A Poll For Former or Soon-to-be Former Shopkeepers

[Tina Small]

Reading various threads the last few days got me to wondering why there are so many empty shops around Sosaria these days. Granted, the population is down considerably from what it once was, but could lack of useful/exciting in-game shopping opportunities be part of the reason? Is it a bit of a vicious circle, i.e., fewer players leads to fewer shops, and then fewer shops leads to even fewer players, etc.?

In any event, I put on my thinking cap and tried to remember all the different reasons I've heard in the last year or so that people (including myself) give for no longer running a shop and thought it might be interesting to see which ones are the most common culprits behind closed shops or shops that have nothing to sell.

This poll is multiple choice, so pick whichever reasons fit your experience and definitely feel free to post your comments with additional reasons why you no longer bother with running a shop and/or are on the verge of closing one.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Multiple reasons, which I've ticked.
When I got to the stage where I logged in thinking 'I can't go do that, I've got to stock the shop' I decided I'd turned shopkeeping into a job and it was time I took a break. I shouldn't be allowing it to dictate what I could or couldn't do in game. My Siege vendors are still there, and I fully intend to get back to maintaining them eventually - just not yet.

 

[Frarc]

I sell my best items at a ingame auction event.

Here is a list of my sales on it so far :

Auction on 27th of November 2010 yielded You 6,120,000 Gold Pieces
Auction on 11th of December 2010 yielded You 3,700,000 Gold Pieces
Auction on 16th of April 2011 yielded You 930,000 Gold Pieces
Auction on 30th of April 2011 yielded You 3,870,000 Gold Pieces
Auction on 14th of May 2011 yielded You 3,520,000 Gold Pieces
Auction on 27th of May 2011 yielded You 2,480,000 Gold Pieces
Auction on 24th of June 2011 yielded You 975,000 Gold Pieces
Auction on 29th of July 2011 yielded You 5,005,000 Gold Pieces
Auction on 9th of September 2011 yielded You 2,840,000 Gold Pieces
Auction on 4th of November 2011 yielded You 1,220,000 Gold Pieces
Auction on 2nd of December 2011 yielded You 4,950,000 Gold Pieces
Auction on 7th of January 2012 yielded You 650,000 Gold Pieces
Auction on 3rd of February 2012 yielded You 1,290,000 Gold Pieces
Auction on 2nd of March 2012 yielded You 28,950,000 Gold Pieces
Auction on 6th of April 2012 yielded You 15,110,000 Gold Pieces

As you can see , i don't need a vendor for good sales.
Monthly i select between 8 and 10 items i want to sale.

 

[Minerva Foxglove]

I like to run all kinds of vendors. Sometimes it becomes a burdon but somehow I dont want to be without them . Im not using auctions or Luna vendors.
In the guild shop I run all from carpentes to high end items. I want to sell for fair or low prices there . Still vendor fees are a pain and I could offer much more items if it wasnt for thoose.
In my home I run vendors for beginners ,and my prices are very low. Its alot of work (yes lots of new and returning peope on Europa). Its a time consuming activity and Its close to being my work. There it is the resellers that makes I can hardly stock spellboks and never filled runebooks due to resellers. Not even with my scribes name on. It has always been hard to run vendors if max profit isnt a goal, but to run a well stocked shop with fair prices to be proud of.
The way I try to solve the book problem is to give the spellbooks for free and I placed portals and locked down runebooks to use , Its the time im not around the new people cant find a spellbook they can afford.
If there are deacent resellers ,they should buy from small shops in remote areas where they are happy if they get any customers at all, and leave the high traffic areas where vendor owners work like crazy to keep the vendors stocked without feeling they rip people off..

 

[Warpig Inc]

I used to do loads of armor sales. Most vet players need very custom armor pieces to go with whatever uber arty. Vet players most oftem make their own aromr and with the ease of getting crafting tools and imbueing. Pile that with a few great pulls of Shame type loot. Can't sell armor at newer player prices when the POF can sell for more then they can afford. Get to low on price and unravel shoppers buy stuff up. Found the armor that new players are happy with I just make them free suits. Got a high rep as helping charity cases and vet players bored playing lame sucking armor from those that help.

Seems the only market for making real gold off vendors is grinding some boss for a drop. Even the insanely hard 120 Fishing power scroll sales vs effort not worth my time. Everyone knows the fishing endgame is weak so fishing returns back to small group that can enjoy it. There is no market for gathered goods on vendors with the general chat ask or offer.

Game play style has boiled down to a handful of specialized groups. Vendor stocking is like adding new addition to the game making one happy and a majority pissed.

