Malling

Now you might have noticed that there are some neopians with MASSIVE shops, sizes 535 and above. At this point, the total cost for upgrading a shop from size 0 to size 535 is (28,676,000) NP. What makes people take these MASSIVE risk just to upgrade a shop that high? Well, it's because they'll be able to show up on the main market marketplace. This means that they can direct extra traffic to their shops, no matter what their prices are.

Basically malls work like this: A group of shops collectively link together, each supplying different types of items, and referring visitors to other shops that contain their own class of specialized items. Each shop is overpriced by a couple 1000 NP over the shop wizard, which amounts to profits for the mallers. In time, the costs are eventually offset, and mallers can start making real profits.

What You Need to Start Making A Mall

First off, it's suggested that you have about 30 million NP in pure so that not only can you upgrade and stay in main market, but you can also adequatly stock your shop with supplies. Here are some notes to consider:

1. Shops are arranged in reverse alphabetical order. Thus, if your name comes afterwards in ABC Order, your shop will appear ABOVE the same size shops that come before you in ABC order.
2. There are three places to put your shop, main market, haunted woods, and mystery island. Thus your position can move around even when people aren't updating
3. The Main market gets the most visitors.
4. Don't expect to make profits right away, malling's a slow business.

F.A.Q.

Q: Malls are overpriced! Why would anybody buy from them?
A: While this is true, they need to offset the costs. For those that want to be able to browse through a large selection or need an item for a faerie quests, Malls are a necessary resource.

Q: Isn't malling scamming?! You're trying to scam us!
A: No, we're trying to offset our shop and stock costs, malling's a costly business, and noticeboards cost even more.

Q: How much will it cost to start a mall?
A: About 30 million NP start up, and noticeboard fees can run from 200,000 to 400,000 per week per person depending on how many members you have.

Q: Which mall sections are the most profitable?
A: Usually people say Training or Petpets is the most profitable, but all of them can be better than each other depending on the shop owner.

Q: Can I just set my price to be 20k above shop wizard price?
A: Now that's just being mean to newbies, and most will be very angry/can't afford that. I suggest you set it to about 1~3k above shop wizard price, which is affordable and fair.

Q: How much profit do you get from malling each day?
A: With Shop Till - costs, the average neopian makes about 50~150k in profits a day with an average mall. Worse malls can make less, and good malls can POSSIBLY make 400~800k a day, but that's with insanely large shops, some of which cost billions of NP just to upgrade to that level.