Global Economics and Trade Help Desk and Q&A

[Lamoni]

A couple of flights to western nations might not hurt. Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Bulgaria are all possibilities, along with traditional places like France.

[Prosorusiya]

I'd be down with Slovakia, as my ancestors originated there. The only trouble is they don't really like the Tu-154B-2s loud engines IRL... they are banned from flying in the EU... but I guess I could fudge that.

[Lamoni]

I'd be down with Slovakia, as my ancestors originated there. The only trouble is they don't really like the Tu-154B-2s loud engines IRL... they are banned from flying in the EU... but I guess I could fudge that.

You can totally fudge that.

[Prosorusiya]

Cool! I should be ready to start flying soon... there' still some cosmetic things I want to do to the store front, as well as some more writing, but overall I think I am close to getting it to a presentable state.

[Always Picking the First Option]

What are some easy ways to establish finances with a storefront, beyond tracking the no. of items sold and each purchased item's price? I figure that involving aspects such as starting capital, estimated revenue/profit per item, and others would make the storefront's impact more profound. However, that doesn't really provide the sense of challenge or realism that I'm looking for with the financial aspect of the storefront...

[Common Territories]

What are some easy ways to establish finances with a storefront, beyond tracking the no. of items sold and each purchased item's price? I figure that involving aspects such as starting capital, estimated revenue/profit per item, and others would make the storefront's impact more profound. However, that doesn't really provide the sense of challenge or realism that I'm looking for with the financial aspect of the storefront...

As the only storefront owner who tracks their finances to a special degree publicly (probably anyways, im not too sure who else does it if they do it at all), my suggestion is to track EVERYTHING. What gets sold, how much said product costs (and per unit cost of the time), customers, and any money movement you may have. Organizing those financial statistics into weekly, monthly, or yearly is also suggested; if you want to do it on financial quarters, that's an option too. I don't track every little bit, but I do track every major item I do sell and I keep said finances public (my records are the purchase orders on the thread too); I do not however state a complete outlook such as a full yearly report, my start up money, native money transfers (stuff my government buys and stuff that goes into maintenance of the business), or my expenses for operating. My suggestion to track everything meticulously is founded on the idea that you need records to make such statistics.

If you want to be fully realistic, you need to figure out your storefront's expenditure and its debt. You need to figure out how much it costs to pay employees no matter the position, how much goes to maintaining facilities/equipment, the cost to making each product and selling it, the taxes you need to pay (such as business taxes and property taxes), and other debt you may accumulate. A real business has extensive finances that tells of its financial standing, in debt or making a profit - if you want total statistical realism, you have to establish your income and your expenditures. How to do that latter part is up to you. Personally, I would figure all the items I listed out and add them up into quarterly reports - it's easier to maintain unless you figure out how you could display such stats. The stats I keep for example are easy to maintain every purchase that's made - it'd be harder to track some of the stuff I mentioned this late in the game, but if you do it at the very start, it will be easier to manage.

[Claudia and Tadona]

Hello uhm.. I have a couple of AutoCad Electrical basic drawings of merchant ships and I would love to make a fictional merchant ship design out of them... and maybe sell to other people. How do I sell to people? Thank you.

[Common Territories]

Hello uhm.. I have a couple of AutoCad Electrical basic drawings of merchant ships and I would love to make a fictional merchant ship design out of them... and maybe sell to other people. How do I sell to people? Thank you.

You create a storefront and pitch your product to the masses to buy. I would suggest modeling after Maltrops pages - they're sweet and to the point, and a good middle ground for write-ups that I personally find great. Whether you want to make a full fledged storefront like Malt (I'd suggest speaking with Malt too since he's experienced in that field and he has good guides under his signature you can read up on) or you can do business one thread at a time; essentially meaning you make the product thread and sell from there.

[Claudia and Tadona]

Okay uhm, one last question. We are building the ship now, but uhm yeah, couldn't be converted to png format or quality of drawing will decrease. I am wondering if I link like this: https://a360.autodesk.com/viewer/#id/dXJuOmFkc2sub2JqZWN0czpvcy5vYmplY3Q6YTM2MHZpZXdlci90MTQ4NTgyOTA5NzI3Ml8wMDk4NDM4MzU4NzgzNjY4MTNfMTQ4NTgyOTA5NzI3My5kd2c?designtype=

I was wondering if people can see the drawing or not? Thank you.

[Common Territories]

Okay uhm, one last question. We are building the ship now, but uhm yeah, couldn't be converted to png format or quality of drawing will decrease. I am wondering if I link like this: https://a360.autodesk.com/viewer/#id/dXJuOmFkc2sub2JqZWN0czpvcy5vYmplY3Q6YTM2MHZpZXdlci90MTQ4NTgyOTA5NzI3Ml8wMDk4NDM4MzU4NzgzNjY4MTNfMTQ4NTgyOTA5NzI3My5kd2c?designtype=

I was wondering if people can see the drawing or not? Thank you.

It works for me, but I would seriously consider using an image hosting site like Imgur. People like less work and easy to grasp product, so an image they can instantly see is more appealing.

[Maltropia]

My browser apparently lacks WebGL, or at least a version of it that lets me view your image. Even if just for that reason I'd really recommend you save a png version of it. Also, the forum has restrictions on image size that mean high-resolution images often won't display and need to be resized; I've run up against that more than once, and my solution was to provide both a resized 'preview' image and a link to the higher-res version. I'd have to recommend that you do the same. Even assuming that a link works for everyone, you've no guarantee that everyone will click it. Coupled with the fact that it clearly doesn't work for everyone (and requiring your customers to download a plugin just to browse your catalogue is a bit much), I think you're much better off hosting an image as a png or something similar.

