There are millions of shops in Neopia. Of course, you want the twenty million
Neopians to all shop at your shop! How will you make yours special?
The first thing to do is to remember your audience. There are casual browsers
who will look through your shop, but your primary customers will often be employees
of the Neopian Employment Agency. I call them job runners, largely because I
am one. I make about ninety percent of my Neopoints by running around Neopia
collecting items from shops.
A job runner is interested in two things: price and speed. Naturally, your
shop already has the lowest prices in Neopia, right? Right! So, how do you improve
your service to attract these Neopian employees?
Job runners appreciate speedy load times. Time is of the essence when you are
hunting for items; you get paid more when you bring things in quickly. What
does this mean to a shop owner? Well, the more bells and whistles your shop
incorporates, the slower it loads. A job runner is likely to sit there and wait
for your background to load, your fifteen pictures to load, your music to load
.... *whoosh!* Whoops, never mind, there goes the job runner off to a different,
faster store.
The best thing you can do to speed up your load time is to eliminate a lot
of the HTML widgets that decorate your shop. That's not to say that you can't
have any, but pick just one or two good ones. A nice background or a single
striking image will make a good impression while still leaving your shop quick-loading.
If you really want to do music, eliminate most or all of your extra graphics
to make your shop load more quickly. Also, by selecting just one strong image
or background design, you'll make your shop more memorable than if you have
a ton of little bitty things that all blur together.
If you do change your background color or add a background picture, remember
to check your font color. Black on black is a no-no. Your customer won't be
able to read your prices easily, if at all. I frequently purchase other things
at the same store where I'm collecting items, but I won't buy a thing if I can't
read the prices!
If you have a big shop with a lot of single items, it also takes a very long
time to load. Job runners are more likely to go to shops that have a smaller
quantity of stock, say, twenty to thirty different items, because they load
more quickly. It also helps to stock several of each item. Three to six of any
single item is ideal for attracting job runners because they can potentially
purchase their entire collection in one swoop.
I hope this gives you some insight as to how to design your shop for fast,
efficient service that will attract people to your store. I look forward to
stopping in at your shop on my next run, and not whooshing past! | 
