[Guide] Moose's guide to running a shop

I've been running a player shop for around 20 months on Shade Crest, and thought it was time to write up a thread with some of the things I've learnt.

Promotion
One of the most important things for running a shop is promotion. You can have the best shop, best prices, and always be stocked, but this won't do you much good if no one knows about it. The three main methods I use for promotion are the forums, in game signs, and in game chat.

Shop thread
Have an informative thread, and encourage discussion. If you add potions, let people know, and then ask something like what people would like to see added next/changed. This way your shop thread will be higher in the recent threads list, as well as the shop/trade forum, so most active forum members will know about your shop. Also make sure to keep your title simple and update it when you update your thread (eg. /warp shop, now selling potions!), so players who don't read the thread will still know what's changed.

Signs
Something which also helps a lot is advertising with signs. You can rent (buy) a warp sign at /warp spawn on the right wall for 1000r, and lock a sign outside /warp mining for 400-1000r. That's relatively cheap, and you'll get a lot more new players knowing about your shop.

Chat
The last and most obvious way is using chat. Keep an eye out for players wanting a shop, and then suggest your shop. Once enough people know about your shop, people will do this for you. Also, whenever you're involved in a trade, ask them to meet you at your shop instead of spawn.

Pricing
Pricing is also obviously important. Too high and people won't want to use your shop, too low and you won't make any money. Here are the factors I take into account when pricing something:

Usefulness of item - what applications the item has. e.g. Lapis ore is almost as rare as diamond ore, but since its use is very limited, it’s worth less than iron. This discludes items with sentimental or other value like music discs and admin items.

Difficulty/time to collect - How hard it is to get the item. This should take into account how easy it is to find, any dangers involved in collecting it (nether), tools used in collecting it (1r per 4 blocks broken with diamond tools), steps in making the item (brick blocks, potions), and whether or not it’s just a byproduct (cobblestone is a byproduct of mining, since you don’t actually mine for cobble).

Supply - How much or little of an item there is. Horse armour can only be found, so there’s limited supply. If 30 people all want horse armour, but there’s only 20 sets, you can price higher than you’d do if there was 40 sets of armour.

Quantity demanded - How much of an item people typically need. e.g. If someone wants to set up a sheep farm with different coloured sheep, they just need one of each type of dye, so are willing to pay more since it’s just a once off purchase. Same goes for grass/mycel, you just need one to turn a dirt patch to grass.

Competitors' prices - Speaks for itself, price others buy & sell for. If someone sells iron for 11r and buys it for 10.5r, don’t sell for less than 10.5r or buy it for more than 11r. People will take advantage of small differences like these to make a few rupies. Make sure that the chest is actually stocked if you’re using the price they sell for, or that the chest isn't full or they have money if you’re going off the price they buy for.

Price skimming - Charge a high initial price and slowly lower it to a reasonable one. This would generally only work with rarer items. This works off the fact that some people are willing to pay more for something than others. You pretty much just start off with the highest price you think someone would be willing to pay, and slowly lower it.

General tips
Keep items stocked - Also extremely important, if an item is consistently out of stock, people will stop checking your shop at all for that item even if it is cheaper and happens to be in stock at that time.

Buy items too - don’t just sell. It can be hard, if not impossible, keeping everything stocked on your own. This will get more people into your shop too, and even though they may just be selling stuff to you now, they might be more likely to recommend your shop or buy something from it.

Up prices - if you’re buying and selling an item, as well as keeping it stocked yourself, and it’s selling out, increase your price. You’ll make more money and increase the amount of time it takes to run out of stock. Do this in small amounts, you don’t want to increase your buy/sell price and have everyone sell to you and have no one buy.

Fill chests - Fill up chests with junk items (i.e. sticks and cobblestone (unstacked)) to limit the amount of items people can sell to you. Only have 7 stacks of gold? Fill up the other 20 slots so that people can only sell to you after someone else has bought, meaning you’ll never lose money.

I followed all of these concepts, and it’s worked out pretty well, but it’s time for other people to have a go at running a shop. If you have any extra questions, feel free to ask.

Summarise your transactions
Here's a link to my spreadsheet last updated April 4 as an example.

