Out of Curiousity, how much do you average per day? Minimum? Maximum? What row are you? Thanks! I will tag some users for different perspectives! @usernameofdeath @Iticip @georgie0417 @DeMacca @Skylexia Thank You! ~Donkey5k
I've owner several shops in the new market, and overall, I like it much better than the old one. I like the ability to have more space, and more items to be sold. That being said, I never had a Top Floor shop (rows 1 and 2), the best I had was a Mid Floor (Row 3). However, in the new market, I do record all sales, trades, and profits. I'm willing to share them, however, I won't get into specifics over pricing and what items sell in bulk, etc. Station23: 3rd row, Blue Market: Average Weekly Profits: $121,743 Average Weekly Sales: $214,550 Station22: 2nd row, Yellow Market: Average Weekly Profits: $223,329 Average Weekly Sales: $388,490 Station11: Warp2, Red Market: Average Weekly Profits: $60,341 Average Weekly Sales: $89,420 Station25: 3rd Row, Red Market: N/A N/A Now, these calculations are from my logs of all my shops. Gems, Nstars, and Exp are counted as the price I sell them, subtracted by the price I buy them for (For example, I buy 1000 Exp at $1250, sell at $1450, I consider that $200). Items that I don't buy, and I gather myself, I add as full profit (10 brick blocks sells for $40, it counts as $40). I log every item I sell, every trade sign I click, and all profits I take in. I put a lot of work into my shop, and anyone who wants to run a successful one must do the same. Sometimes, I spend over a week buying NStars, without selling a single one. Many shop owners can't take that, and immediately just sell to a prime shop because they feel they'll never sell. That is one of the biggest mistakes a shop owner can, and will make. If you plan on investing in a shop, it's certainly not a bad idea. However, I encourage you to be patient and be confident if this is a road you'd like to take. Positive results will surely meet you at the end of the road.
I purchased my station, #16, last year when the old layout was in place, and it was one of the four largest stations. I invested 2.5 million ECD. After two months I decided to track how much I earned on a daily basis, and kept that up for several months. (As seen here.) Lowest income day was 10/30/13 @ $198, but it is more than balanced out with a high income day, like 11/22/13 @ $49051. This is all with minimal advertising, also. In three months I cleared about 1 million ECD, and in the time I have stopped tracking, have more than recouped my initial investment. Station #16 is now the first shop on the left in the red side of the market. None of my above tracking took place in the new market layout.
I used to run a fairly successful shop. I did okay back then. I really didn't put much effort into it, meaning I rarely sold anything, at all. That was a major mistake. You need to be committed, like @Iticip. The reason for his success is because of his dedication. Here's a little checklist that I would make before you even think about buying a spawnshop to save your time and money: Can you afford the shop? This is extremely obvious. Can you pay the $20k at the end of every month (dependent on how many weeks you buy)? Will you be able to pay for netherstars/blocks/ect. Overall, do you feel you have enough money to pay for the shop, as well as the things you buy. (I would suggest having $100k+ for a regular shop, and $500k+ for a prime shop). Although this seems like a lot. I made a killing off of netherstars. It's a huge market and there's always people buying/selling them. Make sure you have enough money, that's the #1 thing. Do you have enough time for the shop? Shops believe it or not require a lot of care and maintenance. You'll always need to have a supply of blocks or whatever you're doing with your shop. You need a lot of time and effort to keep it stocked. I learned that the hard way. I did everything I could to keep the shop stocked, yet, I failed. I would spend hours upon hours trying, but I always failed. Mainly because I didn't really know what I was doing at the time/didn't use what I could. Most shops sell minerals/gems. If you can get your hands on an eff7, that'll take you a long, long way. I highly suggest getting a star tool to speed up the process. Can you adapt to change? Although this is a little dumb, it is important. If you go into the netherstar game (which I highly suggest due to the massive profit you get from it), you'll have to learn how to master your prices. You need to be competitive, yet profitable. It's a delicate balance that you'll have to learn only through experience. Are you willing to research? This one is something that is a must. You have to do it. What I mean by "research" is that you have to go around and look at all the other shop owner's prices. This is important to do as it will allow you to form your prices. With a first/second/third row spawnshop, you don't really have to. Just be fairly competitive with the people in front of you, because those shops are able to make a little bit more money/profit because not as many people hunt for prices. Overall, you have to know what the average selling/buying price is to make a competitive price and you have to be sure to put time and effort into that. Have an attractive shop. Have you ever heard the saying, "Don't judge a book by it's cover"? Well, I have, and it's not true. I think almost everyone, if not everyone judges a book by it's cover. The same is for a spawnshop. And attractive shop in my mind is very, very important. Having an ugly shop will push away buyers, because they dislike the way it looks. Of course, you can't please everyone, but for the majority of the people, having an attractive shop will give you many more customers. There's obviously a lot of points I probably missed, but, I think I gave you a good idea of what you need to have in order to run a successful shop . Good luck!
