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

@The_Suit05Hm...yeah I guess it might be that. I mean I thought it looks like a cozy place to shop, it's a converted house in Henford-on-Bagley that I tweaked the layout a bit of to open it up more without losing the cottage feel of it.

There have been a few purchases made but not many and none have been the food.😭

But I'll try switching up the wall paper of the downstairs shopping area and see if that entices more sims into making more purchases.

Also was wondering if the shopping zone is only in the downstairs/ground floor level or if there were a second floor, would the customers go upstairs? 🤔

@Wholesome_Goth 

Yeah, there’s a kind of upright freezer thing. I have one in my store and it seems fairly useless, sale-wise, but I’ve seen plantains fly off the shelves in one of James Turner’s letsplays. 

I have a couple of shops. The current one is owned by Caleb Vatore and is vampire tomes, plasma packs, trinkets from Paranormal stuff (via showhiddenobjects), and the bakery case full of his girlfriend’s Dragonfruit. It’s not quite the Strangerville Curio shop but it’s… odd. 😀 The other is a witch’s magic shop where she sells potions and potion ingredients, and also does juice fizzing in the back and sells cowplant berries and Dragonfruit in the bakery case. Honestly the Potions are flavor and we’re living on produce and fizzy juice (mostly produce). She basically copypastoed her Potions for the shelves and we restock. (I just added the magic Tomes and uploaded it to the gallery and popped it into my starter save.)

So. Do decorate, it helps. There are also signs under retail items that improve foot traffic. There are perks that help after a while, and you can also advertise. The witch has an employee that does nothing but clean unless there’s a rush because things immediately become filthy. (Caleb’s girlfriend and her teen brother sometimes come in and clean or restock.)  The Cursive sign that's on every single retail lot, including mine? that's one of the items that attracts people to the store ("curb appeal").

Restocking is a pain. You make the most profit selling items you create or grow. 

People often gravitate to the cheapest item in the store and only buy that. Try temporarily setting other items not for sale so people have a choice of food, food, or a $12K violin (just kidding… mostly). That said, Dragonfruit just flies off the shelves in my stores. 

I suspect that people would absolutely go upstairs. I have a vet clinic that I have to lock doors on to keep customers out of it. Ditto a restaurant with a little apartment over it.

Hm, I see the Cat Loves Food Inc. Professional food warming Rack and the Lice cold Retail Freezer in the display section tab.

Can't seem to move the food into it whether or not it's set for sale. Food might not be fresh enough anylonger, so I will try making more food to see if that makes a difference....previously wasn't using either of them since they both seem more a veterinarian clinic item. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Edit: Still slowly working on sprucing the interior up more. That may take awhile and multiple build mode sessions over time. 😅

You might want to use the bakery display case for food. I use it for my dragonfruits, lol.

Hot tip: toddlers can get their own food out of a bakery display case, so if you're doing 7 toddlers or something like that it can save your sanity...

@xochiquetzl_xkvnhm, yeah, I'm probably going to switch back to one of the other refrigerated counters...I can't tell if anyone has bought any of the food or not. They are starting seem appreciative of the food options, but if they are purchasing something from the food selection, the money is not showing in the business funds. 😣

Also, another question that came up that I can't seem to find the answer to elsewhere:
Does the food need to be devided into single serve portions, or will it still sell as a bigger plate?

@Wholesome_Goth  I think it'll sell either way.

Foods sells better in the Seasons pack? I forget which pack it is but its like a backyard sale bin.

But doing yard sales - this way you don't actually need to own a business or worry about curb appeal 

But it also runs much shorter than a retail store - but if you just want to sell food this is one option

"Does the food need to be devided into single serve portions, or will it still sell as a bigger plate?"

In response to this, from my experience selling from the Entrepreneur's Ground Floor Table a full plate of food 4,8 or 12 will sell for same amount as a single serving of that same dish.

Due to this, I have always used the option to " pick up serving " until i'd cleaned it up, makes no sense to waste all that time baking 8 serves to sell it for the same as 1.

In addition to this, I always Bake with my Master Chef ( Fresh Chef Trait ) so the food never spoils. - Then I place the completed dish onto my Cloning Machine and clone up some freebie and keep the original somewhere safe for when I need it again ( Keep it Secret... Keep it Safe ) 😛

You can create a Cloning Machine on the Invention Constructor at the Scientist workplace. You must be a Scientist to use the Invention Constructor, but anyone can use the inventions. So once you've made the Inventions and upgraded them there's no further requirement to remain a Scientist, for this particular scenario. Although I must say that unlocking lvl 10 Scientist for the computer is neat 🙂

Let me know if the Group Meal / Single serve applies to the Baking experience the same as it does on the Entrepreneur's Table please ?

Happy Baking and good luck with your stores ! 

Yard sales are amazing. Whenever I'm doing something like Rags to Riches, the Making Money and Super Rich Super Villain scenarios, etc., I make floral arrangements and paintings and have a yard sale to sell them at 300% markup.  :D

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@xochiquetzl_xkvn wrote:

Yard sales are amazing. Whenever I'm doing something like Rags to Riches, the Making Money and Super Rich Super Villain scenarios, etc., I make floral arrangements and paintings and have a yard sale to sell them at 300% markup.  :D

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Can you seriously put paintings on the Yard Sale Tables ?  I didnt' even try that, sounds like a super fast cash cow startup ^_^

@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 !