Not Your Default Money Making Guide

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Urraj - Dreamweaver
Urraj - Dreamweaver Posts: 15 Arc User
edited October 2009 in Dungeons & Tactics
"How do I make money?" People usually ask me. My first reaction would be to take my Pakata and beat the Shinola out of them until what little brains they have ooze out of their broken skulls. However, I just had my Mountain Dew and chocolate chip cookie today and I'm feeling a little nice.

Let's talk about making money.

Actually, let's talk about Shop Conduct.

How do you set up a shop? Well, we can do this two ways:

Catshops

I love these things. There's nothing cuter than a vending machine shaped like a cat sitting in the middle of freaking nowhere waiting for your business and to make your life more convenient.

That would be, if it weren't for the fact that today's Catshops are run my greedy swine that need to be run over by a pack of Herclues until their bodies are nothing more than a puddle of gore that you need to squeegee off the cobblestones.

It's common knowledge that these shops buy super cheap and sell super expensive and have stupid and misleading names. Chances are that, though your prices may rock, you'll be ignored, as 99.95% of the Catshops today follow this stereotype.

So here's how to properly run a Catshop

1) Make a name describing what your purpose is. People always seem to fail miserably at this step. Look, make a name that attracts people, okay? "WALMART", "RUBTHEKITTY", and "LOL" are funny names, but tells your customer absolutely nothing about what you're in business for. If you're buying stuff, say what and how much. EX: I wanna buy Pig Iron for 2k a pop, so I put in B>Pig2k meaning that I'm buying "pig", which can be translated for Pig Iron by the people in the know or by the people that can guess for 2,000 a piece. This makes it easier for people that actually wanna sell their iron for a price that doesn't suck to find a place to do so.

While you got their attention, and if you're doing more than just buying iron, you can also put more stuff in your shop, whether you're buying or selling - you already have them walking at your Catshop, so why not put some more wares there? Who knows? They might end up buying/selling the rest of your shop! Just keep the prices at a good amount.

2) DON'T LIE!!!! Seriously, just don't. Nothing sucks more than false advertisement, and nothing sucks harder than someone spamming on how bad your shop is. Perfect World is a whiner's economy with the loudest whiner being the most influential. Make your customers and whiners happy and you'll sell/buy anything at almost any time.

3) For the love of God, don't match other Catshop prices. The reason why Catshops are often ignored, save for the completely new, desperate, or someone with more money than brains, is that the prices suck slimy, hairy donkey balls. To be honest, it's actually cheaper to buy gold and use the gold to get the stuff than buying it at the Catshops! However, Check around the Catshops for prices and sell lower than they do or buy higher than they do and business will pick up.

4) Update your Catshop. When applicable, you should update your shop. If you're selling multiple things, and advertising for Product X, and then sell out, change your sign to prevent false advertisement. This is like fishing with a hook whos bait has been eaten by the last fish you caught. You'd wanna rebait the hook, right? Repaint the sign, please.

Follow these guidelines and people will start loving Catshops. Why? 'Cause you're dragging business away from the other scumbags, which forces them to set prices to something close to reasonable.

Okay, now that we're done with the Meowstalls, let's talk about something that moves slower.

Auction House

Auction Houses allow you a chance to try to buy/sell items and still allow you to play at the same time. The only drawback? Auction House fee.

1) Always compare prices. Don't auction things blindly! Just pricing something and throwing it in the Auction House is a great way to waste money in fees. Do a search for what you're selling and compare prices to what you're trying to sell for. Doing this should ensure that you'll be able to sell your item(s).

2) Bigger isn't always better. When selling, you get the choice to determine how many items per lot you get to sell at once. Remember that, the more you sell at once, the more it's gonna cost the buyer, so though it's nice to be able to sell 50,000 Pig Irons, I doubt anyone will have the 17,500,000 coins to buy them all at once (at 350 a pop). How about selling them in stacks of 10 or 5 to make life a little easier for your buyers, hey?

2b) Neither is tiny... Yeah, if items are used in bulk, it doesn't make sense to be selling 40,000 lots of ONE item at a time. Use some common sense, okay? It might be fun to spam the Shinola outta the Auction House, but it's irritating for those who are trying to buy and search.