My station is 83 and I am in the yellow road, I sell over 165 different items in my shop. I have two types of incomes from it: 1. When I bother to advertise I can make around 10k more per day then when I don't. 2. Non-advertised. I get enough traffic to make about 10-60k a day. The biggest issue with those #'s is whether or not I am in stock on items, usually if I have certain unnamed items in stock I can make the 60k a day range but if I don't I only get 10-20k. I also have my low days however were I don't make more than $500 but that is more a rarity than common occurrence. Oh one more thing of notice I don't always sell nstars or exp on purpose and because of that I do not rake in those profits like other spawn shops do.
Nice checklist however for the attactiveness of a shop I have to disagree at least for myself. If I need items I check every shop regardless of how they look, but I suppose for the average connoisseur this could apply.
@HCPillarofFire and @knears2000 I think the best thing to make of that is not as much the design, but the set up. The placement of the signs, and how easy they are to find can bring a user coming back again and again. I usually find having a corresponding block behind the item sold is very useful, and can bring customers back. It's less about the exterior, and more about the interior. That being said, a night exterior couldn't hurt.
Well, I really do not track how much I make.... Ok, here's my desperate attempt >:3 Everytime I wake up... My nstars are sold I can rake in up to 5k-10k in gem profits per day. Keeping it advertised is important.
To start, I will state for the record that I have consistently owned a spawnshop since May 3rd, 2012. I've owned my current station (69) since May 3rd, 2013. (I know, scary right?) I've gone through a number of different types of activity changes, from my time on staff dealing with different responsibilities to points of inactivity for various reasons, etc. I don't keep track of my spawnshop revenue. I've had days where I've made 200k+ and days or weeks where I've not sold a thing. Why? Stocking habits. Your spawnshop revenue is directly proportional to the amount of time you put into it stocking, researching, etc. There have always been points even at the height of my activity where it was costing me more in rent than I was making off it, even as a top floor spawn shop, due to the different responsibilities that I held on staff and their importance over my personal gameplay. While my activity issues stemmed from staff, I know other people's activity issues stem from real life, and I would not recommend a spawn shop to any player who's not willing to put or can't put several hours of time and energy into getting their shop right. They won't make the revenue they're expecting, and they'll be upset. I very highly recommend spawnshops to people who like to mine as their main source of revenue. You'll earn a much higher rate of return vs. someone who farms, unless that person who farms has the capital to play the market (ie. buy up everything of something and mark it up). Shinies are not necessarily the fastest selling item, exp and nstars take that cake by a longshot, but when they do sell you will make more off them without injecting money into the economy by selling to the server. It keeps pricing competitive and is helpful for collectors if you have a competitively priced spawnshop full of shinies. However, it once again goes back to stocking habits and research potential. If you don't have the time to run your spawnshop and keep it updated, you're not going to make the revenue you're expecting. My advice for maximizing revenue: Keep exp and nstars near the front of the shop. They're huge sellers but usually people looking for them aren't going to spend time looking through a whole jumble of not necessarily clearly marked or organized signs. Always keep the big sellers clearly marked. Let people know what they are, keep them near the front and easy to find if they don't have a block to represent them. For shinies, I highly recommend putting the block you're selling behind the sign selling them, as personally that's what I'm looking for when I'm flying through the market on a redstone or emerald mission. Keep a variety. Yes you may be sitting there looking at those 1000 cobwebs you stocked for months before they actually sell, but eventually some building designer is gonna need some and when they do they're there. Don't be scared if the non-best seller items have a slow turnover, because even if they did sell often you still wouldn't be making nearly as much vs. your big tickets. However, if you have them there, you're more likely to attract repeat