Shops as Storage

[Reikenbach]

A DM recently notified me that I was committing a rules violation by using part of a player shop for storage. As a result, I wanted to ask for some clarification on this ruling, in addition to providing some additional context for the nature of this storage. I am not so much interested in contesting the ruling as I am in asking for details regarding its reasoning and application - I often see people scoff IC about those who use their shops as secondary storage, but this is the first I've encountered actual DM intervention on the topic.

Storage as a Concept
Just to make it explicit, storage in this case refers to placing an item in a player shop at exorbitant prices in order ensure nobody buys it. I'll point out foremost that this concept is also somewhat nebulous - I've stored cheap items before at well over their value and still had people buy them (much to my chagrin), yet I've also seen other stores listing goods at what many consider insane prices yet those were apparently listed with legitimate intent to sell, regardless of whether they actually do. At what point does an overpriced shop with slow sales become secondary storage?

Proper Use of Shops
I assume the main concern of the ruling is that nobody wants player shops owned by people who just use them as another bank vault, rather than actually selling goods. How does this apply to shops that do see a considerable amount of traffic and sales, though? In my particular case, I have records to attest that the store in question has revenues of multiple millions of gold every in-game month, and I am aware of others who simultaneously run very busy stores that also happen to act as storage at times.

Customer Orders
I'll also mention the items I store have never been for personal use - they have all been items that were ordered by other players and were awaiting pickup. Any that aren't delivered within ten RL days are relisted at prices for general sale.

To the DM who spoke with me, I also want to reiterate that I'm not trying to take this over your head. I will be trying to vacate the items in question as soon as possible (frankly, I was already - I want those slots for new product), but primarily I wanted some more details on this particular ruling regarding shops and in-game chat did not seem the best venue for the topic.

[Gerhazo]

This seems like a ruling that has good intentions but can very easily be worked around.

If someone just sets their shop's prices to an exceedingly high markup, i.e. 2x of what it should actually sell for, they're in a situation where they have extra storage if it doesn't get sold, or get a large paycheck if it does and it cannot get directly proven they're just using their shop for storage.

And in fairness, I've suspected/suspect many shops of already doing just that.

I think there should be mechanical discouragements for owning a shop without sales, but they'd probably be difficult to get right, as well, I think. I wondered about i.e. a tax based on sell prices of items if they or the store as a whole doesn't get enough sales, things of the sort. Maybe settlement/location-based, so shops within high traffic areas, i.e. the hub, or the mercantile house have higher incentive to maintain constant sales, but it could still end up negatively affecting some very remote shops i.e. the one in the shepherd's cave.

[chris a gogo]

It's like many "rules" they are nebulous and down to personal interpretation by the given DM.
Also price is relative, if it's the shop im thinking of yeah it's clearly used as storage, but when my multimillionaire characters need an item they just go buy it from there anyway, as it's quicker to spend the gold then make it back than spending weeks running runic dungeons.

[The GrumpyCat]

So from our angle, as a DM, you're right. This is a little difficult to enforce/work on, sure.

But from YOUR angle, as a player, this is increadibly easy.

Are you putting in an item at a price you believe the item with the intent that the item will sell?
If yes? Great.
If no? Don't.

If we work on the presumption that the majority of people and majoity of items are put in shops to sell, then everything works fine.

It's only if people do use shops as storage do we really then have to look at mechanical ways of stopping them which - as stated above, will be problematic and honestly is something I really don't want.

So lets not do that. Lets all try and play the game honestly and fairly, and then we don't have to step in with more stupid systems, or rule enforcements, and we can all have fun.

[Nazmina]

I feel like the only mistake they made was actually renaming items as reserved in shop, Otherwise no one would have noticed or cared given that the ""Stored"" items move out faster than most people actually trying to sell things do.

Feel like this is a spirit of the rule vs letter of the rule situation. I'm under the impression the intention against using shops for permanent storage is that you don't want shop sitting with effectively unused as shops while other people struggle to find shops to sell their wares at.

I personally don't think its an issue to use a few slots of an otherwise properly managed shop as temporary (less than a week) storage for items that will still be sold anyways (Just in person).

Edit: I guess maybe rename reserved and list how high extra price is and have it be within reason, like 50% increase and a shop sign explaining that unclamied reserved items will be sold at normal price after x time?

