Re: What are some tips and tricks of owning a retail lot?

@Drarcuul

There's a City Living portable painting selling thing ("The Street Gallery"?) that you see at the festivals. If you buy one they work beautifully with yard sales!

There's a picture of the thing here:  https://simscommunity.info/2016/11/13/city-living-lets-you-run-your-own-yard-sale/

@xochiquetzl_xkvn  Nice mate thanks, I had played with The Street Gallery, once but not in the context of a yard sale, haha I'm still such a noob

Thanks again ^_^

I finally caved and lowered the store mark up to 50%. Had a few nibbles, there was at least one food purchase in the mix after the shop remained open for over 20 hours. 😅

Also finally earned enough points I could afford the third employee unlock. 

Still working on the interior remodeling...its coming along but its still missing something I am not yet sure of. 🤔 But it's part of the fun trying to workout what that is.

So i'd like to bring this back to the original question after i've just hammered playing a Bakery for about a Sim month, picked up a lot of useful tips.

This is from my experience running a Bakery, other Retailers I imagine can sell and restock some very expensive items :P

1- I've attached a cropped pic of a good way to erect your signage, keeps it neat and allows you to place mutlple signs in an effective and discreet manner, it's basically a 1 square wide, tall wall, that i've decorated with a +2 Lot evironment gain  ' Urbanity ' if memory serves and placed as many foot-traffic signs as possible, do front and back.

2- Retail Perks. ( serious business :P )

Are you going to be playing the Lot purely with your own Sims, or you plan to ?  Then there's no need to get the extra employee perks, don't waste your points on perks that unlock purchaseable items from the build mode, save them until you can purchase 1. Instant Restocking 2. Cheaper Restocking.

Now if you're already loaded with Simoleons and dont need the money, prioritise Instant Restocking, it's such a great Perk, it will save you so much time.

Cheaper Restocking on the other hand changed my hourly intake from about 200-300 simoleons / hour,  to upwards of 1,200 simoleons / hour. So if you're in need of the money, that's where it's at.

Now while we're on the subject of making cash with your Business ( We already have our signs up ) there's the notable mention of the Advertising Campaigns.

These have a significant impact, and they dont cost you much at all.  I chose to go with the Large campaigns and I noticed an uptake of around 30%

If you're going to play your Business with Employees mostly then I would strongly suggest you focus on Perks that will affect customers and your own managerial capabilities.

1. Pickup the 1st additional Employee asap

Give yourself 1 Role to play and assign them both to the other jobs.

If it were me, I would take onboard the role of Answering Customer questions ( which essentially means all of the social interactions between yourself and the customers ).  This will also provide you with an opportunity to make the greatest gains in Perk Points which is what this is all about. This is the only job that you can really excell in, above and beyond your Employees.

Consider the Slick Salesman and Sure Sale Perks for this role.  

I would also like to point out that have you should try and stay in a Confident Mood to allow you to use a particular social interaction in Retail called " Close the Deal " ( unsure if it requires a certain skill level in Charisma, but make sure to have a mirror and sink on the lot to help secure the mood )

2. Assign your 2 workers to restock and ring up customers. Remember to manage these guys and berrate them when they're on their phones or slacking off in the crew room :P

3. Mega Manager will be important to you if you're playing this style so you can get the most out of Praising their behaviour and getting their skills leveled up faster.

That's all for now from me, I hope there was something here to help you out.

( By the way I run an Eclairs only Bakery with my GM Vampires, if you're wondering about the money side of things )

Gluck !