Aether shops vs local shops

Aeldra

Hey,

Something that's been irking me a while is that local shops are just so useless, in lack of a better term. I do get the need to sell the pricey artifact, but I also feel like shop is still kind of useless. I know someone sent me some tips a while ago and they did help, plus I do regular advertising on market. Yet still, it's not like an aethershop and if I look at my shoplog, I feel all the work put into the shop is for naught, which is frustrating to say the least. Maybe, we can spark some discussion as to how city shops could be brought to a little more visibility without rendering the aethershop useless? I have no idea myself, I just thought it to be more productive to throw this out into ideas instead of just making a tweet about it.

A few things I've noticed
- On average, I sell about 5 things per month. I am not really having that much a collection yet, but am working on it and trying to organize it better.
- Without the silver cookies, I'd likely not even be able to cover my shop taxes from the income of the shop
- Most people don't seem to even notice that there's an active shop in Celest, as the most shops are dead (I wanted to open a second shop in seren but right now I kind of feel it's just a waste of money)
- Getting people to go to a city to look at a shop is really hard compared to the aetherplex.

As said, I have by no means any wish to devalue the aethershop artifact, in fact I hope that one day I may own such a marvel. In the mean time, playing shopkeeper would be a lot more entertaining if I'd actually sell something aside of cookies so, I guess all kinds of idea's are really welcome

Daraius

I feel this pain. Much as I love Golden Serenity Teahouse, it never makes enough money to pay its own taxes year to year. Wetfold and Kirigami sales from Erudio cover that. But I recognize I'm selling a very specialized product to a very small group of people at the teahouse, whereas origami charms are used by everyone all the time. Plus, you don't have to go out of your way to get them - you just PORTAL SEARCH SHOPS for whatever you need. Ultimately, I don't think you can ever expect to make your money back on a Prime shop unless you're selling something everyone needs that isn't available at the aetherplex for cheaper.

Aeldra

@daraius granted the aetherplex has a lot of more accessibility, the main problem is not so much selling stuff people need, there's a ton of stuff that's not on the plex that people need, but... the point is they even have forgotten they could look on their local shops.

Tarkenton

Local shops will never be worth the trouble, imo. Having run two or three into the ground, save yourself the headache.

Shaddus

It's really hard to explain how Gaudiguch handles its shops, but probably 75% of them are purchased for outright by guilds/factions or private citizens,and pay 0 taxes.

Ayisdra

Back before Directories were a thing, using org shops were more of a hassle than anything. But even with it, the fact that it doesn't tell you where the shop is just proves that it is easier to not deal with orgshops. With aethershops, the ability to directly enter the shop and the use of PORTAL SEARCH SHOPS, a person is not likely to ever go to your orgshop if you have one, even if the prices are cheaper unless they have specifically been told about the better prices.

Aithera

I'm not sure aethershops are particularly more "useful" than city shops. Frankly, I suspect that most people in shop keeping are doing it at a loss (particularly when you factor in the artifact cost for aethershops)

Why are you running a shop? Are you trying to make money? Provide useful services (especially for novices)? For the fun/rp of it? if you're doing it for the money, then it is probably going to be a constant headache. If you're doing it for fun/for novices and are okay with subsidising it otherwise, you can probably enjoy it more. 

Perhaps you could find a group of like minded people in Serenwilde, get a few shops together and have them each be a bit specialised and then encourage each other to keep them active? See if you can talk the Chancellor into waiving shop taxes for a few years in the name of revitalising Serenwilde's economy? I don't know, you may have already attempted this or something like that.

In general, I really like the flavour of some of the city shops, and I do my best to embrace that. Aithera would far rather buy in Hallifax than from a generic Aethershop, even if it means not getting as good of a deal. I generally try to promote an attitude of encouraging local shopping over the convenience of aethershops by bringing up good, active shops when people mention on CT looking to buy something (it helps that Hallifax has the tea house, several well-stocked general/guild shops and one of Ssaliss's potions emporiums), taking novices to Hallifax shops first when getting them equipped, encouraging hanging out in the Golden Serenity Teahouse when chatting with people, making sure to teach about DIRECTORY and relevant path walk commands, before bringing up Aetherportals, and including shop locally as part of Aithera's general Hallifaxian superiority roleplay.

