(In response to a discussion in the General forum: Phasing out NPC Vendors...could it mean "phasing in" in-world player vendors / mini-market hubs?)
Make everything harvestable in some way: new trees / beehives / fishing holes / icy regions / mushroom beds, etc.
Combine NPC vendors into small marketplaces
I'd like it if the street vendors were combined into little community markets or "malls", perhaps two or three per region, with all items players can harvest or craft taken off the vendors' inventory lists. In addition to finding new ways to "live off the land" (fishing for salmon in ponds (or, knowing Glitch, doing something unexpected like fishing upwards into the sky), beehives / honeybears / bumblebears / honey badgers for honey to extract from combs, olive trees / plants for olives to press into olive oil, birch trees for sap to process into syrup?), maybe players could also generate a thriving market independently.
Special player-run and player-owned (basic skills) roadside kiosks and (advanced skills) marketplace stores
It would also be swell if players could learn a Vendor skill and get a business permit to set up little temporary roadside stands, like:
* Lemonade Stands (various basic fruit drinks),
* Pet Stores (hogtied piggies, baby animals and animal eggs),
* Florists (herbs, buff-based potions and tinctures),
* Apothecaries (powders, ores, and elements),
* Farmer's Markets (gardened veggies and crafted fruits),
* Pubs and Speakeasies (crafted drinks and basic hooch),
* Shady-looking Shifty-Eyed Person In A Trenchcoat Under A Flickering Streetlamp (no-no, entertainment-based potions, Purple),
* Event Planning (party packs and entertainment-type potions),
* Music Stores (music blocks),
* Scribes / Newsstands (player-created newsletters or jokes or links to pictures or mini-quests, quills and paper; the vendor could offer to write something for other players without paper, a quill or Penpersonship)
and/or
* little food carts (various skill levels and available menu items; better food available from more skilled or higher-level players). (Some of these ideas are less practical than others, obviously.)
Customizing appearance and stock for sale of kiosks / stores
Player vendors could choose the type/category of merchandise for their kiosk, the kiosk's look and style (from a limited selection of visual "skins"), the Doing Business As kiosk name for its banner or signage, the items within the appropriate category that they wish to sell, and maybe a brief "mission statement" / clickable sign or menu or, maybe, a gnome-like generated greeting to passers-by.
Procedure to choose location of and how to set-up kiosks
Make Bureaucratic Halls useful again for upper-level players
To reduce congestion, your permit might only allow you to set up in one spot with less than X other vendors (perhaps scaled to size of street--small streets might only have space for one player vendor kiosk while huge streets might have 3 or 5--with entrepreneurs' kiosk permit cost scaled according to how heavily-trafficked a street is or how many other streets branch off from it or how close to the busy center of a region the street is; perhaps also vendors could not set up on Subway Hub or Bureaucratic Hall or Model Home streets) and only for X number of game days or game hours, and you would have to wait another X number of hours or get another business permit to set up another stand. Stands could have a progress bar visible to passers-by indicating how much longer the stand will remain open.
Stocking items for sale in the kiosks
Player vendors would have to craft X amount of items (perhaps 200-300 each of three or five related items or X number of stacks of a particular item, with the total available to stock dependent upon how many items come per stack) as well as have the proper permit to set up their temporary vendor kiosk, and once they run out of items to sell, the kiosk poofs into nonexistence again (or they have to craft more without leaving the kiosk).
Indicate status of "working" vendor / player
While a player vendor is working as kiosk owner, perhaps they have a special green glow, or a symbol overhead signaling that they are "working" or a little greengrocer's apron with a currant symbol on it.
Permanent "No Soliciting" / Non-commercial regions
Some regions might also be deemed permanently off-limits to player vendors, such as residential streets, seam streets / locked door areas, The Tower, regions with active street projects, Ix or Uralia.
Badges, XP, achievements, buffs, more player independence and potential additional interactivity
Interacting with a player vendor would earn both parties a little XP and maybe some kind of community goodwill buff or progress toward a badge or achievement. Collecting badges might earn you a discount on future permits from the Bureaucrats. Progressing up the Vendor skill tree might enable kiosk-owning players to sell progressively more impressive and desirable goods. Perhaps players will have to whack together their little stands using blocks, planks and other Ur resources and Tinkering / Engineering / Carpentry skills and then activate their crafted stands once they have the proper permit and find a viable spot to set up.
Commercial properties purchasable like residential realty, or leasable
Hiring other players
Roadside kiosks expanded into actual marketplace storefronts alongside NPCs, when player vendors gain experience
Players who work at this could eventually apply for a purchased business space in the permanent markets alongside the NPCs, which could work much like the home real estate market does (picking a store front and location from a commercial realty page) with an expanded amount of items in a particular category available to sell and the ability to "hire" other Glitchen to provide "work units" (or actual crafting labor) towards maintaining the stock for the store, and renew their lease every 8-day Ur week. Store supplies could be stocked in cabinets much like home supplies go in cabinets, and only owners and keyholders could access those. At street level or the market entrance, a Vendors Inside list would be generated from both the permanent basic NPC-staffed stores and player stores currently actively open and staffed.
Just thinking out loud.