3) No buyouts suck. Yeah, nothing says "JOY!" like having to wait up to 24 hours to get something after bidding a high amount of money for it only to find out that some jackass sniped you at the end of the auction. No buyout means that the poster is either super greedy (meaning that it can go higher and higher and higher and higher...), or just too damn lazy to check prices. Remember when I said to check prices on the item you're selling? Yeah, that's why. Try to make your buyout comparable or less than the leading competition and make that your buyout. This ensures that you'll get your cash and they get their item if they're willing to shell out that much coin.

Hmmm... What else is there to talk about?

TRADE CHAT!

It's the center of Perfect World's economic universe! One big free shoutout about what you're selling and buying! It's sweet, awesome, and I'll beat the **** outta anyone who disagrees with me!

But really, people. Follow some etiquette...

Spamming sucks. Not only will this NOT get you what you want, but it'll probably get you blacklisted by a lot of people, ensuring that you'll NEVER get what you're looking for no matter how well your deal is. Just say it once every 2 minutes at most and wait for replies.

Trade chat is great advertising! Just don't spam it. Advertise your Catshop or auction maybe once every 10 - 30 minutes just to get their attention. That should help and since you can cram in more letters than your Catshop sign, you can be more specific on what you're business is! This also helps people find your Catshop (Love coordinates!) Neat, hey?

Well, that's all for my two coins. Take 'em for what they're worth.
Post edited by Urraj - Dreamweaver on

Comments

  • Chabi - Heavens Tear
    Chabi - Heavens Tear Posts: 63 Arc User
    edited July 2009
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    That would be, if it weren't for the fact that today's Catshops are run my greedy swine that need to be run over by a pack of Herclues until their bodies are nothing more than a puddle of gore that you need to squeegee off the cobblestones.
    That made me b:chuckle

    Well written post! I hope many of the greedy no brainer reeds it before they try selling some wortless **** for millions.
  • Mosz - Heavens Tear
    Mosz - Heavens Tear Posts: 3,181 Arc User
    edited July 2009
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    yah catshops have gone to **** on HT i agree, a lot of your advice is what i use to do, sold most my stock and baught a lot of what i needed always had coin in my pocket
  • Ichimokusan - Sanctuary
    Ichimokusan - Sanctuary Posts: 156 Arc User
    edited July 2009
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    I actually found my shop items to sell better when I don't make a proper description. The logic behind this would be if there are 15 shops that say the exact same thing like "Mats", "Mid/High Mats", "DQ Items 3x-6x", or "Mats etc." the consumer isn't going to check all 15. Stores like "Wal-Mart" and "Big Lots" exist in real life because they don't just specialize in one type of item. That's why there are no stores in real life called "TVs $400"

    Updating shop titles is great for permanent stands but if you are going to sleep and leaving it up for 6-8hrs then that wouldn't work. If your title is "Mirage 20k" and you are selling other items but the stones sell out first then it would lead to the "false advertising" claim.

    False advertising is a big part of successful marketing. A dealership in my area has a "Buy one car, get one free" special. Technically the second car is not free because you would pay $5,000+ in taxes on the MSRP of the car but it doesn't say that in the ad.

    There are many times when I sell higher than other shops on purpose for select items. Instead of other shops staying the lower price, they raise their prices when they find people are willing to pay more.

    Regarding the Auction House, I set up auctions with no buyouts on items on items which rarely have other auctions running, to figure out the market value of an item. Valid reasons for making multiple lots of a small quantity of an item is to either deceive people to think multiple people are selling the item for the same price or because the item is not regularly needed by the consumer in large quantities; why goto the gas station and buy a candy bar for $1.29 when you can buy 50 candy bars at Sam's Club for $40 (EDIT: the 18,000 pig iron example is ridiculous I agree but there are valid reasons to sell in bulk and in small quanities) - the consumer may not want to spend $40 on candy bars but buy one on impulse instead.