 

[Uriah Heep]

Mostly its vendor fees. At the time this was put in place, it was cool, cause everyone was always buying stuff, and as any vet knows, the prices have gone thru the roof. Paying the fees on a 3k priced bedroom suit was no problem. Paying the fees on a 500k pardon is a totally diff story. You can't afford to keep it on the vendor, it has to almost sell immediatelyl. I think it would be a better deal to make it a commission sale, the vendor takes a flat 10% when the item is sold.

People always laugh at that idea, cause they are afraid someone will price stuff outrageously and thereby use the vendor for extra storage...So what? I dont care LOL they already do it with bods...and if someone has a houseful of vendors holding items for them as storage, so what? It doesn't affect my gameplay, or any one elses for that matter.

Go to a flat fee when the item is sold, and it will make it profitable again for a small seller to sell small items. Everyone knows where to go for essences and arties and such, this method will let the carps put furniture back out, scribes to put scrolls and books back out, etc etc. As it is now, those things tend to set (cause everyone has all they need, and in spite of rumors, I am NOT convinced we are being overrun by new players...just an odd sould wandering thru once in a while) for long periods of time, therefore letting the daily fees eat up whatever little profit we were hoping for.

 

[Wildbill_of_LA]

Working two weeks at a time makes it too difficult too stock my vendors. Got to love the oil field.

 

[Emil Ispep]

I have 2 vendors Luna/Pacific. Mainly, I stock items that are in the 1m-10m range (artifacts, event items, rares, semi-rares). Lately I haven't had a need to restock constantly.. maybe due to a decrease in the population? Not too sure.
From about September 2010 til present, ive made around 1 billion gold. I was set on selling all of my items and quitting the game back then, so in a matter of days my vendor went from 50m to about 600m. I sold a lot of old EM items (Yew wine, easter eggs, glacial items, a few server births, ect). Unfortuantely (fortunately?) I could not find a buyer for 700m gold for cash... so i left it on the vendor, and stopped playing UO for a few months. When I read that New magincia was going to have the raffle for housing, I got back into the game... spent 50m on raffle tickets and got New Magincia N1 Tram, and moved the remnants of my collection to there.. my retirement house i guess =).
Since then, I spent all but 30m of the gold I made haha, so im putting it right back into the economy. I spent most of it on rubble, and have quite an extensive collection:

As far a the vendors go, still going to be stocking them with the same old items.. maybe lower prices a bit t help move stuff. I already sell Pendants for 450k =/.

 

[Larisa]

Funny thing is, I chose My shard already has enough shops selling the items I would be able to sell. As sad as that is...on Origin....it's pretty dead. There are not many vendors at all, but the things that I can get readily...leather/ BoS/TransPowder/Arrows/Bolts etc. are easily obtained and are already either gotten by the player or stocked on vendors.

When I came back I had dreams of running an auction again, but what would I auction? Origin is very self-sufficient and it makes me sad. I still haven't even GM'd Imbuing, reforging makes my head spin, noone wants crafted items whether it be armor or deco. The most I see is people in general chat asking for some LRC to be imbued on an item..or some random stat....and I can't readily get the material needed for that...but I do love vendors, I loved running my luna shop back in the day and I adored doing auctions, just wish I could do all that again I'd be a happy UO'r lol.

 

[Rusko]

Neighbor, I think you are avoiding me haha... Every time I see you home, by the time i hit your steps you are vanished... I'd like you to come see what I've been doing with the place hehe...

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

Until there is an ingame search feature for player run vendors, I have no desire to play the "try to get people to find my shop" game of littering the world with spam runes. I know I can use certain 3rd party sites to gather information on pricing, and do so when I'm either looking for any given item or trying to beat the price of said item when I am wanting to sell. Until we see a useable search system, unless you're in Luna or maybe Zento, you're having to do more work than makes it worth it IMO.

 

[Uriah Heep]

As anyone who read thecensus of Magincia thread knows, I am not a fan of it. What most of us, or the ones that I talked to, really wanted was an ingame search, like the 3rd party sites have. I have never been made fully aware of just exactly why EAMYTHICBIOWAREORIGINNAMEOFTHEMONTH cannot do this. Keep the out of Luna vendors, install a search, and let us do some business with the smaller home owned vendors. Right now I have found a few around Zento that I didnt know of, and buying quite a bit from them.
At least with the searches tho, the small shop owner would have a chance of being noticed!

 

[LordDrago]

As anyone who read thecensus of Magincia thread knows, I am not a fan of it. What most of us, or the ones that I talked to, really wanted was an ingame search, like the 3rd party sites have. I have never been made fully aware of just exactly why EAMYTHICBIOWAREORIGINNAMEOFTHEMONTH cannot do this. Keep the out of Luna vendors, install a search, and let us do some business with the smaller home owned vendors. Right now I have found a few around Zento that I didnt know of, and buying quite a bit from them.
At least with the searches tho, the small shop owner would have a chance of being noticed!

This!!!

 

[startle]

...

