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FEA-themed shop... a good idea??


xanthocomically

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Now that I've gotten the Packrat avatar and am clearing out my SDB, I feel like I am ready to start "settling down" with a shop with built around some sort of theme. One of my favorite neopets activities is the Faerieland Employment Agency (it is especially profitable with SSW to help one out!). I've noticed that although (basic) jobs do ask for a wide variety of items, there really is some sort of consistency--I haven't studied it in depth enough to cite all of the items jobs have ever asked for, but there is some finite list of items or possibly a pattern to the postings. I'm definitely nowhere near financially stable enough to get involved in anything involving job coupons, but I was thinking that maybe a shop of FEA items might be an interesting/profitable/fun market niche? I haven't seen any other stores like this, which could be a sign that I'm on to a great idea, or possibly it's a sign that this is a horrible idea lol. 

Anyway I was hoping to get some thoughts from more veteran players about whether or not this is a good idea. Every time I've ever done a job, there have been at least 120 jobs listed, often closer to 140. I'm not sure if this is because FEA is not super popular and demand is low, or if this is because I am not in a North American time zone (NST+9) and am therefore most active when there are significantly fewer people online. 

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Some pros and cons I've already thought about to some degree:

Pros:

  • High volume of sales due to each customer needing multiple of any given item
  • Potential to build a loyal/consistent customer base

Cons:

  • High volume of sales would require lots!!! of restocking to maintain any sort of consistent stock
  • If most FEA job-seekers already use SSW, there isn't a lot of need for them to rely on one shop for their jobs

Data needed/things I'm not sure yet how they will fit into a pros/cons list:

  • How popular are FEA jobs? 
  • Of people who do take jobs, how many of them exclusively use job coupons? (ie, how much of a budget would I need to get started on a profitable shop?)
  • How much information already exists about what the common job items are? (ie, how much time will it take me to pull together a good list of necessary stock?)
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1 minute ago, phill said:

before you throw out all your packrat stuff, did you get your rubbish avvie?  Only saying because I didn't know about it till I donated thousands of things...sigh.

I haven't yet, but a decent amount of the stuff in my SDB is salvagable (I still have all the stuff from ITTPD, for example). I've decided to sell it off and use part of the profit to just buy a ton of 1np junk to discard. I've started an excel spreadsheet to keep track of cheap items and the number of things I've donated. (I have A LOT of free time on my hands this summer, can you tell???)

I've heard tell that some people have gotten Rubbish! by donating new/expensive things (DD prizes, >r100 items, etc), but I am going with the "discard thousands of items" strategy.

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I donated thousands of things...right before charity corner started. I didn't even know that was a thing back then. lol, winning at life ?

 

Good luck with your shop.  As for any jobs Ive taken, no I haven't used a job coupon. I just sell them. so ive only done low values and there was never any problem getting those  jobs.

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I love FEA although every time I visit other pets lookups that have amazing stats like for battledome or for gourmet club etc etc. I always notice their FEA scores are below 100. Which surprises me. I would think that would be a number people would want to show off... maybe if they implemented a trophy?  Either way FEA asks for items anyone may need. I think that it would be a cute and unique custom shop if you made the layout themed to it..

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21 minutes ago, phill said:

I donated thousands of things...right before charity corner started. I didn't even know that was a thing back then. lol, winning at life ?

 

Good luck with your shop.  As for any jobs Ive taken, no I haven't used a job coupon. I just sell them. so ive only done low values and there was never any problem getting those  jobs.

Oh no, that's awful!! I still don't completely understand the entire premise of the Charity Corner thing (like I think I get what happens but I don't really understand... why?? alas!!), but I am definitely grateful that I'll have these boards to let me know what is going on :D

Thanks for your thoughts about job coupons! I really appreciate it ? ? 

11 minutes ago, Kute said:

I love FEA although every time I visit other pets lookups that have amazing stats like for battledome or for gourmet club etc etc. I always notice their FEA scores are below 100. Which surprises me. I would think that would be a number people would want to show off... maybe if they implemented a trophy?  Either way FEA asks for items anyone may need. I think that it would be a cute and unique custom shop if you made the layout themed to it..

I have observed that as well, which I agree is kind of weird since it seems like FEA is a pretty easy way to make a decent amount of np with very little effort? esp for anyone with SSW. It's right there on every pet's lookup... you are probably right about trophies being helpful in encouraging people to do jobs though :D 

Thanks for your thoughts! I like your idea about the shop layout, it could be really fun. ❤️ 

Edited by xanthocomically
clarification
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Honestly, as a regular of FEA, even if I know that there are shops dedicated to it, I will still try my luck with the Shop Wiz or, better yet, the Official Neopian Shops for better prices. If you can get those items at cheaper prices, it makes more sense to just complete the jobs yourself for a higher profit

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I love FEA too (though I forget about it sometimes).... like phoenixgal, I go with whatever SSW says is cheaper... but then again, if a certain user ALWAYS has the cheapest prices I WILL eventually notice and probably be likely to buy other stuff I don't need just because...

