Brand

Creators of items often work together to create items. When they list group items, it is possible to give shares of the profits to the creators involved in creating the items, or brand them.

To brand an item you are listing in the Shop, use the "List Item" link on the item's page in your Stuff tab. In the "Branding" section, use the dropdown box to select the group that the item creators are associated with. The dropdown list is populated with groups where you have a profit share. If you do not see the correct group in the dropdown list, check in the groups section of your profile to make sure you have shares and wait a few minutes to try again after the database has reloaded its cache.

Creating a Brand
Any group can be a brand. It functions as a brand as soon as any member in that group has a non-zero brand share.

Brand shares are assigned through profiles. Only managers of a group can assign profit shares to any of that group's members by going to the member's profile and using the button under that group name in the groups section. Up to 5 shares can be given to each member. The member's shares will be divided by the total number of shares assigned by that brand.

There is currently no way to get a summary of all the brand shares for a certain group, but you can see some of the brand shareholders listed after the managers on the group information page.

When a member has a share of a brand, the member can list items under that brand and can reprice or delist items of that brand.

Branding an Item
If you're a member of at least one brand, you can select it when you list an item (or reprice it). That item will then appear to be sold by the brand (the group name will be shown as the creator and linked to the group page), rather than you. Only the listing member can magic-purchase the item listed under the brand.

You can also attribute a branded item to another branded item.

There is currently no visual distinction on a branded listing in the shop, but this is being considered and may be added in a later release.

Profits from Branded Items
When a branded listing is sold, the profit from the sale is split according to shares. Derivation is taken into account just as before.



For coin profits that work out to a fraction of a coin for brand shareholders, the number is always rounded down to the closest whole number. For example 2.3, 2.5, and 2.7 coins would all be rounded down to 2 coins.

For bling profits from coin items, the number is always rounded down to the closest .01 bling. For example .023, .025, and .028 bling would all be rounded down to .02 bling.

The leftover profits (in whole coins or .01 increments of bling) from rounding are then distributed to shareholders in order of number of shares held then by member id to break ties.

'''Because of rounding down, it is possible to lose some profit due to the rounding down or even have some many brand shareholders that some do not receive a profit. So be aware of how many shareholders your brand has and do the math to figure out what pricing is needed for everyone in the brand to profit as desired.'''



Examples
Example 1 Member A has 1 share and Member B has 2 shares. Member A will receive 1/3 or 33% of the profits and Member B will receive 2/3 or 66% of the profits. So for an unattributed item that is 100 coins, the total profit is ▲ or 30 coins where Member A gets 10 coins and Member B gets 20 coins. For an unattributed item that is 10 bars, the total profit is ▲ or 3 bling where Member A gets 1 bling and Member B gets 2 bling.

Example 2 Member A has 2 shares and Member B has 2 shares. Both Members A & B will receive 2/4 or 50% of the profits. For an unattributed item that is 100 coins, the total profit is ▲ or 30 coins where Members A & B get 15 coins each. For an unattributed item that is 10 bars, the total profit is ▲ or 3 bling where Members A & B get 1.5 bling each.