![[E] punkypal](https://mc-heads.net/avatar/Steve/128)
Hey guys and gals! I would like to offer my advise on how to run a shop on Minetown and make it work. The first thing you need to do is ask yourself what kind of shop you want to run, and why you want to run it.
When I say, "what kind of shop" I don't mean what items you want to sell. What I mean is, do you want to set up what I will call a "proper" shop and be a full time shop-keeper or do you just want to mine, explore and build stuff but also make a little MTC on the side? Make no mistake, running a real shop is a serious play time investment. If your main reason for playing on Minetown is NOT being a shop-keeper then I advise you not to try to run a proper shop. If that is the case then what I will call a "clearance" shop is what you want!
First I will discuss the way to approach how to run a clearance shop. This is the kind of shop most players should consider first. In a clearance shop all you will be selling is the stuff you don't want or have too much of. Things like dirt, cobblestone, coal, or netherrack. /market lots (if you have one) are great places to set up a clearance shop. To comply with market rules you may need to offer just a few items at a high (but not unreasonable) price that you WON'T run out of because if everything sells out (which you want!) you could lose your shop. Make these higher priced items things besides the stuff you want to clear out and sell quickly.
As the name implies, in the clearance shop you should set most of your prices LOWER than what proper shops sell at for things you get a lot of and want to sell off. That is where your focus should be. A good idea is to start storing things you gather often and once you have at least a chest full then put it up for sale! Don't be afraid to change your signs if you run out of an item and you aren't sure you will be getting more in stock soon. When you have a bunch of something to clearance sell visit a few of the proper shops on the server. If you don't know who is running those, ask others for who has the biggest shops with the most stuff for sale (AKA "malls"). Visit those shops and see what their sell prices are. You'll want to sell for less $$$ than they do or you likely won't sell your stuff very quickly, if at all. Once you know what the proper shop price is, and you decide how much you want to try to undercut them by then set up your sign.
A clearance shop normally should not worry about putting in any signs. After all, you are just looking to get MTC by getting rid of stuff you have too much of. If you do set up a sign keep the price only a little lower than your price because you should already have that set to a low price. If you make your price crazy low nobody will sell to you anyway so why bother? You might consider making the sign go to a different chest that is NOT connected to the sign chest so you can limit the max amount of items someone can dump on you. You can fill up spaces in the sign's chest with seeds or feathers (or any space filler) to limit the max spaces open to to you. You have to have room in at least once space though or the shop will say full of course!
Here is a review:
1) Figure out what you pick up lots of and can reasonably expect to keep refilling to sell.
2) Visit the big shops to see their prices and set your prices LOWER.
3) Make your chests have lots of room to keep your shop in stock. Connect two (or more) double chests together with hoppers like so:
{down-hopper}
<--- make sign connect to the bottom chest
4) Be sure to type /unlock and punch the chests to make sure items can flow past the hoppers. Test it with a stack of items.
5) If using a /market lot be sure to have a few high, but reasonable priced items so your shop won't end up totally empty.
6) If you want to offer signs, keep the price reasonable but consider limiting how much can be sold to you. Keep the chest separate and manually move over items to as needed. Consider using the chest to stock up your own overflow.
7) If you aren't selling fast enough, change your sign and lower the price. After all, the point is to GET RID of stuff you don't want quickly. Right? If you are selling out too fast change your sign and raise the price a little. You want to make the best profit you can after all.
8 ) Not mentioned above, but sell things in large stacks. You are clearance after all! Sell common things in stacks of 64. Higher value things like gold or quartz sell at least 16 at a time. Nobody will click your shop hundreds of times to buy stuff sold in singles or very low amounts.
9 ) Enjoy your extra MTC!
Now I will talk about how to run a proper shop. To run a proper shop you need to be committed to keeping it supplied. This takes LOTS of work and time so be prepared! You likely will have to build a variety of large or complex farms to help you do keep the shop stocked. You should get your farm(s) set up before you open your shop. A proper shop always should offer signs for what it . This will help you keep the shop supplied by letting others do the work of harvesting for you and you just make a profit by your mark-up.
You will need to spend a fair amount of time keeping an eye on your competitors and visiting their shops. You should keep a notepad or spreadsheet of your prices and their prices to track the values. You don't want to try to sell for way less than your competitors. This might start a price war and nobody will win. It's better to sell for the same price as your competition and try to get more customers by spreading the word about your shop, and making sure it is well organized and well stocked. Don't make a shop that is set up worse and try to beat the competition with prices. You will lose. Players will rather spend more for a better and easier shopping experience than pay less at a shop that is a mess.
