GUIDE: Starting/Maintaining a Shop

I now found a way to get rid of my extra logs.

Love your guide!

I am always amazed by the guides some people can type up.

Hi!

This is a good guide, and I thought I'd add a few things since I run a pretty successful shop on smp9:

1) Pay attention to what people ask for in the chat. These are the items you should be carrying.
2) If someone asks for bulk amounts that you don't have, offer to get it for them in a timely manner. This gains goodwill amongst the other players.
3) Pay attention to the auctions on the forums and auction things off. For example, Glass sold okay in my shop but not great... but I've managed to auction off three double chests for A LOT more than I was selling it for in my shop. Same is true for Stone Bricks... barely sold in my shop but auctioned off quite nicely.
4) don't be afraid to offer discounts. discounts brings people back to your shop!
5) Be nice to your customers!

6) Pay attention to what the other shops are selling on your server. If there is already several shops selling Wool very well, you might not want to go into the Wool business. It's up to you, but you want to fill in where the demand is. If you see an opening you should go for it! This is how you differentiate your shop from every other shop!

7) and finally, don't be afraid to buy items in your shop. i would buy Sand, Cobblestone, Diamonds, Iron, Gold, Wool, and Wood... this would help me stock my shop with the most basic items on top of what I was able to mine and build myself. I could also turn around and turn the Sand into Sandstone or Glass and the Cobble into Stone, Stone Bricks, and all the other items you get from Cobble to sell in the shop and make my money back and more!

This is how I started out my shop and built it successfully:
1) I noticed a lot of people were asking for Wool in chat but I could never find a shop that was selling it, certainly no one was responding in chat. So I built a huge Wool farm and sold EVERY color. The only other shops selling Wool that I could find would always leave some of the colors out. I also sold bulk wool, so I could fill orders of double chests whereas any other shop only had a stack or two. This plays on two things: demand which there was a lot of and supply which there was very little of because players didn't want to spend time shearing sheep. I also developed a very efficient way to shear sheep so I could get a lot of wool in a very short amount of time.

So that's how my shop started... I built up 30k or so in Wool alone. This also encouraged others to start selling Wool. I don't know if it was just because of me but I like to think that it was lol.... other players started selling bulk wool.

2) I noticed that the next highest demand was for Diamonds, Iron and Gold and the most successful shops on smp9 had these items but people felt they were overpriced but they bought them anyway. I would spend my days out mining because I enjoy mining and I built up a huge supply. I priced them in my shop less than the other shops so I made customers happy. I also sold them in bulk to the other shops at lower prices, this got me built up to over 100k in rupees.

3) Then, luckily, 1.3 came out and everyone wanted Emeralds and I was able to use my mining skills to get tons of Emerald Ore. This built me up over 300k rupees.

All the while all this was happening, I would do bulk deals with players... I would spend hours online every day just mining and working on doing my shop. I would take breaks in between and build things, like Bag End and my castle, so minecraft would remain fun and varied.

Running a shop takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work... if customers come to your shop and find you out of stock on something then that sticks out in their mind and you gain a reputation for being out of stock which you don't want. You want your reputation to be good prices, nice, and always in stock. This is how you build up money.

Well what can I say? im building a mansion shop (mall of some sorts) and well its surrounded by glass and lapis blocks holding it in place (15062 smp7 please help me). I am very stuck on the actual basis of it... such as how to set it out... how I would do it like 3 floors one floor 1000 floors.

If anyone has any idea and can help out or wants to donate or be a manager I am happy to see what I can do.

Again thanks so much guys.

And for the helping hand with what to do Kilmanan

Also guys I found when I made a little shop AGES ago (might have changed now) was before you actually set up a shop or whatever make sure you are in stock of what you're selling first, or write on a sign "Soon to be selling XXXX'

Erm. Nice bump. This is not really the right place to ask for donations. Also if it is a thread this old maybe it would have been better to just post on Kilmanan's profile.

haha Sorry hahaha. I dont really know anything about the forums ahaha

same here

doing a shop is always a good way to make quick starter money, thats if you can keep stocked up.

So this is pretty old by MC and EMC standards. I'm wondering if there is any new information on the best way to create a shop. Especially moving from small to larger as time and resources grow. I'm really pretty new both to MC and espcially to EMC. So I am trying to build a shop to compete with people who have much more variety, time and money. I can't yet add any "buy" options as this would quickly break me.

Additionally, I've had a fair amount of success and with multiple people in my wilderness area and some family online we can venture out to get things solo players can't always get. ...but then I get people telling me I'm overcharging. So this leads to really odd dynamic of both minecraft and EMC.

EMC has been around a while and while new players may only have a few thousand rupees others have millions, but even with the large amount of rupees out there prices stay deflated on most items. This is simply because MC is for many items unlimited.

So the only items you can up price on would be promo or very rare/harder to get items, but I have people who tell me mine are overpriced. ....this is a real problem as there is no good tool in EMC to get cross server and cross shop pricing. Say I want to sell a Marlix bow, on SMP1 there are not many shops carrying it, what is a fair price? Better yet, if I price it and it is overpriced, it just will not sell, so why would people not let their purchasing power speak over saying you are overpriced? I've been on every server and done /shop and /mall so many times my fingers hurt to find that say for shulker boxes they range from 2k to 20k. I assume local server economy plays in to this but I can't find another smp1 shop currently selling shulker boxes and I'm told 4k is to much to ask.

