Recently I've seen a lot of people starting their own business, mainly for mining or otherwise. I've also seen a lot of people make beginner mistakes. I thought a tutorial on the subject would help some people smooth out the wrinkles in a business.


Here's some pointers:

1. You'll want your own thread.

This is one is very important. A thread makes your business look important and official. The more lively color, arrangement, and helpfulness of the thread, means more people will want to buy from you. I won't be giving you a guide on making a thread, but it's always good to have the following things:

1. Application -Having a good order application is needed, it helps people to know how to order, and isn't confusing. The smoother the process, the more people will want to buy from you.

2. List of whats for sale -This is also important, placing this in spoiler can make people feel like your hiding. Having it out in the open, and, importantly, color coded, helps you a lot.

3. A title - Having a bright colorful title, in big print, helps a lot. If you can find special or sparkling word print, go for it. Here's an example of someone who took advantage of some nice font choices: http://www.ecocitycraft.com/forum/threads/suggestion-premium-portals.63741/

4. An order - Keeping things in order is a must. You don't want to put the items for sale at the bottom. At the top you usually want, a description, then the items being sold, then the application format, then the directions to where they will get the items, and anything unimportant such as company positions or employee applications.

2. Having items in stock is good, but not great.

Many people like to get a big fat stock of items stored up, and then just sit around and wait for someone to buy it. This is not a good idea. As soon as you get a large order, your stock can dry up instantly. It's better to add to the stockpile continually. It's great in the way of customer service to fill an order instantly from your stockpile.

3. ADVERTISE ADVERTISE ADVERTISE!

This is, by far, the most important thing ever ever ever to your business. You can do everything else perfectly, but without advertising, you might as well travel to the moon, and set up a shop there, and wait for someone to buy. Since there are many many people who don't use the forums at all except for applications, you need to lead them to your thread. Get a Tinurl (http://tinyurl.com/) for your company post and post it in trade every three minutes.
Whenever I do this, I get people pming me with questions about the company, and I see orders come in more often. Get everyone in your company to bring it up in conversations in global, in trade, place a sign in their town about it, advertise it anywhere and everywhere. Pay mayors to put an advertisement sign in their town, near the portal.

4. Good, honest, business.

Be a good honest business here. The customer is always right. ECC can't have strictly "official" business, feel free to cut lines sometimes, give them a discount if you kept them waiting, give them bonus's/discounts if they order a lot. Don't try and scam them out of items, if they ask you to hold their order for a week while they get the money, do it. If they don't pay on time, give them time to do it, remind them. File complaints at a last resort. The last thing you want is to be known as a company that scams and complains on people.

5. Watch out for competition.

Competition is always healthy for the economy, you may not feel this way when Bob is getting all those orders that you wanted to get, but play fair. If they got cheaper prices then you, drop yours rock bottom. Even if you lose a little money, if you drops yours low enough, they will give up. It's a tricky situation, and it usually depends on how far your willing to take it. And remember, always, always, advertise. Don't use attack Ads though, that makes you look bad. Being the "I got cheaper prices then Jim's company" advertisement, is not a good thing.
But lowering your prices to beat theirs is not the only way. Being faster, offering discounts, and having a friendlier customer service always help. If you got cheaper prices, yet it takes you a week what it takes Jim an hour to do, you will notice orders going downhill.

6. Don't be afraid to reject an order.

Every once in a while, someone will order 500 doublechests of what your selling. When it comes to this point, you have a few options.

1. Flat out reject it -Not always the best option. But if your only reasoning is because it will keep other orders from happening, go with option 2.

2. Offer a work-around -If your afraid it will clog orders, tell them you'll complete their order in sections. Let me give you an example.
Bob orders 50 stacks of diamonds. You say you'll do it, but other people also order things. Tell bob you'll treat his order as 20 orders of 5 stacks. That way, every time you get 5 stacks done, you check for other orders, if they are other orders, do them first, if there aren't, do another 5 stacks, and repeat.

3. Don't raise prices -Raising prices after denying a large order, is never a good thing. That person is gonna know, they denied my order, and then raised prices.

7. Avoiding giant orders.

If you want to avoid that 500 doublechests order, here are some pointers for you. Remember though, it's not always good to want to avoid these orders, but to keep your business from going under, you may want to.

1. Prices -Most of the time you'll want to beat all the obese spawnshop prices. This is good, but can backfire on you. Prices that are too cheap, someone will order 500 double chests, wait a few weeks, and then sell it all off for double the price. Keep your prices competitive, but not so low people will take advantage of you.

2. Sometimes it's not avoidable -Every once in a while you will get the 500 doublechests order, and it's simply because you were the easiest option to do it. Whenever that happens, just go back to number 6, and decide yourself.

 

Thanks, glad you like it :D