Let me start by saying I love the retail store idea but there are some areas that I think need to be fixed.Employee Scheduling; When the store opens all of the employees come in together and leave together. This means that just when the bulk of my customers are ready to buy, I have no employees left to help out. In my current store, I only have one employee and he does great! I've got him almost maxed out and so he rarely slacks and does great at his assigned task but when I need him the most, he has to go. I've thought about hiring additional employees but since they all come and go at the same time, it would just be a waste of money and not solve the problem. Employee scheduling is something that the store owner should have the ability to set and modify as needs be.Store Hours: My poor sim spends all of his time at work for one day (he goes to work when the kids go to school but doesn't get home until around the time they need to go to school the next day) then needs the full day off to rest and spend time with his family. Because there's always one more customer to ring up or one more item to restock. Then, there's the after hour cleaning and repairs that need to be done. If the store had set hours, this wouldn't be an issue because like an event, you'd get a popup saying that the store is set to open in 1 hour and give you the option of going to the store or staying home. Also, if there's a set closing time, then you still have the evening to go home, chill with the kids, woohoo with the spouse, work on your garden and whatever else you need to do. The store hours should be something that the store owner has the ability to set and modify if needs be.Other than that, I love the retail business. Mine is called Willow's Collectables. Willow finds the collectables and her husband Ander sells them in the store. Willow only comes in when Ander gets desperate for help because the employee has abandoned him. Their child son, Jacoby, comes in after school to do homework then go home so he can work on his needs. But the store is finally making money instead of just being a strain on their relationship. lol

"PenguinFoop;c-17424431" wrote:"Nylalia;c-17423977" wrote:Side note: I really wish we had the ability to stagger employees. I have noticed that if you play as a household other than the store owner's, and take them to the store, the store will open and employees show up and sell your goods, without needing to be paid or having to leave.I'm not sure what you mean by that last part...EDIT: I'm guessing you're not talking about employees you've hired but rather your housemates being unpaid employees.Oooh sorry. I just meant that if Sim A's household owns the store, if you play as Sim B (from a different household) and visit Sim A's store, Sim A's store will open, and Sim A's employees will show up to work. Other customers will also come.Sim A's employees will work until Sim B leaves the lot (no matter how long Sim B stays), and Sim A is not charged for their wages, but still receives the proceeds from any sold items.

I don't know about calling in employees for only about 3-4 hours each, it takes forever to do anything and then it's time for them to go back home. Personally, I like the flexibility of opening and closing whenever I feel like. If you have strict open and close hours then it may happen that you don't get to sell anything because no one has made their mind up yet before closing time. It's a good thing that sims prefer to buy the expensive stuff because sales are so few in a working day, so there is at least some reasonable income. My sims are usually exhausted after an open shop day because they usually ring the customers as employees often get sidetracked with chit chat, TV, phone, paparazzi, massages, books, dancing and what not. After shop closes they need to manufacture new cakes, icecream, flowers, whatever they sell, so it's usually one day open, two days closed. It's not much fun running a shop with craftables, I am thinking of maybe setting up some clubs to come craft things for sale, not sure if that would work.

I actually wish they would update the ‘Manage business’ menu to work the same as it does in Dine Out. I find it really confusing that I have to click on the cash register to control one, but just use the menu for the other. I also didn’t love actually controlling a store. My sims actions seemed to have very little effect on whether the shopper actually purchased something, and it instead seemed pretty random. I like Dine Out, with all it’s issues, because I can see the star rating change depending on changes I as a player choose to make. That said, i just designed a retail shopping street and I love having them in my game just to add to the realism, I just wish they were a little bit more fun to actually play.

About the dupicate stores, I kind of figured it was an issue like that. It sort of happened to me as well but mine was due to an internet lag.Have you played Willow's Collectables yet? I'm curious to see if the employees and guests act the same in your game as they do on mine. Because on my game, the shoppers do disburse. Yes, there is usually a clump of them chatting it up with my employee or me (which I find convenient since we're both presumably talking up the store) but they do scatter pretty well in my game. As for your mall idea, that would be insane for a single household to manage! So yeah sounds like a serious challenge. Great idea for a community lot though. As for the employees, I started another thread a while back about visiting Willow's Collectables with a different household and there were two employees although I know that the Wentons only hired one. So I think the store size determines how many employees perhaps...

