Conflict of Interests

I'm in a puzzle, personally i find it wrong and a strong conflict of interests to sell to people I consider friends or part of my group. One little problem I have with a particular situation I'm in is the conflict of interests in selling to friends to support their hobby.

I can understand the costs, but my question is "Why do you have to sell to guys who are joining your group?". Thats where I feel conflicted, and thats what lead one member to try to sell his AEG for profit. When relationships are based one sided personal profit, it becomes a bit problematic.

My idea is to, remove this problem. I will do this by creating a way for the merchants to sell their wares, online and thus bring the total cost down through scale and economy.

Example. Lets say I have this Canvas Bag with special pockets. Its materials cost Php300 (with a lot of excesses), it requires skilled labor (php15,000) is 2 hours (Php200). Its a simple but a particular design. A number of people in the group needs this, but they can't purchase it simultaneously as everyone else. So what will happen everyone will buy it online from abroad at x2 the price if a local artisan made one without the benefit of economics of scale.

Selling to Friends for profit. Friendships do have a cost, personally i don't ever want to put a monetary value to it. Once you create such a situation, there will be an anchoring affect and from then on we involuntarily measure against it.

There is a conflict of interest, simply because "Am I your friend because you can profit from me?". That is a question you don't want friends asking themselves when assessing their relationships with you.

Am I being asked to join this Group because I am additional Market, OR because they really want to share the experience. Thats the problem I am facing.

Is my relationship to someone as a Merchant or a Friend. When Its about goods and profit, I want a relationship as a Merchant. As a Merchant I will give you good value compared to my competition, this value can be in the form of services, value for money, and finding the best deals suited for your budget. This is with respect to the fact that I am a merchant and I do have to earn a profit and meet the bottom line.

I can be a Merchant to strangers and people who I don't plan to be personally involved with. The expectations are that we set, and there are no implications. Here honesty, where as I tell them this is how much i believe I should profit from the exchange to compensate me for my time, effort and skill (not directly spoken but deductively analyzed within the accounting of the biz).

Giving a Pragmatic Assessment. A reputation for honesty and pragmatism gets around, simply because of its own practical/pragmatic reasons. Few People, but enough, support the underdog. They support people they know are "good" working folk, and who give added value in terms of time and effort.

Attitude is a big chunk of economic returns. A good attitude allows person to adapt and overcome adversity, and rise in skill and ability. A good merchant, looks for good deals and passes them on to their customers. If one source of deals is tapped out, they find other ways of spending their time to contribute a good return in services.