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### Topic

#### A glitch business opportunity -- fast delivery.

I'm putting this out as a suggestion because I only am able to play sporadically.
A group of players who spend a significant amount of time in-world, particularly spanning time zones, could get together and put together an expedited delivery service. They could establish a home base and share keys, then offer a broad range of items and a slight premium to auctions. The value-add would be fast delivery to your home street. Do you need seeds, or honey, or tomatoes, or a potion, and want it now? IM the dispatcher and a delivery representative would be dispatched to your home street within a minute or two.
I hope some people run with this. I hate having to wait for the frog.

Posted 7 months ago by WalruZ | Permalink

### Replies

- YES.
  I think this idea has come about before in the past with limited success. With the addition of keys (and in the future group halls) a "warehouse" system would be truly possible making this a MUCH more practical business.
  I would go you one further and recommend that anyone who wants to make this thing happen also invest a little time into watching what auction items are listed at low prices and buy them up. Making sure you have items in stock will be vital.
  Your employees do not need to be suppliers, but couriers. Eager new players (once the game opens up) will probably be the best option for this and provide the most value to everyone involved (new players want money and social engagement).
  Suppliers can be based off of a balanced skill set of investors. If I, as a bankroller of the business early on invest both money (for buying surplus goods) as well as a skill (say wood working), you can bet your butt that will pay off. Because of the free, unlimited jumps to home streets, the need for teleporting / tp scripts (and limits therein) is gone. There's no major barrier in game to making this a very practical and profitable business.
  Another tip: Stick to raw materials and machined goods. Avoid complex stuff with low value. Stick to things people need in order to make other things, since that tends to be a more common buying trend, especially when it comes to home expansion and resource revival.
  Edit: Walruz, if you wanted to work together we could probably do the lazy version where we recruit through a forum thread and organize a group. It could, in theory, run itself with minimal effort from any one person. Employee discounts, anyone?
  Posted 7 months ago by Xev | Permalink
- And it would be called....
  UrPS?
  FenneqEx?
  TiiHL?
  Posted 7 months ago by CrashTestPilot | Permalink
- Walruz, might I suggest a simpler less jerk-prone model? Identify some items you want to be able to access quickly. When you come in world, announce said items in global as well as the current auction price. Anybody in global willing to supply said item at AH minus 5% can still make a profit, you can still get at a lower price, you and supplier can meet at a home street to trade.
  Posted 7 months ago by Vocable | Permalink
- :( Why is an in-game business model jerk-prone?
  Posted 7 months ago by Xev | Permalink
- Xev, those are great points. I would say also, think about failure points and try to engineer your infrastructure to avoid them. Also think about what you don't want to be - probably not a supplier of bulk goods for standing orders; there are several groups doing that already; your market edge would be the fast delivery.
  In order for it to be worth it, you'll have to get it there faster than 10 minutes; that means that you won't be able to take orders via the forum. You'll need people "staffing" the group chat all of the time or decide to be open only during certain hours. You'll need couriers ready to respond quickly to orders, so that they can load up the desired item and get to the buyer's home street within that 10 minute window - say 8 minutes at the latest before I wonder if I should have got a frog instead. You might have the call centre operators putting together bags of the ordered items for couriers to pick up as they zip in and out.
  This means that you either need enough couriers and call centre operators that there is always someone around, or for your people to commit to working certain shifts.
  As Xev points out, another failure mode would be to not have the given item in stock or for it to be unavailable to the people on staff at the time. Great suggestions on how to avoid those issues.
  Posted 7 months ago by Scarlett Bearsdale | Permalink
- "In order for it to be worth it, you'll have to get it there faster than 10 minutes;"
  That is indeed the USP. Anything short of that becomes besides the point and not worth the investment. 100% agreed.
  Couriers, especially new players who want something to do in-game that's more social / group oriented, could be paid a modest sum to jump back and forth between home streets and the dedicated warehouse (for now, that would have to be someone's home with keys given out to employees - but in future this could very likely be a group hall).
  Only being open certain hours is how I think it would have to start. So again, 100% agreed. I think a phased approach (or the "let's not get too big for our britches" approach, as I like to call it) would be to do dedicated times - when the game tends to be active, and add open hours from there.
  So a good window might be between 8-10pm EST to start (just shooting that out, it would probably make sense to do some test runs and see what feels right), and expanding as demand and resources permit.
  Posted 7 months ago by Xev | Permalink
- Items to warehouse -- ie, the ones I think will be in high demand.
  Jellisacs
  Fuel Cells
  Boards
  Snails
  Plain Metal Ingots
  Plain Crystals
  Finished food, probably Awesome Stew, Tasty Pasta, and perhaps a few others.
  Flaming Humbabae
  Earthshakers
  Savory Smoothies
  Rookswort
  Various Essences used in Resource Restoration
  Chunks of Amber
  Just my stab at it; What do you think will be in high demand?
  Posted 7 months ago by CrashTestPilot | Permalink
- Flaming Humbabae <3
  Posted 7 months ago by Xev | Permalink
- Wasn't there a mention about us having the ability to vend from our home street in the future? I can't find the forum where it was said, I hope someone can help me on that...but how would that option affect our desire to offer delivery? Entrepreneurs are great, and I'd rather give my currants to a fellow Glitch rather than a street vendor. (Auctions are quite impersonal)
  As long as we can visit others' home streets so easily, vending makes your wares available constantly without business hours. I'm picturing that I could teleport to a vending Glitch's street and *bam* be standing in front of the 500 cherries I wanted to buy, and that's 7 minutes faster than 8.
  I dont play at regular times, so the consumer end is the mindset I have when asking the above, and I am curious. I can also be shy, so I see purchasing from the same Glitch or group repeatedly as a means to build more relationships.
  Posted 7 months ago by SallySomeone | Permalink
- Hmm, I hadn't heard that much about vendors to speculate, but that's a pretty interesting development. A vendor's wares would be (potentially) much more limited, so the two ideas aren't mutually exclusive.
  In fact, they could be very complimentary - vendors could specialize in wares based on their expertise.
  Alternately, a network of vendors in conjunction with delivery could work well too. All very cool thoughts.
  Posted 7 months ago by Xev | Permalink
- Dearest all, I can hardly remember what I meant by suggesting that some biz models other than my own suggestion might be potentially jerk-worthy!
  There is a wonderful Noel Coward play where two lovers decide to defuse quarrels by using the abbreviated statment "Sollocks" to mean, let's not have a big fight.
  I think a similar abbreviation might work well as Global spam. Maybe not sollocks but a link to a post in Global saying "I have piles of good stuff in SDBs which I will sell to you at 5% off the currant AH price if you come to my street to collect it in the next five minutes."
  Posted 7 months ago by Vocable | Permalink
- I don't think there's any need for a code word, or generous discounts - your post was all the explanation I needed :)
  I didn't mean for it to be a loaded question, simply asking for clarification on what was a confusing statement.
  All good on this end.
  Posted 7 months ago by Xev | Permalink