customers who are looking for the non-popular items and can't find them anywhere, because guess what, they're not popular. You have a huge spawnshop vs. the old ones, have a huge inventory to go with it. This one's a personal peeve when I'm shopping the market: Try not to put signs on stained glass unless you're selling stained glass. I don't know if it's only me but it hurts my eyes trying to read signs that are on stained glass, and I almost completely avoid shops that are built nearly entirely out of it, unless I know already for a fact it has what I'm looking for, because it bothers me to look for things with all the transparent colours around me. Another shop I really hated was one that used nether portals, which mades sounds and looked really obnoxious to me, so I again avoided it because I didn't feel like dealing with it when I had an entire huge market to get through, and there's one right now with a bunch of filled signs of numbers at the front that I fly straight past, I don't even stop at the one across from it. Not everyone is like me, but when you use certain materials ask yourself "would this annoy anyone?", and if the answer's yes you might be driving certain people away, which could significantly lower your revenue if obnoxious enough. Make a design that works for you, but remember that you're not the one shopping it, I highly recommend getting a couple opinions on design before stocking up.
You must hate mine then. The shop itself is 3 warm colors of stained glass, but I do not have all my items on stained glass with signs, just the colors that I sell in the back of the shop.
Yours is actually one of the few I stop at because I know exactly where your emeralds and/or diamonds are. If I'm not on a shinies search I fly by. I don't go near Revan's unless I know she's buying iron, I don't think I've looked at Lady's in 5-6 market runs now, and there's two nearly identical stained glass shops across from each other somewhere that make me cringe everytime I go near them. Stained glass is very pretty, but I find it too difficult to shop, the transparency gives me the illusion of being rushed or something and I don't like spending much time in them as a result. If I can't find what I'm looking for within a couple seconds, I'm gone, but that's just me. I'm sure there are people out there who can't stand shopping around redstone blocks
this is actually quite helpful now i would like to ask some questions: Do i have a chance with around 40k at budget? What is the cheapest, yet profitable spawnshop to get? Who sells a cheap spawnshop? And lastly, can i do it?
40k is kinda low, as you need to pay 5k per week, with a minimum of four weeks. This adds up to 20k minimum, if you don't buy a spawnshop from another user. I would wait. Any spawnshop can be profitable, as long as you sell the right items/advertise it. Those closer to the entrance are generally more profitable, but very expensive, such as in the millions of ECD. Anybody can sell a cheap spawn shop, many of the spawn shops or simply unused. Ask around the far away spawn shops, or simply buy one of the non-owned ones in the application section. Of course you can do it!
What's the best thing for you to do is what I started with. Just pick any open shop. Don't worry about the location, just the rent. You won't buy materials in this shop, just gather and sell (What most people should do unless they have a prime. You'll make loads, and anyone can do it!
A spawnshop is not just a piece of real estate you can buy, make quick money off of, then sell. The best way to get a shop for just the rent (5k/week, min 4 weeks = 20k), would be to wait for one to expire, then apply for it before anyone else can. Those who sell their shops will want well more than 40k for a decent location. If you want to ensure your shop is profitable, then you will need to ensure you have stock in items that are most often used, or traded. Food, ores, nstars, exp, etc. Or, you can try to find something no one else sells and be the only place one can go to and get that. This will either take an investment of time, to gather it all yourself, or will take more capital in order to buy the stock you want, in order to resell for higher prices. Anyone the rank of Resident or higher can do it, it just takes a little effort, and being willing to advertise and be patient in order to see greater return on your stock.
i have never seen a non-owned spawn-shop . so i sh0uld only sell in far spawnshops? Also macro mod makes advertising easy heh. Someone should really make this all into a spawnshop FAQ. P.S. On holiday currently, thats why i am so much on the forums wont be able to do anything right now till the 13th!
