On this page
- Pick the kind of shop your players will use
- Compare the plugins from our shortlist
- AdvancedRegionMarket: sign-based plot sales and rentals
- AT-ShoppingMall, made by our team
- QuickShop-Hikari: chest shops inside the stalls
- ccShop, FantasyShop, ShoppingMall and Drako Player Shops
- Install the plugins on your server
- Build and protect the market district
- Set up ARM rent and sale signs
- Limit stalls by rank
- Run shop events that bring players to spawn
- Keep the market healthy after launch
Key takeaways
5- Plot rental plugins (AdvancedRegionMarket, AT-ShoppingMall) give shops an address; chest shop plugins (QuickShop-Hikari) handle the actual buying and selling.
- AdvancedRegionMarket is free and needs WorldGuard, WorldEdit, Vault and an economy plugin.
- Rent usually beats sale for a market street, because unpaid stalls return to the market for new shops.
- Protect the whole district with one WorldGuard region and give each stall its own higher-priority region.
- Regular events such as market day, grand openings and best stall contests are what keep players walking through the shops.
This guide is for survival server owners who want trading to happen in one shared place instead of in chests scattered around the wild. By the end you will know which kind of shop plugin suits your server, how to set up rentable shop plots with chest shops inside them, and how to run market events that bring players to spawn.
Pick the kind of shop your players will use
The plugins in this space do quite different jobs, so sort them into groups before you install anything:
- Plot rental and sale. You build a mall or market street and split it into stalls. Players buy or rent a stall, and the plugin handles payments, expiry and resets. AdvancedRegionMarket and AT-ShoppingMall work this way.
- Chest shops. A player puts items in a container and sets a price, and other players buy or sell through it. QuickShop-Hikari works this way.
The owner's shortlist also includes ccShop (listed as modern GUI player and admin shops), FantasyShop (listed as player-run item shops) and ShoppingMall (listed as an economy shop system). Their pages would not load for us, so we only give their listing titles here.
For shop events, the setup that usually works best uses both groups: players rent stalls and put chest shops inside them. A stall gives each shop a fixed address, and you can plan an event around an address.
Compare the plugins from our shortlist
| Plugin | What it does | Needs | Free or paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| AdvancedRegionMarket | Sell, rent and contract signs for WorldGuard regions, with a GUI | WorldGuard, WorldEdit, Vault and an economy plugin | Free |
| AT-ShoppingMall (made by our team) | Rentable and buyable shop plots in a managed mall, run through GUIs | See the product page | Paid |
| QuickShop-Hikari | Chest shops created by clicking a chest and typing a price | Vault and an economy plugin | Free |
| ccShop | Listed as modern GUI player and admin shops | Not checked | Not checked |
| FantasyShop | Listed as player-run item shops | Not checked | Not checked |
| ShoppingMall | Listed as an economy shop system | Not checked | Not checked |
The BuiltByBit listings for ccShop, FantasyShop, ShoppingMall and Drako Player Shops would not load for us while we wrote this, so we have not described their features. Read their pages before you choose. ShoppingMall is a different plugin from our AT-ShoppingMall.
AdvancedRegionMarket: sign-based plot sales and rentals
AdvancedRegionMarket (ARM) puts buy, rent and contract signs on WorldGuard regions. Players click a sign to take a plot and then manage it from a GUI. Its SpigotMC page lists a few features that suit a market district well:
- Regionkinds group plots by type and cap how many a player can own.
- Hotel mode lets players break only the blocks they placed themselves, so your stall walls stay intact.
- Automatic reset clears plots owned by inactive players and takes a backup first.
- Subregions let a plot owner split their plot and sell parts of it.
The page says ARM is built natively for 1.13 and tested from 1.12 up to 1.21.4+. On a newer version, test it on a copy of your server first.
AT-ShoppingMall, made by our team
AT-ShoppingMall turns an area into a managed mall. Admins mark out 3D plots with a wand (left click for the first corner, right click for the second) and set a rent or sale price. Players then rent or buy from the /sm menu.
The plugin handles scheduled rent, overdue fees, grace periods, automatic eviction and an audit log. When a player is evicted, their blocks and chest items are saved so they can reclaim them. Owners can also sub-lease plots to other players, and an admin reviews any eviction from a sub-lease.
It also has QuickShop hooks, holograms, warps, Discord webhook alerts and PlaceholderAPI support. Data can be stored in YAML, SQLite or MySQL/MariaDB.
QuickShop-Hikari: chest shops inside the stalls
With QuickShop-Hikari a player opens a shop by clicking a chest and typing a price, no commands needed. Its Modrinth page lists Paper, Purpur, Spigot and Folia, and Minecraft 1.20 and up, including 26.x. It needs Vault plus an economy plugin, and it is free and open source.
ccShop, FantasyShop, ShoppingMall and Drako Player Shops
The owner of this blog asked us to include these four as well. Their pages would not load for us, so this is only what their listing titles say:
- ccShop: GUI player and admin shops. See the ccShop listing.
