I am an instructor in the navy. During my last class (which lasts three weeks), I was talking to some of my students (all senior enlisted) about free time. One mentioned that he played UO. OUt of curiosity, I asked him what shard. To my surprise, he replied "Baja of course".
Since that is my old home, I HAD to ask him if he had ever heard of Paul Mart ( for those who do not know, Paul mart was a discount clearing house for high end items, and a HUGE library).
He said "YOU are Paul B? Dude, we really need another store like yours around!!!"
Never did I think that anything I did in the game would have an effect that lasted that long. Before I sold that account, I had taken residence here on the forums, and had dumped most of my nuggets of info in one forum or another. Unfortunately some of that has disappeared.

So I will make this offer. If anyone needs any tips of starting a REALLY successful merchant, my tips should still be applicable. I will gladly share them with anyone in the forum.

To give you a "why should I ask you", here are some basic facts.
Paul-mart at the end was getting 3k visits a month.
I averaged 1 million g.p a day in profit from my vendors, selling mid to top end items. (no artifacts ever sold, I kept the few I was able to earn). There used to be some pics here, but I think those are gone as well.

Paul Mart was home to one of the largest in game rune libraries and player made guides on Baja. I had 100 guides and stories by players, and 75 full rune books, including all treasure maps.
Gosh, nostaglia strikes deep. I LOVED that aspect of the game, and if not for time and college and work conflicts, I would take it up again in a heart beat (sniffle)
Anyway, if anyone needs any tips, post it here. I will try to keep visiting and re-make my recipe for the store.

Dude welcome back! I saw a post yesterday with you in it. Quite a surprise. There's not enough squids around here.

WB man!

I am all about the shop tips! I absolutely love being a merchant, but of more craft related things than rares. I'm not into cross shard trading gifts and selling rewards and stuff.. more like, things I can make or assemble (crafted goods, runebooks, etc).

What kind of shop did you run? I'd love any advice you've got!

Welcome back! We need more people from Baja here!

What a lovely story ,and how strange is real life when you find other players in your class of students ,*smiles*

Never
Again
Volunteer
Yourself

It is very funny when game and real life meet.
USN 1997-1998 ELS medical discharge

Don't forget the best abbreviation:

Lazy
Ignorant
F***
Expecting
Retirement

Our EMC had a patch made with that instead of his name. He put it on his coveralls...did you know the Navy has no sense of humor??

USN 1987-1993

That's cool, i've never met anyone like that in RL that plays UO. That would be wild.

Your tips sound like the rune library right outside Cove on Lake Superior. A give to receive mentatlity. Must work well.

Well, more interest than I thought. Good to see you still hanging out Tuk!!!
I retire from Active duty this year (December 07 baaaaby). Life will be OVER.

As to the shop tips, should I post them here, or do a new thread? Or can one of you mod type people separate the cahff out for me?

Lady Destiny, good to hear a fellow squid squeak!. Sorry about the disability, hopefully you are taken care of.


Love the acronym's you 2! When I retire, it's BOHICA time!

The world is a small place ... with one big sidewalk :cheesy:


Go ahead and start a new Merchant Tip thread in this forum if you would like to keep the ideas separated from this thread ... might be easier for folks and with a new title it would help with pariticpation ...

Let us know if you need something .. and glad to see you back on board

*you can name it something other than Merchant Tips .. that was just my thought ....

oh, and P.S., I went from owning an 8*8 (after my second return to the game) to a KEEP in 10 months. Then I quit lol. Dumbie me.

I had the whole SHEEBANG. My Crafter was Mark The Creator. He was 7X GM. He had 6 vendors to himself. I had 22 vendors total, but that was mainly due to my sorting policy. Some of the rules I used are below, in no particualr order of importance.