You need to be very careful and quick to adjust your prices to limit how much can be "dumped" on you. You must be prepared to lose lots of MTC when this happens but know that if your price is set to a fair and reasonable amount you will eventually make your MTC back with a profit! Try not to make your mark-up too high of a % above what you pay for items. You want people to sell to you, and then you want to sell to others quickly as you can and make profit. You can't do this if your price is way too little, and price is way too high! As the market fluctuates you must be willing to change your shop signs and adjust prices. This can take just as much work as keeping the shop stocked so keep that in mind. Don't worry, as the market stabilizes and settles prices shouldn't need to be adjusted too often.
It is VERY important for a proper shop to not be sold out of items. If players notice you are always out of stock they will stop visiting at all. They aren't coming to you for deals, they are coming to you to get what they need when they need it. Make sure you have it! If you can't sell everything and keep it all supplied, then focus on one category of thing and specialize in that. For instance, just offer all farming goods (wheat, carrot, melons, etc.) or only building supplies (stone, sand, dirt, etc). It's better to be known as the place to get anything a player needs of a certain category than have only one or two items of every category.
OK, so that's a lot of stuff to consider, so here is a review:
1) Be sure being a shop-keeper is the main thing you want to do because it will take up lots of your time,
2) Keeping your shop always supplied is very important. Set up your farms FIRST!
3) Offer signs as well as . Keep your mark-up reasonable.
4) Keep a close eye on market fluctuations and competition prices. Be willing and able to adjust your signs and prices to keep up.
5) Don't run out of items for sale! Set your prices accordingly and make sure the chests connected to the sign has plenty of room. Have many hopper connected chests for things like stone, wood, food or anything players might buy lots of all at once!
6) Have your sign chests connect directly to your sign chests like so:
<--- sign chest
{down hopper}
<--- sign chest
This will allow people that sell to you to automatically restock the shop. Be sure to use type /unlock and punch each chest to let items flow downward (and test it to be sure).
7) Shop design is very important. Think carefully about your layout.
8 ) It's better to specialize and have lots of items all in one category of goods than only have a few items from every category.
9) Be prepared to be broke in MTC. You should however end up rich it items so you won't really be poor after all, right? You know that stacks of items are the real wealth in Minecraft.
Did I miss or overlook anything? let me know in the comments below!
When I say, "what kind of shop" I don't mean what items you want to sell. What I mean is, do you want to set up what I will call a "proper" shop and be a full time shop-keeper or do you just want to mine, explore and build stuff but also make a little MTC on the side? Make no mistake, running a real shop is a serious play time investment. If your main reason for playing on Minetown is NOT being a shop-keeper then I advise you not to try to run a proper shop. If that is the case then what I will call a "clearance" shop is what you want!
First I will discuss the way to approach how to run a clearance shop. This is the kind of shop most players should consider first. In a clearance shop all you will be selling is the stuff you don't want or have too much of. Things like dirt, cobblestone, coal, or netherrack. /market lots (if you have one) are great places to set up a clearance shop. To comply with market rules you may need to offer just a few items at a high (but not unreasonable) price that you WON'T run out of because if everything sells out (which you want!) you could lose your shop. Make these higher priced items things besides the stuff you want to clear out and sell quickly.
As the name implies, in the clearance shop you should set most of your prices LOWER than what proper shops sell at for things you get a lot of and want to sell off. That is where your focus should be. A good idea is to start storing things you gather often and once you have at least a chest full then put it up for sale! Don't be afraid to change your signs if you run out of an item and you aren't sure you will be getting more in stock soon. When you have a bunch of something to clearance sell visit a few of the proper shops on the server. If you don't know who is running those, ask others for who has the biggest shops with the most stuff for sale (AKA "malls"). Visit those shops and see what their sell prices are. You'll want to sell for less $$$ than they do or you likely won't sell your stuff very quickly, if at all. Once you know what the proper shop price is, and you decide how much you want to try to undercut them by then set up your sign.
A clearance shop normally should not worry about putting in any signs. After all, you are just looking to get MTC by getting rid of stuff you have too much of. If you do set up a sign keep the price only a little lower than your price because you should already have that set to a low price. If you make your price crazy low nobody will sell to you anyway so why bother? You might consider making the sign go to a different chest that is NOT connected to the sign chest so you can limit the max amount of items someone can dump on you. You can fill up spaces in the sign's chest with seeds or feathers (or any space filler) to limit the max spaces open to to you. You have to have room in at least once space though or the shop will say full of course!
