Guild Bake shop-Important Announcement Pg 9

[Suzuka-dono]

Oro~ If you ever do, you should take a picture and show me! owo heart  

[Pixilated Envy]

I've investigated this shop. I've even pulled in a few avid art buyers to help me in my report. And here's the deal. There are a few things that need to be cleaned up to start taking the overall revenue of 500g to 500kg. And before anyone starts thinking that 500k is a lot-- trust me when I say, with a few alterations that will be nothing in comparison to what you will be making.

For starters - the raffle? Money back on tickets? No, no no. Lady E is far too talented for that. You don't need to give back the gold to the winner. At least, not if you plan to do it again. May as well leave it this time.

I wanted to buy 100 tickets right off the top. I don't know where to send my gold to. The waiter process doesn't seem to work. I went in-- role played to order and guess what.. no one was there to take my order while there was a bumper present. Solution-- cut out the waiters-- at least in the sense of being able to have a transaction from them.

My proposal: Lets get with Bliss/Sabs about making a sub-forum for the Bake Sale. (and/or flower shop if that goes live.)

Find 3 Active/Dedicated/Trust worthy people who can access the Shop Mule. Have all transactions go through the mule.

Now where do the waiters come in? They can bump and/or interact with customers as they come in. When an order is placed they will Copy & Paste it into the guild sub-forum (specific thread). Then when 1 of the 3 who have access to the shop come on all of the orders are neatly organized for them to tackle. Should the shop ever become overly swamped with orders-- the waiters can help send out orders once the 3 with shop access have confirmed an order is PAID.

It is also very useful to allow said 3 to have access to crew (if they do not already.) That way they can edit in what orders are PAID/Delivered.

This is a common practice done in many B/C shop/guilds.

Now as for the role playing. I've already heard first hand from a friend.. "Oh, I don't know if I can buy there.. its a role playing shop."

Non-role players tend to have a lot of gold to spend on art. My theory is they're so actively making gold instead of role playing. Of course, that's a biased opinion and not to be taken entirely too seriously. However, I will say that (imo) the constant bumping will make RPing difficult. And the RPing will make it most difficult to pull in non-rping buyers.

I'd potentially recommend having a place for RP of the shop. Which, with care, could happen right here in the guild. Which serves as an additional purpose of bringing people right here to the ball. Again, a practice that works well in B/C communities.

So all in all. You're ranking high in art quality.. low in buying ease. And raising buying ease is what will be what it takes to up the incoming revenue.

I'd also recommend re-arranging some of the info on the opening entry of the thread to where its much faster to get to what is being sold. After all.. if they're browsing through an art mini shop-- that is their prime goal. To buy the art.  

[stupidpsycho]

i kinda wonder how things are delivered too.

how i get it its ther person orders and send trade, trade is accepted, person who ordered accepts, confirmed trade message is sent to waiter. thats seems like a kinda long wait to buy art since its going through so many people/things.

that and pixie is kinda right bout the rp thing turning people away. <_< i myself fail at rping so i've only been bumping so far.

that and i just noticed the shop name cuz i'm an idiot XD can we change the name to ethereal bake house? cuz ethereal bake goods sounds weird to me for some reason >_> might be because of the bake part; should be baked. ethereal baked goods. but i like house better, it sounds more homey like coffee houses ya get to sit in coffee houses and eat in the spot. bake goods sound like its a bakery where ya walk in buy ur food and eat it on you way out the door/somewhere far far away. (lol stupid logic. i blame the hunger and it being 3am. my brain is wandering into la la land XD)  

[Pixilated Envy]

Yah, in order for the shop to rank higher in service a lot of the middleman route is going to need to be snipped and the roles revamped.  

