Welcome to Gaia! ::

So you Wanna Be A B/C Shop Owner...
Starting up a B/C Shop is a popular endeavor for Gaians. I get asked fairly often how one goes about setting up shop, but that is not what this first section is about - this one is SHOULD you start up a shop? This tutorial is meant to help you answer that question and provide some of the background knowledge that you will need when planning to set up a shop.

Questions to Ask Yourself (and be honest about it!)
You don't need absolutely everything on this list, but each piece you're missing will make it that much harder to set up and run a B/C shop, as you will have to hire someone else who can fill in.

Commitment
• How much time do I have to devote to getting a shop up and running during the first six months?
• Am I willing to be online everyday, for at least an hour or two?
• Am I willing to be online even longer during events?
* Are I willing to give up my free time plans to cover for others if necessary?
• Am I available to be online for questions from staff through IM's on a daily basis?
• Am I still going to be able to devote time to the shop in six months? A year? Two?
• Is my timezone favorable to running events, if not, am I willing to work around it?


Personality
• Am I organized?
• Am I friendly and easy to talk to online?
• Am I responsible and dependable?
• Can I handle multiple things going on at once?
• Am I cool under pressure, diplomatic, and level headed?
• Am I fair and capable of remaining unbiased?
• Can I remember to track growings and get things out on time?
• Can I evaluate, critique and help teach other staff members while not offending them?


Artistic Talent, Skills & Assets
• Do I have an understanding of color?
• Can I bring variety and interest into all my colorings without them looking all the same?
• Do I have the required software and hardware for digital art?
• Do I have the ability to cert pets?
• Am I a good colorist in my own right?
• Can I do edits for the type of artwork I want to have?
• Can I work under a tight schedule, if there is a sudden shortfall in pets?
• Can I make my own banners, certs, backgrounds, and other graphics?
• Am I able to work from a customer's description when coloring and/or editing?
• Am I capable of handling the accounting and math needed for bookeeping?
• Am I capable of writing good background material, stories, and concepts?
• How much capital do I have to invest in my future shop?
• Can I sketch/draw/ink/template the lineart myself?
• How many pieces of base lineart am I going to need?
• How easy or hard will it be to get more matching art later on if I want?


Expectations & Goals
• Why do I want to start a shop?
• What do I expect to get out of running a shop?
• What are my goals for the shop?
• What is my shop's theme? (not just species!)
• Do I believe in, and have a passion for, my future shop?
• Who are my competitors?
• How is my shop going to be better than the competition?

Experience
• Do I know how to run forum games?
• Do I know how to plan and prepare for a B/C event?
• Do I know how to run a B/C event?
* Do I know the day-to-day tasks involved in maintaining a shop?
• Do I know how to organize and manage large groups of images?
• Do I know how to run metaplots?
• Do I know how to run RP contests?
• Do I know how to set up a hiring thread?
• Do I know how to make a shop layout?
• Do I know how to set up an owner's list?
• Do I know how to set up and organize a guild?
• Do I know how to recruit and organize an affiliate's list?
• Do I know how to run an advertising campaign?
• Do I know how to manage others and run a productive staff?


TL biggrin R - For anyone who's now thinking "I'm not reading all that, it's too long!" Turn right around. Go back to enjoying other people's events. You're not shop owner material - you'll be wasting your time and money trying to make it in the B/C world.

Let's get a few things straight.
B/C Shops are not easy money.
B/C Shops are not easy to succeed with.
Anyone can set up a shop, but 95% of shops do not survive their first year.

If you're planning to be in the 5% that do, be ready to redefine the meaning of hard work. It takes time, dedication, and a whole lot of talent to pull off a successful B/C shop - a really successful shop, not just one that happens to still put on events once in a while, but a shop that's active, recognized by a large part of the B/C community, and in demand.

Planning for Success
So what good are these various unofficial shop types? Well, for starters, they represent different approaches existing owners have taken towards the same goal - a successful shop.

What you define your personal shop's "success" as in large part will dictate what type of shop you're going to want to work towards. No one launches a Titan overnight, Casual shops do not churn out hundreds of pets a month, Sig-Candy shops don't need an in depth world background.

I want to earn enough money for my quest
I want a place to hang out and make friends
I want my own RP community
I want to be the best looking shop
I want to have fun
I want to...? What is your goal?

