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Shop Management Tips submitted by gnomefriend

Even though I haven't been playing very long, I have been asked by quite a few members of the different guilds that I have belonged to about how to make money with your shop. Keep in mind that this article will address those members that have small shops that hold up to 200 items. First let's look at shop size, Yes folks, size matters! First off, the bigger your shop is the more stuff you can put into it to sell thereby making more money. Secondly, the bigger your shop is the higher it will be listed on the Shop Wizard. I noticed a big difference on how quickly stuff sold from a shop that held 100 items (Shop Size 20) to a shop that held 200 items (shop size 40). My thoughts on shop size, hold off on other expenses until you get your shop size up to about size 10. Once you get to this size your non-rare items have a better chance to show up in the Wizard search. The following happens when you search for an item using the Wizard. First, the Shop Wizard only searches a small portion of the shops in Neopia for that item. Second, it lists the shops by the price of the item (cheapest is listed first) and then by the size of the shop (the biggest shop will be listed first in any price group). Now lets look at the stocking. For small shops (up to size 10) you will probably only get noticed for those more unique/expensive items. About the only things I got listed for were Paintbrushes, magical items, Map pieces Dubloons and Codestones. Most of the common items like the Tombola booby prizes and Fruit Machine fruit prizes would not really be noticed. This doesn't mean you should not put common items in your shop. When somebody visits you to buy that paintbrush you just put in your shop, they may buy a Cheops fruit or Omelette while they are there, if the price seems reasonable and they need one. If you find out that you are filling your shop with common items and don't have room for the more expensive items, sell some of the common items by pricing them cheap or putting them in the auction to open up room for the good stuff. A lot of the common items will only bring 1 to 10 anyway so the auction can be a quick sell. Now we can look at pricing. Do your homework when pricing stuff. Use the Shop Wizard to search for the item and give you prices. Most of the stuff in my shop was FREE! Therefore I will make a profit no matter what I sell it for. If you are greedy and price stuff too high, you will only make money from those few people who have not done their homework and stumbled upon your shop. If the majority of the prices listed by the wizard are 40NP then price your item at 39. This way you will not get lost in the list of all the shops that have it for 40. If you don't know if you really want to get rid of the item (like the key rings, plushies or meds in my shop) price them high or price them at 0. If somebody wants to buy them they can but they will have to pay. For the common or uncommon stuff, don't worry if you only make 1,5 10 to 50np. That is good neopoints for just sitting on your butt. Now, when you get a bigger shop and more people are visiting it you can price your common items a little higher. Lets say the Wizard lists a Cheops fruit as going for 10np. You can probably list it for up to 15 and have a chance to sell it. Keep in mind, the cheaper the item is the more likely it is to sell regardless of its rarity. Now, if you are going to buy stuff and re-sell it, you need to be aware of the price at which you list it. Make sure you buy stuff at a price from which you know you can make a profit. Example: scratchcards cost 600 each. You can sell them for anywhere from 690 to 9000 and more. As far as your pricing scheme goes, you need to decide whether you want to make a quick buck or slowly build up your account. I have a tendency to be conservative and build up slowly. Once you do the initial Wizard research you don't have to put a lot of time into it besides tweaking your prices and withdrawing neopoints from your till.