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BUGSY'S INTENSIVE GUIDE TO SHOPKEEPING
and MALLING

VERSION 2.2

Let's get down to business.

I. CONTENTS

I. Contents
II. Writer's Foreword
III. Revision History
IV. Shop Introduction
........ A. The Pros and Cons of Having a Shop
........ B. Shop Navigation
V. Let's get to BUSINESS!
........ A. Types of Stocking Your Shop
........ B. Neopets' Shop Restocking
........ C. Timing a Restock
........ D. Restocking Finger Positions
........ E. What and Where to Restock
........ F. Pricing and Selling
........ G. How People Come Across Your Shop
........ H. Saving and Increasing Shop Size
VI. Malling
........ A. Pros and Cons of Being in a Mall
........ B. Difference Between Mallers and Shopkeepers
........ C. Finding a Mall
........ D. Tips in Malling
........ E. Mall Marketplaces
VII. The Do's and Don'ts in Decorating
VIII. Awards
IX. Final Words and Acknowledgments
X. Link Back to Me

II. Writer's Foreword

This guide is officially made by me, bugsy_bogis, to help those Neopians out there who are having trouble in tending to their own shops. This guide will make you an absolute millionaire regarded that you follow by heart my tips in shopkeeping and saving. It may take a while to reach the million but you'll sure be at it through your shop. This guide will intensively show you the secrets of handling a good shop. I added a few touches of restocking and malling in the guide. So, dig in and have fun!

III. Revision History

VERSION 1.0 (June 1, 2007) - Released the guide
VERSION 2.0 (June 2, 2007) - Revised the WHOLE layout. Added pictures, changed typographical errors, and shortened the guide. Deleted the Neopia's Shop System Section. Added the Acknowledgment Section which is merged with the Final Words segment. ADDED THE HELPFUL BOOKMARKS. (Thanks lassietheevilone for the wonderful suggestion) Neatened up the Contents. (Chopped down 20 chapters into 9 chapters with subchapters) Released Version 2.0.
VERSION 2.1 (June 5, 2007) - Revised a few things on the What and Where to Restock Section, and the Malling Section. Added LINK BACK TO ME banners.
VERSION 2.2 (July 23, 2007) - Changed the typographical errors and inserted new subchapter, C. TIMING A RESTOCK. Thanks to cloveapple and Der_Joh.

IV. Shop Introduction

A. The Pro's and Con's of Having a Shop

Pros:

Easiest way to sell buyable (below 100k) items
Very slim chance of losing money
Foundation of money if you want to engage in stockmarkets or the trading post
Lazy man's way of making money, baby! Stock your shop and presto!

Cons:

Needs to have a lot of patience.
Slow profits. But making 25k-50k a day just sitting there and doing nothing is cool! *wink*

B. Shop Navigation

UNFORTUNATELY, THIS VERY BEAUTIFUL BANNER HAS BEEN REMOVED. But this section will still be kept since there is news that TNT would bring the banner back. Yippee!

Anyways, for the nostalgic ones: To go to your shop, click the encircled links on the house-like icon on the Shop Toolbar.

At your shop, you can find this bunch of links. I will give a brief explanation for each.

Create/Edit a Shop - Where you put HTML codes, create your shop name, increase your shop size and choose which marketplace or world your shop is located (will be explained more later in the Mall Marketplaces Section).
Stock - Shows the items that you have stocked in your shop.
Shop Till - The best place in your shop *evil smile* Your money is deposited here.
Sales History - This is the maller's frequently visited page (Explained later in the Tips in Malling Section). Contains only the items which are sold for more than 1k.
Quick Stock - To stock loads of items in your shop in a single *click!*
Shop Front - This page allows you to see your shop as if you are a visitor to your shop.
Shop Blogs - Here you can find different shop blogs, backgrounds, and wallpapers.
Item Gallery - This is irrelevant to shopkeeping so no explanations here.

V. The Real Deal

A. Types of Stocking Your Shop

There are 3 ways of stocking your shop.

1. Shop Wizard Stocking - Recommended for the slow internet users. This is a very, very slow money maker for a small shop. This type of stocking is recommended for mallers. (Will be explained later in the Difference between Mallers and Shopkeepers section).

OBJECTIVE: Buy items which are below wizard-priced items and sell them in your shop. Basically try to BUY LOWER THAN SHOP WIZARD PRICE AND SELL AT SHOP WIZARD PRICE.

