Cash Register vs Tablet: Ringing Up Customers (CASH-LESS)

I was thinking this too while playing last night. The tablet makes the registers almost pointless.

I agree that it is pretty ridiculous that the cash registers are not used for payments, but I do like that the tablets. The tablets make it easier to move throughout the store in order to ring people up. From what I remember in the sims 2 the lines used to get so long that they would block other sims from moving in the store to the items they want.

Have you tried having multiple levels yet? @simslove & @BreeSasha
My big idea was to open up a 6 level Mall type of store where each floor sells something different. But It's hard running up and down the stairs trying to catch all the different customers that want to be rung up. At least with the cash register the customers were all in one location. Yea the lines could get long a few times but I usually place them strategically so the line isn't in the way. With only 1 employee to start, the ring up customer interaction has taken over my retail game. And I end up not enjoying the business owner part as much as I used to in Open For Business. That was my Favorite TS2 EP. So it's making me kinda sad. The only way I see it getting better is a cash register mod, or an auto ring up machine (like in TS2 OFB). For now I'm downsizing to maybe just two levels. :(

Having the option to use the cash register is something that should have been included. I get that they are trying to modernize things in the game, but the way it's set up does not work efficiently. If they used a register I would assume customers would stand in front of that to pay, with the tablets they stand by what they want to buy and half of the time my sim will stand across the room facing a different direction. Do sims now have payment info saved for everyone that enters their store? Because they sure don't come into contact with anything while they tap away on their tablet.

"drake_mccarty;13515300" wrote:
Having the option to use the cash register is something that should have been included. I get that they are trying to modernize things in the game, but the way it's set up does not work efficiently. If they used a register I would assume customers would stand in front of that to pay, with the tablets they stand by what they want to buy and half of the time my sim will stand across the room facing a different direction. Do sims now have payment info saved for everyone that enters their store? Because they sure don't come into contact with anything while they tap away on their tablet.

My Store sometimes gets pretty full and so I can't get around all the browsing customers to actually get to the paying customers. So some leave in a huff because my sim couldn't route to them. And then there are the ones I missed completely because I was working on one side of the room and they wanted go buy an item on the complete other side. Even when I set my employee I focus on ringing up customers I watched 1 chat up a different customer while a paying customer was waiting, got angry and left before I could route my sim to them. I lost 2 sales that way! Then there's a part of my store that if a sim wants to buy something on that shelf. My sim or my employee actually have to go OUTSIDE to ring them up THROUGH THE WALL!! (I'm trying to figure out how to post the picture on here.) this tablet thing is just getting more ridiculous for me tbh.

"Easy Breazy;13515352" wrote:
I'm one of the few that like the tablets. I didn't care for the lines in ":Open For Business" & it's nice having multiple employees ringing up customers. This game is something where you need to embrace the changes. The developers didn't want to remake ":Open For Business" because if you like that, then just play that. I appreciate the new direction they're trying, even though the game's not perfect, they're getting there.

That doesn't really compute. Because remake means to reuse material. So essentially they did actually remake open for business just by adding back retail. The ability to run a store/shop to this magnitude (not that horribleness that occurred in TS3 lol) in a sims game is remaking TS2 open for business. But I'm not saying the tablets aren't a cool idea. I just don't understand why we can't choose which of them we'd like to use. They have "cash register of tomorrow" that looks all techie and then the normal one just so we can decide which best fits our type of store. Well my store type needs cash registers that do what they were actually made for. I don't like the fact that my sims are ringing up customers (through a wall sometimes!) without ever exchanging any cash or swiping any cards like @MarianneSimmer said. It's like tap tap tap....magic money transfer and fair dust sparkles in the air. Actually no it's not like that, because that actually sounds cool lol!

I rarely, and I do mean rarely, lose sales in OFB.

If you have long lines, hire more employees and set up more registers.

I've been trying out retail tonight and want to rip out my hair. My store is successfully selling, but my sim is running (figuratively, she moves like a snail) to check everyone out. My sim is losing sales right and left because routing through the crowd is awful and my customers all seem to decide they are ready to buy at the same time. This is a SMALL shop btw. I wouldn't dream of starting a mall type store under these conditions. I marked prices ridiculously high, but it's not helping much. You get enough people in a store and it can be difficult to spot those who are ready to check out.

I want my cash register back, not as a useless (basically) decoration! And unless society suddenly all decides to shop online or all retailers intend on having teeny weeny stores........I don't think the cash register is going anywhere permanently soon.

I hope either gurus fix this with a patch or a modder does. This is awful.

We need a way to regulate the flow of customers. The tablet just isn't cutting it alone. My sim owner has to be made to stop trying to play with it to get a sale closed!

To me the reason cash registers aren't being used to pay is just laziness.

It's much 'easier' to just have them play with a tablet animation and ''ring them up''.

But EA knows to sell this so well: ''It adds some extra challenge to the game so you have to ''actively'' ring up customers''. It's just plum.

It was too ''hard'' to put a Sim behind the register and make people wait in line to pay. This breaks the shopping/retail experience for me.
Same for the shopping bags.. why in the world aren't they in this? It would make the experience much more real.

I haven't really tried the retail aspect yet. I'm not tempted to test that out yet, since the employees are broken as plum, and I want them to fix stuff first before Ill get my hands on that aspect of the game.

I've seen plenty of live streams, and the retail aspect of the game, with customers crowding in front of displays having massive group conversations and thinking they are at a bar instead of a store, is really putting me off. And the not working employees are another massive fail.

I still don't get how this aspect of the game made it through the ''tests''. It is clearly not working as intended, but still got released.
Don't even let me start about the annoying customers going behind the counters in a bakery, instead of standing in front of the displays.. ugh.

All in all: I think Sims 4 better had his own full OFB EP instead of some mix together half baked/working EP.

Yes, it is super weird however I can tell you how this can be corrected and people might like the tablet. But I will never like Sims Not standing in line with their little baskets. If you notice when you want your Sim to do any of the retail interactions instead of our Sim going to that Sim which may be standing a way from the crowds, the game doesn't do that. Instead it has the customer come to the player which just causes more of a group problem because then they all get in a group conversation. That is what is annoying to me. My Sim should 'go to' the customer. However, the game is set up to make the customer come to your Sim or your employee who may be standing in a group.

This would solve a lot of problems if it worked the other way. For instance the game does try to single off the Sim who wants to pay and 'sometimes' my Sim will go to them to ring them up (away from the crowd) but not always. They need to at least go stand at the register away from the crowds so my Sim or employee can head toward them without much trouble.

The developers did this because they're lazy. Key word there.
TS2 and TS3 registers were functional. But they didn't want to do any actual work with TS4.