Browse the B/C shops you like best - get to know the shops, their owners, and how they run. Your best defense against an early shop death is *NOT* art, not skills, and not money - it's KNOWLEDGE. Simply put, if you do not know what you are doing, you will have a very hard time.

The Successful Shop Building Blocks
• Knowledge •
• Time • Skills • Funding • Art •

Knowledge
The easiest way to gain knowledge is to participate, both as a customer and, if you can manage it, as staff for an existing B/C shop. Even if you end up working at a shop that ultimately fails, you will likely learn what *not* to do, which is just as valuable as knowing what to do. From day to day activity, to organizing image load & owners lists, to custom rules and prices, and running events - experience is the best teacher. The talents you need as a shop owner are varied - equal parts artist, diplomat, manager, secretary, arbitrator, and friend. Study everything - from how a shop thread is organized, to how account mule(s) are used, to what goes into a guild, to thread rules and event procedures.

If at all possible, work at an existing shop, or even several - as a colorist, manager, events assistant, whatever position you can get. Don't try to take over shops that aren't looking for help - you'll likely offend whomever is in charge, owners can be a touchy bunch. Generally if you're up front about wanting to learn the ropes, good owners should be happy to share their knowledge with you.

Time
This is another biggie. B/C shops take a LOT of time to develop properly. Consider all your current commitments, be they scholastic, work, family, hobbies or friends. As an owner, you should be putting in at LEAST one or two hours a day at your shop, be that chatting up customers, cleaning up your layout, working on your guild, coloring pets, or dealing with questions. Part of your job as an owner is supervising your staff, and odds are you will have staff - at least a couple of colorists, possibly a thread manager, editors, a certist, events co-ordinator(s), RP managers, and maybe more! Not every shop has a lot of staff, and don't take on more than you can handle, start small. If you spend more time dealing with your staff than they do working, you're going to have problems.

Plan events around times that you can be present to mind them - they require much more attention than when the shop is "idling". Also consider how your timezone lines up with the majority of Gaia's population, which tends to be in the USA (GMT-5 to GMT-8 ). If you're running speed sales in the wee hours of the morning for the US, you may find that you get few entries.

Developing a shop takes a lot more time than maintaining one. A lot of effort initially has to go into your rules, layout, procedures and FAQ's. It can be helpful to look at other shops when contemplating what to put in your own, but no matter how tempting, do NOT lift pieces of content wholesale. If you copy another shop without permission you may find yourself banned; copying is not worth the risk.

Skills
Take stock of your own skills. Can you color? Specifically, can you color B/C pets? It takes skill to get the most out of a set of lineart and shading templates, "point and click" coloring will not win you any dedicated customers. Study pets you particularly admire and try reproducing the techniques (NOT the pet itself! ) Can you do animal patterns? Stripes? Gradients? Flowers? Stars & space? Candies, flames, or clouds?

Editing is another important skill for a shop owner. It's not mandatory, but you won't be able to do most customs without some editing ability. Practice and use good reference images (do not copy, reference!) to help you. The internet is a seemingly endless source of tutorials for drawing anything from skulls to ringlets to armor plates.

Organize. Running a shop can sometimes be a frantic juggling act, and dropping the balls in the middle of the performance is not an option! Keep a calendar for your growths and upcoming events, and communicate those plans through a staff subforum in your guild and/or by direct messages. Keeping a paper list handy at the computer is a great way to quickly jot down things that need attention, because they invariably crop up while you're working on something else!

Funding
This is where most neophyte owners start, and it's the *wrong* place to begin a shop. Unless you're a mega-millionaire and you're going to finance every position in your shop as a paid employee, throwing money at a B/C concept is not going to work. Even hiring a full complement of paid staff usually doesn't work out, because teams need leadership and that's not an easy thing to find. You, as the owner, are responsible for injecting the life, the passion, and the drive into YOUR shop - if you can't be enthusiastic and committed, why would anyone else be?

