Set up Shopkeepers on your Minecraft server

Shopkeepers turns villagers, and other mobs or signs, into shops that sell exactly what you choose for exactly the price you set. Admin shops never run out of stock. Player shops sell whatever sits in a chest.

Checked against Shopkeepers 2.28.1, the newest build on its CurseForge (dev.bukkit.org) page, and the plugin's wiki, October 2026. The project's changelog lists Minecraft 1.21.5 to 26.3 for that build.

What you need

• A Paper or Purpur server. Vanilla servers have no Plugins tab, so switch software in JAR Manager first (see Change your Minecraft version or mod loader). The wiki says the plugin is built for CraftBukkit and Spigot. Forks such as Paper might work but are not officially supported, and its Known Issues page has a section of Paper-specific notes. Mod loaders like Forge will not work.
• Operator status for whoever builds the admin shops (see Whitelist players and set operators).
• Currency items rather than money. The plugin has no Vault support, so prices are items, which are emeralds by default.

Install it

1. Open the Plugins tab, select the CurseForge button and search for Shopkeepers. If a result named Shopkeepers is listed, click Install on it. The store installs a CurseForge file only when its author allows third-party downloads, and otherwise lists it with a link, so if there is no Install button or the search does not show it, use step 2. Modrinth's results for the name are add-ons and other plugins, not the original.
2. If the search does not show it, download the newest jar from the files page on your own computer. In the File Manager, open the plugins folder and click Upload to add it.
3. Restart from the Console tab (or click Start if the server is stopped), then type plugins. Shopkeepers should appear in the list. Read the Console output for errors from the plugin.

After the first start, the plugin writes plugins/Shopkeepers/config.yml, and keeps its shop data in plugins/Shopkeepers/data/save.yml.

Create an admin shop

Admin shops sell without limit. They need the shopkeeper.admin permission, which operators have by default.

1. Look at a block that is not a chest and run /shopkeeper. A villager shopkeeper appears there. Add an object type, such as /shopkeeper sign, to use a sign instead. The wiki lists sign, hanging-sign, npc and mob names.
2. Right-click the shopkeeper while sneaking to open its editor window.
3. Drag the item you sell into the top slot of a column, and the price items into the slots below it. Close the window to save.

Right-click the shopkeeper normally to trade with it.

Let players make their own shops

Player shops pull their stock from a chest. A player needs the shop creation item, a villager spawn egg named Shopkeeper by default. As an operator you can give yourself one with /shopkeeper give.

1. Hold the item and, without aiming at a block, right-click to cycle through the shop types: selling, buying, trading and book. Sneak and right-click to cycle the object type.
2. Right-click a chest to select it, then right-click another block to place the shopkeeper.
3. Put the stock in the chest, right-click the shopkeeper while sneaking, and click the cost slots to set prices.

The wiki recommends against giving players the /shopkeeper give command. Its easy alternative is an admin shop, for example near spawn, that sells the egg.

Common settings

Edit config.yml in the File Manager, then run /shopkeeper reload or restart the server. These keys are useful:

• max-shops-per-player defaults to -1, which means no limit.
• disable-other-villagers defaults to false. Set it to true to stop players trading with ordinary villagers.
• currency-item is the item used as money in player shops.
• language defaults to en-default.

Common problems

• Trades fail with "The traded items do not match". Plugins that rewrite item names or lore can break item matching. The wiki's Known Issues page lists examples.
• You cannot buy from your own shop. That is the default. The setting prevent-trading-with-own-shop controls it.
• A new shopkeeper vanishes. A newly created shopkeeper that fails to spawn is deleted again straight away. For example, this can happen inside a protected region when bypass-spawn-blocking is false. It defaults to true.
• You want a shop to stop selling for a while. Click the banner item in its editor window to close it.