Personal feelings about personal shops?

[HellRyu]

Yeah, I like the idea as well. I would be cool to set up shop in populated town so other players wouldn't have to go all the way back to a major city just to purchase off the market board.

[lackofwords]

Just for those who don't know or remember what FFXIV 1.0 market system was like.
There was the Market Wards, which went through several iterations.
And the personal player bazaar, which is a shop on your playable character people can shop from.

First the Market Wards.

These were zones within the city where you had to travel between to find a player or their retainer shop.
The advantage to using the Market Wards was lower taxes, and also it was the only place a retainer can set up shop.
There were stalls where a player can also set up their retainer shop and decorate. The stalls became more valuable to the players when the ward would become overpopulated. Making it difficult to distinguish one retainer from another on the ward floor.
There can only be a limit of how many shops can be set up on a certain ward, and also later when searching was adding, you would only see what was being sold in that city, not the entire world.

As for the revisions to the Market Wards, going off by memory so excuse any mistakes here...

• For the first iteration, there were no distinction between any of the wards. Basically, imagine it was a giant flea market with tax deductions for everyone.
• Second iteration, they've changed the names of the wards in hopes that people sell similar items in the correct wards. Incentive was a slightly higher tax deduction of 2~3% difference. This was only partially effective, though people still sold everything in the first ward, which was Battlefield Gear at the time.
• Third iteration, they've added and made the first ward to a normal ward that had no special tax deductions.
• Forth iteration, they've added finally the ability to run a search query on the wards instead of having to explore each shop manually. This will place a marker on the shop that is selling what you want. You now as the buyer had the choice of going into the shop to buy the item, or pay an additional fee to buy it straight from the search query.

This Market Wards from 1.0 was essentially trashed and turned into what would be a global Market Board for 2.0. There are no longer any wards housing any retainers, nor are there any special tax reductions.

Now as for the playable character's Bazaar system.

This was a shop where you could have sold items on your character. You were given 10 slots, and it would move the item from your inventory to the Bazaar's inventory. Quite similar to FFXI bazaar.
The tax that applies to Market Wards also affects player's Bazaar. So a player can take advantage to standing in the ward for a tax reduction.
It was revised to also allow players to request for items or repairs.
However, if you're requesting to buy an item from another player, you first must have the quantity of item(s) you want to buy on hand. Which might sound counter-intuitive, but was useful for mainly people wanting crystal shards.

Now, if you try to return the Bazaar to FFXIV 2.0, there are a few things that comes to my mind.

First, there's no longer a large number of individual dungeon hubs where people gather to form parties.

In other words what used to be gatherings in front of dungeons like Tam-Tara is now completely empty. Thus, it is no longer a viable place to set up a bazaar shop for potions or food

Second, though trivial, there is still an automated AFK system now that logs off the player after being inactive in game for 'X' amount of minutes.

Third and lastly, profit incentives.
Whether if it is tax reductions to get a higher profit cut, or setting up shop in a place where you normally can not find items. There has to be some sort of edge that would make players want to lose all control over their character to become an immobilized shop.

[Jynnx]

Another thing you could do to avoid over crowding an area is to make sure people cannot open a shop too close to someone elses shop. It might make people "fight" over spots, but that also could be fun. xD

this is a creative idea and would be interesting to see.

[Moheeheeko]

There are pesonal shops in Aion, unfortunately that has devolved into a "which gold seller can make the biggest most obnoxious sign" contest.

[Jynnx]

Second, though trivial, there is still an automated AFK system now that logs off the player after being inactive in game for 'X' amount of minutes.

The afk system is easy to bypass in a lot of games, in aion for instance, I simply put a tissue box on my left or right arrow kay turned off my monitor and walked away.

They could also implement a system that makes it so the afk is turned off when youre selling. It kind of is already in the game as we speak. Try talking to your retainer and walk away while his text is on, you will not afk out.

[Sapphic]

Yep, Just as Ayane stated here, it was like that in 1.0. Only, most people used their "Player shops" as storage and had items in there for 9 all the way across. Sometimes they put up items to show off the fact that they had it, most of the time it was for storage. Other times it was just stuff they were trying to get rid of.

In my book, it wasn't anything to really call home about. I, personally, wasted scores of minutes looking through people's shops whenever they were standing around to see if I could get a good 'deal'. Lol. In all of 1.0, I never found that. All-in-all, I'd rather stick with the market boards.

Not to mention in 1.0 people where shouting for a Marketboard style set up instead of looking on every retainer..

Oh the irony XD

[Jynnx]

There has to be some sort of edge that would make players want to lose all control over their character to become an immobilized shop.

besides avoiding taxes from the MB and the rewarding feeling of selling items yourself they could always add the commendation system or a similar system into personal shops. whereas if you really enjoy a shop you could rate it. The more 'stars' you have in your store the better it will look to 'customers'

Now if SE really wanted to do something original with shops they could make it so you may personalize it with skins (similar to warding on your chocobo) that can only be achieved by crafting or reaching rating ranks.

for example: I own a food store so I choose a skin that makes the market look like i exclusively sell foods which is more eye catching to someone looking for a food item. I just reached 50 positive ratings, so now I can choose an even better food store skin with brighter colors and animations.

[AzakaTonnerre]

Wrong. No one enjoyed it. That's why it was taken out.

Now if I really have misunderstood the OP and he/she does NOT want to replace market boards and only add another option. Then yes, I would support the idea. But scrapping market boards for this is just plain dumb.

Actually once they added the sort feature, I did enjoy it. You could see what gear looked like if the retainer selling it had it equipped. It was not difficult to find the character with a big red star over there head, unless you want to qq that you had to walk around a zone for, god forbid, 20 seconds until the character appeared. Thank you however for assuming everyone who played 1.0 shares your feelings, but all do not.

Now for replacing the current system in ARR, I would be against that. I would however not mind it as an additional way of buying/selling materials.

[rabbitzero]

There are pesonal shops in Aion, unfortunately that has devolved into a "which gold seller can make the biggest most obnoxious sign" contest.

This mostly. Also, in 1.0 before i quit (around the time they made them searchable), i totally gave up searching them. That was when they even had zones they would be in for whatever. It was just too much hassle to go through them, to the point where i would just figure it would be easier to get on my own. Player shops all feel like spam to me, always overcharging (since you are really unable to see it for less at the time) and always feels a bit hinkey to me, like they are trying to get around something by not using the MBs, or are bots. I get some people like them, but i'd rather not see the spam they cause.

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

Personally not a big fan of personal shops, mostly because people always tend to overprice things you could find on the market board/trade broker for many times less, and in more amounts. Market board is convenient for this, and it also prevents all that gil seller spam we'd likely see happen if personal shops were treated similar to how they were in Aion. (Still have nightmares about that, Pandaemonium was laggy as all hell because so many gil sellers camped in front of the Temple where the trade broker was at)

However, with the suggestion to make it unavailable in major city-states, I'd be slightly more interested. I doubt it would see much use, since the MB is still far too easy and convenient compared to searching all over Eorzea for a player shop selling what you want, but it would be a nice little thing to sometimes come up on a personal shop out in the world. I like shopping around at backwater and hidden specialty shops, they always have a little charm to them you can't find in places like Wal-Mart or K-Mart or whatever. I don't go to them when I'm looking for something specific, because who has time to do that? But, when I want to just browse around and maybe find a hidden treasure, small shops are wonderful and cute.

I'd feel about the same way towards personal shops.