Shopaholic
Every great survival server eventually runs into the same problem: players want to trade, but chests full of diamonds and a vague sense of trust only go so far. Shopaholic solves that problem by turning Minecraft into a functioning economy. Originally built as the economy module of Harvest Festival, this add-on now stands on its own as a flexible framework for shops, shipping, and gold currency. Whether you run a bustling multiplayer world or a tightly curated modpack, Shopaholic gives you the tools to put real prices on the things your players produce.
What Shopaholic Actually Does
At its core, Shopaholic is a utility mod. It does not dump a fixed set of shop blocks into your world and call it a day. Instead, it lets you attach shop functionality to any block, item, or entity, or even trigger one through a command. That means a humble oak sign, a custom crate from another mod, or a wandering trader entity can all become a point of sale.
The second pillar is shipping. Shipping bins let players drop items in and receive gold based on prices you define. Combined with a wide range of conditions and item types, this creates a genuine loop: gather resources, sell them through shipping, earn gold, and spend that gold at player-run or server-run shops.
Shops, Shipping, and Gold
- Shops can be bound to blocks, items, entities, or commands for maximum flexibility.
- Shipping bins buy items from players and pay out in gold.
- Prices and conditions support a multitude of item types and requirements.
- Each shop can use its own texture, so a bakery and a blacksmith need not look alike.
- KubeJS support lets pack authors script shop and shipping behavior directly.
By default, the mod ships with the Harvest Festival visual style, with a more vanilla-friendly look planned for the future. If you are comfortable editing configs, you can already swap textures per shop to match your pack's art direction.
Who Shopaholic Is For Right Now
It is worth being upfront: at present, Shopaholic is primarily a tool for modpack authors and server owners. Shops and shipping data are defined through configuration rather than created in-game. The Customisation page on the official wiki walks through exactly how to add shop and shipping entries, and the mod's KubeJS integration gives scripters an even deeper level of control.
In-game creation is on the roadmap, but it will arrive later. For now, think of Shopaholic as infrastructure. You set the rules, define the prices, and your players interact with the results.
If you would rather skip manual file wrangling, the foxygame.net launcher offers a one-click install for Shopaholic, pulling the correct build and its dependencies straight into your instance without you touching a single config path. That convenience matters when you are juggling a dozen add-ons at once.
Supported Versions and Loaders
Shopaholic is a Forge mod, and it requires Penguin-Lib 0.4.0 or newer to run. The dependency is not optional, so make sure Penguin-Lib is present in your mods folder before you launch. Version support tracks the Harvest Festival split, meaning the economy component is maintained separately from the farming and social modules. Check the mod's project page for the exact Minecraft versions currently covered, since the supported range has shifted as the Harvest Festival project was broken into its individual parts.
How to Install Shopaholic
Installation follows the standard Forge workflow, and knowing how to install it correctly saves a lot of headache later.
- Install the matching Forge version for your Minecraft release.
- Place the Shopaholic jar and Penguin-Lib 0.4.0+ into your mods folder.
- Launch the game once to generate config files.
- Edit shop and shipping data following the wiki's Customisation guide.
- Restart and test with a spare world before rolling out to players.
When you download Shopaholic, grab it from the official project page rather than a mirror, and double-check that the Penguin-Lib version matches. Mismatched dependencies are the single most common cause of a failed launch.
Building a Real Economy
Shopaholic is not a plug-and-play shop mod, and that is precisely its strength. By decoupling shops from specific blocks and letting you define prices, conditions, and payouts yourself, it adapts to almost any setting, from a cozy village roleplay server to a competitive skyblock economy. The learning curve is real, but the payoff is a world where gold means something and trade happens without a moderator watching every chest.
Start small: one shipping bin, a handful of priced items, and a single shop. Tune the numbers, watch how your players respond, and expand from there. If you are a pack author, experiment freely and try to break it, because feedback is exactly what pushes a framework like this forward.