Slow part of the year for mall?

I guess school starts mean less sells?

Yes, the common wisdom is that sales will begin to slow down now as all the kids, myself included, are back in school for the tme being. They won't be too sluggish though, the worst is after Christmas (February, March, April, May) when the spring doldrums are in full effect with school exams. Even then, the sales are worthwhile.

Roby has asked about activity level and Neo-time. With how slow things have been, how are the rest of you feeling about our business together?

For me, there's a lot of stuff happening - good things mostly - and I can't make Neopets enough of a priority to do everything I want with the mall, but I really don't want to lose the sales from mall-traffic. I still have battledome goals, and I like relaxing with some games, and discussing things with friends at the neo-related forums. So for me, I hope we can stick together without putting pressure on each other to perform.

I've jumped back into my good hut, and I'm aiming to maintain a position in these two red huts until spring. If business is good enough over the winter I hope I'll have banked enough to justify lookng at the next big jump. We'll see.

I don't want to lose anyone who is more ambitious and anxious for neo-wealth. We have a good group of reliable people!

I am having a rather busy time in my life at the moment too, so I am happy to coast for the moment. Between baby on the way, building and moving house, work and uni, neo has taken a back seat. But I'm hoping once I finish work in four weeks or so I'll have a brief period where I can dedicate a bunch of time to the mall. I'll probably look at all my products, pricing, get some specials coding ready to go for the next few months etc.

Glad things are going well for everyone. I'm busy too but haven't forgotten neo. I'm slowly rebuilding. When everyone has more time for neo I'd like to pick up the conversation about rejoining the mall.

Does seem kind of slow, though have had one or two good days.

Happy for those who want to coast to do so, so long as shops look good and are stocked I have no issues

Zoro - Would you like to take over on Backgrounds for now? It wasnt amazingly profitable as a single category but it was steady, and would give you something to do right now that wouldnt require much in the way of banner changes for everyone.

PS I still check in here every time I log on, which is still nearly every day at the moment (with some upcoming exceptions - moving house being one)

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Pfizz, if you want to share your buttons, that's ok by me, so long as you don't mind giving up some of your business.

Zoro, Xaheras has worked on a new banner for you - back when we were first talking about getting you back in - but I haven't seen it. She's around a bit this weekend, and I hope she'll get online soon. Also, Backgrounds might be a decent cataegory for a small shop - it's sold retail in only one neopian shop, there's some good limited edition opportunities, and there's not too many so you could conceivably offer a complete selection. Also. people like to buy them and change their look. If you kept Sand, all the sand would be shown top of the page.

I appreciate knowing you're nearby, Spunky! Also, all the best with your real life Adjustments!

Generally, from the amount of activity in the forum here, it seems like no one is going to complain, so long as all the shops are decently maintained, and members are online daily to get notices of banner changes and whatnot. I'd still like to hear from the rest of the group, so I'll send out a mass mail shortly.

I'm doing my best to keep up, but things have been busy. In compensation, I'm planning on changing to stocking only 1 page of stock (as I did with my category intially) and bulking upheavily on these 79 items. There should also be a major upgrade in the works, but that requires selling a few items. Hopefully the busyness in my life will die down in the next few months and I can expand my stock again. So long as everyone maintains their shops and is online regularly, I'm more than happy to be here.

Ditto to whats already been said. I'm happy just keeping up stock levels and upgrading occasionally. Once every week or two I manage to motivate myself to get on for an hour or so to restock.

I am happy to keep coasting as is, and work Zoro back in. I have been so busy with work lately, Neo has been a low priority for me also. I plan on getting the shop stocked full again over the next five days; that should hold me again for a while. Sales are so-so, but my effort is so-so, so-so I will not complain.

I am still doing some events with RAWR; I now have the task of defeating Mr. Chuckles x1000 --

backgrounds sound good. I can give up sand

Right now I'm in my last year in law school, which means having real cases. That takes much time away from since I'm also enrolled full time in law school. In neopets, I've been upgrading the shop somewhat and putting in items when I can, plus I have to take a test on October 15. Right now my schedule is pretty much full

Just like everybody else, sales are pretty slow for me. I don't mind everybody coasting, cause I also am a little more busy than anticipated this fall cause I work and I'm taking a class at a local school.

I know at some point zoro mentioned possibly taking 1001 np deals? If you're not interested in it, I think I'm kind of tiring of doing drinks and would like something a lil different than what I've been doing. I'd love to keep neggs, and maybe roby can do food and drinks? Just a thought, let me know what you guys think.

