The diary of a shopkeeper
Getting a shop
This shopkeeper diary can be found behind the desk of stall 9 below Crystal Peak on Next Island.
Today I did it finally. I was able to get my hands on a house property deed for a small Stall on Next Island. This was quite a journey to get, when they originally started to get sold on auction, I couldn’t acquire one directly, since the wire-transfer was to slow. Although I missed the opportunity, my mentor was fast enough to grab a small booth just below Crystal Peak.
The first few weeks he setup his shop and sold mostly his Next Island loot. But since he just got the VIP Mission finished, he wanted to focus a bit more on hunting rather than taking care of a shop most of the time. This was my chance. We figure out a deal where he could make some profit as well of his initial investment of buying the shop in the first place. Besides the shop he provided me with some ideas for the shop and the information how he has been running the shop and what he sold so far. I did as well with the purchase of the shop acquire some of the items, he still had in hit shop as a starting stack to start off with the shop.
After all the payments and transfers where done. I finally was a little shop owner on Next Island. Besides having a small stall quite near the sweatcircle of Next Island, I as well heard some rumours in the bar, that there might be a nice little surprise when Christmas comes around and you are the owner of a shop on Next Island. But I guess I need to have to wait some months till I see if Santa has something in store for us this year. Anyways I am already really excited for it.
The rest of the day I was busy placing all Items on the shop: Carpets, Ores, Weapons, Sweat, Crystals and much more. I basically tried a bunch of different Items to see what would sell.
My first customer
Today I invested a lot of time to figure out what layout my shop should have. After some serious thinking around it I decided that I will provide in my shop mostly stuff for the daily use like Sweat and Lysterium for the daily crafting missions on the one hand and on the other hand a small stack of wool and animal hides for newcomers that look to get the Elysian Colorator and Bleaching Attachment. The rest consist mostly of Crystals and ores and enmatter that can be found on Next Island as a bonus I did import some Malwood Recruit Eagles from Toulan. As a small eyecatcher I placed some mysterious flower around the shop, that I could already craft but can’t use till I still need to get a better armor to be able to hunt those amazons in Ancient Greece. All I can do now is wait and hope that at least some of my goods will be bought.
I finally made my first sale. Early in the morning someone bought the first 1000 Sweat of me, even tough this is just a very small profit of some pecs, it still is my first profit on the shop so somewhat special to me. I realised that over the next days the demand of sweat was quite good at the shop, and I could make my first few peds. I guess there where people going hard on doing the gorgon wave event or they tried they’re luck on the Moloch Depths.
After the first week all I have sold was Sweat and some Boar Tails. I really hope that more will come into the mix of sold items over the next week. I will monitor the transactions of my shop closely and then decide what I want to go for and advertise my shop around. I just hope that I can somehow use the shop to sell part of my Next Island loot I get from my daily missions.
Advertise the shop
After I made my first sales of sweat my other goods mostly still look untouched, so I decided to start an advertisement offensive for the shop. I need to figure out where to place my advertisement best, so most people can see it. I figured out the following locations and advertisements so far:
I will ask Nikolas if I can hang a small letter on his door, since I guess most miners that mine around Next Island or Ancient Greece will visit him regularly for his Praetonium Challenge. I think the advertisement should be for some mining gear and go something like this: “Want to go mine and go deeper than Moloch Depths and get bigger claims than Gorgon is keeping? Get your ROCTEC M1-LF Finder together with your Level 5 Finder Amplifier now to mine deep and get richer. Find your supplies here at Crystal Peak Stall 9. “
I guess I should as well ask May as well if I could have a small advertisement placed on her wagon, to advertise some of the goods I have mined myself together with some sweat. I will advertise there the following: In need of some Vibrant Sweat and Lysterium Ignots for your daily Lesser Elysium challenge or a visit at Gorgon? Find your supplies at Crystal Peak Stall 9.”
Finally, I should put some advertisement in the local bar near Crystal Bay. I just hope the barkeeper has forgotten that I paid my last tab with a poem instead of solid peds. The advertisement should be aimed on some drunk people; therefore, I will advertise something more special than my usual stuff. “Want to feel like a special snowflake tonight? Get your Stel Holographic Unit to have a party light for every party night! Afraid you drank to much and might spill up in the morning? Prepare now and get some Armor Plate Acid, to protect your armor before your Acid breath destroys it. Find all those useful tools together with a nice Borded Mosaic Carpet to sleep in at Crystal Peak Stall 9.”
I guess tomorrow I will place all those advertisements and see what the future brings.
My first regular customer
Today I made my way to place some advertisements, I first got to Tanzanite View had a quick talk with may and she agreed to let me place my advertisement so more people can help her out with her needs for lesser Elysium Crafting. After that I made my way down to Ancient Greece and was hoping to place my next advertisement near Nikolas.
Nikolas wasn’t as easy going as May, he insisted that if I want to put my advertisement on, I first must prove my value as a miner, otherwise he wouldn’t trust that I can provide good mining tools, if I do not even know how to use them. After a bit forth and back I agreed to provide him his daily dose of Praetonium. Since I wanted to get this done fast, I grabbed an amplifier and did try mining directly on Ancient Greece. I had a quick look at my mininglog, and since I didn’t find any useful information, I decided to start my run at Knossos. Surely there must be some good claims near the legendary Gorgon I thought to myself. My first drop was a blank but already the second drop was a nice Margarian Mist Claim. It went on with quite some claims sadly besides Iron and Crude oil I really didn’t find any Preatonium. I decided to try my luck at Delphi when I suddenly got loads of notification from my shop. There was a customer buying all different kinds of items at my shop from regular sweat over some crystals and boar loot to some of my Malwood Eagles. I quickly sent him a message and wrote my appreciation for supporting my shop. He thanked me as well and said he might come back another time. With my shop half empty of the items, I sell most, I abandoned my mining run and decided to go on a longer journey to Callypso to bring some more supplies to my shop.
A humble customer saving the hangover
Last few weeks have been busy I basically only kept my shop alive by getting supplies from Callypso to Next Island or was hunting on Next Island for new supplies. As it turned out my big bulk buyer from two weeks ago turned into a regular customer who really helped to keep me afloat with the shop, hunting and oil spent traveling from Callypso to Next Island.
Tomorrow I think I can finally finish my advertisement that I neglected the last few weeks because I was busy getting new supplies trading and hunting on Next Island. Luckily in those two Weeks I finished my Praetonium task for Nikolas.
Today I woke up with a terrible headache, I knew it wasn’t a good idea to try the Greek wine from Nikolas before going to the bar on Next Island. But since he let me put up my advertisement, I agreed to have a glass of wine. Which turned in to a bottle between the two of us. I just remember that I at some point told him I need to go back and place some more advertisement, I guess I was already quite drunk when I left him because, there are just random scenes I still remember from last night. Something must have happened at the bar, because I just remember getting escorted outside the bar late last evening. My big mistake was that I did not go to sleep right there but instead decided to restock my shop while I finish my Black Mamba.
This clearly was not a good idea besides the headache, I realized that I have sold Sweat for 9 PED. Normally I would price 5k Sweat at 8.5 PED. Having a sale of 9 PED could only mean that I mistakenly placed my 50k Sweat at 8.5 PED instead of 5k Sweat. Luckily the buyer of that Sweat was my regular buyer. I got in touch with him and asked if I might have mispriced some of my Sweat. He laughed and said, he saw some cheap sweat in my shop and thought he rather take it out before someone else takes it. It really made my day that he agreed to hand me back 40k of the sweat he bought. Despite my headache hammering in my head while I write this, I am happy to have such an honest and loyal customer.