Enable shops to tell shopkeepers who purchased their goods - with an anonymity option for the buyer

I was hoping to propose a means by which a shopkeeper could be provided a list of who purchased his or her goods since the last time he or she stocked the shop.

This could be done in a couple of ways. One, every shop could be automatically provided these means, or two, it could be sold as a (preferably cheap) artefact in Artefacts Misc. similar to the tradebooks.

I think a caveat should definitely be provided by which the buyer may opt to remain anonymous in purchasing from a shop, probably by slightly changing the purchasing command. ("buy vial397432 anonymously" or some such.)

The benefit of this would be to enable buyer/seller RP within the shop as through person-to-person. In some real-life cultures, excellent customer service is highly sought and expected. A merchant might choose to send buyers, (especially frequent buyers,) well-designed thank you notes, or provide them with a frequent-buyer discount. For more mundane but still highly useful purposes, knowing the groups or individuals that especially tend to frequent a particular shopkeep's shop will enable that shopkeep to design more content that group or individual likes, especially since knowing who is buying can simply be contacted to ask about their tastes and preferences.

Comments

  • KlendathuKlendathu Eye of the Storm
    Only if we get loyalty points


    Tharos, the Announcer of Delos shouts, "It's near the end of the egghunt and I still haven't figured out how to pronounce Clean-dat-hoo."
  • KyrraKyrra Australia

    Honestly, there's a market channel for that if you want to sell things to people personally instead of putting things into a shop. Those with a shopkeeping licence can make use of shop signs to ask for shoppers to leave you feedback on what you should sell, if you really want to cater to one or two specific people.

    I've managed shops for a long time, and it's not hard to keep track of what's selling and what's not. The majority of shopkeepers automatically add discounts through policies for certain citizens or organisations, so a selected group automatically benefits.

    I personally don't see a reason to have a record like this. That's like 30 shops in six cities, plus the shops in Delos, and the one off Minia, which is in insane amount of stuff to keep track off. However, if it were a possibility, I'd suggest a shoplog that went from serenade to serenade and be similar to the tradelog or revenuelog that keeps track of things.

    And for what it's worth, some people go to shops because they don't want to bother with personal interactions.

    (D.M.A.): Cooper says, "Kyrra is either the most innocent person in the world, or the girl who uses the most innuendo seemingly unintentionally but really on purpose."

  • KresslackKresslack Florida, United States

    I really wish they would add shop logs, to say who bought what, in what amount, for how much, etc. But I don't think there should be any level of anonymity to it.



  • edited May 2014

    A shop log that lists purchases, pricing and policy changes, etc, has been on The List for a long time now, unless it's been specifically rejected since then and I missed it.


    ETA: Not sure if purchaser anonymity was specifically addressed there so nevermind, carry on.

  • I like the idea behind this, but it I think it would be interesting if it were a bit more vague. Like, maybe if it only gave city or maybe even House information if the buyers were from the shop's city. Like, you know a bunch of Ashtani frequent your shop, and a good twenty percent of your buyers are Hashani, of which the shopkeeper could tell one was from the Black Lotus and another didn't belong to any House at all.

    Like Kyrra said, it's not necessarily -needed- or anything, but I think knowing those statistics would be interesting!

  • KresslackKresslack Florida, United States
    Antidas said:

    A log of what was sold and potentially when would be reasonable, imo, but not one that showed the purchaser.

    The issue I have with this is the current contradiction with how customers of certain organisations can be denied even pursuing the wares to begin with. If you want true anonymous shopping, remove such restrictions, perhaps. If you want to refuse service to certain individuals, market wares to targeted audiences via the Market channel instead.



  • KresslackKresslack Florida, United States
    Jurixe said:
    Kresslack said:
    Antidas said:

    A log of what was sold and potentially when would be reasonable, imo, but not one that showed the purchaser.

    The issue I have with this is the current contradiction with how customers of certain organisations can be denied even pursuing the wares to begin with. If you want true anonymous shopping, remove such restrictions, perhaps. If you want to refuse service to certain individuals, market wares to targeted audiences via the Market channel instead.

    This is fine because it is a blanket policy and reveals nothing about who might want to buy from your shop - you only know that groups X and Y won't be able to see your wares, and thus you lose business from that side.

    I don't like this idea for myself personally because it removes the whole point of a shop. I don't advertise for things I want or need on Market unless as a very last resort precisely because I don't want people to know I'm looking for these things.

    I see your point, and objectively, who buys what doesn't really matter nearly as much -that- they bought it in the first place, I suppose.



  • KerriaKerria The Red Lioness

    a list of items purchased, kinda like a ledger, would make so many shop keepers happy I'm sure. Wouldn't really have to have a name, you will know 'who' your customers are, just not 'whom' by the way they purchase and what they purchase. Having a ledger like a rl shop would be very convenient.

  • Would give firstborn child for an option to set cost and selling price and then being able to pull a summary of goods sold, cost of sales, etc.

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