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11 hours ago, phoenixgal said:

Honestly, as a regular of FEA, even if I know that there are shops dedicated to it, I will still try my luck with the Shop Wiz or, better yet, the Official Neopian Shops for better prices. If you can get those items at cheaper prices, it makes more sense to just complete the jobs yourself for a higher profit

 

7 hours ago, charelan said:

I love FEA too (though I forget about it sometimes).... like phoenixgal, I go with whatever SSW says is cheaper... but then again, if a certain user ALWAYS has the cheapest prices I WILL eventually notice and probably be likely to buy other stuff I don't need just because...

This makes sense and is sort of what I was thinking/worrying might end up being the case. It'll take me a bit yet to save up the np to really get set up with a fast-moving shop, so I'll think about what the two of you (and everyone else) has added. Thank you!!

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On 5/20/2018 at 7:29 PM, xanthocomically said:

I have observed that as well, which I agree is kind of weird since it seems like FEA is a pretty easy way to make a decent amount of np with very little effort? esp for anyone with SSW. It's right there on every pet's lookup... you are probably right about trophies being helpful in encouraging people to do jobs though :D 

 

 

 

 

I would definitely take more interest in it if there was a trophy! 

I just went and played it to remember why I don't bother playing it and I think it was because I can only take 3 jobs. I was just getting into it and I'm, BAM...done for the day.  Basic jobs, so only made a few thousand nps, minus the value of the items (all from my sdb) doesn't really seem worth it.  I'm sure it's very different playing with coupons but I just sell those when I get them.. 

Anyway, what I came onto the thread to say was, when you do your shop theme and design,  try not to have too much extraneous detail at the top of the shop. There is nothing worse when you are on a timed quest than clicking into a shop that has three miles of animated pictures, adverts, and text, and it slowing you down.  I know I'm not alone (when  I used to do timed quests) in clicking straight back out again and going somewhere else.  I'm not for a second suggesting that you would do that, just observing that themed shops can look great but aren't ALWAYS user-friendly so that's something to keep in mind.

 

 

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I love the FEA and I try my best to do all five jobs every day! I can easily make 20k profit (without a job coupon), and it takes a grand total of about 10 minutes. 

Being a premium user, I would never buy anything that isn't priced at SSW prices. But that's because it's quick and easy for me to find the cheapest items. I think a FEA-themed shop could be very useful to people who don't have ssw, especially if you keep enough stocked so that the person can buy all the items they need from just one shop. (Even using ssw, I get annoyed when I have to open five different shops to get all the items.)

The tricky parts would be figuring out what items to stock (are they all within a certain rarity? there HAS to be some pattern to it, but idk what it is) and then keeping enough in stock. You have to remember that a single person might buy up to 6 of the item, and multiple people would be doing that every day. You'd probably want to keep 20+ of each item on hand, and at that rate would still probably have to restock every single day. So it depends a lot on how much time you have and how much effort you want to put into it. But I do think it could be profitable!

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1 minute ago, kayahtik said:

I love the FEA and I try my best to do all five jobs every day! I can easily make 20k profit (without a job coupon), and it takes a grand total of about 10 minutes. 

1

I could only do three then it stopped me! ?

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1 hour ago, phill said:

I could only do three then it stopped me! ?

You can't do them all at once. You do the first three, wait for the jobs to refresh and fill up again, do one more, wait for them again, and do your last one. 

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I used to have my Kacheek slaving for the faeries quite often. I'm not sure why I stopped but I suspect it was because it was eating into my CC hoard, lol.

I used to enjoy completing the jobs in zero seconds by having the item in my inventory before I applied for the job. This thread is tempting me to get back into it. I started doing them with a dream of a trophy but after looking at the high scores realised that was pretty impossible. >_< But it is a nice little profit spinner.

I'd start from the back of the list, too, as the jobs were far less likely to have been done by someone else before I was ready!

Yeah I think I might investigate some jobs today, considering I have a LOT of food items tucked away.

Aw yisss!

You got the job!


Job Description
 

2.png


Good job! You got all the items we wanted.

The job took you 0 minutes, 0 seconds.
You have been paid 2,043 Neopoints.

Completed Job Data...

Job #: 8967074

Tatofase's Task: Find 5 of: Chicken Cordon Bleu
 
Ooh la la. Prime re-hydrated chicken, condensed milk and a little special something. x 5
 
Total Time Allowed: 57 minutes

Base Reward: 1,635 NP

 

Still got it! And what a nice increase on the base reward amount because I had the glob of snot delicious tasty food on hand already :D

Yep, this is why I'll be getting back into this for a while.

image.png.1f6b4219f673b36a118d8bb8591c09b2.png

image.png.b6d10427339af7d92ca66652b8585c54.png

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