Okay, I’m finished with my thumbnail and I’ll put it as a project link so you can backpack it
The Palace Prints Edition 2 Thumbnail

AD for catpaws pop shop: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/459720602/

I finished my article! Here it is, it’s somewhat lengthy but hopefully not too long
————————————————————————————————————————
How to have a popular PoP shop!

If you own a PoP shop, you probably know the feeling when your shop is getting no customers! It's happened to the best of us, but that doesn't mean you can't take steps to prevent it! So in this article, I'll give you some tips on how to have a good PoP shop that attracts customers!

Having high quality items

One thing that definitely helps get more customers is having high quality items- if your items are bad and low quality, no one will want them! So maybe spend a little more time making your items, or maybe look up a tutorial. And if you still aren't happy with your art, maybe try making a collab shop with someone so they can help you make art!

Cheap Prices

Another thing that will help you get more customers is to have cheap prices for your items. Obviously, you shouldn't make your prices so cheap to the point where the effort you put into making the item isn't worth the price- but most people won't buy an item that's super expensive. Most items should be 5-10 points, unless it's an item that takes a lot of effort, like a custom item; then you can charge more. Of course, you're the best judge of how much your product is worth- if you spend a lot of time on your products and you think it's worth 30 points, then sell it for 30 points! You just might need to wait to find the right buyer.

Having A Good-Looking Shop

Something else that helps you have a popular shop is having a good-looking shop. If you walked into a shop in real life and saw tilted shelves, If someone clicks on your shop and sees quickly scribbled-in shelves or messy rooms, they will probably click off your shop, instead of buying something from it! So maybe spend more time drawing your shop instead of just quickly drawing it. Or maybe buy a shop base from someone or buy a custom shop from someone if you want someone else to do it for you, or if you don’t think the shop you’ll make will turn out good enough.

Making Your Shop Easy to Use

Another thing that helps you have a popular PoP shop is having a shop that is easy to use. If your shop is hard to use and someone visiting can’t use it, they obviously won’t buy from it! To make your PoP shop easy to use, a couple things that help are making your buttons big, so that people who have shaky hands or misclick often are able to click the buttons. Another thing that helps is making it obvious how the shop works. If your shop is scrolling instead of rooms, then make some text that appears when you first run the project that says something like “use arrow keys to scroll through the shop” so people aren’t confused. You could put this information in the project description, but not everyone looks there, so it’s easier just to put it in the project directly, where everyone will see it. Also, making sure the prices are easy to find, like when you click on the sprites instead of having to read the description will help as well.
If you’re not sure if your shop is easy to use, try asking a family member or a friend to test it out for you and give you feedback. If you don’t have someone in your household to ask, maybe try politely asking another member of PoP. Most people are friendly and will be willing to help you out!

Mobile Friendly

Continuing from the last section, another thing that helps make your shop easy to use is making it mobile friendly. This might just be a pet peeve of mine, but I almost always use PoP / Scratch on my iPad, and I’m sure other people do as well. So when you have a shop that uses features that are exclusive to computers, such as arrow keys, spacebar, or any keys, people on mobile won’t be able to use your shop. So make sure that your shop can be used on mobile by testing it out on your phone or tablet (or touchscreen mode on your computer if your computer has that), or if you don’t have a mobile device, ask another member of PoP to test it for you.
If you have a shop that is computer exclusive, like a scrolling shop, and you want to keep it that way because you like it, maybe add a “mobile mode” by asking the user to pick if they are on a computer or a mobile device, or just make a new project that is the shop, but mobile friendly and add a link to the project in the notes and credits.
(Note that if you make it a new project and add both projects to the PoP studio that will count as 2 shops, which is the maximum you can have. I’d recommend just linking the project somewhere, that way you can make another shop if you ever want to, and so that you don’t clutter the studio with two projects that are just the same shop.)

Having an Attractive Thumbnail

(If you don’t know how to make a thumbnail, look at the project linked in the project to learn how! Project link: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/100598132/ (first type of thumbnail))
Having a good-looking thumbnail is one of the most important parts of your shop- because if your thumbnail doesn’t look good, no one will click on your shop! For a good-looking thumbnail, I’d recommend including these things:
The name of the shop, in a fancy font (but not one that’s too hard to read!)
Some products you sell, so the customers know what to expect when visiting your shop
An eye-catching background, like a bright color or a pattern, so people will see it and click!
If you don’t think that you can create a good-looking thumbnail yourself, there are plenty of shops that will create one for you! Just make sure that you have permission to use the thumbnail, that you credit them for making it, and that you still put your products in the thumbnail.
(Bonus: If you can make a GIF thumbnail and then use it, people will see it more and want to click even more!)