Until there is an ingame search feature for player run vendors, I have no desire to play the "try to get people to find my shop" game of littering the world with spam runes. I know I can use certain 3rd party sites to gather information on pricing, and do so when I'm either looking for any given item or trying to beat the price of said item when I am wanting to sell. Until we see a useable search system, unless you're in Luna or maybe Zento, you're having to do more work than makes it worth it IMO.

Exactly what he said: ^^^^

 

[QueenZen]

I voted on a couple of reasons ye listed above and also *other* as a reason why some of us are ready to hang it up.

I do not mind restocking, what I try to provide. And I know the items I try to make/sell are not neccessarily some big ticket items, and once players have it all, they surely do not need more furnitures, more storage chests etc. etc. till or if they redo their homes. Carpentry items are NOT big sellers, I know this so np and I get excited when every single wood chest DOES sell out ! LOL

My *other* would be RNG as a big issue to restockin or even STOCKING what one would really hope to provide for others to possibly wish to buy. Shadow masonry tables is one prime example. Ditto Valorite and Verite, possibly the 3 most favored colors IF one is in mood to buy stone masonry tables. RNG barely permits us to gather enough granite needed in the colors we would hope to provide tables in 2 sizes in 2 directions with matching chairs etc. to restock appropriately. LUCKY we get 4 of any colors we hope to, to make even 1 stone masonry chair ...especially if we are unscripting sorts like I am. Ditto for wood types, not every one wants a plain wood table, some may have a color theme they want their in game home furniture to match...like BLOODWOOD red, FROSTWOOD blue, even popular HEARTWOOD dk. green...
and ya would like to provide tables, chairs, arcane circles, addons etc etc. in LOTS of wood color types.


Ya go mining for granite in colors for hours lucky ya get a few that even match to make any tables of any colors of stone masonry, yu then go lumberjackin cuz someone wants a whole rooftop done up in heartwood deep greens of furnitures...................and ya begin to fathom that the RNG and restocking the way ya HOPE TO gets to become some chasing rainbows impossible dream and one by one even if stuff DID sell, who has HOURS to fetch it all to run a spiffy full service furniture carpentry shop when all ya getting is scrap heap lumbers and granite types to provide to folks ! YA get fed UP wanting to provide what our game menu says we could...arcane circles or bookshelves or chairs in an array of COLORS that RNG prevents us from providing !

Ya try sooner or later ya hang it up cuz the game is suffocating us from what we WANT TO provide to sell like a FULL SERVICE cannon and ammo shop..oh wait either mine up saltpeter till ya get ENOUGH or opps Tandy down at the Siege dock only had 20 of em to BUY and didnt even reup the amt till 60 mins later to maybe buy 40 or mine some more for hours to get enough saltpeter !!

Folks hang it up and say...we are stiffled from playing do this hit that redo this make that to make that to fetch this to finish making...that !

 

[Uriah Heep]

I'm in the Queen's court

 

[hen]

If I wanted an ingame auction house or a vendor search function I would go and play a cartoon themepark game like WoW. UO is an immersive sandbox world and the shop system is one of the last little pieces of immersion that haven't been taken away from us.
There are now a plethora of ways to let people know where your shop is. The main problem merchants have is that there just isn't that many people playing the game now and if you aren't selling high end flavour-of-the-month items a shop isn't going to make you rich anytime soon.
Having vendors now is providing a service now more than anything else and it can be a time consuming service, but a rewarding one too.

 

[Lady CaT]

I love stocking vendors! I also like to roleplay. So I try to make fun vendors and shops with themes. Meeting people and having fun is more important to me than the gold I make, which incidentally is considerable.

 

[Meatbread]

Mostly its vendor fees. At the time this was put in place, it was cool, cause everyone was always buying stuff, and as any vet knows, the prices have gone thru the roof. Paying the fees on a 3k priced bedroom suit was no problem. Paying the fees on a 500k pardon is a totally diff story. You can't afford to keep it on the vendor, it has to almost sell immediatelyl. I think it would be a better deal to make it a commission sale, the vendor takes a flat 10% when the item is sold.

People always laugh at that idea, cause they are afraid someone will price stuff outrageously and thereby use the vendor for extra storage...So what? I dont care LOL they already do it with bods...and if someone has a houseful of vendors holding items for them as storage, so what? It doesn't affect my gameplay, or any one elses for that matter.

Go to a flat fee when the item is sold, and it will make it profitable again for a small seller to sell small items. Everyone knows where to go for essences and arties and such, this method will let the carps put furniture back out, scribes to put scrolls and books back out, etc etc. As it is now, those things tend to set (cause everyone has all they need, and in spite of rumors, I am NOT convinced we are being overrun by new players...just an odd sould wandering thru once in a while) for long periods of time, therefore letting the daily fees eat up whatever little profit we were hoping for.

THIS! THIS! THIS!