NOTE: SNIPING is one form of Shop Wizard Stocking wherein you intentionally search for Easy to Sell Items (such as codestones, faeries, expensive petpets, Lab Maps) by Shop Wizard. When successful, it would equate to LARGE and EASY profits!

EXAMPLE OF SNIPING: Main Codestones go for around 9k. After a few refreshes, you have spotted a Main Codestone worth 1 NP sold by a newbie. Buy it immediately and sell it in your shop at 9k. An instant 8,999NP profit.

NOTE: This does not always happen though. If you happen to snipe an item, you are considered VERY LUCKY. The chances are increased when you are using Premium though.

2. Dailies Items Stocking - Earn a few hundreds by doing this.

OBJECTIVE: Sell your omelettes, jellies, fish, and other "junk" items in your shop cheapest in the Shop Wiz.

3. Restocking aka. RSing - The heart and core of shopkeeping. Your profits depend on the items that you have restocked from Neopia's Shops. You can earn around 50k-100k or even much more a day through restocking.

B. Neopets' Shop RSing

Follow the screenies...

C. Timing a Restock

Take note: When a shop is empty, you see the statement saying that the shop restocks every 8 minutes, This is completely WRONG. The restock times are all RANDOM, so you need to refresh the shop every 10-20 seconds or so.

WARNING: Don't refresh too much since it will lead to an RS ban. You will not be informed whether you have been RS banned. You will just not see anything from any shop.

D. Restocking Finger Positions

Choose whichever you like. If you have more finger position techniques, kindly neomail it to bugsy_bogis. Thanks.

1. First is using F5 Key to refresh (using maybe your middle finger or any finger that suits you) and your thumb at the SPACEBAR key (SPACEBAR to zoom down and serves as the ENTER key when you have clicked on an item. To enter the numbers, you use the HORIZONTAL NUMBER KEYS and press as fast as you can.

2. Second is you click on the Shopkeeper to refresh, with your left hand on the right num pad on your keyboard. The ENTER key is used when you have clicked an item. NOTE: THIS IS ONLY APPLICABLE FOR THE ONES WHOSE MOUSE HAVE WHEELS. The main reason for the wheel is for faster scrolling.

E. What and Where to RS

The numbers correspond to the number of the shop.You can notice that a shop link will lead you to a page whose address is...

http://www.neopets.com/objects.phtml?type=shop&obj_type=##

For easy navigation, just put the shop number at the end of the link.

NOTE: The 3's, 2's, 1's in stock (which will often be stated in this part) mean the items that come in EXACTLY 3 or 2 or 1 in stock if you time a restock correctly. To check, MOST (most, not all) of the items that come in 3 or 2 or 1 in stock are priced exactly 2,500NP, 5,000 NP, or 10,000 NP.

Slow Internet Restockers / Beginners

1. Bakery (#15) - Try to RS the 3's, 2's, and 1 in stocks. Doughnuts can be of 100 NP profit per piece. Try to get "Sandwich", "Cinnamon Swirl", "Chocolate Cake", and "Super Sub". They come in fair quantity in the shop. Try to RS the 3's, 2's, and 1 in stocks.

2. Book Shop (#7) - Keep an eye for the 3/2/1's in stock. They are the highest profitable books in the shop. Once the low quantity books are gone, go for the cheapest books with high quantity (also called 1k books). Restock more of them to get 200-700NP profit per book.

3. Collectable Card Shop (#8) - Try to time the restock and you may see grey, gold, or silver cards, GET THEM! Restock the greens and pinks, too. Most of them are profitable. The cheapest are the blue and the red ones, which can make you 200-500 NP per card. CHECK THE SHOP WIZARD.

4. Faerieland Books (#38) - Check out for the books which are one's in stock first, they are very profitable. Next, buy the books in the shop which are profitable, like Breathe, Playing With Fire, and others. Check Shop Wiz.

5. Food (#1) - First, keep an eye for the 3/2/1's in stock EXCEPT FOR THE ITEMS WHICH ARE WORTH EXACTLY 2,500NP or 5,000NP. Very weird but yes, they are LOSSES. Next, buy the usual items which are found in the shop like Hot Cakes, Baby Food, Ice Cream, Milk Shakes, NeoColas and the like.

Experienced Restockers

1. Bakery (#15) - Buy the 3's, 2's, and 1's in stock. Many items which are 3/2/1 in stock will pop out when you time the restock time correctly. They can give 1k-5k profit.