You will likely need a bankroll for starting up your shop if you're not up to doing all of the graphic and design work yourself. If you are hiring or contracting for all of it, setting up a full shop can become very expensive indeed. Conversely, if you are capable of doing most or all of the setup (banners, buttons, dividers, cert/tag, lineart, shading, sketches, accessories, items, maps, headers, footers, etc.) then your costs may be minimal. However, you should carefully assess your own skills against those of the shops you wish to compete with - can you match or exceed their quality? In some cases it's better to invest a bit of gold in the very best work you can afford, as it pays off in the long run.

How Much and for What?
I'm not going to put prices on here, for two reasons - they're highly dependent on the style and quality of the work, and the current economy, which is always changing. The best advice for figuring out prices is to do your research - use the forum search feature to find out how much similar work has sold for in the past. Lineart in particular is *highly* variable, anywhere from 10k to millions. Your best bet is to know the market - look at lineart auctions and shop sales to get a feel for what sells and how much it goes for. Sketches generally cost less than inked lines, and inked lines cost far less than lines fully templated, the art being equal. Sometimes entire shops come up for sale, including some or all of the items below.

Commonly Purchased B/C Shop Components
Thread Layout - post style, bullets, may also include Thread Graphics
Thread Graphics - banners, affiliate buttons, dividers, etc.
Mule's Avatar - price highly variable depending on theme
Area Map - usually only for more serious/RP oriented shops.
Lineart - any/all of the three items below
• Sketches - pet/familiar designs which are then inked & shaded.
• Inking - producing clean lines from a sketch
• Shading Templates - multiple layers of highlights and/or shadows that give lineart depth
Familiars - pets for pets
Certificate (Cert or Tag)

Research

Physical Reference Materials
A good artist has a collection (small or large, most tending towards large!) of reference material, printed and electronic. This likely includes drawing/art books, scenery, manga/anime, "how-to" books, and anything else they found inspiring. Check out your local second hand stores, garage sales, and bookstore bargain bins for good books - what exactly you put in your reference library will depend a lot on what kind of pet your shop features.

A good reference book should have ample illustrations and clear, concise instructions. Most "how to draw" books are of low quality, they take you step by step through copying various drawings without teaching HOW to draw them at all; avoid books that have nothing but step by step drawings. Some of my personal favorite reference books are listed below.

General Animal Anatomy
Amberlyn, J.C. - Drawing Wildlife
A exceptionally cleanly illustrated book focusing on north american animals.
Hamm, Jack - How to Draw Animals
A great old techniques book, where the mechanics of animals are broken down into simple shapes - lots of cross species comparison.
Hultgren, Ken - The Art of Animal Drawing
Another old but still very relevant book, with lots of skeletal and pose references. Less technique and more examples than Hultgren's.

General Drawing Books
Tsukamoto, Hiroyoshi - MangaMatrix
A beautiful reference book full of color illustrations, from many different artists in many styles. The actual content involves using a matrix to develop new ideas or directions in drawing that you might not otherwise go.
Elvin & Felder - Draw Great Manga - A Complete Guide
This book actually focuses less on manga and more on a good grounding in drawing techniques, from perspective to digital inking and sketch cleanup.

Any book that has good illustrations or photgraphs of your interest area can be a useful one to have - don't discount those that seem unrelated at first glance either. Books can be just as much inspiration as useful reference, more often than not when stuck for ideas, a simple leafing through your library will help.

Digital Reference Materials
Of course it's even easier to collect digital reference materials. Make a habit of saving a copy of anything you particularly enjoy. With digital materials it's important to organize your collection so that you can find relevant things later on when you need them! Sort your materials by intended reference use - Background, Trees, Wings, Horns, Armor, Flames, Clothing, etc. That way when you're stuck trying to get something to look right, you can call up an appropriate folder and look at some references.

A note: While I do advocate collecting digital material for reference, that is the only thing I'm advocating - that does NOT mean using the original work in any other way except as inspiration or reference. If you put your reference and your work side by side and you can tell they're derivatives of each other, you didn't reference, you copied, and that's not allowed. See The Copy FAQ for more information!

Guilds

As if setting up a shop wasn't complicated enough, most Breedables/Changeables feature a dedicated guild as well. Why would you want to set up a guild when you've got a perfectly good shop? Read on and find out. wink

A Forum to Call Your Own
A guild costs 20k, you can buy one from the Guilds page or purchase a Guild off another user. The primary advantages of a guild are the ability to organize subforums, send announcements, and moderate your own threads (lock, unlock, edit, delete posts). Unlike your main shop thread, anyone who is Crew or higher can moderate the guild, making it easier to delegate tasks to other staff-persons. Remember to Crew your staff/shop mules in the guild. This gives them the ability to move, delete, lock and edit posts.