- FantasyShop: player-run item shops. See the FantasyShop listing.
- ShoppingMall: an economy shop system. See the ShoppingMall listing.
Check each listing for supported server versions, dependencies and whether it is free or paid. For Drako Player Shops, the showcase video below shows how its shops look in game.
Install the plugins on your server
A plot-plus-chest-shop setup with ARM needs WorldEdit, WorldGuard, Vault, an economy plugin, ARM itself and a chest shop plugin such as QuickShop-Hikari. Download each one from its official page, then follow the steps for where your server runs:
- Stop the server cleanly by typing
stopin the console. - Copy the jars into the plugins folder, for example
scp *.jar user@host:/srv/minecraft/plugins/. - Start the server again and check the log for errors from each plugin.
- Open the File Manager and go into the
pluginsfolder. - Upload the jars there. For many files, SFTP is quicker, using the details on the Settings page.
- Restart from the Console page and read the startup log for errors.
- Open Files, then FTP File Access, and go into the
pluginsfolder. - Upload the jars.
- Restart from the panel and watch the console for errors.
Build and protect the market district
- Build the stalls first. Keep every stall in a tier (small, medium, large) the same size, so pricing is easy to explain.
- Protect the whole district. Put one WorldGuard region over the street so players cannot grief the paths and decorations. Our step by step guide to WorldGuard safe zones covers selecting an area and setting flags.
- Define a region for each stall with a clear name such as
shop_small_01. Give stall regions a higher priority than the district region so owners can build inside them. - Place a sale or rent sign in front of each stall.
Set up ARM rent and sale signs
ARM reads the sign lines in this order. The world line is optional.
[arm-sell]
world
regionname
price
[arm-rent]
world
regionname
price;duration;maxtimeA contract sign ([arm-contract]) takes a price and an auto-extend duration instead. Check the ARM wiki for the exact duration format before you place a lot of signs.
Three commands help when you have a whole street of stalls:
/arm signlinkmodelinks signs to regions faster./arm setregionkindsorts regions into tiers./arm sethotelturns on hotel mode for a region.
Limit stalls by rank
A limit on plots per player stops one rich player from buying the whole street. If you want donors or veterans to hold more stalls, tie the limits to ranks. Our LuckPerms ranks guide shows how to build the groups those limits depend on.
Run shop events that bring players to spawn
The plugins give you the stalls. Events are what get players walking past them. These ideas work with any of the plugins above:
- Grand opening. Announce the opening a few days ahead, then make every stall free to claim for the first hour. Players log in at the same time and the street fills all at once.
- Market day. Pick one evening a week. Shop owners restock and you broadcast a reminder. Staff give a small reward to the first players who buy from a set number of different stalls.
- Best stall contest. Players vote for the best decorated shop. The winner gets a free rent period or the stall nearest the spawn exit.
- Theme weeks. Ask every stall to stock one category, such as redstone, potions or building blocks. That gives players a reason to compare prices.
- Prime location auction. Hold back a few corner stalls and give them out by in-game auction or contest instead of by sign.
Keep the market healthy after launch
- Clear dead shops. ARM can reset the plots of inactive players. AT-ShoppingMall evicts overdue renters and keeps their items so they can get them back.
- Watch stall prices. If stalls sit empty, lower the rent or shorten the minimum term. If they never come free, build another row.
- Put the market where players already walk. A district between spawn and the portal to the wild gets far more visitors than one behind a warp nobody remembers.
Frequently asked questions
How do I let players rent shops on my Minecraft server?
Build the stalls, define a WorldGuard region for each one, then use a plot rental plugin to sell or rent them. With AdvancedRegionMarket you place a sign with [arm-rent] on the first line, followed by the world, the region name and the rent details. AT-ShoppingMall, made by our team, does the same job with a wand and GUI menus.
What plugins does AdvancedRegionMarket need?
Its SpigotMC page lists WorldGuard, WorldEdit and Vault, plus an economy plugin that works with Vault. Install all of them before ARM, then restart the server.
What is the difference between a chest shop and a shop plot?
A chest shop is a single container that sells or buys items at a set price, as in QuickShop-Hikari. A shop plot is an area a player buys or rents to build their shop in. Many servers use both, with players renting a plot and putting chest shops inside it.
How do I stop rented shops from sitting empty?
Rent stalls out rather than selling them, keep the rent affordable, and turn on automatic reset or eviction for inactive owners. ARM can reset the plots of inactive players, and AT-ShoppingMall evicts overdue renters while saving their items.
