The decrepit state of the shopping malls in Entropia Universe

[AJack10600]

Some shops are really overpriced and it's the a question of whether it is worth it running about to try to find a shop that has cheaper stuff... you spend a lot of time to try and find a bargain... is it worth it? In auction you just see all offerings on a big screen...

I think auction and malls don't get along together... for a simple reason.

Auction is global in this world and shows the best available price (in theory). Now since it's global and easily accessible there is no real incentive to go and strall through the malls. If auction was regional, serverbased by town for example, then bigger price differences could come about. In fact I believe that the price trend analysis that MA introduced against spammers also killed the market itself in that it created a perfect market with no unnkowns. Now in order to trade and to allow for price differences a market needs to have imperfections... where in RL do we have worldwide prices to compare in one tool ? We don't ..

[Mikass]

Originally Posted by AJack10600

Some shops are really overpriced and it's the a question of whether it is worth it running about to try to find a shop that has cheaper stuff... you spend a lot of time to try and find a bargain... is it worth it? In auction you just see all offerings on a big screen...

I think auction and malls don't get along together... for a simple reason.

Auction is global in this world and shows the best available price (in theory). Now since it's global and easily accessible there is no real incentive to go and strall through the malls. If auction was regional, serverbased by town for example, then bigger price differences could come about. In fact I believe that the price trend analysis that MA introduced against spammers also killed the market itself in that it created a perfect market with no unnkowns. Now in order to trade and to allow for price differences a market needs to have imperfections... where in RL do we have worldwide prices to compare in one tool ? We don't ..

Actually , lots of the established crafters such as Slither, Buzz, Auktuma just to name a few sell in shops cheaper than normal auction prices.

[P-J]

One of the issues that damaged shops was the nerf to the shopkeepers. This made it much more expensive to sell items (particularly low value items).

My two suggestions:

Reduce the cost of selling through shops
Remove the minimum markup limit

[Sarubaboon]

Ok, I own a shop in PA Mall, the first one next to the groundfloor entrance (shameless advertising) and sell the stuff that i craft, mostly level 1 or 2 tools, some weapons and clothers, aimed mostly at beginners...

In my opinion the main problem of the shops is the limited number of articles that you can place. Like, the limit for PA is 45 (and i realised that in order for other shopping malls to be competitive they should have a higher limit, no problem with that). I would like to see that limit rised for all shops, however, like, maybe 50% or even double it.

Why? Well, the main problems of the shop is laziness, i sell about 120 items a month (that is 4 items a day roughly)... to have my shop stocked (and bear in mind i'm selling items usually at +1ped or +2peds, under auction but still not so expensive) i have to go to my shop every day or two days, and this is a bit of a pain.

Yes, you might call me lazy at this point. Well, actually, i go to the bother of doing that, but i can see why other people would rather hunt than go and re-stock their shop, it does get boring after a while.

If there were more items, it would be easier to stock the shops, more of them would be stocked, more people would then feel like shopping was interesting (rather than going through empty shops) and the whole system would benefit.

Maybe something that the Mall owners could take up with MA?. Like, it is in everybody's benefit in my idea, easy for MA to change, etc....

just my two pecs

[steffel]

gonna agree with aia, i'd use shops more often if i knew where the items i look for are being sold. instead of running through 2-3 floors of 3 malls to maybe save a few % i often just hit BO on auction.

entropiadirectory has yellow pages, so you can find shops quick but you never know if the item you want is really on stock and what the daily price is. what shops really need is a global terminal: customer filters the desired item and gets a list of shops selling it, along with price information and the possiblity to reserve the item for a few minutes (to avoid it is gone when you reach the shop)

[Ace Wiseshadow]

Hi,

Thanks,

a lot of good ideas have been mentioned here, I sent a lot of ideas to MA before, and i'll send more in the future, i'm sure others have as well.
Also there are various good reasons to use shops, lower tax/fee for items sold, keeping items displayed and tons of other reasons. .

[Darkstar72]

When you walk into most IRL Malls one of the first things you see is a map with a list of shops and their location. Wouldn't it be better if MA could take this one step further so that you could, say, click on one of the shops on the map and see whats currently in stock in that shop and its price?

That would get rid of one of the biggest annoyances i.e. having to go into every shop to find that one elusive item (which is always going to be in the last shop you look in and even then has a higher markup than the auction so you've just wasted half an hour or so of hunting time where you could have been throwing money at MA).

[Photon]

True, it is hard to run a shop well. In the past few months I admit that I haven't been giving it the attention it needed and now I'm changing my game play so I'm selling the shop.

But my point is that a well run shop can be profitable. Sure it's not much profit, but it's profit all the same. You've got to make a name for yourself by blatant promotion and deals but once you do, the customers will come. Yes, a lot of those customers are resellers ... but at the end of the day, who cares. They're all customers.

It is also true that I've listed items on auction with a buyout much higher than I have them in the shop and the auction sells first, but the shop works too ... just at a slower pace.

Anyway, it is what you make it. But you must be dedicated to the shop and recently I haven't been so I apologise for that. Hopefully the new owner will be more reliable.

[Xandra]

Hi,
just some ideas:

- Auction interface is a bad joke anyway - MA might make a new one, sortable, searchable, and there easily could be:
- Items in shops and shopkeepers displayed, too, in different color, not purchasable via auction, but with info where to go (building, floor, shop #)

This way auction would make much more sense.

Add an external interface to check/ use auction offline, and we might come near to what would be expected from an 2008 RCE virtual universe. We're able to watch youtube videos on our mobile fones, but we're not able to watch our auctions from our PC's (at work?) w/o logging in into EU? This simply is a joke, and not a good one.

Additional:

- Instead of putting 30 same (full) TT P1a in shop/ -keeper you might put kind of a stack in - 1 would be displayed (and counted as shop item), when sold next would be displayed. For identical items/ stacks with identical prices. Well, it would even work with differing prices ...

- A possibility for shop/ shopkeeper owners to lease single slots. A shop deed then would be kind of shop deed book, containing deeds for single slots, that could be given away. One slot would then pay the maintenance costs in correct contribution. This would be great for smaller socs - they might have a Soc shop/ shopkeeper where members would be able to rent a slot! A markup on fees might go to book owner.

Just some ideas - IMHO the current implementations are years beyond the state of art and would urgently need an overhaul.

Have fun!

[cheeky monkey]

Originally Posted by Darkstar72

When you walk into most IRL Malls one of the first things you see is a map with a list of shops and their location. Wouldn't it be better if MA could take this one step further so that you could, say, click on one of the shops on the map and see whats currently in stock in that shop and its price?

That would get rid of one of the biggest annoyances i.e. having to go into every shop to find that one elusive item (which is always going to be in the last shop you look in and even then has a higher markup than the auction so you've just wasted half an hour or so of hunting time where you could have been throwing money at MA).

This is the reason I do not even bother going to the malls anymore. It takes forever to go through and see what is for sale at what price. The reason malls work in the real world is you walk around and see stuff for sale you may not have thought of. I want a shirt. there are 27 million different types, colors, cloths, prices, sizes, patterns etc... The choices are darned close to infinite, so I may see something I like that I never saw, or concieved of, before. This is not true in EU. The items are limited. If I want Laser rifle, based on my skill level, there are really only 3-6 choices. I know what the stats are already from Entropedia. All I need to know is who has it in stock and at what price. Until there is a way to search a mall quickly for the items in stock and at what price, they will never compete with the auction.