Guild Uses
• Extra rules - Customs, Breedings, Pet Trades, Roleplaying, Elders,
• FAQ's & Guides
• Journals
• Owner's List
• Setting Information
• Contests, Games & Giveaways
• Events
• Sales

Home Decorating
You can customize the homepage and the guild's banner to your liking. The guild banner is 40x200 pixels - if your chosen image is a different size it'll be squished to fit, so it's best to make it exactly that size. It's useful to put a link back to the main shop on the Guild's homepage, so customers can easily find their way between the two. Your shop should have a prominent link to the guild in the first post.

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect 200$
You can charge people gold to join your guild - I would suggest not doing so. You want your customers to join your guild, and the only thing you can use those entry fees for is paying for subforums and sending Guild Announcements anyways.

Public, Private or Hidden?
You have three choices when it comes to who can access and view your guild. Public is the most liberal, allowing anyone to read and post. Because you cannot stop people from posting in a public guild (and you cannot send out Guild Announcements) it's recommended that you don't pick Public for your B/C guild. Hidden guilds are the opposite of Public - you can't even see what's in them without being a member. Now that might be tempting since it encourages people to join so they can see what's in there, I don't recommend it. Guilds are really useful for events, rules and all sorts of other things - but only if people can see them! That leaves Private; Private guilds can be seen by all, but only members can post in them. If you're setting your guild to private, it's recommended that you turn on Auto-Accept Join Requests OR you have someone checking for pending Join Requests on a daily basis. If your guild isn't monitored very often, go with Auto-Accept. You still have the ability to ban troublemakers from your guild if necessary and send Announcements.

Hark, hear the B/C Sing!
Guild Announcements are a fairly recent feature on Gaia. it'll cost you about one gold per person in your guild to send a message, and you can only send one every 24 hours. Whatever you choose to do with your Announcements, do NOT spam your guild members - all that will accomplish is getting them to disable the feature or leave your guild! Good things to announce include events, flatsales, RP contests, auctions, breeding slots or customs that are available. If you've made a significant change to one or more of the shop's rules or features, that might also be announcement worthy. Try to group together several noteworthy items in one Announcement if possible. There's a character limit on announcements - 1,500 characters, so keep your points concise. Guild Announcements appear under the general "Notice" events and people have the ability to turn them off through their Notification settings.

Divide and Conquer
So, how do you divide up your guild, what should you have in it? There's no one right answer to that question, as each guild will be different and tailored to the needs of its representative shop. Take a perusal at some existing shop guilds for inspiration. There are some good common practices - for example, keep your Owner's List (and other very very frequently used threads) in the main section of your guild rather than a subforum so they're dead easy to find. If you have a large complicated guild, consider a directory in the main section with links to help people find what they're looking for. A subforum for customs and another for breedings are almost always appropriate (unless your shop doesn't offer one or the other) as there tend to be a lot of rules and threads associated with both. A Quests subforum is another common choice, for customers to post their wishes for future pets. Many shops feature a "Journal" type area where customers can keep track of their own pets/plots/ideas and decorate it to their tastes. If you plan on having large events an "Events/Games" subforum may well be in order for your guild.

Hard Hats Mandatory Beyond This Point
One section you should definitely have is a "Staff Only" subforum (remember to set the permissions to Crew!) In here you can put planning threads for future events, pay scale, how to access the shop PB account, procedures for doing breedings/customs, your shop accounts, workloads of your staff, contact information, where to access the shop lineart, certing instructions, quota/pet dropoffs for future sale, and possibly a shop calendar to help you schedule things.

Don't be too worried about filling out your guild completely when you're starting off - it will change and evolve as your shop grows. It is a good idea to get your subforums sorted out at the beginning (or at least early on) because there is no easy way to reorganize them on the list. In particular any subforum with a lot of threads (such as RP areas) will be very annoying to move around later since each thread has to be shifted individually. Give some thought to your subforum order before you get too far along.

