Shop Helpers Guide

A companion to the Shop Owner's Guide for shop helpers.

Definitions

Owner
The person who owns the shop, this is the only person who can add people to the allow list.
Manager
Anyone on the allow list for the room. Managers are almost as powerful as the owner, and can use all commands except the room allow commands in the same way as the owner.
Helper
A helper added by The Owner or a Manager. Helpers can approve / reject goods offered for sale.

Commands

Commands are:

Forms of syntax available for the command "approve":

<value> is the selling price

For items in the unapproved list, <id> includes the "-".

Forms of syntax available for the command "browse":

For items in the unapproved list, <id> includes the "-".

Forms of syntax available for the command "change":

Change only works on approved items

To combine newly approved and existing items, it may be necessary to buy them all and sell them again with the same name.

Forms of syntax available for the command "checkin":

Forms of syntax available for the command "checkout":

For items in the unapproved list, <id> includes the "-".

Forms of syntax available for the command "reject":

For items in the unapproved list, <id> includes the "-".

Forms of syntax available for the command "waiting":

waiting shows the staff item list, waiting unapproved shows the items being sold to the shop.

The Basics

The Process of Checking and Approval

If you type "waiting" you'll see the pre-checked items and items the shop employees have waiting for approval. If you use "waiting unapproved" you'll see items being sold by non employess that don't meet any of the approval criteria. Syntaxes for waiting are:

Pre-checked items are items which meet some basic criteria, e.g. the item name matches, condition is acceptable, the price is below a set level etc.

Check out an item to look at it, check it back in, then reject or approve or leave it waiting. Syntax for checkout is:

Checking things out moves them into your inventory where you can look at them, cast WAMG, CFD or FCI on them (for blorps, staves, rings, wands) and check weapons are not bonded by holding them.

If an item is checked out, it can not normally be taken out of the shop, and attempting to do so (including PK theft) will check it back in. However, placing the item in a container, logging out or the mud crashing may bypass this check. It may then be impossible to return the item to the shop using checkin when you return. Sometimes the item is lost. In these cases, the customer will always be paitd royalties from the shop float.

When you check things back in, you can only checkin things that belong to the shop, so "checkin all" works.

If the item is ok, use the approve command. This has several syntaxes:

"approve <id> [for <amount>] [as <name>]" where <id> is "xx" (staff list) or "-xx" public list. Once we approve an item, the shop transfers the money to the customer's royalties, and the item becomes shop inventory. Please note, using the [as <name>] form of approve is the only way to change the listed name of the item. Using change will not work, and may break the item in the shop so that it can not be purchased.

Finally, if the item was sold in the wrong category, or you approved it at the wrong price, use the "change" command:

These commands can only be used on items after they have been accepted for sale.

Aliases

The following alias may be useful:

alias app approve $1$ $ifarg2: for $2$ $endif$ $ifarg3: as $3*$ $endif$
app <id>
app <id> <sale price>
app <id> <sale price> <sale desc>

alias appas approve $1$ as $2*$
appas <id> <sale desc>

alias bwait browse waiting $*$
bwait <id>

alias unapp waiting unapproved
unapp

Rejections

Important - make sure you check in items before rejecting them, otherwise the seller gets paid and the item will dest.

If you are rejecting things, always include a message explaining why you are rejecting it.

You can reject part of a batch of items 1 item at a time. Examples:

  1. You have a batch of tea which you have viewed with "browse waiting <id>". The third bottle in the list is not full, and the sixth has some herbs floating in it. Use:
    reject <id> position 3 message Sorry, this bottle is not full. Thanks, <your name>, <Shopname>
    Now, use "browse waiting <id>" again and check which position in the list the bottle with herbs in is (it might not be 4) and use eg:
    reject <id> position 4 message Sorry, this bottle has herbs floating in it. Thanks, <your name>, <Shopname>
  2. You have a batch of 10 packets of portal scrolls. We can only check up to 7 packets at a time. Use the following command 3 times:
    reject <id> position 1 message Sorry, we can only process up to 7 packets of scrolls in a batch, this is 1 of 3 packets being rejected from your batch of 10 packets. Thanks, <your name>, <Shopname>

Note - If you reject several packets of scrolls to a single player at a time, please advise a liaison if possible, as there is a risk that the recipient will suffer as a result. You may instead wish to leave it for the owner to deal with. Killing players with scroll bombs is a bad thing.