Any help on making a better shop in today's MC and EMC is more than welcomed. I think the notes from 2012 do not perfectly apply anymore due to changing dynamics in numbers of players and ranges of items and currency.

NOTE I'd love any feedback on my small shop, smp1 /v mjnoe70

Actually, this guide is still very accurate (from my quick glancing at it - never seen it before you found it today). This is still great advice on how to run a shop on EMC, and is a great guide to follow.

Also, I have moved this guide to the new Player Guide's section. Nice find!

I agree on basic terms but we need some new tools to better know how to price items with such a large world that EMC has created. It needs to take not only "signs" but "available in those chests" to get a good true average price. There is much to it that I agree with but the available rupees and items have added some new dynamics that this did not address especially for newer shops today in my opinion. Its one of those the devil's in the details things.

I was going to respond to your initial post yesterday but didn't have time. This is one of the points I was going to make.

In order for someone to complain that your price is high they must know of at least one other shop with a lower price. It is possible they are just trying to help you out, but it is more likely that lower priced shops they know of are out. If this is so, maybe the problem is not that your price is high but that theirs is low enough to attract speculators and re-sellers in addition to players looking for items to include in a build.

If an item is priced like this intentionally, terrific, but the seller should also make sure they have a reliable way to obtain the item and time to collect and bring the items into Town or their buyers are going to be inconvenienced. There is extra value in knowing that a Shop Chest is always in stock.

In addition to convenience, some players have more time to play than others. Some have more patience with or knowledge about the game. Either way, there is value in these things. You are spending time you could be doing other things to collect items. Not trading them for a reasonable amount of Rupees means you're effectively giving up your playtime for work so that others can play. I enjoy the effort surrounding running a shop but if all I am doing is chopping Logs or mining Stone so that other players can play it eventually becomes work instead of play for me.

Regarding your Shulker Boxes, I don't think 4k is a bad price especially considering how easy it is to come by Rupees. This Auction, for example, is up around 3.5k each and is still moving. I don't expect the winner of that Auction will let them go for less than they bought them for so you may be looking at another 54 Shulker Boxes that will be priced the same as yours are or for more. Shulker Boxes have been going for less than 4k historically, but the supply is becoming smaller all the time and will not be refreshed until the next reset. Knowing the choices are to come to you and get a Shulker Box for 4K, hunt around the servers looking for a deal that may no longer exist, or going out into the End and searching for an untouched City(which is less and less likely to exist as time goes on), the greater value lies with you currently if I am looking for a Shulker Box to use rather than re-sell.

Ultimately, I think if you have researched other prices, considered supply and demand, taken into account what it takes for you to obtain an item, and come up with a price you think is reasonable, stick to your guns. Someone who wants to pressure you into giving away your time to save theirs is not relevant to pricing. On the other hand, if you are spending more time than you think the average player will be willing to trade in Rupees for an item, let someone else sell them and find something that is a better fit.

When I have done pricing I check other player shops and take into account whether they have stock or not. What sort of shop is it? Do they buy and sell and are they large or small? Do they have thoughtful prices on their items and if not why(i.e. Is the player young or older?)?

I have also checked Auctions. Some of the prices people pay are kookoo but as you get to know other players you can get an idea of who to watch to see what they think a reasonable price is. You can also use the information to investigate whether they intend to use the items or resell them and at what price.

I often use Azoundria's Market site. An oddity about it is that a lot of sell shops are priced significantly higher than buy shops. Still they are prices players are will to pay so I take them into account. There are also bulk, shop, and other threads.

You also mentioned not being able to afford to buy items. There is nothing stopping you from only buying certain Items or from using Chests other than what you are selling from. You could set up buy Single Chests at your Shop entrance. You can regulate how many items you buy by using Dirt or some other item to partially fill a Chest. If you have an alt account or a trusted friend can also limit the amount of Rupees you have available to buy items with.

I just signed in and let the Azoundria market scan my history... what a long time that was but it didn't help my shop as I can't buy from me and even though I have priced everything many items I stock do not show unless I want to spend the time to add them.

I have also just started watching auctions and made my first purchase today on one I won.

Thanks to all who have had some feedback on this.

Looking at starting my first shop - with pricing/stocking, do I price according to each stack, or do I price per piece? i.e. In each spot in the chest, I put the amount I'm selling for X amount of money.

It depends on the item, or you can have signs for different quantities. For example, making people buy logs in quantities of 1 is going to be very tedious. However, if you're selling something that people aren't going to need a lot of, like beacons, selling in quantities of 1 makes a lot more sense. When people buy from you, it will deplete stock from the chest as a whole, not from individual slots in the chest. Does that answer your question?

I think so. Say I have red stone to sell, people would rather I sell it in quantities of 64 then quantities of 1. So I would put the 64 on the amount to sell line and the price for all 64 on the price line.

Yup! The sign layout is basically as follows:

Line 1: automatically filled (with your name).
Line 2: the amount of items players will get/sell by (right) clicking the sign once.
Line 3: the amount of rupees the players will spend/gain by (right) clicking the sign once.
Line 4: the product you are selling.

Any other questions?