Owner's List
An Owner's List (with information such as name of owner, name of pet, gender, and possibly species, colorist, or purchase method) is a common feature in many shops for the good reason that it's a very useful thing to have. Some shops place their Owner's List (OL) on the first or second page of the shop itself - I recommend you use your guild instead. Editing in the guild is faster (fewer images to load) can be done by any Crew Member (thus is easily delegated and doesn't require handing over mule access) and OL's have the tendency to get very large indeed! Breaking them down by alphabetical section (A-C, D-F, etc) in separate posts will not only make your life easier, but looks very professional.

At the bare minimum, your OL should contain the owner's name and each of their pet's names, plus a link to that pet. Organizing things by owner will show you at a glance how many pets each person has. Other optional information can include (though optional to taste):
• Gender - useful for determining the M/F balance.
• Species - if you have multiple species or types
• Acquisition Method - for example, flatsale, custom, auction. etc.
• Parents - for second generation and higher
• Link to Cert - for checking out what they look like.
• Colorist - so you can keep track of who did what.
• Mate - to show they're committed already breeding wise
• Offspring - any children of this pet.

Your B/C Rights and Obligations

Rights and Obligations - a lot of these are implicit, that is, not expressly stated anywhere, where a few are outlined in the rules covering B/C Shops and by the general Gaian ToS (Terms of Service) While shop owners are generally free to make whatever rules they want for their shop, those rules cannot supersede the ones dictated by Gaia.

ALL of these apply to your shop! Be familiar with them.
• Gaia Rules & Guidelines
This is the "plain english" version of the ToS - you should be familiar with it already, since it covers everything you do on Gaia.
• Mini Shops Rules & Regulations
Mini Shops is the super-category that B/C falls under, thus the Minishop rules also apply to your shop.
• Breedables Changeables Rules & Guidelines
This is the most relevant section of rules since it's specifically for B/C shops, so read it through several times to be sure you understand. Ignorance is not a legal defence!

Further Reading:
• Art Requests & Commissions
While not directly related to B/C, the rules for auctions and some of the general guidelines here are good things to know and follow.

Suggestions
Make your tagged pets signature friendly
Not an "official" obligation based on the rules, but it's something you should do anyways. A lot of customers aren't savvy enough (or too excited!) to check the size of their newly acquired pet, so for their safety and happiness make sure you stick to the 500x500px, 100kb or less signature size required on Gaia.

Keep your front page up to date
Nothing turns people away like a sale that took place three months ago still being advertised. Similarly, dead links, and the dreaded "this image is not available" placeholder Photobucket graphic are to be destroyed on sight. Cull your affiliates list on a regular basis (more about affiliation here).

Keep your rules concise
Go through your rules and cull/combine them when possible. The less there is for people to read, the more likely they are to actually get through the material.

Keep track of updates & changes
The rules that apply to a pet are the rules of the shop AT POINT OF SALE. This is why it's important to log all changes to your rules (for example going from open pets to RP Required) so you can make appropriate decisions in the case of disagreement. Having recent updates on your front page (and/or shop title changes) also shows people your shop is active, and makes it more likely they'll visit.

The Bottom Line

For many people, their B/C shops are truly a labor of love and no amount of gold could compensate for the time they put in. However, revenues are one way of examining your success as a shop. Your prices, which are responsible for those revenues, will in turn affect customer's opinions of your shop.

Price Me, Please
So how much do you charge? B/C pets range in price from free to millions, so it can be hard to decide. Your best bet is to look at the shops that are most similar to your ideas and go from there. As a *rough* ballpark, most "Flatsale" pets cost between 2,000 and 10,000 gold. Those with superior art and/or unique edits and lineart usually cost more.

Different Folks, Different Sales
More important than your basic price is to cater to a variety of price points. A good shop will have pets priced from free to possibly millions of gold on offer at various times, through flatsales, giveaways, raffles, auctions and customs.

Flatsales - these are the basic sale type, and have two main variants - flaffle, and speedflat. Flaffles have a window of entry time, after which a winner is rolled who can then buy the pet. Speedflats are first come, first served. Speedflats are easier to run (since no list or rolling is needed) but have some problems from a customer's point of view. Speed sales require the participants to be awake and online (not always possible depending on where you live) and favor those with fast reflexes and internet connections. Flaffles on the other hand take more time to run but are fairer, as every entrant gets an equal chance.

