Delivery Service Ideas

Discussion in 'Marketplace Discussion' started by CDJS, Dec 28, 2014.

  1. I was thinking of making a useful site for my shoppers, as I will be a specialty store and possibly offer an array of services. Is there a go-to web hosting site that EMC'ers use? One that's more trusted or recommended than others? Any advertising advise pertain to this would be great.. like do people make facebook pages for their shops or anything with an active emc community? Thanks!
  2. What would you put on such a site?
    cadgamer101 likes this.
  3. I used to use the one that Stads used to operate, but he is gone. :(

    I now usually use azoundria's...
    cdjs1987 likes this.
  4. Thanks boozle628, and and @azoundria, one project in the future is farm CSA delivery memberhsips, so It would be a write-up of those types of contracts and services. Once the shop opens I will be adding it to your database, but I wanted a separate advert page as well.
  5. _Stads_ is actually back now :)
    Bro_im_infinite likes this.
  6. I suggest you stick with a thread. A thread may be limited, but it gets looked at more and is in a convenient place.
    cdjs1987 likes this.
  7. Thanks Everyone!
  8. It may be that I don't know what CSA is, or which CSA we are talking about, but I still have no idea what you mentioned there.
  9. Sounds interesting actually. Tempted to make this as a side project :)
  10. Well if you did want to help make sites for shop owners it would be good to integrate with my site at least, or build it in my site, so you could take advantage of all the data and shop owners wouldn't have to keep track of multiple logins. I just don't know if there's enough demand for these kind of sites, but obviously this thread seems to indicate that there is some.
    cdjs1987 likes this.
  11. Oh! CSA is Community Supported Agriculture. Farmers sell 'shares' of their produce ahead of time, and when its ready to harvest, deliver boxxes of goods to their CSA members. IRL its a bit of a gamble due to crop productivity, but offers a steady stream of seasonal goods.... In minecraft, the memberships will be a guarenteed set of items, with different CSA boxes for different membership tiers and interests.
  12. I am talking with Krissy now about the legitimacy of this type of service, as it is a pay-up-front type of thing, there is a lot of business-y/operational things to work out to avoid exploits, guarentee stocks and services, ect... I plan to cover all things growing ( farming, nature, flowers, livestock) with my CSA's but I can imaging that other 'careers' would benefit from similar packages.
  13. Give me an example of how it works so I can understand, and wouldn't it be heavily dependent on the player completing the farming? Thus, subject to a high degree of risk with members getting grounded, getting bored, deciding not to play, having their account banned, dying, getting griefed, getting their stuff stolen, failing to plan their farm properly, depending on others who quit, etc... Thus, even if some of these risks are low, it's still a gamble.

    Regarding your latest post, that's probably exactly the issues that could occur and players may be upset when they lose their investment so staff probably don't want to deal with that.
  14. Ah, well operationally there would be a limited number of available CSA's , which would be purchased on a month to month basis and delivered over 4 weeks. The Number of CSA's available each month would be dependent on last months harvest overstock. So for example, If I sell 5 Tier 1 Farming CSA's (containing, say ,2 iron hoes, 1 shovel, a stack of bone meal and 2 stacks of seeds) I would have already calculated that I have 40 Iron Hoes, 20 Iron shovels, 20 stacks of meal and 40 stacks of seeds available and reserved for those memberships. ... As to getting bored/dying/other risks, that's not much of a problem :)

    And so you see, simply listing what I sell wouldn't work for such a service, I would have to dedicate a thread or website to informing my customers.
  15. Can you go through the sequence of transactions for an example CSA in full?
  16. I will try my best for this, Its not fully worked out as Im not great with sell chests. It could always be done through pm.

    But I would craft some item with a nametag (if it will sell that way, not waste xp if it wont) that I don't actually sell .. say a golden shovel for instance, and the price of that golden shovel would be the price of the monthly CSA. My rupee transaction would tell me that that shovel was bought by a player, and that membership would then be assigned to that player. I would mail the player a confirmation of their CSA membership details, and probably allow 24 hours to request a refund before the first delivery. A reserve chest matching the available CSA purchase would then be renamed to that player in my storage room (for visual sorting purposes only, as I am a OneNote queen and keep amazing ledgers IRL.) On a specified day each week, I would mail 1/4 of the contents of that CSA to the player, (shipping would have to be factored into the actually price), and a note letting them know how many deliveries they have remaining.

    As I said, a lot of the business type details are still in the works and need approval from Krissy/Community management, this is a really brief overview of how I see it working in my head. My written business plan is still mostly chicken scratch.
  17. Sounds like a bulk supply business with a complicated deliver over time method.
  18. Basically, yes. The idea is to make the supplies people use most often conveniently available and routinely delivered, in thoughtfully combined packages to cut down their re-supply times and improve their productivity & profit. Different CSA's would be targeted at different activity sets to ensure they do not contain useless or unrelated items.
  19. Well let's see how this goes then. There isn't a bulk supply business that last more then a month or so.
  20. Yikes! That's not a great record at all, and I appreciate the warning, is there a specific reason why not?

    I wont be starting this venture for some months honestly. I plan to have my shop fully stocked, staffed, and operational for a spring launch (May first is my goal), and then the focus will most likely turn to this project.