Problems & Solutions

Runtimes

Runtimes from shop commands may indicate that a change has been made to one or more of the files for the shop but that the room has not been updated. There are two solutions to try:

There is usually no need for any cre to try and actively fix runtimes in a shop unless they are still occuring after a reboot. Even then, regardless of how you feel about it, it is best to just bugrep and wait. There have been disasters in shops caused by well meaning creators trying to fix things they don't really understand, so it really doesn't work to nag a cre into having a look at it! You have been warned.

Un-Purchasable Items / Stock Problems

Sometimes an item breaks. This is most common with items where the broken "change name of <id> to <new name>" has been used to merge two items. The item(s) may be purchasable with "buy force <id>" or "buy every <id>" or buy stepping through "buy <id> n" starting with n = 1 and working upwards (note it renumbers every time you manage to find a non broken item, so restart from 1).

Broken items are usually fixed after a reboot, they don't really need cre interaction at all, unless they are still in the list after a reboot. However, even then, they aren't urgent enough to grab a cre and bug them. If they can't be purchased with "buy force <id> (not sure if these needs a manager) then it's best to bugrep the shop counter.

Item checked out and lost

This may occur if an item is in your inv during a crash. The item may or may not be saved in your inv. It may also happen if you place a checked out item in a container and leave the shop.

Reject the item, with a note that the item has been lost, but that royalties may still be collectable.

If you have the item in your inv, and it's ok, you can sell it to the shop at $0.12. If the item is not ok (eg a bonded weapon) and has been saved in your inv, let the shop management worry about it.

Lost Royalties

If royalties are not claimed in time, the shop eats them. This is a "take money out of circulation" feature. The royalties do not get placed back in the shop float, they disappear. Dested. Eaten by offler. Vapourised by Wodan. Chomped up by Ceres. Pulverised by Pinkfish. I hope you get the idea. :)

The shop then continues to eat any new royalties for the player until the player resets the royalty timer in the shop.

The only way for the customer to reset their royalties timer is with the command "collect royalties".

If the "royalties" command tells a cutsomer that they their royalties have timed, they must reset their royalties timer or any new royalties will be eaten by the shop.

The only way for the customer to reset their royalties timer is with the command "collect royalties".

Customers seem to think that having checked their royalties and discovered they have timed out, it's fine to sell more stuff to the shop. This is not the case.

The only way for the customer to reset their royalties timer is with the command "collect royalties".

The conversation with the customer normally goes like this:

Customer: "It says my royalties are timed out. I only sold the stuff yesterday."
Staff: "Did you sell stuff before?"
Customer: "Yes, I didn't get any royalties for them either."
Staff: "Did you use the command 'collect royalties'?"
Customer: "No, because when I checked my royalties it said they had timed out."
Staff: "That's the problem, you must use 'collect royalties' to reset the timeout after your royalties have timed out. It says this on the shop's website."
Customer: "But when I checked my royalties it said they had timed out."
Staff: "Yes, but you still need to use the 'collect royalties' command to reset your royalties timer so that future royalties don't get added to the timed out ones. It says this on the shop's website."
Customer: "But when I checked my royalties it said they had timed out."
Staff: "Yes, but you still need to use the 'collect royalties' command to reset your royalties timer so that future royalties don't get added to the timed out ones. It says this on the shop's website."
Customer: "But when I checked my royalties it said they had timed out."
Staff: "Yes, but you still need to use the 'collect royalties' command to reset your royalties timer so that future royalties don't get added to the timed out ones. It says this on the shop's website."
Customer: "But when I checked my royalties it said they had timed out."
Staff: "Yes, but you still need to use the 'collect royalties' command to reset your royalties timer so that future royalties don't get added to the timed out ones. It says this on the shop's website."
and repeat ........