PSO2 711 card

[Zipzo]

Pretty much this. It's no different from Play-Asia or CN-USA, though SuTo Corp is still the cheapest option.

It'd be something else if Arks-Layer was the cheapest AND easiest, as well as all the mushy Good Feelings™ that may or may not be involved, but ah well.

What you find to be easy, others find to be intimidating or bothersome. I find snapping my fingers easy but my wife can't do it for beans. Different people have different levels of enthusiasm for dealing with certain measures, and while currently our prices may not be omg it's a steal in comparison to the competition, for now we're aiming to be the most accessible for folks who'd rather deal with people they can trust and know are catering to them as PSO2 english community players. That really does count for something where I think you are discounting it.

Still skeptical over the whole tiered markup thing. Is it really any more work or effort to buy a 10k card than a 2k card when you already have the customer's money in your hand? Why should one be a 35% premium when the other is 'only' 20% extra besides greed?

What do you mean? It's an a-typical tiered pricing system. This is common in sales anywhere.

Buying a 2k card is cheaper than buying two 1k cards.
Buying a 5k card is cheaper than buying a 2k, and a 3k card.
Buying a 20k card is cheaper than buying two 10k cards.

The idea is to create incentive to buy higher increments. The cards themselves are still individual items, and while it's no less or more effort to purchase a 2k card, or a 10k card, each one still possesses it's own individual value, which does contribute to its price. These cards aren't priced on effort with which they are bought, they are priced for the value they provide to the user of the card.

For now until we get our systems and provisions to be more consistent, I think that answer can be simplified even further, it's a bigger risk on our part to purchase a higher card, and in terms of stocking it's very much a risk VS reward system. Most are happy getting 1-2k for their needs, but if we stock up on 20,000 cards it's not super likely those will be bought immediately or at all, so the total income over time for the purchase of those cards needs to cover the consistent cost management of other amenities in terms of being a consistent sale, otherwise there's no point in providing such high incremental cards, because we're just spending more money than we gain that we can use when it's needed. We'd rather provide the card at that increment, than not provide it at all.

Almost as if you looked at the most expensive alternative and knocked off a dollar from their pricing to at least say you're not the worst place to go for AC.

While I can give input, the final say on the prices depends on both the current competition and the rest of the Arkz Layer financial team.

This statement might be true (at least for now, you never know for the future), but while we're committed to providing these services for a reasonable price, there are certain costs to consider on the side. AIDA does a lot of the leg work for Arkz Layer, and not a lot of that virtual leg work is free (and also consider the work AIDA does for the patch). Kion works separately on his project with the story patch. There are costs to consider on almost every front when it comes to the convenience of everything Arkz Layer has to offer, and as with any set of duties that renders services, we're attempting to reward the effort we've put in to providing that service as well, just like the purpose of any other job.

Hell, many folks would rather purchase with us simply because they know they'll be supporting further production of services that they use each and every day (English patch, story patch, to name two major ones), or supporting the creation of newer services, provided by players like AIDA and Kion for free, that they know and really trust.

Unfortunately not everything (nothing) in life is free, and ultimately while to you maybe we should be doing this under the graces of good heartedness to the community, there are many things to consider where money becomes important, both to the team as a whole running the website, and to each individual participant in this business. We are doing our best to cater to the community with this shop, but it should be obvious that we're also attempting to help keep the team, as a whole and individually, funded for the work we're providing.

[Angelo]

I really want that Dudu keychain though. I'd be willing to buy that.

[Zipzo]

I really want that Dudu keychain though. I'd be willing to buy that.

Maybe Arks Layer should sell merchandise too? Hmmm...

[aaron_yume]

1000WM at $15 each
2000WM at $27 each
3000WM at $40 each
5000WM at $63 each

I have to say that your 5000WM price is quite expensive and must be including around $10USD profit per purchase. 2000WM price seems about the same as pretty much any reseller mind and not easily reduced.

[Zipzo]

I have to say that your 5000WM price is quite expensive and must be including around $10USD profit per purchase. 2000WM price seems about the same as pretty much any reseller mind and not easily reduced.

Between Suto, which requires a potentially very irritating process for most users, and CN-usa which charges $70...how is $63 unreasonable?

[aaron_yume]

$63 is unreasonable as the mark-up is ridiculous, with very little effort on my part I could still make profit and easily cut $5-7 off that price.
Just because Suto & CN-USA charge it does not mean the community has to be dicks about the profit margins as well.

[UnLucky]

Different people have different levels of enthusiasm for dealing with certain measures, and while currently our prices may not be omg it's a steal in comparison to the competition, for now we're aiming to be the most accessible for folks who'd rather deal with people they can trust and know are catering to them as PSO2 english community players. That really does count for something where I think you are discounting it.

That's exactly what I mentioned in my own post. Some people would rather buy from "the patch team" regardless of price because they just don't like anywhere else.

