Im seeing alot of empty shops. ALOT. Some have never been sold. I go somewhere and there is only one active shop, I dont go back. People are not going back. So even the active shops fail. There are alot of failing shops because the price is too high and the profits are too low. EVERY SINGLE SHOP on Arkadia needs to be available to the public. OFC, I just want a shop. The reward, obviously, does not justify the investment. If it did, there would be more active shops everywhere. If you have a shop for sale at a reasonable price, Id take it. Some of you have more then one shop, and you cant possibly fill them all with quality items. It is you that are hurting the shopping centers. Some of you have shops you no longer maintain, that you are just using to store junk. It is you that are hurting the shopping centers. The greater powers at MA and of Arkadia who are releasing useless shops over time to increase profits by price fixing supply and demand, it is you who are killing the shopping centers. Any noob should be able to sweat hard, fight hard, mine hard, trade hard, and be able to afford a shop. Instead, the shops are filled with stuff no noob can afford, because a few rich players are the only ones who can. And do. It is shameful and destructive to a vibrant economy. Even illegals can afford a food truck. C'mon Arkadia!
Arkadia seems to have a lot more active and restocked shops of any planet, with items from a 4 ped gun to astronomically priced stuff. You look around Celeste harbor and island, as well as Sanctuary cove there's only one really inactive shop B.D.S. (and that avatars shops and stalls are inactive on every planet). Granted the majority of the fire base shops have never been released, only a few few given out as event prizes. If you pop to Caly, FOMA, and CP you are greeted with the fun game of playing find a very rare thing, an active shop that's selling anything you would actually buy. As you look around all the empty shops, stalls, apartments and houses you get depressed at wasted opportunity. As the vast majority of "investors" in them paid for them and did not activate the estate terminal when they picked up the deeds under the old system, so players can't even pm the owners and make them an offer for it.
How many of those empty shops are owned by Arakdia Estate Manager, meaning they aren't failed, they just haven't been made available for purchase by the Devs? Should the dev's release more shops deeds for purchase by players? Perhaps. More player business would be good. There may be some empty player shops around. I don't know as I haven't checked but I wouldn't use the firebases as any guide. If you are looking to buy a shop, I know Freyr is selling at Sanctuary Cove - I have seen the ads on PCF. I don't know his price and perhaps you and he might disagree on what is a reasonable price. Personally I value most of the Arkadian shops quite highly, based on capacity and location. Or you can advertise in the forums, looking for shop sellers. Shops clearly do change hands as I have seen a number of new businesses advertised over the past months. I own multiple shops and they are all mostly full, with items ranging in price from 4 to 650 peds. And I would grow the capacity and add more range if the shop performance bugs were fixed. I get sales across the whole range at all the shops. I would argue that I bring people to the shopping centres at the harbour and the quarry as well as Sanctuary Cove and I hope that while there people take the time to check other shops and booths in the area. The reality is that it is not easy to make a shop successful in EU. And yet a well run shop is integral to most successful EU businesses. I'm just not sure if it is a space that a new player should be in. You need good understanding of the economy, you need capital that you can tie up in inventory that can sit on shelves for an extended period. I ran a quick check of my valuation of my shop deeds (and I value high) and it is a about a 3rd of the MU value of my inventory on shelves. You need a business plan and a marketing strategy. But if you want to dip your toe in the water then perhaps an apartment with shopkeepers is a way to get started. Regards, KikkiJikki
just buy a shopkeeper to get you started til you can afford something bigger... then buy a booth to upgrade from there... finally a shop... Just 'having' a shop doesn't mean you'll be more successful than the current owner of the shop. In some ways, I honestly think having apartments on multiple planets and a shopkeeper to be your travel companion can be a better investment than a shop anyways, especially since it gives you a bit of an eaiser exit strategy.
I have converted my apartment and it is working well. not enough space and I need to be there, but it works for me as long as my TPIV chip is. I actually think there is an advantage to an apt shop. I can put alot more in my storage and inventory(and underground) then I could put in a shop. What I think I want is to rent a shop from a player that has too many locations to stock fully. It would have to be a owner familiar with my talents and reputation. Do shop deeds get paybacks like CLD's and AUD's? Is there maintenance? What if a shopowner can make weekly ped off of renting such a shop? What would be a good rate?
There is no ongoing fees to owning a shop deed. Payouts from sales (similar to selling from your apartment) go to your ped flow card. So any rental arrangement between you and a shop keeper would have to manual, have the same risks as item rental. ie it comes down to rep, trust or collateral. As you probably already know, shopkeepers decay with each sale. I haven't checked exact amount but I suspect 1 pec per sale. I know I get a lot of sales on a keeper between repairs.
The only shop I know like that is on Monria, the shop owner has organised tables for a few other Monrian players. I will be like an apartment though only the deed holder can place items and receive the payments, and the owner trading personally with the other players involved. This thought was deleted
The Monria Shop you're talking about is the one owned by The Knights of Entropia (TKoE) society at the Monria Hub on the 3rd floor, and they have separate areas for some of their members to sell things. The TKoE General manages it.
I would use the shops more often if it wasn't such a slow buggy experience, I actually end up using AH in preference probably at greater cost because of this. The shops on Monria seem to be much easier to use, is this down to size of shop? or the location??
Well Arkadian shop item capacity is often high compared to shops on other planets. So I don't know if it is the planet or the shop size but I do know that I only have minor issues in my shops in the caly malls. It doesn't surprise me that I am losing sales owing to the performance and rendering issues.
I actually find your shopkeeper stall at the quarry the easiest to use, I think I bought a few weapons from there last gold rush.
The buginess of the Arkadian shops is a platform issue not an Ark one. It is very noticeable here and even worse in most shops on Rocktropia. Whether the re-draws happen less on Calypso because they are a smaller shop, or older code or whatever, we can only surmise. MA are aware of the issues, they have been amply demonstrated to them in support cases and also during visits to our shops by their officials. They were even fixed briefly 2 weeks ago in a vu, but broken again when they did a roll back to fox the hit boxes they broke instead ... ho hum.. Seemed worse than ever today.. became so unusable at one point I had to log out of game to recover from the constant flicker. Almost 11 months since they broke them...preparing a birthday card.. My personal thanks to those customers that have persisted and continued to shop with us during this frustrating time