[Kythana]

If someone just sets their shop's prices to an exceedingly high markup, i.e. 2x of what it should actually sell for, they're in a situation where they have extra storage if it doesn't get sold, or get a large paycheck if it does and it cannot get directly proven they're just using their shop for storage.

And in fairness, I've suspected/suspect many shops of already doing just that.

Essentially what it comes down to, yes. There is a pretty infamous shop that I have received the anti-muling message for on new characters a year after I sold the initial item in question. And I know it was from that character, because I never have sold that item on any other characters.

But they're only priced at around a 50% markup or so over the "normal" price, so it's very easy to act deliberately disingenuous and claim that you were 'totally trying to sell it!'

The state of shops always makes me sad when I see the average usage.

[Eyeliner]

I think veteran players forget how difficult it is to learn how to run a shop when you're inexperienced. We have settlement rules to keep most of the best shops in line and that's great, but at the same time if you're fumbling around alone or with a small crew it's not always easy to find out what things should sell for. Especially if you can't find anyone else selling the same thing, which is often the case with tailoring or smithing weapons on spec. If I am not sure I'll always err on the side of high and bring it down if it doesn't move.

There's no official guide of what things are supposed to sell for on Arelith. Maybe that should be on the wiki if we're going to warn or punish people for pricing at 150 or 200 of what they "should" be, because where is that "should" coming from anyway*? Some guilds can make stuff on really tight margins and some independent crafters struggle to gather all the materials and don't want to let the final product go for almost no profit and that should be okay too. I mean in RL you have your Wal Marts and you have your little mom and pop stores selling for a lot more because they have to and sometimes you'd rather support them for whatever reason.

*(and yeah yeah, "ask someone", that works when it works and doesn't when no one can or will help)

[Reikenbach]

I feel like the only mistake they made was actually renaming items as reserved in shop, Otherwise no one would have noticed or cared given that the ""Stored"" items move out faster than most people actually trying to sell things do.

Ironically, I only applied the "Reserved" label to these items so that people didn't start thinking that's the price I actually sold those items at if they wanted one themselves. But yes, it very much feels like the lesson I'm being taught is to make it less obvious when I see other shops hosting ludicrously-priced inventory that sits there for months on end.

[Paint]

For the record, some shopkeepers will intentionally sell things at a higher markup than the current market rate simply because they believe that the item will eventually sell anyways due to convenience; The rarer the item, the more likely this trick is to work, and I've seen it work a lot. Whether or not you like that is up to you, but I don't think that goods sold this way are sold disingenuously, nor typically stored with the intent not to sell them.

Though considering we all know exactly what this is about, I suppose I understand the intervention in this case, but if we're being honest, the shop those items were stored in had a very healthy stock of other items, so it's not as if that shop was entirely being misused.

[Eyeliner]

I mean, if some people are pricing things on the low end I don't see why that has to be the price everyone is supposed to adhere to (and the implication is you're gouging if you price it at what's fair to you instead of what the biggest merchant guild in Cordor can charge)

Charging absurd rates to get around the storage system is one thing but an independent crafter who can't churn items out anywhere near as fast as a corporation of kobolds charging twice what they the kobolds do shouldn't be against server rules. Settlement rules IG, sure-- the leader should kick them out of the shop if the sales are bad, but it's certainly not something to get a DM scolding over.

[Kushion]

Considering that the player in question is literally using the “storage” FOR /in-person/ sales, I really don’t see the issue. It’s not being used for personal storage, at all.

This just makes it more difficult to hold items for in person trades, and gives more incentive to resort to 0 interaction shop purchases, out of convenience.

[Xerah]

It’s a little wild that this was flagged as an issue to be honest. It’s against the letter of the law, sure, but certainly not the spirit of it.

[Reikenbach]

Settlement rules IG, sure-- the leader should kick them out of the shop if the sales are bad, but it's certainly not something to get a DM scolding over.

By that rationale, though, shouldn't handling of stores treated as secondary storage also fall to responsibility of the settlement leaders? Is a store that makes few sales but has entirely legitimate inventory better than, worse than, or equivalent to a store that makes many sales but uses some of its slots for storage? Moreover, is a store that makes no sales functionally any different than a store where the entire inventory is used as storage?