Here is a review:
1) Figure out what you pick up lots of and can reasonably expect to keep refilling to sell.
2) Visit the big shops to see their prices and set your prices LOWER.
3) Make your chests have lots of room to keep your shop in stock. Connect two (or more) double chests together with hoppers like so:
{down-hopper}
<--- make sign connect to the bottom chest
4) Be sure to type /unlock and punch the chests to make sure items can flow past the hoppers. Test it with a stack of items.
5) If using a /market lot be sure to have a few high, but reasonable priced items so your shop won't end up totally empty.
6) If you want to offer signs, keep the price reasonable but consider limiting how much can be sold to you. Keep the chest separate and manually move over items to as needed. Consider using the chest to stock up your own overflow.
7) If you aren't selling fast enough, change your sign and lower the price. After all, the point is to GET RID of stuff you don't want quickly. Right? If you are selling out too fast change your sign and raise the price a little. You want to make the best profit you can after all.
8 ) Not mentioned above, but sell things in large stacks. You are clearance after all! Sell common things in stacks of 64. Higher value things like gold or quartz sell at least 16 at a time. Nobody will click your shop hundreds of times to buy stuff sold in singles or very low amounts.
9 ) Enjoy your extra MTC!
Now I will talk about how to run a proper shop. To run a proper shop you need to be committed to keeping it supplied. This takes LOTS of work and time so be prepared! You likely will have to build a variety of large or complex farms to help you do keep the shop stocked. You should get your farm(s) set up before you open your shop. A proper shop always should offer signs for what it . This will help you keep the shop supplied by letting others do the work of harvesting for you and you just make a profit by your mark-up.
You will need to spend a fair amount of time keeping an eye on your competitors and visiting their shops. You should keep a notepad or spreadsheet of your prices and their prices to track the values. You don't want to try to sell for way less than your competitors. This might start a price war and nobody will win. It's better to sell for the same price as your competition and try to get more customers by spreading the word about your shop, and making sure it is well organized and well stocked. Don't make a shop that is set up worse and try to beat the competition with prices. You will lose. Players will rather spend more for a better and easier shopping experience than pay less at a shop that is a mess.
You need to be very careful and quick to adjust your prices to limit how much can be "dumped" on you. You must be prepared to lose lots of MTC when this happens but know that if your price is set to a fair and reasonable amount you will eventually make your MTC back with a profit! Try not to make your mark-up too high of a % above what you pay for items. You want people to sell to you, and then you want to sell to others quickly as you can and make profit. You can't do this if your price is way too little, and price is way too high! As the market fluctuates you must be willing to change your shop signs and adjust prices. This can take just as much work as keeping the shop stocked so keep that in mind. Don't worry, as the market stabilizes and settles prices shouldn't need to be adjusted too often.
It is VERY important for a proper shop to not be sold out of items. If players notice you are always out of stock they will stop visiting at all. They aren't coming to you for deals, they are coming to you to get what they need when they need it. Make sure you have it! If you can't sell everything and keep it all supplied, then focus on one category of thing and specialize in that. For instance, just offer all farming goods (wheat, carrot, melons, etc.) or only building supplies (stone, sand, dirt, etc). It's better to be known as the place to get anything a player needs of a certain category than have only one or two items of every category.
OK, so that's a lot of stuff to consider, so here is a review:
1) Be sure being a shop-keeper is the main thing you want to do because it will take up lots of your time,
2) Keeping your shop always supplied is very important. Set up your farms FIRST!
3) Offer signs as well as . Keep your mark-up reasonable.
4) Keep a close eye on market fluctuations and competition prices. Be willing and able to adjust your signs and prices to keep up.
5) Don't run out of items for sale! Set your prices accordingly and make sure the chests connected to the sign has plenty of room. Have many hopper connected chests for things like stone, wood, food or anything players might buy lots of all at once!
6) Have your sign chests connect directly to your sign chests like so:
<--- sign chest
{down hopper}
<--- sign chest
This will allow people that sell to you to automatically restock the shop. Be sure to use type /unlock and punch each chest to let items flow downward (and test it to be sure).
7) Shop design is very important. Think carefully about your layout.
8 ) It's better to specialize and have lots of items all in one category of goods than only have a few items from every category.
9) Be prepared to be broke in MTC. You should however end up rich it items so you won't really be poor after all, right? You know that stacks of items are the real wealth in Minecraft.
Did I miss or overlook anything? let me know in the comments below!