2. Food (#1) - Like the Bakery, buy the 3/2/1 in stock. A little less items with 3/2/1 in stock will pop out than the Bakery but the profits also margin around 1k-5k per piece. Again, avoid exactly 2,500NP and 5,000NP priced items.

3. Pharmacy (#13) - Be sure to time the restock and quickly buy the 3/2/1 in stock (mostly 1 in stock) Also buy Tongue Shrinker, and Hoochie Coochie tablets. Tongue Shrinkers can gain around 2k-3k profit. Hoochie Coochie Tablets for around 500 NP per piece. And the 1s in stock for 10k-30k profit.

4. Spooky Foods (#30) - Just like Pharmacy, time out the restock and buy the 1 in stock. They go for 10k-70k profit.

5. Collectable Card Shop (#8) - Time out the restock and buy the black, silver, or gold cards. Most of them are unbuyable (more than 100k). However, sometimes, black silver and gold cards do not restock. Try to go for the profitable greens too.

6. Chocolate Factory (#14) - Go for the mint, dark and orange chocolates, lollypops, gummy die, and the 3/2/1's in stocks. They can gain around 1k-5k profit per piece.

7. Furniture / Garden (#41/#12) - These shops are the ones you need to get used to to know which items are profitable and which items are not. Try to learn them by using shop wizard and time the restock. Try not to buy first and check the items using the shop wizard. Then you'll know what items to buy and what not to. They can gain 1k-10k profits depending on the item. Usually the 3/2/1's in stock and the exactly priced 2500NP, 5000NP, and 10000NP are most profitable.

8. Super Happy Icy Fun Snow Shop (#37) - Try to time the restock and go for the 3/2/1's in stock. They are all profitable. They go for 1k-10k profit. Also keep an eye at the magical chia pops as they go for 500k-40 million in the trading post. (The pea chia pop goes for around 40 mil)

1337 Restockers

1. Magic Shop (#2) - The renowned Kauvara's shop is known for its morphing potions and transmogrification potions which go for 200k-millions in the trading post. They go fast though as this shop is crowded with other 1337 Restockers.

2. Battle Magic / Defence Magic Shop (#9/#10) - Like Furniture and Garden Shops, you need to get a bit of knowledge of what items are profitable and what items are not. try to use the Shop Wizard first before venturing in this shop. Most of the restocked items here are unbuyables.

3. Plushie Shop (#98) - Try to time the restock and go for the uniquely colored plushies or the character plushies (Like Neoquest II Plushies). They go for 10k-millions in the trading post. (The known ZDAP or the Zafara Double Agent Plushie wis worth around 2m. The plushie that can get you a Sneak avatar.)

4. Stamp Shop (#58) - Go for the 3/2/1 in stocks. All of them are profitable and some are unbuyables.Try to go for the exactly priced 2500NP, 5000NP, and the 10000NP. They go for 5k-200k in profit.

F. Pricing and Selling

Pricing is definitely the soul of shopkeeping. If you do not know how to price, your business may break down. So it is very important to know the standard measures in pricing.

Shop sized 1-100 / Want to make fast profits - Be sure to sell your items the cheapest in the shop wizard. If you found an item which is lower than your Shop Wizard group, buy it first then sell both, if reasonable.
Shop sizes 100-250 and belongs to a mall, make sure that one or two members in the mall are already shops 300/400+ so as to increase traffic in your shop. Price the items at AVERAGE PRICE or 500NP-1k higher than the wiz. Bring the price down when the sales are slow and bring the prices up of the items which are always being purchased in your shop.
Shop Sizes 250+ and belongs to a mall, price your items 2k-3k or even higher than the wiz price. Start Shop Wizard Stocking. Learn how to organize your Sales History.

G. How People Come Across Your Shop

People looking at your user-lookup. There is a chance they'll look up at your shop too.
Advertising in the Shop Ads board.
Through the Marketplaces. (explained later in the Mall Marketplaces Section)
Through the Shop Wizard if you have one of the cheapest items there.

H. Saving And Increasing Shop Size

This is the key to the success of every rich Neopian... SAVING. Increasing Shop Size is also important for a shopkeeper. Follow these tips in increasing your shop size and saving.