About the Store Hours point:Welcome to the life of a small business owner. All the small business owners I know that actually make a living from it get to work 5:30 - 6:00 am and leave 8-9:30 pm on an average work day.

Get To Work: Retail Store | EA Forums

21 Replies

Beardedgeek72
Seasoned Ace
6 years ago
About the Store Hours point:
Welcome to the life of a small business owner. All the small business owners I know that actually make a living from it get to work 5:30 - 6:00 am and leave 8-9:30 pm on an average work day.
dianed485
Seasoned Ace
6 years ago
Also you can actually open and close your store when you want to. But setting a time would also be convenient.

"Beardedgeek;c-17423347" wrote:
About the Store Hours point:
Welcome to the life of a small business owner. All the small business owners I know that actually make a living from it get to work 5:30 - 6:00 am and leave 8-9:30 pm on an average work day.
Nylalia
6 years ago
I made a small apartment in my store. It came in handy when my Sim needed to stay late. Her daughter would come by after school, do her homework, then hang out dancing in the kitchen while Mom baked the next day's pastries and prepared a small meal for her hungry offspring. Then they'd watch a little TV and chat before going to sleep in the double bed.

Next morning, the store would open at 7, and daughter would hang out in the store chatting up customers before heading off to school.

Play times like these really warm and fill my heart.

Side note: I really wish we had the ability to stagger employees. I have noticed that if you play as a household than the store owner's, and take them to the store, the store will open and employees show up and sell your goods, without needing to be paid or having to leave.
PenguinFoop
6 years ago
"Nylalia;c-17423977" wrote:
I made a small apartment in my store. It came in handy when my Sim needed to stay late. Her daughter would come by after school, do her homework, then hang out dancing in the kitchen while Mom baked the next day's pastries and prepared a small meal for her hungry offspring. Then they'd watch a little TV and chat before going to sleep in the double bed.

Next morning, the store would open at 7, and daughter would hang out in the store chatting up customers before heading off to school.

Play times like these really warm and fill my heart.

Side note: I really wish we had the ability to stagger employees. I have noticed that if you play as a household than the store owner's, and take them to the store, the store will open and employees show up and sell your goods, without needing to be paid or having to leave.

I'm not sure what you mean by that last part...

EDIT: I'm guessing you're not talking about employees you've hired but rather your housemates being unpaid employees.

"Beardedgeek;c-17423347" wrote:
About the Store Hours point:
Welcome to the life of a small business owner. All the small business owners I know that actually make a living from it get to work 5:30 - 6:00 am and leave 8-9:30 pm on an average work day.

Yes, but if you have employees that work for you, you don't schedule them all to work the same hours and leave you to do everything alone after they all leave. You stagger your employees so that you have help from open to close, right?

"Dianesims;c-17423393" wrote:
Also you can actually open and close your store when you want to. But setting a time would also be convenient.

Yes, this is true but when it comes to the financial reports, if you close the store without restocking first, when you do restock while the store is closed, there is no report that shows total restock cost. Which is important to understand how well the Mark Up is working and whether you can safely raise it or if you need to lower it a bit.

And I'm guessing that if you close the store and immediately re-open it, the employees would come back but would they be fully rested and ready to work? Also, it seems like it would be annoying because all customers would leave and more would come back in while the store is now unstocked and not ready to receive them.

I also noticed that any customers that decide to buy at the moment you close the store wait there until you check them out yet you don't get the money and they don't get the merchandise. So here's the scenario (in real life), the store is closed but you have customers in line at checkout. You don't tell them, "sorry, I just decided to close the store so you can't have that." You would ring the remaining customers up and the store would finish closing. So something similar in the game shoud be implimented.

Of course, that still does not account for missing stock reports from restocking after hours which is realistically when most restocking and cleaning takes place.
Nylalia
6 years ago
"PenguinFoop;c-17424431" wrote:
"Nylalia;c-17423977" wrote:
Side note: I really wish we had the ability to stagger employees. I have noticed that if you play as a household other than the store owner's, and take them to the store, the store will open and employees show up and sell your goods, without needing to be paid or having to leave.

