I completely agree with the idea of bringing them back if possible. Currently, one of the only ways players are able to sell and buy items from other players would be through the auction house (/ah) which is extremely limited since most new players wouldn't even know to look at other pages leaving hundreds of items with little to no exposure to players. Additionally, players are limited to a max amount of 16 items (with Elite from my knowledge) with no ability to automatically "restock" the auction house forcing players to manually restock it. Whereas, chest shops would allow a full double chest of items to be sold at any given time which allows players to buy way more than 16 items of a certain item as well as buy many different items in the same area (if there are multiple chest shops in the area).
From my own experiences, I play pond a lot which gives your enchantment books, dragonfruit, golden apples, pots of gold, money pouches, and many more items that I have little to no use for, so I tend to sell them for my own mana profit. Constantly having to put those items on /ah with varying amounts depending on demand can be very tedious and sometimes annoying. Essentially, chest shops would make that process a lot easier for sellers.
Furthermore, chest shops could even improve overall player retention since the existence of chest shops could make the grind of prison a lot more welcoming to new players as well as a lot more enjoyable for long-existing prison players. For instance, a new player just realized that they would need to spend hours on mining just to reach a respectable in-game rank (Blacksmith, Legend, and Demigod). That new player could easily decide to move to a different Minecraft server since it might be looked like too much of a grind to reach those ranks or they might see these chest shops for money pouches and pots of gold as an easier way to reach those ranks. Essentially, chest shops would easily keep newer players from leaving due to the obvious grind along with keeping older players like myself who love the market of trading mana for items to further your own success. Even in previous seasons, I have spent hours and hours setting up chest shops with numerous items. New customers keep me motivated to keep playing and I am sure that chest shops with many potential benefits would keep those same customers to keep playing as well.
+1 :)