Yehn

Aeldra said:

@daraius granted the aetherplex has a lot of more accessibility, the main problem is not so much selling stuff people need, there's a ton of stuff that's not on the plex that people need, but... the point is they even have forgotten they could look on their local shops.

Just my $.02 as a newbie...

I've looked at just about all local shops for my city (the ones I could find anyways...) and at best they match aetherplex prices. My guild's shop, which claims to have cheap newbie pricing... is more expensive generally, I think one or two things match the aetherplex...

...And I'm enemied to two cities with probably more on the way, but that doesn't seem to matter at the aetherplex...

tl;dr I think the aetherplex wins out...

Lavinya

The aetherplex shops will always see a greater volume of customers by the nature of being at the hub. They will always do better just for that reason. I always try to shop local first, but can never find what I need in those shops (seriously Glom shopkeepers, up your game!), and or it's annoying trying to find the shop. Especially when shops change their name. I used to know where the shops in Magnagora were by name, and then a whole bunch of them changed, and I was ever after lost. Directory showing vnum or giving the option to pathwalk to the shop from there would save a world of pain.

The aetherplex also has greater competition, and thus is more likely to have cheaper prices to reflect that. Some people are able to sell their goods at crazy crazy low prices, and unless you take the cut in profit and drop your price too, you'll never see any sales at all.

I think shop taxes suck. It's another strain on an already struggling setup. I'm sure the orgs don't really need the gold income.

Falaeron

I always just go PORTAL ENTER BETTYS when I need refills, PORTAL ENTER ERUDIO when I need origami, PORTAL ENTER TOWER when I want to see if there's cheap silver cookies etc.

The main reasons I have used local shops are for the times when there really aren't of what I need available or I want clothing that is suitably Hallifaxian themed (plus Zyphora's clothing gives more prestige from what I've been told!) and even then I generally already know which shop I'll be going to.

Chirbo

If you didn't know Esca's shop has the cheapest enchantment recharges in Magnagora. It's the first shop to the left after you head ne from the megalith

Lerad

Portal shops aren't infalliable, though. You guys need to stock some cleanse enchants, or my newbies can't save me from sap, dammit. Local shops are good for non-decay stockpiling of unriftables or just as a storeroom.

Tarkenton

I'll send you a gross of cleanse bracelets.

Alik

Lerad said:

Portal shops aren't infalliable, though. You guys need to stock some cleanse enchants, or my newbies can't save me from sap, dammit. Local shops are good for non-decay stockpiling of unriftables or just as a storeroom.

Heard that. I went for over 3 weeks looking for a cleanse enchant. Still looking for that levitate. But that's just to say that Aethershops can still be meh if not kept up with.

Lavinya

Alik said:

Lerad said:

Portal shops aren't infalliable, though. You guys need to stock some cleanse enchants, or my newbies can't save me from sap, dammit. Local shops are good for non-decay stockpiling of unriftables or just as a storeroom.

Heard that. I went for over 3 weeks looking for a cleanse enchant. Still looking for that levitate. But that's just to say that Aethershops can still be meh if not kept up with.

My shop was much better stocked when I still had access to enchantment/tinkering/brewmeistery. Woe.

Sylandra

Enchantment + Jewelry classflexing = OP. 

Vivet

Sylandra said:

Enchantment + Jewelry classflexing = OP. 

No kidding. I might be tempted to classflex aero later in the week just so I can do elemental enchantments myself without bothering other people.

Steingrim

Lavinya said:

The aetherplex shops will always see a greater volume of customers by the nature of being at the hub. They will always do better just for that reason. I always try to shop local first, but can never find what I need in those shops (seriously Glom shopkeepers, up your game!), and or it's annoying trying to find the shop. Especially when shops change their name. I used to know where the shops in Magnagora were by name, and then a whole bunch of them changed, and I was ever after lost. Directory showing vnum or giving the option to pathwalk to the shop from there would save a world of pain.