    Being more neutral is always good when making a guide but then again you did label it to not be the standard guide so it could be the way it is. That's why I avoid some class build guides because they state multiple builds existing but claim that the other builds suck so they don't want to cover it in the guide. Grats for making the effort, I'm sure there will be other who agree with your points.
  • Xaix - Dreamweaver
    Xaix - Dreamweaver Posts: 149 Arc User
    edited July 2009
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    nicely done guide. alot of gud information which will help out everyone. and it was pretty funny too xD

    keep it up ^^
  • Tiburon - Harshlands
    Tiburon - Harshlands Posts: 30 Arc User
    edited July 2009
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    First of all: Eww!
    prices suck slimy, hairy donkey balls.
    Second: Yea, it pisses me off to see stuff that do nothing like buddah hands for 5k, mirages bought for 9K, and all class pets 3.5mills
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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  • Urraj - Dreamweaver
    Urraj - Dreamweaver Posts: 15 Arc User
    edited July 2009
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    I actually found my shop items to sell better when I don't make a proper description. The logic behind this would be if there are 15 shops that say the exact same thing like "Mats", "Mid/High Mats", "DQ Items 3x-6x", or "Mats etc." the consumer isn't going to check all 15. Stores like "Wal-Mart" and "Big Lots" exist in real life because they don't just specialize in one type of item. That's why there are no stores in real life called "TVs $400"
    I'm perfectly aware that stores and whatnot in the real world need to be unique and have their own name and gimmick. Without that, stores would be like you said - specialty stores with prices and that's it. I wish it could be the same with the game. Unfortunately, the trend of selling high and buying low, in my opinion, makes the naming of the Catshops for purpose and price necessary. There are exceptions, however, like when a specific Catshop has a funny name, but awesome store and prices - it starts to get a good rep and people flock to it when it pops up. Too bad that leads to impostors that end up killing your unique name...

    I agree with you on the generic names. Everybody and their dead grandma's got 'em and that leads to the assumption that it'll be **** like the rest of them - after all, you'll probably be setting up shop against 400,000 other Catshops that follow the trend. This is the reason why I like to put the price on there, too.


    Updating shop titles is great for permanent stands but if you are going to sleep and leaving it up for 6-8hrs then that wouldn't work. If your title is "Mirage 20k" and you are selling other items but the stones sell out first then it would lead to the "false advertising" claim.
    Yeah, unfortunately, there's not many ways around this. Wish we had more space in the title for "&more".

    False advertising is a big part of successful marketing. A dealership in my area has a "Buy one car, get one free" special. Technically the second car is not free because you would pay $5,000+ in taxes on the MSRP of the car but it doesn't say that in the ad.
    Actually, that isn't false advertisement. You technically DO get the car for free, but you end up paying the taxes and whatnot. This practice is called "**** the consumer over with the fine print they never read".

    There are many times when I sell higher than other shops on purpose for select items. Instead of other shops staying the lower price, they raise their prices when they find people are willing to pay more.
    I can understand this for rare and unique items, but really, 4,000 for cotton thread (an common/uncommon monster drop) is more than excessive.

    Regarding the Auction House, I set up auctions with no buyouts on items on items which rarely have other auctions running, to figure out the market value of an item. Valid reasons for making multiple lots of a small quantity of an item is to either deceive people to think multiple people are selling the item for the same price or because the item is not regularly needed by the consumer in large quantities; why goto the gas station and buy a candy bar for $1.29 when you can buy 50 candy bars at Sam's Club for $40 (EDIT: the 18,000 pig iron example is ridiculous I agree but there are valid reasons to sell in bulk and in small quanities) - the consumer may not want to spend $40 on candy bars but buy one on impulse instead.
    I do agree with you on all parts - if there's no item that can compare to what you're selling, you'll just have to wing it and find out. As far as bulk goes, you'll just have to use your head. Is it used in quantities of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100? That's something that you'll have to know beforehand. One thing I do not agree with is that using a ton of small quantity strategy to deceive people should never be a valid strategy for good marketing. It's evil... EVIL I TELL YOU!

    Being more neutral is always good when making a guide but then again you did label it to not be the standard guide so it could be the way it is. That's why I avoid some class build guides because they state multiple builds existing but claim that the other builds suck so they don't want to cover it in the guide. Grats for making the effort, I'm sure there will be other who agree with your points.
    I try to be neutral, but I think most of us can agree that pricing just to leech off the naive and desperate of the community to make yourself coin-fat should not be treated like normal and honest people. Then again, demonstrating one's way to do something is hard to do without having some kind of bias - after all, it's the way one's been doing it b:laugh

    My comments are in bold - I prefer not to butcher and chop up people's posts to comment.