Try to earn 1 million pure or 500k, depends on you, and put it all in the bank. And that is your safe money which can be used when you spent all your money in hand. This also makes sure you don't go bankrupt.
After that, think of a certain amount of money in hand - like for example 100k or 200k, and earn it. That will be your cash in hand. This will be used for buying restocked items in your shop.
If you have made your cash in hand, the extra money that you get will be your Shop Size Increasing Money. That money will be used to increase your shop size. Continue increasing your shop size until the ideal shop size is accomplished.
If you unfortunately run short of cash in hand, stop increasing your shop size for a while and earn that back through your shop. When you have gained it back, continue increasing your shop size.

VI. Malling

This word is the DREAM of the aspiring shopkeepers out there. Let me give you some brief explanations of malls.

A mall is made by shopkeepers with very large shop sizes. The higher your shop size, the more traffic you have in your shop.
As soon as you reach a certain shop size you will soon belong to a marketplace/world. Since the marketplace itself is an advertisement for your shop, this will serve as an attraction to your shop.
Malls have what you call mall banners with buttons which link to their other mall mates to increase even more traffic. The traffic is increased by n times. (n depends on the number of members in a mall)
Malls are designed to have high prices. The reason for this is that you need to keep your shop intact and full. If you just keep them at shop wizard prices, the items in your shop will be sold out every day that it would be too hard for you to restock again. Just think of having a shop size of 300+ with 1000+ items, and every day, an average of 300 items would be sold out. It would take you a whole day to fill his/her shop once again.
Mall members also have to participate in the Neoboard Ads by paying a certain amount of money to the treasurer or leader of the mall.

A. Pros and Cons of Being in a Mall

Pros:

Being in a successful mall, you would earn hundreds of thousands a day on average.
You will be known.
Many will ask you to become their Neofriend or bookmark so they can get back to you in times of Faerie quests.
Very high traffic especially if you are teamed up with people who are already in the Main Marketplace (shop sizes 490+)
Your shop would be admired by baby shopkeepers. :))

Cons:

You would be constantly explaining to people who are saying, " YOU HAVE HIGH PRICES!!!!!11 WAHT TEH!!!11111"
You need to participate in donating for the NB Ads.
It's hard to find a successful mall.
It's much harder to increase your shop size to hundreds! May take you months or years to do so. But the results are very, very, very rewarding.

B. Difference Between Mallers and Shopkeepers

Mallers and Shopkeepers are identical, synonymous, analogous, the same, not different? Guess again! :)

NOTE: The mallers that is referred here are the ones who are dedicating their full time to malling and have a small or NO time alloted for RSing.

MALLERS	SHOPKEEPERS/RSers
High-priced items (as explained earlier)	Wizard-priced/Fairly-priced items
Favorite page is the SALES HISTORY	Don't care about the SALES HISTORY
Needs to have a high shop size	Small shop sizes are fine
Use Shop Wizard Restocking most of the time	Use Neopets' Shops Restocking most of the time

Explanations:

Mallers have high priced items so that they would not have a hard time restocking their shop. Shopkeepers usually price their items at a wizard price/ a bit higher than the wizard price because they do not have a very high shop size and can tend to it very well.
Mallers' favorite page is the Sales History for easy restocking. Shopkeepers have little importance in the Sales History Page and cares more about the SHOP TILL page. *grins*
Mallers need to have a high shop size to belong in a marketplace. Shopkeepers doesn't need to have a high shop size the cheap price of their items serves them their traffic. The Shop Wizard somewhat "advertises" their shops.
Mallers usually use the Shop Wizard Restocking method to stock their shop. Shopkeepers earn money through RSing. They need to be constantly RSing to make money.

C. Finding a Mall

This is the hard part in malling. YOU NEED TO HAVE A MALL! If you have a small shop size, I discourage creating your own mall banners and hosting the mall as it would be hard for you to find members. It would be better to join malls with people in the Main Marketplace already.

QUESTION: Where to find?

The first place to look for vacant spots is in the Neoboard Ads (Click the Scroll Icon in the Neopets Shop toolbar). Hover upon every button and look at your status bar if every spot has a person. If you found one, ask the member who is the leader and ask if you can be accepted in the mall.
Through a random neomail. Malls with vacant spots usually look for people with high shop sizes. Sometimes, you would be neomailed by Mall owners to be part of their mall. If your business is smoothly running, then you've found yourself a successful mall. If not, ask permission from the mall leader that you would leave because of the slow profits.
Join an extension mall. The two known extension malls are those from the PMC mall and the nuggler and friends mall. Try to join to them and see if your business would be running smoothly. The extension mall is a branch of the main mall which is often participated by members with low shop sizes.
Join mall guilds. This would be the easiest way to find a mall. A famous mall guild which has mall recruitment program that will help you find a mall is the Mallers of Neopia Guild. It is worth joining a side account with that guild.
Through the Battledome Chat Board. You can find mallers there recruiting members. You can also chat with the other restockers there.

