~Opening a MiniShop~ The basics

[Chriis13]

Hello everyone and welcome to the guild if you are new here. There are many great things within NSTG and all you have to do is look around to find them.

Anyway, in this thread I will be making a detailed guide to opening a Mini Shop.

Table of Contents

1. Welcoming and Navigation
2. Setting Up
4. Transactions with Customers
5. Dictionary
6. Reserved
7. Reserved

 

[Chriis13]

Setting Up

You will want to create your Mini Shop in the Mini Shops forum. There are many subforums in this forum; pick the one that is most closely suited to what you will be selling.

Now, creating your basic thread:

• On the first post you should first welcome people to your shop. Other things a first post may include are Prices and a Request Form.
  
  • Having trouble with pricing? There is a Pricing and Suggestions subforum, where users will be happy to give you advice and pointers on selling your work on Gaia.
  
  
  
• There are many different types of information you can include in your request form, but I will give an example of the most common shop, an Art Shop.
  
  
  [b]Username[/b]:
  [b]Choice of art[/b]: Avatar art, OC art, etc.
  [b]Grayscale or CG[/b]:
  Style of art: (Normal Anime, Realistic, Chibi)
  Backround: If the customer wants a background
  Special Request: If the customer has specific requests or pointers for the artist
  
  
  
• In the second post, many people create what we call Slots which are the maximum number of customers/orders they will take at a time. This prevents the artist from getting overwhelmed by a high number of orders.
  
  
• Your third post could include a repertoire of your past work, or Samples; this gives the customer an idea of what it is they are going to purchase. You should create at least one post labeled Reserved to leave room for anything else you may want to add in the future.
  
  
• Other posts you may like to add are Rules and Updates.

 

[Chriis13]

Transactions with Customers

You should almost always require customers to send you the gold (or item, depending on what you are requiring them to pay with) before giving them your products.

This is to ensure that they do not steal your product without paying for it.

Here is a recommended timeline:

1. They initiate the trade after you accept and approve their order.
   
   
2. You send them a work-in-progress with a watermark. Make sure that the customer is happy with your progress thus far.
   
   
3. You complete the trade on your end after you send them their completed artwork.
   
   
4. They complete the trade from their end once they receive their artwork. If they cancel the trade, then they have, unfortunately, scammed you for your work, and you can report them.

 

[Chriis13]

Dictionary

Avatar Art: This is when an artist will take a users avatar and draw a picture of it. Your avatar is the chibi-like character whom you customize with various items.

OC Art: Stands for "original character." This is when a buyer gives you specific descriptions of what they would like you to draw. They sometimes even provide an example someone has already created of their character(s). OC art typically costs more than avatar art.

Gray-scale: Gray-scale art is when an artist draws the image with a pencil, scans it, and than sends it to the user. Sometime they may use a tablet to create the art, or do minimal editing to the scan to improve the quality. A tablet is a device used to draw art directly onto your computer.

CG: CG stands for Computer Generated. This is when the artist takes their initial gray-scale sketch and colors it in, shades, or adds special effects in a program such as Photoshop.

Anime: If you do not know what Anime is, feel free to Google it. It is a style of art (or cartoon if you will) that is typically associated with Japanese culture.

Chibi: Chibi is a specific style of anime, where the proportions of the body are changed. The result ends up looking somewhat "cute." Feel free to Google this as well.

Realistic: Realistic art is when the artist draws the image with realistic features, proportions, etc.

 

[Chriis13]

Reserved

 

[Chriis13]

Reserved