Giveaways - freebies are a common thing in most shops, and with good reason - they build a positive reputation for your shop, can be used to reward customers, and ensure that everyone no matter their income level has a chance at getting a pet. Giveaways come in as many varieties as you can imagine, though most are either luck based or skill based, some are a bit of both. Dicerolling is an example of a luck based giveaway. A roleplaying contest would be a good example of a skill based giveaway.

Raffles - Raffles are another popular sale method. They usually consist of one or more pets for which "tickets" are sold. Common ticket prices are 10-500 gold, 100 being the most common. Pick an easy to work with denominator, while 99 gold tickets might sound cool it's not fun to try and calculate the cost of 45 of them in your head. Make a list of tickets sold as trades come in; it's useful to have a guild thread dedicated to raffle ticket orders and a form, so that you have a record to check against. When the ticket selling period ends, one or more numbers are rolled for the prize(s). Most raffles allow choice (i.e. first winner has first pick, second gets the other pet.) Include "Picks" in your raffle entry form so that you won't be left waiting for customers to respond before handing out pets. Raffle proceeds should be divided equally amongst the colorist for each pet; you may wish to assign extra "shares" for heavily edited pets. It's easier all around if all the raffle pets are of a similar quality/type.

Auctions - Like raffles, auctions last a certain period of time, usually they are for a single pet (or the winner may only keep one of the pets and must give the other(s) away). You may or may not wish to allow co-bidding (depending if you have a multiple pet auction and/or allow co-ownership.) Also decide on your item policy - if you will allow items to be part or all of the payment, and how you will value them. TekTek is the usual tool of choice for valuation of items, many shops use a "TekTek Low -5%" rule for item bids. Anti-Snipe is another thing worth mentioning for auctions - if there are bids in the last 15 minutes of the auction (for example, "snipe guard" protection time is variable) then the auction is extended a further 15 minutes. This protects bidders from being "sniped" by another bidder in the last few seconds of the auction and being unable to counter-bid. "No new bidders in the last 15 minutes" is another common auction rule, to encourage those who want to participate to make at least one bid early on to show their interest and get things started. Some shops offer an "Autobuy" for auctions - that is, a certain price someone can pay to own the pet outright. I would recommend that you do not offer an Autobuy in your shop until you get a good feel for what your auctions usually go for, so as to neither over nor under price yourself, if you wish to use Autobuys. On one hand, they may encourage an early sale when someone sees a pet they "have to have". On the other, you are limiting your sale price to no higher than the AB, which may cost the shop money for a pet that proves unexpectedly popular.

Pre-Raffle Auctions - worth noting on their own, this is an auction with a twist; instead of bidding on a specific pet, customers are bidding on their choice of one raffle pet in the raffle pool. If you are going to run a Pre-Raffle Auction, make sure you conclude it before you open raffle ticket sales; otherwise customers may buy tickets hoping for a certain pet only to have that one taken in the auction, and be disappointed. I commonly have an odd number for a raffle pot that will feature an auction (11 or 13 etc) so there seems to be an "extra" instead of "one missing" when the raffle opens.

Customs - Customs are probably the most difficult and varied sale type to price. While you can ballpark your numbers by looking at other shops, your art, style, level of editing and coloring will all affect your final numbers. Offering a variety of price points will increase your customs appeal. Many shops offer a "colorist's choice" or "semi-custom" option. Colorist's choice means just that, the customer may get to specify one trait and/or gender, but the rest is up to the colorist's whim. Semi-customs typically offer a choice of several colors and possibly a pattern or theme. "Full customs" mean the customer has complete control over the design within your shop's limits.

Plan ahead what, if any limits you will have on your pets. Must they be naturally colored examples of their species? "tribal" or "tatto" paint but otherwise natural? Any color under the sun? What edits will you allow, natural or physical mutations? clothing? mecha/technology? Can growing customs be ordered or adults only? All of these need to be clearly defined in your custom rules. You should also have rules for how often a specific customer can order a custom, and prices for your various custom options. The clearer you make your pricing, the fewer confused customers you'll have to deal with.