D. Tips in Malling

I will give you my few original tips in malling :)

When you have found a mall and are given a spot, stock your shop quickly with the said items in the Neopets Shops and the Shop Wizard. Neoitems.net can greatly help you in stocking your shop.
Keep track of your Sales History. Have a Shop Wizard page open together with the Sales History Page, and copy and paste every item in the Sales History Page to the Shop Wiz, and buy them. Clear your Sales History once you are done. Keep track of the mostly bought items and slightly increase their price.
Never keep items falling under your category below 1k as they would not be shown in your Sales History and you would not know which items were bought and need to be restocked.
Always try to increase your shop size everyday using your Shop Size Increasing Money but make sure your spending money is built first. (explained earlier)

E. Mall Marketplaces

Mall Marketplaces are the very means of earning traffic in your shop, because the millions of newbies in Neopets go to the Marketplace Page to search for the items that they want or need.

There are three Marketplaces:

Spooky Marketplace.
Mystery Island Marketplace.
And the renowned Main Marketplace

REMEMBER: The Marketplaces are your main advertisements for your shop because your shop will be shown in one of the huts when you met the requirements. One hut in the marketplace contains ten people whose shops are shown. Be sure to change the world/marketplace that you are in at the Create/Edit a Shop link.

The target of every maller is to be at the Main Marketplace because that is the main page that people use to find the things they need for a quest or just when they feel spending a lot. You can find it at this link below.

You can view the other two marketplaces by visiting the Haunted Woods - for the Spooky Marketplace, and the Mystery Island for the.. uh.. Mystery island Marketplace. lol.

VII. The Do's and Don'ts in Decorating

Here are a couple of reminders when decorating your shops.

BACKGROUND:

DON'T: Use images or backgrounds from yahoo or google to decorate your shop. Also, never put animated backgrounds. Most people are annoyed with that. It takes very long to load.
DO: Use the tiled backgrounds from Neopets under the Shop Blogs link. It has faster loading time. Or better, don't have a background at all. The white background is neat and easy to load.

MUSIC:

DON'T: Put very irritating and loud songs in your shop
DO: Put mellow or soothing sounds to calm your visitors. It's also better not to put any sounds at all. It's all up to you.

LINKS:

DON'T: Put links that are scattered everywhere on your shop.
DO: Put them in a Shop Blog to make your shop look neat. Shop Blogs can be found under the Shop Blogs link.

IMAGES:

DON'T: Overcrowd your shop with images. It just lengthens the loading time, thus preventing some sales.
DO: You can put images but be sure that your shop looks neat. Presentation is a very essential key to sales.

SHOP INTRODUCTION AND OTHER SPEECHES:

DON'T: Put very long introductions and speeches because it makes your shop look boring, because the people can all see that CHUNK of text.
DO: You can put those long introductions in a Shop Blog, together with the links that you've got, to save space.

VIII. Awards

Thanks for the awards! Love y'all!

IX. Final Words and Acknowledgments

I hope that you all learn something from this guide and make sure you know by heart this knowledge in shopkeeping as this can take you to reaching your Neopian ambitions. Remember, shopkeeping isn't as fast a moneymaker as reselling at the Trading Post or engaging in the stock market but it can also lead you to earning a constant amount of money EVERY DAY, thus making it as a foundation of money.

NOTE BY THE AUTHOR: If you found anything that's not right, misspelled words, grammatical errors, anything that you feel is wrong, feel free to express yourself by neomailing me, bugsy_bogis, and I would gladly make revisions. Thanks for all your help! Link back to me!

SHOUTOUTS: My former guild, Fortune's Footpath! Thanks to Otto for encouraging me to make this guide and to all the council out there in Fortune's Footpath. :) To my Neofriends, thanks very much for supporting me. My former guildmates for ever supporting and for awaiting my guide. To edithtom for giving me my first ever award. :) And to everyone who have read this guide, thank you very much.

SPECIAL THANKS: cloveapple, Der_Joh, and all the special unmentioned.

NEOMAIL ME! Click here

~bugsy_bogis aka Nathan

X. Link Back to Me

Please help me spread the word and kindly put these banner in your shop, user lookup, pet page, gallery, any where! Hehe. Thanks very much. I appreciate it. :D

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