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Revamping Shops
Skye
The Duchess Bellatere
So, I ran into a bit of a weird problem recently in one of the shops I rent:
The shop has a number of tuns in it, and I stocked the remaining space to capacity. Someone bought a refill from the tun and the resulting 220 gold in the stockroom caused my wares to no longer be viewable due to being 'over capacity'. So I probably missed out on some 4-6 hours worth of potential sales as a result, depending on when that refill had been bought.
The truth is, apart from the taxation changes, not much has changed for shops.
We're still pretty behind the times as far as shopkeeping is concerned.
Of course there are other issues, some of which ultimately boil down to the policies of the individual city and so are out of our scope.
I figure this topic can basically be brainstorming some potential changes. I don't really have good solutions to some of these, and admittedly, of course, I have my own agenda when it comes to making suggestions.
For example, I would love to have shop logs and for gold to be stored separately from the stockroom, for example as an in-shop command to collect earnings from the shop front or something like that. I would also love to give cities the ability to implement hardcoded policies that allow for more flexibility in rent and stock instead of an annual fixed rent that forces tenants to prioritise their overheads over variety.
Heck, I would even be interested to see what would happen if we removed stockrooms as a physical entity entirely and implement something more like a paid, centralised Rift instead (like as a part of the LMS with expansion options). One of the things that makes shops so high demand isn't even the shop itself but the non-decay stockroom, eliminating that as a factor might change things up considerably. It would also protect shop owners or renters from having their stock seized as a result of getting enemied, or failure to pay taxes and so forth, as is the current case.
The shop has a number of tuns in it, and I stocked the remaining space to capacity. Someone bought a refill from the tun and the resulting 220 gold in the stockroom caused my wares to no longer be viewable due to being 'over capacity'. So I probably missed out on some 4-6 hours worth of potential sales as a result, depending on when that refill had been bought.
The truth is, apart from the taxation changes, not much has changed for shops.
We're still pretty behind the times as far as shopkeeping is concerned.
- Still no shop logs, a feature that's available in other IREs.
- Not being able to make use of LMS shop signs unless you own, and in the same vein, not being able to adjust pricing policies unless entering the stockroom.
- The tuns are a bit faulty. Only the owner of said tun can pick it up, resulting in tuns belonging to people being left in stockrooms when cities seize the property for unpaid taxes/enemy statuses. A benefit to leasers, but a hassle when there are so many tuns and you don't even want to stock that many to begin with. Tuns also are only used for curatives so I can't use them to stock, for example, milk or oil.
- Carts are a poor substitute for selling anything but minerals/herbs because items still decay in them.
- The above mentioned issue where gold actually counts as an item, along with all the mandatory security items (sigils/totem) forces you to under-utilise an already sparse capacity of 250 items.
- Your lease or stock is still essentially being held to ransom once you rent from a city. You literally walk on eggshells and cannot do anything on the spur of the moment, everything has to be premeditated least you offend whichever megalomaniac is in charge of the city.
Of course there are other issues, some of which ultimately boil down to the policies of the individual city and so are out of our scope.
I figure this topic can basically be brainstorming some potential changes. I don't really have good solutions to some of these, and admittedly, of course, I have my own agenda when it comes to making suggestions.
For example, I would love to have shop logs and for gold to be stored separately from the stockroom, for example as an in-shop command to collect earnings from the shop front or something like that. I would also love to give cities the ability to implement hardcoded policies that allow for more flexibility in rent and stock instead of an annual fixed rent that forces tenants to prioritise their overheads over variety.
Heck, I would even be interested to see what would happen if we removed stockrooms as a physical entity entirely and implement something more like a paid, centralised Rift instead (like as a part of the LMS with expansion options). One of the things that makes shops so high demand isn't even the shop itself but the non-decay stockroom, eliminating that as a factor might change things up considerably. It would also protect shop owners or renters from having their stock seized as a result of getting enemied, or failure to pay taxes and so forth, as is the current case.
8
Comments
(YES, I HAVE CHILDREN STOCKED IN MINE)
Silver lining to rejecting you, I suppose
I want to see the following in Shop logs:
What sold, with ID#.
When it was bought (in game and/or irl date).
Who bought it.
How much they paid. (To determine profits).
I'd also like the option of, when pricing items, inputting the cost of the item itself (I.e. how much the item cost to physically make) and have that also in Logs (for even more accurate gold/profit tracking).
1. If you are literally walking on eggshells, you're doing it wrong. Those are riftable and saleable, and you're missing out on some profit.
2. As the latest megalomaniac in charge of the city, I appreciate your honourable mention.
In that same vein, the fastest way to get me to stop buying things from shops is to remove the anonymity. I don't want the entire world to know that I bought some skimpy panties and a riding crop.
I don't care who bought it, and I don't want to know who bought it, that seems a little over the top. Just that it's sold would be enough
Nobody but the player should know how much gold they have/earn. It's nobody's business, least of all the leading council of the city.
Now, if you were to say "I want the city to have a report of how many transactions a shop has." I'd be fine with that. But the gold totals should be strictly limited to the shop owner.
That does ultimately tie into my idea of cities being able to charge a flexible rent/tax based on earnings rather than a fixed annual rent. Such a thing, at the moment, doesn't work on an org level because it requires too much manpower and a certain level of trust (and you know what they say about nice things). It may allow them more leeway when it comes to leasing specialised shops.
For example, I'd like to be able to run a shop that only sells food. But the fact of the day is that nobody buys that much food, except maybe Mindshell. I don't think I bring in more than 20k a year, after deducting rent and taxes. The same goes for clothing, which is heavily dependent on newbies and events (which are few and far between, and often 'come as you are' rather than enforced with dress codes). Which is why we all kinda wind up as catch-all shops with a bulk of curatives/inks to buffer sales, and only a portion of space for what we really want to sell.
On the flip side there are also those who own shops and because of the stocking policies of the city, just arbitrarily bulk up their wares with public designs. Which is equally frustrating for designers who are trying to make a living off stuff they want to design, not just commissions. That's out of the scope of the topic though.