The Art of Shopkeeping

by island_trader

Over the months that I have been a Neopian I have learned a lot about keeping a shop. Basically, I like to think that there are three ways to run a shop, though they are not all successful. Some people mix a few of the different methods, but overall, almost everyone fits into one of the categories, and if you want to have a successful shop, it's best if you decide to stick to one of them.

The first method is upgrading your shop until it can be seen in the marketplace and selling your items for obscenely high prices. This way isn't exactly the most scrupulous way, but on the other hand, you're rich if a naive person buys your 10,000 NP Water Faerie.

The second method is spending a small amount of Neopoints upgrading your shop until it's no higher than size 20 and selling all your items for the cheapest in the Shop Wizard. This is what I did on my first account. The pros are you sell out quickly and get the money. The cons are you sell out quickly and have to spend a lot of time restocking. I would always sell out my stock of 75 items within a few hours; if someone bookmarked my shop, they would rarely ever come back to see it fully stocked.

This shop is now under new management but this same method is being used; click here. Maybe you'll be lucky and catch The Neopian Discount Shoppe while it's stocked!

The third method is what I consider to be the most successful and what I currently use on this account. In my shop description I state that I have a preset method of pricing many items. I mainly sell food, Neggs, books, and grooming items. With some exceptions, common food is always sold for 24 NP, and the new food for 30. If, after 24 hours, one of the previous two has not been sold, I lower the price by 2 NP each day until someone buys it. Again, with a few exception, books are always sold for 10 NP and grooming items for 8; each day they are not sold, I lower the price by 1 NP. Because the price of Neggs changes so often, I don't have a preset value for those items. This method not only makes it easier for me to price items, but it lets my customers know what to expect every time they visit and I get more of a profit.

Visit The Island Thrift Shop for some good deals; you've got a good chance of catching it while it's stocked.

There are other aspects of the art of shopkeeping. I recently saw a shop with a vertical striped rainbow background that scrolled across the screen horizontally. It nearly blinded me. I have seen stores with yellow text on a pink background, or even worse, on a white one. I have seen stores with twenty images that took forever to load. Pop-ups [the ones that say something like, 'Buy something from my shop!' and you press OK] and stocked items in a scrolling marquee are very annoying. Scrap the big fonts and go with something simple and easy to read with a bit of color. Horizontal lines [<*hr>; take out the star] make a shop look professional and divide the description into sections, making it easier to read.

The final part of shopkeeping that I'm going to discuss is how often to restock. I dance after school and have 3-4 hours of homework every night, so needless to say, I don't have much time for NeoPets on the weekdays. However, during the day, [lunch, free period, after school and before dance] I manage to grab a few items, stick them in my shop, and quickly price them. On the weekends, I am constantly stocking and restocking my shop. Obviously, there are many people who have more time than me to stock their shop, and maybe you're one of the lucky ones - but if not, it's not a crime to stock your shop only on weekends and holidays. And don't forget, summer's only a few months away! [I'm counting the days ...]

One last note: Though keeping a shop is one of the most fun and addicting parts of NeoPets, don't forget about your pets! They're the only thing you can spend your hard-earned Neopoints on! Don't forget to buy them a few new toys, play a couple of games with them, or do a few quests, for their sake. Good luck on your journey to master the art of shopkeeping! If you have any questions about pricing, HTML, or NeoPets in general, feel free to Neomail me - I'd love to help you out. Have fun! [with a bit of help on correct grammar from her adorable Kacheek Ajaea {who wants to tell you that her name is pronounced uh-JHAY-uh}]