1. Go to the ChestShop page
2. Click "Search" and type in your IGN (I found only chrome can display all results, other browsers just displayed a month)
3. Select it all and copy it into excel. Make sure each column has a title
4. Select all the columns in excel (click and drag along the column titles)
5. Go to the insert tab and click PivotTable (should be the very first option)
6. Select parameters (Should look something like this)
   1. Buy/sell as a column label
   2. Item and/or player as a row label (can sort by either players and the items they bought, or items and which players bought them)
   3. Price and/or quantity as values
   4. These default to "Count", click on the dropdown, value field settings, sum

Voila, you have a detailed summary of every transaction to ever take place at your shop.

 

Nice guide Moose. I've been planning a shop for the new survival world so this is good timing for me. Thanks.

 

thanks moose!

 

Is it hard to run a shop? I mean, keeping up the diamond stock and stuff and do you actually make any money, because when I'm at your shop I mainly just sell.....

Sent from mah fone

 

And thanks for the advice by the way

Sent from mah fone

 

This thread was of much help to me for setting up my new shop. +1 moose

 

Do you reckon anyone would use it if I just set up a shop that only buys materials? I'm always running out of logs and such, so it may provide a nice way of getting more.

 

I think most people would use it, although I am creating a shop for mostly building blocks and ores. Maybe have prices higher than Moose's?

 

If you fill chests, you'll never lose money, but I forgot to mention something. If you sell diamonds for 140r and buy them for 130r, you only make 10r per diamond you sell. Even if no one sells a diamond back to you, you now have one less diamond.

People would probably use it if it was well known, and "stocked", i.e. you have enough money to buy stuff.

Just remember the costs of having a warp. If you can sell diamonds at 125r at /warp oreshop, and sell them at 140r at /warp yourshop, then your profit from having a shop is just 15r. That means you have to sell 26 stacks of diamonds before you start profiting from them. I've only sold 70.5 stacks of diamonds total (not including diamond tools), so it'll definitely take a while to sell 26. Iron I've sold 241 stacks, and gold 56 stacks (there was a short obsession with golden apples).

 

The warp I made busted my bank ;-;

 

Hey guys, another thing about shops:

Like everything you do in minecraft, they should be run for fun rather than for profit. From a economical standpoint, there is no reason to run a shop in minecraft than go get the materials themselves through farms and mining. That said, if you find helping the server's players out a little, having a project to do, and making a nice chunk of cash, you should still run a shop.

Just my two cents

 

Thanks for the advice moose!

Sent from mah fone

 

If only I hate the commitment to run a shop, I honestly had no idea how you ran /warp moose AND Babylon back when you were mayor

 

I'm sure I could make you committed
This is good advice moose!

PS: Is this why can't sell iron to you anymore?!

 

Full? Or has he taken the Sell of the sign?

 

I stopped managing my shop around two months ago because, like Pie said, it was no longer fun for me. Hopefully in 1.7 we start seeing some more shops, since that'll make it much easier on individual shop owners.

 

Maybe just ramp your prices up by 20% and lower the buying one by 20%?

Keeps a slight income for you, but allows other stores to more easily get going, and then lower it once you're no longer the overlord of the server materials economy.

 

One thing I am wondering in shop management is there a way to monitor your finances in terms of how much has been bought, which particular items sell most, how much has been sold to your shop? I want to buy items to provide other players a way to earn some money but I don't want to bottom out financially myself in doing so.

The other idea I had was sectioning off my shop into various departments and getting other people to run those departments where I don't have much stock. Kind of tender out the departments in my shop thread once it's further along in development.

 

Yep there is, here's a link to my spreadsheet last updated November 14. Here's how to do it

1. Go to the ChestShop page
2. Click "Search" and type in your IGN (I found only chrome can display all results, other browsers just displayed a month)
3. Select it all and copy it into excel. Make sure each column has a title
4. Select all the columns in excel (click and drag along the column titles)
5. Go to the insert tab and click PivotTable (should be the very first option)
6. Select parameters (Should look something like this)
   1. Buy/sell as a column label
   2. Item and/or player as a row label (can sort by either players and the items they bought, or items and which players bought them)
   3. Price and/or quantity as values
   4. These default to "Count", click on the dropdown, value field settings, sum

Voila, you have a detailed summary of every transaction to ever take place at your shop.

 

That's awesome. Thanks for that.