I'm talking about beating everywhere in every way so that nobody (here) has any reason to go anywhere else for AC. I'm sure that would play to Arks-Layer's benefit as well.

Anyone who has already purchased from SuTo doesn't have to go through their registration nonsense again every time, so it's cheaper and easier for them to stay there instead of switching. Some will jump ship for their own reasons, of course, but why not give them another?

What do you mean? It's an a-typical tiered pricing system. This is common in sales anywhere.

Buying a 2k card is cheaper than buying two 1k cards.
Buying a 5k card is cheaper than buying a 2k, and a 3k card.
Buying a 20k card is cheaper than buying two 10k cards.

So because everyone is doing it, you should to? Wasn't that exactly what I was criticizing in the first place?

You're telling me that, right now, if you were to walk into a Japanese shop and buy ten 2k cards, it would cost you more than a single 20k one? As in, it would cost you exactly $35 more to do it that way.

For now until we get our systems and provisions to be more consistent, I think that answer can be simplified even further, it's a bigger risk on our part to purchase a higher card, and in terms of stocking it's very much a risk VS reward system. Most are happy getting 1-2k for their needs, but if we stock up on 20,000 cards it's not super likely those will be bought immediately or at all

I wouldn't expect you to keep a stack of unpopular denominations hoping every day that someone will want one. You would only really need to be well stocked in the lower amounts since those have such high throughput. In which case, those would be the cheapest for you to process because they're all but guaranteed to sell so you have next to zero risk for holding onto them.

Though it wouldn't make any sense for the higher value cards to cost more since there'd be little incentive to get one other than convenience of fewer codes to enter and the small amount of bonus AC.

Which is why I would very much urge you to be a 'pioneer in the field' and put the same modest 20% markup on every card type. So $12 for 1k, $24 for 2k, $60 for 5k, $120 for 10k. And hey, the 20k one would be $5 more this way. Or even not use a percentage based markup at all, like a flat $5 extra on every purchase.

If there are transaction fees on top of that, you can make them transparent while at the same time giving further incentive for larger denominations by having the buyer cover it. I'm sure PayPal has flat fees that end up being more expensive on smaller transactions, so all you have to do is select the option that gives the recipient the exact dollar amount after fees.

[gaijin_punch]

You're telling me that, right now, if you were to walk into a Japanese shop and buy ten 2k cards, it would cost you more than a single 20k one? As in, it would cost you exactly $35 more to do it that way.

There's a certain amount of work that one wants to be compensated for, which is static at 1 card or 100. This is where tiers come in and how sales work in general (at least in the free world). It seems trivial, but I've been doing shit like this for 15 years. Damn, 16 almost. There's a lot of leg work involved, so the price for a single unit is going to be high... sometimes beyond the items value.

[Zipzo]

$63 is unreasonable as the mark-up is ridiculous, with very little effort on my part I could still make profit and easily cut $5-7 off that price.
Just because Suto & CN-USA charge it does not mean the community has to be dicks about the profit margins as well.

We could also just do it for free, is that what you're expecting? It's not like we're losing anything, right? What's the difference between doing it for free and doing it for a sub-optimal sum of money per sale? You realize that profit gets split between all those involved and, some of even has to get chunked for server/technical/patch related things, so it's not like we're making some kind of full time job's worth of money on this deal, in the end, we are putting forth the effort to make these things accessible to you.

I'm not saying that you should be forced to appreciate or agree with the prices that are currently in place, in fact, I welcome the criticism and I urge you to voice your concerns if you have them so we can be better for everyone, but let's not bring the fact that we're hoping to make money in to this because it's muddying a situation that is just obvious...yes we're trying to make a little bit of money, but at the same time we're also providing a service that is in demand. You can think of the mark-up as a "service charge" if you wish. Do you also make a big deal out of having to pay those?

You think you can do it it? So do it. If the answer is you can't, then you essentially have your own answer.

Those who can do, generally tend to try and get paid for doing, that way they aren't just doing for nothing. Personally I've been up and down Tokyo getting cards for people since business opened up, so it's a personal point of disagreement that we aren't actually earning that service charge. We aren't creating these cards out of thin air, you know, as your words would suggest. We don't have some webmoney card number generator genie that we click a button every time we get an order and it pops out a code. AIDA as another example has massive organizational work tied to the project, as AIDA is essentially solo managing/technical supporting when it comes to orders. This stuff does take serious attention to detail.

[UnLucky]

There's a certain amount of work that one wants to be compensated for, which is static at 1 card or 100. This is where tiers come in and how sales work in general (at least in the free world). It seems trivial, but I've been doing shit like this for 15 years. Damn, 16 almost. There's a lot of leg work involved, so the price for a single unit is going to be high... sometimes beyond the items value.

So what you're saying is that there should be the same overhead cost on every card type regardless of value, because it's the same service rendered per transaction.