[Suzuka-dono]

haha... I'm okay at rping, but I have severe issues with remembering that I'm actually in the middle of an RP, and tend to forget... *cough* so yeah. *shrug* I've sort of avoided RP threads as a result.
what Pixel listed sounds like a pretty good plan. It would be much easier to have the whole transaction thing split up amongst people, instead of all one person, who may or may not be online.
A few other technical, but easily fixable areas need a bit of tweaking as well. (the name, as pyscho mentioned. Doesn't quite make grammatical sense.)  

[Lady Elmira]

Sorry guys. I have no idea how to do this. I have never ran stuff like this before. I was just trying to get it started.

Another note, I have started a new job in my real life and it is going to leave me so much busier than normal.Leaving me with less time to put into the shop. So I am thinking or passing the shop on to someone else who can put the effort into it. I am not going to make rash decisions, and I will think about it.

Thank you to all that have bear with me as I make these mistakes. And thanks for helping out.  

[Lady Elmira]

Due to the events unfolding in my life, I have made this tough decision to step down as head of this event. I don't want to put only half of the time in this shop when it deserves someone who can put the time into it. I am sorry everyone that I could not stay on.

As for a my replacement, I have not chosen anyone. If someone wants to take my place, PM me and I will make my choice.

I am sorry again.

Lady E  

[Suzuka-dono]

Well... this is an interesting turn of events?

I don't think I'll be able to take over. I don't have enough time in my schedule these days to be dedicated to any one project on gaia anymore. =____=;

But I'll still be happy to help out whoever steps up.

I think you've done a good job Lady Elmira, while you had the time. Real life is always more important than that of the internet, no one blames you for making your happiness your priority. ^ ^ Good luck with the things going on in your life, I'm sure they'll turn out all right.  

[Pixilated Envy]

I'm so sorry that you are stepping down from this Lady E-- you're so talented, but naturally real life must always be of top priority. We Love you!!

As I offered to Lady E, I shall offer to whomever takes this over.. I am willing to help and support this shop. Be it donating a sweets creation, plugging it to potential sweet buyers, or helping with orders when my shop is slow. That and offering critiques & suggestions to help it become more successful.  

[stupidpsycho]

i could probably take over but i'll probably do alot of random(not really so random) things to the shop. if you dont mind that i could take on this shop. i'll explain more when i pm ya.  

[Lady Elmira]

Congrads to stupidpsycho,Pixilated Envy, Whimsical Rhetoric who are the new shop hosts.  

[Suzuka-dono]

Cool. :3 I'm here to help out if you guys need it~  

[stupidpsycho]

we are currently trying to figure out what to do with the shop.  

[Dead0410]

Just from a customer's point of view, the bake sale has kinda of been empty, other than me and ball staff. If you want more people I would suggest you move or restart the thread in a different forum or get some people to go out and advertise like crazy.

Change your staff up a bit. You have 9 waiters...when you only really need 4 or 5, and I've noticed a lot of the ball staff is really busy, so maybe use people who aren't as involved in the ball as some people currently listed as waiters.

Just don't do RP, or do it in the guild. I like RP personally, but I know a lot of people who will totally avoid RP place no matter what. The bake sale is there to fund raise and advertise for the 8th Annual Ball, so just tell people that, and they'll stay and chat. Many people love the ball and will gladly keep the thread up and donate if it means helping the ball, but many of them won't want to go through RPing.

Keep a list of orders somewhere on the front page. It's much nicer for customers to be able to see that their order has been filed, rather than just hoping that someone has noticed it. (hint hint: I'm still waiting on an English Muffin ^.^))

As for getting orders filed, just have waiters PM the order to the mule (so they can be added to the front page) and the least busy baker (maybe put them on rotation for orders?). Have all trades go to the mule, who will send the funds to wherever the funds for the ball are being kept when the bake sale has fulfilled it's job and can be closed.

I hope this helps. biggrin  

[Lectern]

I hope this doesn't complicate things more, but I think I will resign from my position of a roleplayer/waiter. In the chaos of the endless bumps, I've some what lost interest. I would love to have continued to help out, but I need to start focusing on some other things in the guild and in real life. I'm very sorry if this causes inconvience!