Thanks Kafein:
I fully expect to be taking a loss here and there, like you mentioned, the market will go up and down, and there is no way I can keep track of the values of every item, although it is easy to keep track of trending items and figure out what is in style.
An x factor here, and part of keeping this thing in the black is my own gameplay, every time I hit 300k or retire I add another +1 to the library.
To counter that, I would personally add a limit to the amount of time someone can keep an item
This is a good point, I have rule #3 for held items (deposits), this says that after three weeks whatever you gave me as a deposit on your checkout can go back in the library.
I dont really think this will end up losing money for the library, even if a popular item gets replaced with an unpopular one, since I only aquire a new item on the market when it is cheap, and I will be placing every item in the library on the market with a huge markup, any profit made from sales to unscrupulous buyers will be used to buy more undervalued items. In this way it
is like a bank.
Eventually the selection will be such that having items not returned will only add the the diversity. Until I am able to expand the selection more through donations and the market things are going to remain slow.
You could also seek help from your "customers" when in need of an advice about a specific item. Views usually differ a lot.
Your godamn right.