Laws of Supply and Demand
One of the odd things about B/C shops is that they're not really analogous to a physical retail shop at all - most of the time, you'll have nothing in stock for sale. Even moderately popular shops find it impossible to keep pets available, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. People tend to appreciate the things they have to earn or work for a bit more than those that are easily obtainable. Now, that doesn't mean you should make your pets difficult to acquire!

Don't nickel and dime the consumer with complicated pricing structures for normal sales. While heavily customized pricing works well for Minishops & customs, it tends to be confusing when dealing with large numbers of individual pets that may not fit into nice neat categories. Price your wares clearly, and make sure you state the fees UP FRONT and boldly. Nobody likes hidden fees. Include all the basics in your flat rate - a portion for the shop, certing, management, and of course the colorist/editor.

Rewards beyond Price
A caution against "rare". It's rather common to see shops with rare or limited pets or pet species. This might be a whole type of pet that is rare, or only a variety - like winged, or "gods". Certain edits might be deemed rare as well, and only available for a very high price. What, you ask, is wrong with rare? It's artificial rarity. The pet/species/edit is only rare because you've made it so, and in many cases certain pets seem to be "rare' only to provide the shop with more money in it's coffers - they're not any better (in many cases only slightly different) than the "common" pets.

So what? Lots of shops have rare pets - what's the harm? Well, none, directly. Indirectly though, rare pets encourage elitism especially when those rare pets are "buyable". Yes they will make your shop richer, but possibly at the expense of good customers turned away because "they could never afford the pet they really wanted". The "common" pets may also be perceived as cheap, less vauable, or less desirable. I've heard and seen people who were unwilling to pair their pets with the so called "commons" for breeding because they weren't good enough to be their pet's mate. Unless you have fixed limits on how many of a "rare" pet will be made, they are quite likely to not remain rare for very long.

Good uses of "rare" - not all rarity is bad. In some cases it's justified or even beneficial. Certain pets may be rare because they play a special role in your plot or story, and require regular attention from their owners as a result. Pets may be seasonal (only available on Halloween, Christmas, Easter, etc.) or a shop reward for your "regulars" - such as Elder stages. Money doesn't matter since you can't buy them, and those who do have them have earned the right to have their "rare" pet. They stand as an accomplishment that anyone can get with honest effort, not a reward for those who can buy GC cards to finance an artificially inflated custom. Certain types of pets may be rare and more expensive because they have unique, complex edits or their own special lineart - in which case it's quite justified to pay more for something that necessitated a lot of extra work.

Don't make your pets nothing but a status symbol for the wealthy.

Ammendum: This isn't to say you shouldn't have variant prices for different lineart or pets, especially if some of them are more complicated or difficult to color/edit than others. Use your common sense, 100, 150 versus 200k pets are reasonable, 100k versus 100 million gold pets are not.

Paying your Staff
Just like a real business, you'll need to keep books - lists of money coming in and money going out, and for what. Accounting may not be a fun task but it's a vital consideration. If you don't pay your staff properly and on time, they're likely to look for employment somewhere else.

Keeping your books online works pretty well, just make sure that you put it somewhere private. Leaving your bookeeping in your main guild isn't recommended if you have Crewed additional accounts (as is likely if you have managers/assistants) because they will be able to edit your accounting information - better to avoid temptation and put the records out of reach.

You may find it helpful to have a "dropoff" thread in a private subforum for your colorists to leave their finished pets - it makes tracking down who colored what and when that much simpler.

Colorist staff are relatively easy to pay, since they work for a straight percentage of the sale price. How much should you pay other staff though, such as assistants, certists or managers? In many cases "support" staff are paid with customs or other in shop perks, but you may also provide them with a share of the profits. Certists are commonly paid a flat fee per pet certed, but it's more difficult to gauge the efforts of managers or assistants. They may get a percentage of the shop's profits each month or a set amount based on their work. It's important to find something that's equitable for all, and ensures you're not losing money on sold pets!

For example, let's say you've decided your flatsale price is 5k, and colorists get 80% of flatsale profits. That means 4k of every pet sold belongs to the colorist, leaving you 1,000 gold to pay other staff and profit. Remember that some of the "profit" from higher valued sales (auctions, raffles, etc) will have to go towards paying for freebies given away unless you're doing them yourself.

~Reserved~