I'm done with school, been sick 3 times the last month. But I have a lot of time lately.
Sales has been averaging 7.5 sales (I make about 1000 a sale). so 7,500 profit a day.

In the mean time, I'm still feeding neodaq profits to the shop. Though sales has been slow in neodaq too.

Amber, if you'd prefer to continue with only neggs I'd be okay with rolling drinks into my category. It's really a matter of your choice and Egg's approval.

I would love to see you with a stronger category, Amber! I want to steer clear of the 1001 deals though. Let's think about what could go with Neggs to make your shop work better.

I agree that giving Roby full control of Food & Drinks is a good move. Yeah, I know you are cutting back, Roby, but even expanding or replacing enough to add Amers 20 best sellers would be fine. or something like that.

OK, well it looks like we will need some banner-work after all. XAHERAS! Get in here! please?

nstarz - you've made a fantasic petpage catelogue! *wants one too* How long has that been up? Are you going to add a hit counter to it? Do you intend to keep every item in the catelogue stocked? (I randomly picked one that wasn't.) Anyway, sorry you're been sick, but if you've got more time to play, we should see what would attract more business to your shop ... to keep you out of mischief, y'know?

I think its been on around August when I was asking about wearables.

I'm better now, I found out the best way to lose weight is to get an infection, a stomach virus and a flu 1 year in a gym doesn't compare to that

I just reamp my paint brushes and now have 7 attracting newbies and hackers to my account.

I don't have a counter on the petpage (is there one allowed by neopets?)

I do have the link to items marked so that I can see.

Hut Other Mall Petpages Shop Wiz NB Misc
Today: 0 19 19 1 0 0 0
Yesterday: 2 2 27 0 0 0 0

I posted more items that I can have. Some are UB, and I didn't remove them from the petpage. (It took a long time to find out one item word was a censored word of neopets)

I try to stock everything (all quest), but I'm behind this last week.

Grr, I tried out some links and it seems neopets changed it and we can't put ? for some items anymore. That means more HTML work

I think there are two ways of looking at the Negg category. Firstly, as a collectible, secondly as a treat food. If you take it in the first sense, it would seem reasonable to combine it with something like Usukis (I know those are something of a toy and thus Nstarz category). Taking it as a food, combining it with Bakery and Sweets might be a viable and natural fit.

I've always liked looking at Neggs - they seem special. I think they can be used to fancy-up a plain-looking shop, like books or cards maybe. I also think they could fit with a limited category like PBs or maps. just some thoughts ...

nstarz, neomallers has code exactly for tracking your petpage, and it shpows up in your stats, too.
http://www.neomallers.com/counter_variables

I just realized I haven't neomailed auri! must fix the mailing list ...

Sorry it's taken awhile. I tried to come in here the other day and no go.

So I'm here now. Lots of banner changes to be made. Can do.

What changing exactly? (so out of it!)

Yes, I did add the anchor to each of the petpage linkies.

I rarely get a click.

The 1 recorded hit yesterday must have been from you

Anyone ever check their stats for their stock?

http://www.neomallers.com/topshops?ftcat=Toy&Submit=Filter is for Toys.

Sometimes I check to see how others are getting hits:

Code:

        Hut    Other    Mall    Petpages    S-Wiz    NB    Misc
Page Avg:    1    8    15    0    12    3    1
You:        0    14    25    0    0    0    0

It seem for pure hits, most are going from Mall, than Super Wiz.

Hmmm, I'm not sure. I guess I was interested in 1001 deals just because it seems like a a pretty easy category, plus the prices seem like they would be a good contrast btw the neggs. The thing about doing paintbrushes and maps or most other limited categories is that they're pretty expensive, so my shop would end up having a majority of very expensive items, and not a lot of inexpensive items. I would like a category that would give me some sort of balance in regard to prices.

I guess I haven't given any thought beyond the deal category, but we have such a full mall, that I can't even imagine too many viable categories outside the ones we have.

I guess its time to decide which category I'm going to carry. Backgrounds is fine but I'm open to other ideas.

zoro wrote:

I guess its time to decide which category I'm going to carry. Backgrounds is fine but I'm open to other ideas.

One idea that I was bouncing around was if you had backgrounds and pet paintbrushes. I'd keep the petpet paintbrushes.

Not sure what anyone else thinks about splitting the two categories.