    Thank you for your points - they're definitely valid and welcome, and thank you for shopping at PostMart. Come again!
  • Ichimokusan - Sanctuary
    Ichimokusan - Sanctuary Posts: 156 Arc User
    edited July 2009
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    LOL. Thanks for replying with such logic. b:victory
  • Deceptistar - Sanctuary
    Deceptistar - Sanctuary Posts: 10,454 Arc User
    edited July 2009
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    Nice guide, the name of the catshops I can see what you mean.
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  • Urraj - Dreamweaver
    Urraj - Dreamweaver Posts: 15 Arc User
    edited July 2009
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    Yes, well, I actually am lazy and often I am selling things which no one else sells. And if I was not lazy I would probably be out making real money in real life, or something.

    If you do not like my no-buyouts, you can do like everyone else and just ignore my auctions! You do not have to get all insulting about me, personally.

    b:chuckle

    Meanwhile, I do bid on no-buyout items and sometimes I win them and sometimes I do not. And sometimes I care enough to be there when the auction ends and bid things up for the seller.

    I'm assuming that, with that chuckle, you're not actually insulted, so I'll grin with ya ^^

    As mentioned above, yeah, selling something that nobody is currently selling and items that are super rare and therefore super expensive are probably some of the few exceptions to the "no buyout sucks" section. I knew I missed something b:embarrass

    Oh well, can't be changed now! However, I can post this little reply on the thread b:laugh

    (What the hell? Everybody else is using bears...)

    Anyhow, a big shoutout to you, the community, for at least reading this thread and for those who responded to it b:thanks
  • TeegraSwan - Sanctuary
    TeegraSwan - Sanctuary Posts: 17 Arc User
    edited August 2009
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    I agree with this guide
    While I was level 20-30(lol these last few weeks) I did DQ ****
    Problem is EVERYONE IS SELLING DQ FOR MORE THAN 3kb:shocked
    And dull claws can be up to 6k a peice b:surrender
    Who the hell can afford that when you have to buy 20+ just to get 1 dragon order b:angry
    The names for DQ suck "Cheap DQ!" and they only sell 60+ DQ items -.-;

    I stopped doing DQ and have started selling those items at 1k increments
    IE 1k for DQ21, 2k for 31, and so on and so forth

    I feel awsome because I'll sell out fast b:victory
  • Fizzz - Harshlands
    Fizzz - Harshlands Posts: 35 Arc User
    edited August 2009
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    Stores like "Wal-Mart" and "Big Lots" exist in real life because they don't just specialize in one type of item. That's why there are no stores in real life called "TVs $400"



    I admit... I LoLed b:laugh
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  • Sangodoc - Dreamweaver
    Sangodoc - Dreamweaver Posts: 501 Arc User
    edited August 2009
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    I don't know about anyone else, but nothing makes me leave a catshop faster than either A) seeing that they're buying and selling the same item (sometimes at as much as x10 or more price difference) or B) seeing that they're selling Gold Foil for more than 1,000 zen. Seriously, doing A means that you're ripping people off whether your selling or buying and doing B just means that you're a greedy scumbag (Gold Foil = 1,000 zen, end of story). b:angry
  • Peace_out - Lost City
    Peace_out - Lost City Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited October 2009
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    Im a noob yes but i totally agree

    seriously the scalpers are making it soo hard to really understand the prices of things and what they are really worth

    Eg tonight i got some herbs and i went to go flog them off.

    There was a variation in their prices for level 1-2 herbs from about 500(my personal price, lower than most but seems fair tbh) to 1k-1.5k

    And for me as a noob, how the hell am i seriously meant to realise how much they are worth? >.<

    PWI need to change the economy system imo otherwise we are gonna nerf all the newbs coming into the game
  • Maciaveli - Lost City
    Maciaveli - Lost City Posts: 260 Arc User
    edited October 2009
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    Good info.

    Just a point I'll make right here.

    If people don't know this already, they lack common sense. That is all.b:bye
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