Shopkeepers: Villager Shops on Your Minecraft Server (Admin and Player Shops)

What it does and when to choose it

Shopkeepers places still, invincible merchants (villagers, other mobs or signs) with the trades you choose. They open with a right-click and show the good old villager trading window, so everyone knows how to use it.

There are two kinds. The admin shop has infinite stock: it's the spawn shop that sells keys, food or building blocks. The player shop takes what it sells from its owner's chest and stores what it earns there: it's for a server with trading between players.

It charges in items, not money: emeralds by default, and above 20 emeralds it uses emerald blocks (each worth 9). If your server already has money with /pay and /balance, the sign shops of an economy with Vault fit better; if you want something that feels like normal Minecraft, Shopkeepers. For a shared market where you list and bid from a menu, there's the auction house (/ah).

If what you're after is human-looking NPCs that talk, walk or run commands, that's Citizens or FancyNpcs. Shopkeepers can use a Citizens NPC as a shopkeeper, but it doesn't need to.

Installing it

1. Make a backup

   If your server has backups, «Backups» → create one before adding plugins.

2. Download it from BukkitDev

   Shopkeepers isn't on Modrinth, so «Mods & plugins» doesn't find it. You download it from its page on dev.bukkit.org (the project is called Shopkeepers). Pick the version that says your server's: 2.28.1, for example, is for 26.3. Your version shows in «Mods & plugins» → «Server type».

3. Upload it to the plugins folder

   In «Files», go into plugins and upload the .jar. It doesn't need any other plugin. It's a plugin: it runs on Paper (what we deliver), not on Fabric or Forge.

4. Restart

   Press «Restart». On startup it creates plugins/Shopkeepers with its config.yml. If a Shopkeepers error shows up in the «Console», it's almost always a plugin version that isn't your server's.

The spawn shop (admin, infinite stock)

In the same editor, the name tag renames it (you type the name in chat), the variant items change the villager's profession or outfit, the ender pearl moves it to another block and the banner closes the shop without deleting it. The bone in the corner deletes it, and it can't be undone.

If spawn is protected with WorldGuard and the villager doesn't appear or vanishes right away, it's the protection blocking mob spawns: create a region for the shop that allows them, or adjust bypass-spawn-blocking in Shopkeepers' config.yml.

1. Look at the block where it goes

   Stand in front of the spot where you want the shopkeeper, looking at the ground (a block that isn't a chest).

2. Create it

   Type /shopkeeper. A villager appears on top of the block. It's for operators by default (permission shopkeeper.admin).

3. Open its editor

   Sneaking, right-click the villager. A window like a chest's opens.

4. Add the trades

   Each column is a trade: at the top what's sold, and below what it costs (the second price is optional). Drag items from your inventory into their slot. Any item works, including enchanted or named ones. There's room for 45 trades, over 5 pages you flip with the buttons on the fourth row.

5. Close to save

   Closing the window saves it. Right-click without sneaking and you'll see the shop as a player will.

Player shops (with their own chest)

To create their shop, a player needs the shop creation item: a villager spawn egg named Shopkeeper. /shopkeeper give hands it out, and it's for operators. The cleanest way to distribute it is to sell it: add a trade to the admin shop at spawn that gives that egg in exchange for emeralds. That way every stall cost its owner something and the map doesn't fill up with empty shops.

1. Choose the type

   With the egg in hand and not looking at any block, right-click cycles through the types: selling, buying, trading and book.

2. Choose the look

   Sneak and right-click, also in the air, to cycle through the shapes: villager, sign, hanging sign, witch and the other mobs the server has enabled.

3. Select the chest

   Right-click your chest (full of what you're going to sell). It gets linked: stock comes out of it and what you earn goes into it.

4. Place the shopkeeper

   Right-click the block where you want it, near the chest.

5. Set the prices

   Sneaking, right-click your shopkeeper. In a selling shop, the top row shows what's in the chest and the bottom one the prices: left-click raises, right-click lowers, and holding shift goes in steps of 10. Close to save.

The four kinds of player shop

Selling: the player puts what they sell in the chest and sets the price in emeralds. When the last stack of something runs out, that trade switches off by itself. If the chest is full and the payment doesn't fit, the sale doesn't go through.

Buying: the other way round, the owner buys from others. They put one of what they want in the chest and the emeralds to pay. It works best with simple materials (iron, wood, food): with enchanted items, a generic trade can accept variants you didn't want.

Trading: item for item, no emeralds. The price is set by picking up an item from your inventory and clicking its slot in the editor. To remove a trade, lower the price amount until it disappears.

Book: sells copies of written books. The chest holds the original book and empty book and quills; the shop makes the copies. It recognizes them by title.

A player shop's editor also has a chest (opens the stock from a distance), a bell (notifications when someone buys) and a head (adds other players as shop assistants).

What's worth adjusting

It's all in plugins/Shopkeepers/config.yml, and it applies when the server restarts.

Shop limit: max-shops-per-player is -1 (no limit). Set it to 2 or 3 so nobody fills spawn with stalls. To give a rank more, the permissions shopkeeper.maxshops.5, .15 or .25 (with LuckPerms); they only raise the limit, not lower it.

The currency: currency-item is the emerald and high-currency-item the emerald block. If emeralds are everywhere on your server (villager farms), you can switch it to diamonds, or turn off the high currency by setting AIR.

Chests: protect-containers is on by default, so nobody but the owner can open or break a shop's chest. Don't remove it.

The creation item: shop-creation-item is the villager spawn egg. If you'd rather it be earned by playing, without going through an operator, you can change it to an item found in the game.

max-shops-per-player: 3

Ideas so the shop brings the server to life

A market at spawn: protect a street with WorldGuard, set up a few stalls and sell the creation egg in the admin shop. Players get a reason to come back to spawn and to log in even when their group isn't on.

An admin shop that buys what's left over (crops, stone, rotten flesh) for emeralds puts currency into the server without an economy plugin. And another that sells what's hard to get (name tags, saddles, crate keys) gives those emeralds a use.

If you don't have a server yet, at NapNodes you can create a Minecraft one for free, no card, with Paper: upload Shopkeepers in «Files» and set up the spawn shop in ten minutes.

Frequently asked questions