STAR ARMY

Sci-fi roleplaying and worldbuilding community

User Tools

Site Tools


guide:merchant

This is an old revision of the document!


Guide To Being a Merchant in Star Army

In Star Army, you can play as a business or business owner.

Creating a Storefront

To be a successful merchant in Star Army, you'll need three things:

  1. Products or Services
  2. A catalog page
  3. An RP thread

Products or Services

You want something useful and novel to offer your customers. This could be:

  • Something you make (an item); for example, food supplies for starships
  • Something you do (a service); for example, starship repair

Coming up with unique products or services that interest people is probably the most challenging part of creating a business in SARP. These could be items or services their characters might find useful or you could market to factions.

First, as you choose your market niche, consider your competition or lack thereof. Many factions have internal, government-run entities that handle their needs, particularly for the military. For example, Ketsurui Fleet Yards handles the vast majority of starship design and construction for the Yamatai Star Empire. It can be therefore be very difficult to get a foothold in national-level military supply contracts. There is a huge glut of military manufacturers in Star Army compared to other times of businesses.

Second, consider what is in demand. Water and basic food are always needed.

Yamatai Star Empire

Here's what's in demand in the Yamatai Star Empire:

  1. Clothing shops
  2. Jewelry stores
  3. Food/restaurant chains (Pizza, burgers, Fried Chicken, subs, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, German, ice cream vendors)
  4. Barber shops and/or Beauty Salons
  5. Florists
  6. Car Dealerships
  7. Shoe store
  8. Blanket and bedding shop
  9. Souvenirs and Gifts
  10. A tavern/bar chain
  11. Office space
  12. Bus terminals
  13. Furniture stores
  14. Laundromat chain
  15. Dry Cleaner chain
  16. Movie theaters
  17. Taxis (Commercial transportation)
  18. Banks
  19. Grocery Marts
  20. Bakery chain
  21. Apartment complexes
  22. Brothels

The above are basically untapped niches that are wanted on or near every Star Army of Yamatai facility so they're almost guaranteed to spread across the universe!

What's not wanted:

  1. Slavery (illegal)
  2. Mercenaries (illegal)
  3. Tobacco products (illegal)

Catalog

Your catalog page is an article on the wiki where the items and their prices are listed in one place.

Things to make your catalog great:

  1. Have a few paragraphs that tell customers about the store and its history.
  2. Pictures are a huge boost. People love being able to put images of the products on their character inventory.
  3. List key details and feature of the products or services, and customization options.
  4. Have reasonable prices.

Examples

  1. The Star Army Clothing Store is a good example, with prominent pictures and prices.

RP Threads

The best places to put a storefront thread are in a communications network forum (if you are basically a mail-order business) or the Open Roleplaying Forum (if you want players to be able to visit in person).

Give the costumer a good roleplaying experience with memorable NPCs and good customer service.

Helping Existing Merchants

If you want to make a product for an existing corporation, business, or merchant, the general rule is to talk to whomever owns the company that you plan to submit something for. It is possible that:

  1. They may already be working on something similar, in which case perhaps collaborating, or brainstorming together would be a good idea
  2. It may be something that they do not want their company to make
  3. They may provide you with some input on how to create it and have it fit within their product line.

Quality:
guide/merchant.1401041552.txt.gz ยท Last modified: 2023/12/20 15:52 (external edit)