I'm not sure what you mean by that last part...

EDIT: I'm guessing you're not talking about employees you've hired but rather your housemates being unpaid employees.

Oooh sorry. I just meant that if Sim A's household owns the store, if you play as Sim B (from a different household) and visit Sim A's store, Sim A's store will open, and Sim A's employees will show up to work. Other customers will also come.
Sim A's employees will work until Sim B leaves the lot (no matter how long Sim B stays), and Sim A is not charged for their wages, but still receives the proceeds from any sold items.
crocobaura
Legend
6 years ago
I really wish that famous sims would not be included in the potential employee pool. I hired one and had to fire her because the place was swarming with paparazzi and no one was working because of this. I usually keep the stores open until the employees announce that it is time for them to leave and I think that depends on when the store was opened. I think you may be able to get an employee to come in later if you keep a hire slot open and hire an additional employee on the spot whenever you need him. I think it would be nice if the stores had separate open hours and working hours, so we could have say 6 hours for talking to customers and selling and 2 hours afterwards where employees could attend to restocking, cleaning and repairing.
PenguinFoop
6 years ago
"crocobaura;c-17426469" wrote:
I really wish that famous sims would not be included in the potential employee pool. I hired one and had to fire her because the place was swarming with paparazzi and no one was working because of this. I usually keep the stores open until the employees announce that it is time for them to leave and I think that depends on when the store was opened. I think you may be able to get an employee to come in later if you keep a hire slot open and hire an additional employee on the spot whenever you need him. I think it would be nice if the stores had separate open hours and working hours, so we could have say 6 hours for talking to customers and selling and 2 hours afterwards where employees could attend to restocking, cleaning and repairing.

I've never had a famous sim come to my shop or be hired by my shop. Never even met a famous sim, I guess my families just aren't there yet. lol

As for the hours, yeah, that's sort of what I had in mind. But allow me to elaborate...

Scenario
Hours of operations are from 9 am to 9 pm.

Employee1 9 am to 3 pm
Employee2 3 pm to 9 pm
Employee3 9 pm to finish

When 8 pm rolls around an "announcement" would be made that the store is about to close. Maybe something like "Attention shoppers, the store closes in 1 hour. Please make any last minute purchases. Thank you for shopping at ." This is actually in the form of a pop up and is to let you know as well that the store is about to close.

Now, this serves two purposes as far as the customer goes. It would either greatly encourage them to buy or greatly discourage them from buying depending on how motivated they already are.

When 9 pm rolls around the store closes to the customers so everyone who is not waiting to be rung up leaves and those who are waiting will still get their purchase and you will still get the sale.

Now that the store is closed to customers and Employee3 is here, the only thing left to do is any restocking/cleaning. With that finished, you go to the cash register and click "close store." THEN, the financial report pops up and the final employee (if still there) leaves.

So here's how I see it playing out:

