How to make a shop in Minecraft server

One of the coolest parts about personal and private Minecraft servers is being able to set up a storefront to see unwanted or excess items. Personal servers will tend to use simple diamond payment stores, but larger servers often have complex, command-driven stores. The rules, commands, and features will often vary from server to server, making it impossible to cover everything.

Instead, this guide will focus on teaching you the ins and outs of building an appealing storefront for a more traditional SMP experience to attract customers to buy your unwanted items for diamonds.

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How to build a simple store for Minecraft servers

1) Find a spot

Most worlds won't have areas that are perfectly flat but find one as close as possible (Image via Mojang)

The first step when building a shop is to find a good location. Look for as flat an area as possible. Additionally, most Minecraft SMPs and servers tend to have a hub area near spawn. Finding a plot of land near this will help to maximize the number of eyes on your business.

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2) Build a foundation

The foundation for a small shop build (Image via Mojang)

Now that you've found a spot, you must set up a foundation. This will serve as the outline for the build and give you a frame of reference as to the store's size. Try to avoid making too large of a store to leave room for others to also set up shop.

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3) Add the walls

The open-aesthetic walls of the store (Image via Mojang)

After deciding how big you want your store to be, it's time to add some walls. While the build is really up to player preference, a great and cheap look to lean into is the traditional marketplace stall. This example build uses this look and is made mostly of wood and stone, both of which are easy to get.

Additionally, lean into the open-aired nature of these stalls. Instead of normal walls, consider using fences, and maybe even forgo a normal door. This will even help encourage people to check the shop out, as it will feel less like intruding on someone's Minecraft survival base and more like people are meant to wander in.

However, feel free to lean into aesthetics and block palettes that match whatever particular items you plan on selling. This approach will make it easier for passersby to determine exactly what it is you're selling, but it will also be considerably more expensive to build.

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4) Add a ceiling

A colorful, market stall looking, roof added to the build (Image via Mojang)

Now that you've built up the shop's walls, it's time to add a ceiling. One of the best methods for this, if you're following the previously mentioned market stall aesthetic, is to make the roof using alternating colors of dyed Minecraft wool. This mimics the tarp-top roofs normally found atop these stalls and helps to signal that you're actually a store.

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5) Furnish the interior

The basic decorations on the inside of the shop (Image via Mojang)

With the outside of the store done, it's time to furnish the inside. Smaller stores won't need to do much here, as the item chests should take up considerable room. Use more wood and stone blocks, such as trapdoors, fences, pressure plates, and stairs, to add decorative counters, tables, and chairs to sell the store vibe.

Make sure to leave enough space for chests, as this is a store first and a decorative Minecraft build second. The last thing you want to happen is that your decorations eat up so much of the building's internal space that there's no room for your inventory.

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6) Advertise your items

Examples of store advertisements (Image via Mojang)

The final step for your store is to add some advertising to it. This builds on the same concept mentioned in the roof section. Advertisements and signs around the outside of the shop will help it feel like a public access store rather than a private base build that just happens to be near the Minecraft server's spawn zone.

If you use Minecraft item frames to advertise the contents of your store, a good idea is to utilize an anvil to rename the display item to show the price. This will cause any players that wander by to see your store's prices, which, if the deals are good enough, should grab their attention.