Chapter 309 – Great Thief (1/2)
Chapter 309 – Great Thief
Setting up the Super Trade Channel was actually pretty easy. Aggregating all the data from the auction houses was no problem. The other steps were just as simple. Nie Yan hid his name to maintain anonymity, while at the top of the announcement board he wrote a simple welcome message: For convenient trading between players. In addition, he specified the origin of goods—all came from the three auction houses in Calore. That way, the channel also served as a form of advertisement. Of course, goods from the Starry Night Potion Shop would be sold here too.
「What’s this?」Guo Huai asked in a daze after Nie Yan invited him to the channel.
「A channel for trading,」Nie Yan replied, then explained his plans for the Super Trade Channel.
Guo Huai’s eyes lit up. Nie Yan’s idea for a Super Trade Channel was most certainly doable, its potential endless. It was similar to online shopping in the sense that players could browse for goods to purchase without ever needing to return to the city. This would have a significant effect on the entire game. Advertising the trading channel wasn’t anything difficult either, a few server announcements would suffice.
「Hire some staff to make the deliveries, and also get a supervisor,」Nie Yan instructed. Since he lacked the time to manage the Super Trade Channel himself, he could only delegate the job.
「Got it, I’ll put Zhao Li in charge. I’ll assign him and his staff to help you manage the Super Trade Channel,」Guo Huai said. Both he and Hao Cheng were supervising an overwhelming amount of other work, leaving only Zhao Li available.
「Then it’s decided. Zhao Li will be responsible for this,」Nie Yan nodded.
「This is a great idea! If this channel starts gaining traction early on, it’ll have enormous potential!」Zhao Li exclaimed.「Should we also contact the owners of other auction houses and pull them into this channel? We could even ask for an entrance fee and a fixed commission for each successful sale.」
「Sharp thinking! Keep working on it and get back to me in a bit.」Nie Yan smiled. Zhao Li has a rather bright mind.
「What’s the channel called?」Zhao Li asked.
「The Super Trade Channel. It’s easy to remember and rolls nicely off the tongue.」
「That works,」Zhao Li nodded.
By the time Nie Yan left the call, Zhao Li had started on perfecting the trading system in the channel. On the other end, Guo Huai had also begun working on the logistics of the delivery staff, such as their wages.
Back in the Crystal Caverns, Nie Yan followed behind the group as they cleared the mobs up ahead. After an hour or so, they suddenly received several server announcements—advertisements from Guo Huai which provided a basic introduction to the Super Trade Channel. They included basic information such as its purpose, the convenience of purchasing items anytime and anywhere, and so on.
The Super Trade Channel immediately attracted a tidal wave of attention once the announcements were out. Before long, Nie Yan’s traffic charts exploded as players flooded into the channel. To their astonishment, they discovered that the Super Trade Channel was actually connected to the three biggest auction houses in Calore! Goods were well stocked, and the prices were nearly identical to the auction houses’!
Players started testing out the system, purchasing some items they needed. After just several minutes, they received a system announcement informing them that the item they purchased had been deposited into their personal storage.
The first transaction was completed successfully. The second transaction was completed successfully. The third transaction… In a mad frenzy, the players in the Super Trade Channel began purchasing everything they wanted. Traffic in the channel soared in a flash from thousands to tens of thousands, the number of sales increasing accordingly.
The hysteria in the Super Trade Channel rid Nie Yan of the last bits of doubt in his mind. His experiment was successful: the profitability of the Super Trade Channel vastly outperformed the Union of Assassins. Then again, the Union of Assassins only involved a small subsection of the playerbase, while the Super Trade Channel was relevant to every player. Online shopping was something everyone enjoyed, so they naturally flocked to the Super Trade Channel to purchase a large variety of goods. This much was apparent from the soaring traffic numbers.
Once players became completely accustomed to navigating, browsing, and purchasing items, the number of sales per day would grow beyond imagination. Even charging a miniscule commission for each transaction would accumulate to a vast sum.
With this new stream of income, Nie Yan could attract players from all over and bring more and more experts into Asskickers United. Most guilds warred for resources. But with a booming treasury, who could compete with him?
Although other auction houses might also start their own variation of a trade channel, the Super Trade Channel would always remain at the forefront since it was the first to appear.
With it fully operational, funding the salaries of the delivery staff would pose no problem.
The Super Trade Channel had processed several hundred items in a matter of minutes, and the transaction volume just continued rising exponentially. It was truly an astonishing speed.
Even Nie Yan hadn’t expected results to bloom so quickly. It seemed that the system announcement had quite the effect. But then again, after investing 2,000 gold, it was only natural there would be some sort of result. They could continue investing more into advertisements to spread the word when the Super Trade Channel became even more profitable, allowing it to become the go-to place for all shopping players.
Nie Yan instructed Zhao Li to make sure no issues occurred in the delivery process, and also ran over each segment of the system in detail with him.
The Super Trade Channel would become one of his largest sources of income, so of course he had to be careful with it.
After settling everything, Nie Yan closed out of the voice chat. Smoke Stub, Bladelight, and the others turned their gazes toward him.