Setting Up Shop

Shops are simple enough to set up, and simple enough to manage. However, the depth of this feature is one of the most interesting elements of the game.

Supply and Demand
Before choosing a physical location for your shop there are some things that you should consider. For starters, the Economy. The MCON Economy is completely Player Driven, meaning that everything is based purely on Supply and Demand. No items will ever be spawned, and the same techniques can be employed on this server as they can in the real world. This one element is what makes running a shop so very interesting, and what sets MCON apart from most other servers. Nations in different locations will have more or less of certain items, and Nations will pay higher prices to get items that are more rare to them. Selling Sand to a desert city, isn't likely going to earn you much money, but selling Sand to a Tundra City will give you a higher demand, and hence a higher price. You also have to compete with other Players shops. If you both sell Wood, whats to stop people shopping at the store next to you?

Before you start, it's best to consider your strategy. Just starting a shop will probably earn you money in the short run, but what if you run out of stock? What if another Player undersells you? What if no one wants the Snowballs you keep trying to sell?!

Setting up a Shop Preface: Infrastructure
One of the best methods for new Shopkeepers is to find a supplier, a Player or Nation who has a surplus of the items you want to sell, and can easily get more. This way you don't need to spend valuble time gathering the resources yourself, since you'll have enough work spent delivering supplies to your different stores, let alone having to get the resources on your own. Or maybe you've found the most efficient way of gathering tons of cookies. You've just turned into a supplier yourself!

But what if your supplier is several kilometers away? What if your store has become the coolest thing since Endermen? A lot of new players will be looking for different ways to make money. For a small fee, you could pay them to ferry the items back and forth, and charge extra for your trouble.

All these different elements make up a very diverse playstyle. Just because something is in demand today, doesn't mean it will be tomorrow... The store is just a location. A lot needs to happen behind the scenes to bring the final product to your customers.

Setting Up a Shop
Setting up a shop has no commands, but it does have a strict set of steps:

1. First, a chest must be placed. There have been a number of times where even us admins have gone through the rest of the steps, just for the game to tell us that we forgot to place a chest forcing us to start over.

2. Secondly, a sign must be placed next to the chest. This can be one block away in any direction including above the chest

3. On the sign, the first line has to be skipped. Your name will be added automatically to the sign.

4. The second line has to state the quantity of items that will be bought or sold with each batch, i.e. 1 or 64 (can be any number, groups of 17, 53, and 372 are all valid).



5. On the third line, you must specify how much items will cost for players to buy, and how much it will cost for them to sell to you. I capitalize the B and S because you have to write B next to the number you’re selling the items in question for, and S next to the number you’re buying items for. That may seem backwards, but to customers, it’s that they buy for such an amount, and sell for another such amount. Example: Dave is selling some diamonds for 50 and buying them for 25. He would put B 50: S 25.

6. On the last line, you put the name or item ID of the item that is to be bought and sold in the chest.

Only shop owners can destroy the shop signs they place, and only they can open the chests attached to them.

For customers, using a shop is simple: Left-click to sell TO a shop, right-click to buy FROM the shop. (I tried to think up an easier way to remember this...but there really isn't.) This can take some getting used to, but after a few uses of shops (especially in the wrong direction) and it’ll be easy to remember which button to use. Either way, you can always check right here on this page.

That's all it takes to start your Store Building Empire!