6.11.1 Price Policies: Tool of The Licensed Master Shopkeeper

(See also HELP BINS, HELP SHOPKEEPING, and HELP SHOP SIGNS)

The Licensed Master Shopkeeper - LMS for short, has a number of very powerful commands at his disposal in pursuit of shopkeeping excellence and the profit that may bring!


Becoming A Licensed Master Shopkeeper
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Seek the Crafters Union offices in Delos. There you will find a Shopkeepers office, and a placard directing you to BUY SHOPKEEPER LICENSE and how much it costs. If you have to ask how much, you can't afford it!


Master Shopkeepers Only: Shop Signs
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Licensed master shopkeepers, and no one else, may purchase shop signs. Shop signs may only be purchased in shops owned by master shopkeepers. If you are standing in your shop and do not yet have one, you will be notified that you can make the purchase, and the cost of it. (See HELP SHOP SIGNS)


The Commands In Brief
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PRICE POLICY LIST
PRICE POLICY ADD
PRICE POLICY REMOVE


Where And When
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Go to your stockroom. There you may issue these PRICE POLICY commands.

Discounts such as -20% or -5% reduce prices, and may not go past -90%.  Markups such as +5% or +111% increase prices, and may not go past +200%.  The special value "0" or "refuse" is reserved for refusal of service: you simply will not sell to that person or group.

The effect of price policies is instantaneous. All markups and discounts are expressed as numbers (+5, -12, whatever) and represent an increase or reduction in price from what you set on each item.

Your customers will notice a slight change in the way they are treated if they are the beneficiaries of a discount, or if they are suffering a markup. The results of a "refusal of service" should be quite obvious to all.

Price policies do not expire. You must remove them explicitly.


Combining And Conflicting Policies
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Shop policies do not combine in any way, so they must be chosen with care. For example, if someone is a member of a city and a house, both of whom get some sort of discount, only one of those will apply. At this point, it is difficult to tell which one will apply, though almost certainly the one that shows up first on the price policy list. The same is true for conflicting policies, such as a discount and a markup.

Refusals of service override all, and are always applied first, before markups or discounts.


PRICE POLICY LIST
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Shows all policies in force at this shop.


PRICE POLICY ADD PERSON|GROUP <who> <mod>
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Adds a new price policy. Examples:
  PRICE POLICY ADD PERSON JACK +20
  PRICE POLICY ADD GROUP MHALDOR -30
  PRICE POLICY ADD PERSON JARIK REFUSE
  PRICE POLICY ADD GROUP ENEMIES REFUSE

The <mod> entry is the amount of discount (-xx) or markup (+xx). If the <mod> entry is 0 or the word "refuse" then this is a blanket refusal of service.

Groups are cities, houses, orders, and clans.

  * enemies are any official enemy of the city in which the shop exists, plus personal enemies of the person who owns the shop, plus org enemies of the House, City, or Order of the shop owner, plus org enemies of Oakstone if the shop owner is a member of those.


SYNTAX REVIEW
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PRICE POLICY ADD|REMOVE|LIST PERSON|GROUP <who> <mod>
   where <who> is the person or group, and mod is the
   price mod (+xx to increase by xx percent,
              -xx to discount by xx percent, and
                0 to refuse service altogether.)

(See also HELP BINS, HELP SHOPKEEPING, and HELP SHOP SIGNS)