes down to your name.
The Value of Your Name
Before unified inventory your name carried little economic weight. You might be hated politically, but that never hurt your company’s sales (under what were usually anonymous company names) or vice versa. Now, we as players have the ability to better target who we purchase items from. I make it a habit to try to purchase from friends and avoid players I don’t know. I would prefer my money end up in the pockets of friends than some stranger. With that being said, I doubt the majority of players look at anything beyond price, but the ability to use your name as a tool to sell more goods is certainly interesting. Let’s hope more players embrace a system of purchasing from friends and known players instead of any random Joe who gets the gold to make a company.
In The End?
A lack of true branding makes competition among players extraordinarily weak. Everything comes down to pricing and it allows even competition among both bad and good businesses. Because of that reason (and work as manager), nobody ever goes out of business due to a lack of sales. In the end, the markets are dominated by price wars, which means any undercutting idiot can make a buck. I have been asked by some less knowledgeable players why I don’t address undercutting and what I have just presented to you is the exact reason why. Sometimes it is the only way to get the sales you need, even if it is immature, impatient, and stupid. Until the markets become something beyond the simplistic shells that they are, this will continue to be the case.
I love to hear opinions and comments, especially if they are contrary to my own or from young players who want to learn this game!
A silent nation is a dead nation. Speak up and be heard!
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Comments
boobs
I especially don't buy from anyone iNCi. I agree with most of this article. Voted!
v
Oh, and I would def ttfk the laptop chick. Among other things.
Buy TomT goods for the win!
Voted, good article.
sweet home Alabama 😃
Good read. Keep up the good work
"Ferrari makes high quality cars" - actually that's debatable. They make high performance cars, yes. But as far as quality goes... ask any independent Ferrari mechanic, oh, wait, you can't because there aren't any.
Anyway, good article as always. I also try to buy from US companies, and that's a little easier to determine now. I paid an extra $10 on my last house because the first few on the market were in enemy possession.
There's no way to differentiate at all in erepublik. That's one of the most absolute important aspects of business.
there is no better brand than my name, but you can't get my goods : |
Teucer for the EC.
its dumb putting the whole blame on inci. i check the markets that i compete in and believe me, some of those who undercut are known american players. and they do it with big stocks. it has nothing to do with nationality or fraction; its all about whether you have commercial consciousness or not. peace out.
and teucer, good luck in elections man.
I liked company names, as I could use my imagination in creating them. As I'm an industrial hemp advocate, http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/erepublik-admins-introduce-new-super-resource-1642198/1/20 , my grain companies sold hemp and my food company sold hemp seed products. I also liked the play on words of my weapons company "Hoplophobic Firearms". Now all that is gone.
"Undercutting" is a natural consequence of Say's law, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say's_law , a very real law of economics. A product sitting on the market (not selling) does nobody any good. And if people weren't undercutting then they would be price-fixing. For those people against undercutting, you have to realize that to expect the laws of economics not to occur is just like expecting the laws of Physics to do the same. I might as well lobby Congress to mandate that when I drop something, it only rise up.
Undercutting is one thing but to sell for next to nothing is another.
voted
o//
"its all about whether you have commercial consciousness or not." - really Cruinne? Do you mean a commercial conscience?
Anyone who can undercut will. And lately, everyone can because of manager labor, so everyone has been doing so.
Altogether, this article makes a very good point, and everyone should be careful when shopping to support those they know to be good, reliable people. This automatically rules out Inci, obviously. V+S
V+S 🙂 I always have high Q Iron available and I'm not even close to being iNCi. \O/
There was a car picture?
Anyhow, I love to see someone undercut the price of q1 food by ten cents. 893 food x .39 = $348.27 (I can afford that) turn around and sell to make $89.30? C'mon kiddies, undercut even more, I like profit.
So... what's the problem?