Project Description

Something else that helps your PoP shop become more popular is making sure your project description is short, or that all the important information is at the top. If your project description is long and lengthy, and people have to scroll through it, they’ll get bored and maybe even give up on buying something! So make sure you have all the important information, like how to use the project, the forms to fill out when buying something, ect. at the top so people don’t have to scroll.
Another thing about the description that helps is not putting it in a fancy font

My submission:
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/463294226/

Here is my ad (my shop is https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/449671162/).

✩ Come visit Daisy’s Cozy Corner! We sell all kinds of art - icons, fullbodies, OC designs, and more. Hope to see you soon! ✩

if anyone want to see my shop it here https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/458257585/

There's an article posted here I happened to read, and it mentions gif thumbnails. Does anyone know how to make those? I can't figure it out, and I REALLY want to try it.

Rainbowdewblossom wrote:

There's an article posted here I happened to read, and it mentions gif thumbnails. Does anyone know how to make those? I can't figure it out, and I REALLY want to try it.

This tutorial by @World_Languages is incredibly helpful: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/197608276/

artsystrawberri wrote:

Rainbowdewblossom wrote:

There's an article posted here I happened to read, and it mentions gif thumbnails. Does anyone know how to make those? I can't figure it out, and I REALLY want to try it.

This tutorial by @World_Languages is incredibly helpful: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/197608276/

Thanks! I'll check it out!

It worked! Thanks, @artsystrawberri!

OK, I can't get the thumbnail to change.

Rainbowdewblossom wrote:

OK, I can't get the thumbnail to change.

Do you still need help? Your shop's thumbnail appears as a gif on my screen.

artsystrawberri wrote:

Rainbowdewblossom wrote:

OK, I can't get the thumbnail to change.

Do you still need help? Your shop's thumbnail appears as a gif on my screen.

It finally worked.

Done but only because my article is a poem I wrote a long time ago… Here's the project. https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/463046557/
Look in the “Description” side to see the poem.

My newspaper thing super short.
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/471898703
Link.

First article: (Story)

Once in the world there had been colour. Once in the world there had been joy. Now there was only sadness. Boy knew all too much about sadness.

Everyone seemed to have forgotten about what being happy felt like, Boy hadn’t though. Boy remembered when he used to have fun, Boy remembered when he used to smile, Boy remembered it all- but Boy also remembered when the world lost the colour, he remembered when the grey began to slip in. Boy remembered everything.

It was when Mother disappeared, it was when Brother disappeared, it was when Dog disappeared. That was when it all started happening. Everyone began to slowly slip away, and those who stayed were miserable, including Boy. Nobody knew where they went, nobody cared, it didn’t matter where they were, all that mattered was that now they were gone.

Boy had cried himself to sleep in those days, watching all the colour slowly drain from his house, watching all the colour slowly drain from his street, watching all the colour slowly drain from his whole world. Boy sometimes felt as if he was the only one who remembered the colour.

Boy…

*

“Wakey wakey Boy!” Dr Peteronova entered the room. Boy didn’t like Dr Peteronova, he was mean, always trying to make Boy think himself as crazy. Boy stayed quiet and hid under the thin covers of his hospital bed. Dr Peteronova gritted his teeth and then lifted Boy out of bed, holding him at an arm’s length.

“Not being very good today, are we?” Dr Peteronova asked, Boy didn’t answer, trying to get his arms out of his strait jacket. Dr Peteronova tutted and pulled out his medicine bottle.

“Open wide Boy!” he said, pouring a dark liquid onto a spoon and pushing it towards Boy’s lips. Boy kept them clamped shut. Dr Peteronova put his fingers over Boy’s nose and his mouth dropped wide open, then, the man shoved the spoon down Boy’s throat and waited until he had licked every drop of it.

“I see my duty is done here.”

Dr Peteronova left the room.

Boy sat up, warm tears trickling down his face. This place was horrible. They always tried to make him forget about the colour. They treated him like a prisoner. Boy knew the colour was there! He knew it! Why didn’t they let him believe it? Boy wasn’t insane, Boy was what seemed to be the only sane person left. How could they forget about the colour? It didn’t make sense.

A bell rang out in the hall. This meant it was assembly time. Boy didn’t want to go, but he had to, otherwise they would make his time here even worse. Boy put on his slippers and trudged to the Meeting area.

