Just coasting ...

We have a few members who would love to rake in the NPs by the millions, and others with more modest goals. Some of us have huge shops and fat bank accounts, while others dream of them. Altogether, this is the group we call Phoenix Feather Mall.

Recently, Ling asked to to be removed from the mall. She has been a stalwart, contributing member to our success, and the idea of losing her hut exposure and having to recruit and replace her category was not appealing. I asked her if she'd mind continuing with reduced pressure to upgrade, expand, chase huts. Her reply:

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I don't mind coasting for a while, as long as I don't get pressure to expand my shop and do lots of things. Maintaining what I have now is no problem. If you want to do that, just let me know. Ling

I hope this doesn't dampen anyone's enthusiasm for the mall, but Ling and Zoro are both large shops, and if circumstances prevent them from full participation in the normal Malling requirements, they can still contribute by just keeping their shops full.

If anyone is concerned about this, let me know by PM. If you're just as glad as I am that we can keep people like these, you're welcome to post your support here!

So, for the record, the following shops have approval to stay in Maintenance-mode until further notice:

Zoro (grooveyshop) - training, faeries
Ling (4bruders) - battle, defence

My level of participation for the next year will be basic. I am able to keep my shop stocked with my small inventory and check in here once a week. My goals are also basic, currently I am aiming to get to the top of hut 220-230. It's red and well located and I'd like to settle into the top spot for the next several months.

I'm surprised at how lucrative my shop is with the smaller inventory. I don't know why I'm doing so well and I don't have the time to figure out why. I am however willing to share the profits. At this time I am able to give the mall 4 million neopoints to spend however you want. My sense is that a neoboard ad is not the best use of the money. Perhaps it could be used to make grants to the smaller shops in return for a commitment to stay with the mall for a period of time. My preference is to hand off the points to Egg for distribution to the mall.

Real life kinda sucks, it will be wonderful once I earn my doctorate but getting there is a lot of busywork and non stop deadlines. I have 6 page referenced papers due twice a week. *sigh* I am looking forward to getting through my program and getting back to having fun! But it is really not realistic for me to do more than basics on neo.

I am happy to keep our main shops

Don't be too quick to judge the neoboard ad - after today I'll be posting my sales history for the week. I had a good week, and the figures don't include a lot of extra sales of items I was selling off from my SDB at slightly above wiz price. I would judge (without actually looking closely at my daily totals) that i have easily made back my investment in this ad, plus some extra profit, and that's just with one button on the ad. I am very happy with my sales this week compared to what they have been.

I would be happy to kick in NPs to try out a NB ad for the mall and see how it goes when we have all the buttons (no escape from the mall!)...but that's if there's someone who thinks they can get top spot. I can't even RS so I would have no hope. The other thing we could try, which I have seen people do, is buying about ten of the cheapest ad in a row, that way you get top of the last page (which is still pretty good for a cheap price) for a number of days.

I am still of the opinion that a neoboard ad is a waste of points, particularly if the mall were to take an entire ad out on its own.

Papers are due twice a week! That sounds harsh, zoro! That's going to feel so good when you're done. Hang in there.

And thank you for your generous offer! I'd love to see what long-term benefits that can buy us ...

An ad isn't out of the question, Roby, but like you, I am not going to be convinced easily that they are worth it. If Spunky is happy with her results, there may be more va,ue to them than I would have thought.

I'm looking forward to seeing your stats, Spunk.

Back on the topic, I hope that the rest of us are still in this whole-heartedly. We can carry smaller shops while they are growing, and we can carry these bigger shops in certain circumstances, but if the majority of our members are just coasting, the mall will die.

I've updated the Directory today, and I'm content that we still have a good group. I'm disappointed with our level of sales, but secretly relieved that restocking my shop doesn't take all my Neo-time.

I haven't been happy with sales recently either, but I tend to think that we were just going through a stage where all of us were waiting for better hut position. It's bound to happen sometimes. Already I'm seeing improvements, but I am paying 220k a fortnight as well...that being said, my bank account is growing for the first time in a long time, and I actually spent some money on my gallery this week. I'm hoping to actually make main by the end of the year.

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My hits record is in square brackets after each day. Interestingly, even though the number of items sold isn't incredible, customers are obviously buying more expensive items, as my sales increased pretty drastically over the last week.
My average profits for the four weeks prior to starting the first NB ad were 180,476. This means I can probably attribute approximately 200k of extra profits last week to the NB advertisement. This means the ad virtually broke even for me this week. The prior round, when I only had gardening, didn't do nearly so well...so I don't think I'd participate in another non-mall 4mil ad unless I had both furny & garden on my button. I'm keen to give the ad a bit longer though, to see if I pick up bookmarks, etc.

This is copied from my sales history. As I said earlier, I would be keen for us to give a NB ad a go as a mall, and I'd be willing to fork out 500k of my own NPs to contribute to it as an experiment. I don't want to go down the path of compulsory NB fees or anything, but I am interested in seeing the impact of all buttons on an ad belonging to us. I wish I'd got around to changing my code last week for the NB ad so you guys could see how many hits were coming from me..but I forgot to do it

Anyway, I'd be interested in what everyone else thinks.

Like some/most? of us, not entirely convinced NB ads are worth our while. I would however be open to experimenting so long as someone is reasonably confident with the timing and implimentation etc. Would be important and interesting to track our hits (Thank the intarwebs for Neomallers, wouldnt be nearly as on top of my shop if not for the portal)

Also fine with the 'Just coasting' actual topic Real life has to come first, and so long as you guys are happy and content with what you're doing on Neo its all gravy to me ^_^

I believe the NB is also a break even now and also noticed top shops aren't running 4M np ads anymore.

TY for coasting top shops.