[Claudia and Tadona]

Thank you Common Territories and Maltropia. I will work it out somehow, anyway. Saving as png is not an option as it will reduce the quality of the drawing lots and I don't want that to happen. There is a solution I think we will see.

[Allanea]

Would it make some sense to have all my civilian industries storefronts (cars, food, toys, whatever) organized as a single thread, for ease of reading and for ease of tracking by yours truly, or is this sort of thing Not Done?

[Lamoni]

Would it make some sense to have all my civilian industries storefronts (cars, food, toys, whatever) organized as a single thread, for ease of reading and for ease of tracking by yours truly, or is this sort of thing Not Done?

It can be done. You just need to have it all look good, just like any other storefront.

[Empire of Symphonia]

Hello,

I've been away from NS for some time, and so now I look back at my old GE&T storefronts with some cringe. Is it fine to reboot my storefronts from scratch using the same names, or would that be considered a gaffe?

[Lamoni]

It should be fine to just reboot your storefront.

[Sulimany]

I wanted to know the highest ranking for the economy here in the game.

My ranking is "Thriving"

[Crookfur]

I wanted to know the highest ranking for the economy here in the game.

My ranking is "Thriving"

Frightening is as high as it goes. IIRC there is a list of all the rankings in each area somewhere in the game play forum.

[Walrusvylon]

I'm interested in this forum. What exactly do we do here? And what is a storefront? Tell me everything!

[Maltropia]

I'm interested in this forum. What exactly do we do here? And what is a storefront? Tell me everything!

I'll answer your second question first, since that seems like a better way to go about it. A storefront is in some ways basically just a company website, showing the company's info, its products/services and offering a way to contact it. There are two main reasons we make and run storefronts:

1. because it can be pretty interesting and even fun (!);
2. because it gives us another way to flesh out our nations' respective canons. Sure, we can always just waddle into an II roleplay and say "Hah, your embargo won't work on me! Maltropia has its own native oil industry!" but it's that much more immersive when you actually have the storefront and the history to be able to say "Tallaght Allied Petroleum exists and is a major oil company".

What do we do here? We run storefronts and we conduct business - whether that business is with others' storefronts or with governments, NGOs or what have you (because trade deals and even trade summits do also take place here), and whether it's on behalf of our own businesses, governments, NGOs, individuals etc.. That's really what it boils down to. Hope that helps! I can't really "tell you everything" because that's a whole lot o' stuff, but if you have more questions please don't hesitate to ask.

[Walrusvylon]

I'm interested in this forum. What exactly do we do here? And what is a storefront? Tell me everything!

I'll answer your second question first, since that seems like a better way to go about it. A storefront is in some ways basically just a company website, showing the company's info, its products/services and offering a way to contact it. There are two main reasons we make and run storefronts:

1. because it can be pretty interesting and even fun (!);
2. because it gives us another way to flesh out our nations' respective canons. Sure, we can always just waddle into an II roleplay and say "Hah, your embargo won't work on me! Maltropia has its own native oil industry!" but it's that much more immersive when you actually have the storefront and the history to be able to say "Tallaght Allied Petroleum exists and is a major oil company".

What do we do here? We run storefronts and we conduct business - whether that business is with others' storefronts or with governments, NGOs or what have you (because trade deals and even trade summits do also take place here), and whether it's on behalf of our own businesses, governments, NGOs, individuals etc.. That's really what it boils down to. Hope that helps! I can't really "tell you everything" because that's a whole lot o' stuff, but if you have more questions please don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks. I think I will set up a cheese storefront later, since I'm in the top 1% for cheese exports. The cheese will be made from walrus milk.

[Werreales]

Hello, I wanted to ask if it is possible and correct to create a custom website and to pass its URL to my storefront topic in the forum instead of writing BBCode? Is it a good or bad practice? Can the storefront still gain awards? Finally, will it be considered as a bad practice or not?

[Aquitayne]

Hello, I wanted to ask if it is possible and correct to create a custom website and to pass its URL to my storefront topic in the forum instead of writing BBCode? Is it a good or bad practice? Can the storefront still gain awards? Finally, will it be considered as a bad practice or not?

I've seen some storefronts in the past develop offsite websites to compliment their IC business look, but generally speaking simply creating a thread that only links to a different site would very much be bad practice, if not simply considered spam. If you want to get awards and have an active storefront that the community engages in, your best bet is to create the main storefront - with products and all - here on NS and then create a supplementary site to compliment their IC persona.

[Crookfur]

Hello, I wanted to ask if it is possible and correct to create a custom website and to pass its URL to my storefront topic in the forum instead of writing BBCode? Is it a good or bad practice? Can the storefront still gain awards? Finally, will it be considered as a bad practice or not?

There is nothing wrong with it and its been done, i used to use a horrid HTML site as a catalogue before switching to an invision free board as an quick and easy way to organised the shed load of stuff i had.

You will proabably still want a bit of nice content in your opening post of your storefront thread to interest people in clicking that link and then carry out any transactions in your thread.

As for winning awards, i honestly couldn;t say but if your OP is nice and the content on your own site is up to scratch and well organised then i don't see why it should stop you getting them.

[Werreales]

Thanks for your answers. What I'll do is to write Uniware's info in the topic, and I'll post my products' info in the website.