The aetherplex also has greater competition, and thus is more likely to have cheaper prices to reflect that. Some people are able to sell their goods at crazy crazy low prices, and unless you take the cut in profit and drop your price too, you'll never see any sales at all.

I think shop taxes suck. It's another strain on an already struggling setup. I'm sure the orgs don't really need the gold income.

I've come to see city shops with a few exceptions as 'training shops'. By that I mean they're a way for someone to play at a trade before fulling committing. When I sold my shops in Achaea (probably a good dozen or so years ago) IIRC the one in Ashtan sold for 20 million and credits were probably high 2kish.

The other economic factor here is that players underwrite the economy. You don't have to operate any business or trade in game at a profit and frankly I'd be shocked if even 3% of the population ever turns a profit on their trade. Even before comms became cheap you'd have people selling goods for less than the cost of the comms to make them. This is why there are tons of items I don't bother to stock. It isn't worth my time to find and decide on a variety of clothes to sell for a return that is a small percentage of a credit. It isn't my effort to pick out rings and enchant them with cleanse for a couple of hundred gold return and even if I could bring myself to doing so I'd want to do like 200 at a time once a week or game year, not spend an hour or two each day restocking a shop.

Let's face it Lusternia has so much stuff that its systems tend to burst at the seams. We've asked for things like enchantment tomes that people can recharge jewellery from and I don't know that we've ever gotten a response or told why not and while I get in many cases why the rejections shouldn't be shared, this is one where why should the player base pick up the slack at the cost of their own enjoyment if the Administration don't appear to see the issue worth addressing let along solving?

There are things that could help, allowing most shops to use item generators. Set item to a recipe add the comms and let the buyers create on demand. Example a tailoring manikin (created by artisans) is placed in a stockroom like a pedestal and either you place comms in or it pulls comms right out of the shop rift or some such. Enchantment tags/gems/etc.

If you think about it is more the inventory management which makes people stock so much less. It is also the case that if the space isn't taken up by small items so easily people will be more likely to stock those. There's a reason that before shop rifts people used to bundle herbs rather than sell them in single quantities.

Tarkenton

Sent Lerad a gross of cleanses. Hit him up if you need them.

Aeldra

My point is not so much 'turning a profit', the cookies cover that nicely so far and there's other means of income. It's more like a 'time vs usefulness' thing for me (which I can only measure by people buying stuffs? ). I have the feeling that it's like no one ever notices the shop because the surrounding shops are dead, which is like I'm waiting time and credits for the trades to keep it stocked.

Sylandra

I kind of want a local shop just for funzies. I basically view shops as moneypits that you masochistically throw yourself into, fervently swearing that you're having fun as you watch all your hard-earned e-cash flutter away.

Daraius

We ought to get the Chancellor to lower tax rates on commercial property. :-\"

Aithera

You just want a shop to show off all your gorgeous @Jadice designs to make people drool and join the order!

And I am completely on board with this plan.

Sylandra

Daraius said:

We ought to get the Chancellor to lower tax rates on commercial property. :-\"

Buy me dinner first.

Aeldra

Thanks for all your responses! Kind of sad the state of shops. I feel like I would be alright if a shop didn't turn a complete profit, but I would want to ensure that I see people regularly buying on the shoplog. I mean that's the whole reason I go through the trouble of maintaining it, so people can buy stuff. But in this case, the aetherplex completely trumps the shop and being a gold sink in material and money is kind of discouraging. Maybe the solution is to tune down the shop taxes, though kind of don't think this will fix anything.

Also, I heard that a lot of shops are deserted because no one really wants to run a local shop.

Stratas

What always disappoints me about local shops is when someone laments they can't find something in shops, and I'm like "I stock that. In my shop. In the city you live in. It's right over there. I've had it for weeks." And then I shed a bitter tear.

Piccarda

Personally, I always check my city's shops before I do the aethershops. Maybe I'm old fashioned