“Hello, patients of Greyville hospital!”

It was Dr Yungfin speaking today, she was one of the worst. “Today we will be speaking about the origins of this hospital, and -”

Suddenly, the doors burst open. A woman ran in, screaming and crying. Her hair was all frizzed up, she had ripped clothes and torn shoes. A few dozen guards tore after her. Boy felt as if he recognized this woman, he just didn’t know where from. The woman shouted out, “DON’T LISTEN TO THEM BOY!!! IT’S ALL A LIE! A SCHEME. PLEASE BOY!”

Then it went black.

When Boy woke up, everything was fuzzy. He couldn’t remember what had happened earlier, all that was left was an image of a woman. Boy shook his head, it was probably just the medicine playing tricks with his mind. Maybe the doctors were right, maybe Boy was crazy. What even were colours anyway? Boy laughed maniacally to himself.

“How are you doing Boy?”

Dr Peteronova walked in. Why was I being so difficult? he wondered to himself. They are trying to help me after all! Boy smiled and beckoned for Dr Peteronova to come forward. Boy pointed to Dr Peteronova’s pocket and opened his mouth sweetly. Dr Peteronova chuckled and gave Boy the medicine and a spoon.

As he screwed open the bottle, Boy noticed something. Emblazoned on the side was a label with a few stickers lousily pasted over it. It was hard to see, but it was clear enough. The words: ColourFree and Together, we can erase colour from the world! were printed in black

Boy started to shake. The bottle slipped out of his hand and smashed to the floor. Medicine oozed all over his foot. “Oh dear.” Dr Peteronova sighed and went out to get a cloth. Once he had left the room, Boy picked up the label with the remains of the medicine on it. The label was sticky and soaked with the medicine, so he could easily pull off the rest on top. Then Boy saw that the print had run but he could pick out two words: Contains antiperoxidite. Boy recognized that word, it was also one of the ingredients in the pills that Mother used to take. When Boy had asked her what it meant, she had just ignored him and walked away. Just then, Dr Peteronova came back. “I see you found out our little secret.” he smiled, nastily, teeth dripping with what looked like blood. “Well, well, well…”

Sorry, I know this is a bit short, but here is my submission for the PoP article!

PoP. Every single day, PoP just grows bigger and bigger! There are many transactions and many new shops being made every single day! It really is fantastic that we have reached 3k, and even now we have the 3101-3200 studio. I have looked at comments in the main studio, and looked at multiple shops and mall simulators as well, and here is the data I gathered:

About 20 transactions being made every day
About 3 new members every day
About 1 member leaving per week
And about 3 other random things (like questions, statements, suggestions, etc.) a day!

In shops, people get about 1 order every 2 days after 1 week of opening their shop, and it dies out after about 3 weeks. (but every shop is different!)

And the mall simulator world grows bigger as well! About every week, a new mall simulator is made, and it grows to about 15-ish people (or much more).

Keep in mind that all of this data varies from week to week, day to day, as there are manager shops, holidays, etc.

These are huge accomplishments for the mall simulator and Palace of Points world, and I hope to see it grow bigger every day!

My Article:
A collection of 2-sentence horror stories

1 I waited on the bench for my family.
It's been 100 years and I'm still waiting.
2 I woke up to the sound of tapping on the glass.
I thought it came from the window until I looked
in the mirror.
3 I always thought it would be nice to have a
grave. Sitting here in the darkness, I now know
that I should have gone with cremation.
4 My mom called me from downstairs. As I
walked through the hallway, she pulled me into
her room, saying, “That wasn't me.”
5 The last man on earth sat alone in a room.
There was a knock on the door.

forever
if <kindness> then 
show
  

else
hide
end
end

Heyo!!! I’m done with planing my PoP article and I’m ready to share it with you, it’s about how to make a PoPular shop!

Hello there, I’m scrach-gacha and I want to teach you something. I wanna teach you how to make a PoPular shop! First of all I may not have a very PoPular shop but these are the steps I’ve been taking. First of all, ads are your BFF, Purchase one! There isn’t much to say, just get an ad for points uwu. Next I would recommend visiting other shops to make friends, then you can buy stuff from them and they will buy stuff from you. By making friends I do not mean F4F, I mean visit someone’s shop be kind and you might make a new friend! Patients is needed, if you wait a bit you can get a few views to start and soon customers will come to your shop. PoPular shops do not come easily but patients will help very very much. Bye bye now, PoP on!


Sorry this was short lol… uwu (lol I had to add the PoP on is that ok?)