Right now I'm in the early stages of planning for a rather new model of business. Most customers will only shop locally on their server, preferring convenience over price. I am planning to build a chain of nearly-identical malls, one for each server. Malls would be based on proven concepts and strategies surrounding price theory, inventory management, and shop design, in place to varying degrees at leading shops across the empire. Partners would receive a fully functional mall built on a residence they provided, initial stock, advertising within a franchise website and on other servers, business models, plans, systems, projections, statistics, tools, etc... and half the profits paid out periodically each month. They would also receive stock from overflows at other malls, as well as from current mining and production initiatives. In exchange, they would promote the shop, provide customer service if customers have questions, provide an unused residence at a easy to remember residence number, and pay a deposit upfront which covers the initial build cost, materials, and stock. The deposit will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 490,000r. Shops are designed to be self-stocking and relatively maintenance-free. I want to get a sense of the interest in this idea, and potential partners willingness to pay. Obviously, having a higher deposit would allow more elaborate designs and more stock initially. And also any questions that you may have which will be important to address and explain in the future when we finally launch.
This is a really interesting concept. I know Alex is trying to do something like this, but he hasn't done much on it. I attempted something similar to this when I first joined, it didn't go very well Personally, I might be interested in doing something like this, but I have no where near 490,000 rupees...
I've just been adding up what I would consider a baseline level of stock for various items and the associated cost: Quartz 55296 Cobblestone 864 Stone 1728 Stone Brick 1728 Glowstone 31104 Diamond 62976 Beacons 165000 Wool 30240 Coal 3456 Redstone 4023 Lapis 12096 Iron 5184 Gold 11520 Nether Brick 2700 Nether Rack 540 Wood 20250 Sandstone 2700 Sand 1728 Emeralds 23040 Total 436173 And you can see we are already up near the pricetag, without building materials to build the store itself or time or any of the other items accounted for. So there's no question I will be accepting a lot of risk signing on a partner even at that price. I know some people do have that kind of money, and if you don't, there may be other options such as partnering with others to buy a franchise or saving up lots of money.
