Store Inventory Cycling
Not saying everything, just a portion periodically

So correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can tell, a number of stores only change inventory based purely on player interaction (purchases/crates/etc), correct? Doesn't that make it really smallworldy?

Businesses normally cycle out inventory that isn't selling as well, so my idea is to have it so most stores will cycle out a portion (maybe 10-20%?) of their inventory once a week. This would prevent the buildup of things that there's not as much interest in, making for some amount of player convenience, while also making sense from an IC business perspective.

In the case of ones that require a crate to restock, I think that's fine. The idea is more to just encourage inventory movement in a way that makes sense IC and reduces the smallworlding feel of the store system as it is.

Alternatively, being able to request certain items/materials, even if there's some amount of upcharge for a 'special order' would be a great help, especially when it comes to stores that see almost no movement (looking at you, store that requires a license for purchases and only restocks with crates).

Thoughts?

I have to say, I've had a very similar though recently. We're supposed to believe that millions of people are buying the items in this world, and yet you can see the same stock for months if it's something that no player is interested in. And there's no way to work around it beyond buying stuff you don't need yourself in the hopes that the new stock will be the thing that you're looking for. Or try and convince someone else they really want it in hopes for the same.

Does delivering a crate to somewhere that's already full force a cycle? If not, that may be another idea. There were a couple times where I checked inventories before and after a delivery without seeing any change, but I'm not sure if it's because nothing changed or just bad RNG where the last item was replaced with the same (in the case of stores with very little inventory to begin with).