[Windows95 CD-ROM]

So from our angle, as a DM, you're right. This is a little difficult to enforce/work on, sure.

But from YOUR angle, as a player, this is increadibly easy.

Are you putting in an item at a price you believe the item with the intent that the item will sell?
If yes? Great.
If no? Don't.

If we work on the presumption that the majority of people and majoity of items are put in shops to sell, then everything works fine.

It's only if people do use shops as storage do we really then have to look at mechanical ways of stopping them which - as stated above, will be problematic and honestly is something I really don't want.

So lets not do that. Lets all try and play the game honestly and fairly, and then we don't have to step in with more stupid systems, or rule enforcements, and we can all have fun.

This is incredibly true.

[Griefmaker]

Considering that the player in question is literally using the “storage” FOR /in-person/ sales, I really don’t see the issue. It’s not being used for personal storage, at all.

This is the crux of the entire issue.

And it is why this is NOT an actual issue, as compared to many other instances where people will literally set some item at 1 million coins simply so no one buys it, or if they do for whatever silly reason, the shop owner profits.

[whitewingeddove]

Grumpycat already said it best with:

Are you putting in an item at a price you believe the item with the intent that the item will sell?
If yes? Great.
If no? Don't.

And we as a team have to evaluate the big-picture ramifications of allowing exceptions to this. We can write a long list of acceptable exceptions that will lead to shops being used as secondary storage, because it will become a mess for us to monitor and in the long run will turn into more permanent storage because of the increased workload to monitor and lack of tools we have to effectively monitor. The best solution is a simple black and white one.

The best practice to this is to not rely on shop slots to be used as storage, whether temporary or permanent, for the use of trade and selling later or not. That's not their purpose, so you should plan accordingly.

Also, this discussion isn't about shops with items that are priced slightly above or below "market value". We don't expect players to be experts in the price of goods, and we acknowledge that certain shop pricing models work differently. This is a good point here:

For the record, some shopkeepers will intentionally sell things at a higher markup than the current market rate simply because they believe that the item will eventually sell anyways due to convenience; The rarer the item, the more likely this trick is to work, and I've seen it work a lot. Whether or not you like that is up to you, but I don't think that goods sold this way are sold disingenuously, nor typically stored with the intent not to sell them.

The bottom line here is intent. Things put into shops should be put there with the intent to sell out of the shop, and priced with a reasonable intent to sell at that price. We on the team are also happy to advise and coach. If players need help pricing items or managing inventory slots, we can advise.

[Carrion Eater]

We on the team are also happy to advise and coach. If players need help pricing items or managing inventory slots, we can advise.

Sorry to piggyback on this, as it's a step away from using shops as storage and is a question pertaining to managing inventory slots.

Last year we got this reminder from the DM team regarding the stacking of scrollcases and sequencers. I have seen a couple shops that are stacking sequencers, namely in Dis and Cordor. If we see this being done, should we still just report it when we see it through "Other Rulings - Exploits" for coaching/advisement, or has this ruling changed?

I ask if it's changed because when I brought it up to someone else, they told me the DM team didn't care about it anymore and it was no longer an exploit. I wasn't sure, so I hoped to ask! Thanks.

I don't personally care that much about stacking. It's curiosity for whether the ruling is still active.

[The GrumpyCat]

We on the team are also happy to advise and coach. If players need help pricing items or managing inventory slots, we can advise.

Sorry to piggyback on this, as it's a step away from using shops as storage and is a question pertaining to managing inventory slots.

Last year we got this reminder from the DM team regarding the stacking of scrollcases and sequencers. I have seen a couple shops that are stacking sequencers, namely in Dis and Cordor. If we see this being done, should we still just report it when we see it through "Other Rulings - Exploits" for coaching/advisement, or has this ruling changed?

I ask if it's changed because when I brought it up to someone else, they told me the DM team didn't care about it anymore and it was no longer an exploit. I wasn't sure, so I hoped to ask! Thanks.

I don't personally care that much about stacking. It's curiosity for whether the ruling is still active.

Hello, yeah please can you report that?

There's a lot on the server and we dont' always notice things immedatly. But just because we havn't noticed, doesn't mean it's allowed.

Thanks for bringing this up.