Okay so your sim is at home finishing up breakfast with the family when 8 am rolls around (since the store opens in one hour.)
A popup pops up to remind your sim that the store is set to open in one hour. The options would be "Go to work" or "Keep store closed."
Say your sim doesn't want to close the store for the entire day but isn't quite ready to go to work, (it happens, you know it does. ;) ) So choose "Keep store closed." Go get your shower or whatever and then go to the store. Open the store and the employees come in to work the remainder of their schedule. For instance, if you don't actually open the doors until 10 am instead of 9 am, Employee1 would work from 10 am to 3 pm instead of the scheduled start time. OH! OH! And have an option to call in employees if needed!!! Like when running a promotion/advertisement!!! Maybe this employee could be an "on call temporary employee."
crocobaura
Legend
6 years ago
I don't know about calling in employees for only about 3-4 hours each, it takes forever to do anything and then it's time for them to go back home. Personally, I like the flexibility of opening and closing whenever I feel like. If you have strict open and close hours then it may happen that you don't get to sell anything because no one has made their mind up yet before closing time. It's a good thing that sims prefer to buy the expensive stuff because sales are so few in a working day, so there is at least some reasonable income. My sims are usually exhausted after an open shop day because they usually ring the customers as employees often get sidetracked with chit chat, TV, phone, paparazzi, massages, books, dancing and what not. After shop closes they need to manufacture new cakes, icecream, flowers, whatever they sell, so it's usually one day open, two days closed. It's not much fun running a shop with craftables, I am thinking of maybe setting up some clubs to come craft things for sale, not sure if that would work.
PenguinFoop
6 years ago
"crocobaura;c-17426666" wrote:
I don't know about calling in employees for only about 3-4 hours each, it takes forever to do anything and then it's time for them to go back home. Personally, I like the flexibility of opening and closing whenever I feel like.
If you have strict open and close hours then it may happen that you don't get to sell anything because no one has made their mind up yet before closing time. *1
It's a good thing that sims prefer to buy the expensive stuff because sales are so few in a working day, *2 so there is at least some reasonable income.
My sims are usually exhausted after an open shop day because they usually ring the customers as employees often get sidetracked with chit chat, TV, phone, paparazzi, massages, books, dancing and what not. *3
After shop closes they need to manufacture new cakes, icecream, flowers, whatever they sell, so it's usually one day open, two days closed. It's not much fun running a shop with cartables, *4
I am thinking of maybe setting up some clubs to come craft things for sale, not sure if that would work. *5

I've found that keeping the markup at around 25% to 50% I get plenty of sales throughout the day but again, the bulk of sales come when the employee has to go home, which is why I think being able to schedule employees is so important. Also, have you tried running advertisements? That may bring in more customers who are more likely to buy. I haven't done so yet so can't speak from experience.
I've found that the more expensive the items are, the less I sell. Personally, my store only sells collectables and I did throw in a set of mannequins to sell 4 outfits for the heck of it. But I make around $1000 a day after restocking and employee salaries. These smaller less expensive things sell really quick so at first I was running out of stock before the employee had to leave so was constantly struggling to keep stock and sell stock. Eventually, it worked itself out though as I got more stock in and started assigning my employee to stock shelves. Also, I have my markup set to 25% instead of going for the max and selling fewer items. I could possibly set it up higher but haven't done so yet.
I try to give them positive re-enforcements because the more you praise them or even reprimand them, the quicker their Work Ethic skill increases.
I've never tried a manufacturer's shop before so not sure how that works out. I thought about doing a floral shop with flower arrangements but it seemed too much of a hassle at the time so decided not to.
So you're saying have your club help you make the stuff for your shop to sell or are you saying build a night club and just sell stuff you craft from there? To the first thought, that sounds like a great idea. To the second thought, I don't think you can have an official night club and an official retail store in the same location so don't know how that would work.

On a side note, I went to go to my store for work and when I went into the retail screen, it said I have no stores. :# Apparently when I did some household shuffles, my store got lost along the way. So now I have to re-buy my own store!!! :angry: So I lost my prized employee and have to start again with someone low level. Oh well, back to square one, I guess.
crocobaura
Legend
6 years ago
I do keep the markup at 25%. I have a mix of cheap and more expensive items for sale, but they tend to shop the more expensive items more. I think the most I've had 9 sales in one day, but it was mostly stuff that sold in 300$ or more and almost none under 100$. The shops are well stocked so I don't really need to restock during open hours. Sims come in large number into the shop but they tend to just congregate and chat around in the shop instead of browsing and actually shopping. In a bookshop some neat sims decided to put away in a bookcase the books I had displayed for sale. Had to ask them to leave the lot to stop messing with my displays. Regarding the employees, I usually ask them to answer customer questions so they mix around and talk with the customers. Whether they talk about the merchandise or the weather is anyone's guess. Manufacturing is tiresome because stuff tends to go off, flowers wilt and edibles spoil, and in my experience at least, sims prefer to buy 900$ books and 400$ catalogue flowers insterad of icecream or cookies or flower arrangements, and then you just throw them away. I was thinking of forming a club of like minded sims to create the icecream, cookies, flower arrangements necessary for the shop because crafting takes a lot of time, would have been nice to have an employee do that task too.