Question About Upcoming Businesses & Hobbies Expansion Pack ?

I still have more questions than answers myself, but my take on this is that we will now have 3 versions of businesses.
Residential (Small Business) is a lot where your sim resides, but where you can combine a business section as part of the lot.
In addition we'll get the lot category Small Business Venue (Small Business) where a sim can have their business if they prefer running it away from the home lot.

Both these lot categories are new with the B&H EP. They will not replace the old community lots that will still come with numerous business related lot categories. So, if you download a lot it makes a difference what lot category it is. Older builds on the gallery will obviously be the old lot categories that are not owned by a sim like the new categories are, so the game will not assign any new owner to that clothing store in your example. In the future, when simmers upload lots with the new category, they will be lots including a sim owned business an d moving on a sim gives the option to also run a business. I don't expect the gallery to carry over the detailed business concept settings, including customers' activities and target group etc. I think this will be possible only if the lot is occupied by the owner, but I might be wrong. So, the builder would probably need to upload the small business lot with a family living there, to provide a business concept. But I expect the room dedication to either private, employees or business can be set by the builder, even  if the lot is unoccupied.

I do not know for sure that your played sim living elsewhere can go shopping at a small usiness, but I would expect them to. No idea whether employees can serve the bakery, but staff can also be household members (they might be easier to control when it comes to what to cook re skills etc).

I honestly think it would only make sense for the new Small Business venue to function like the other business venues, for they do not have to be run by the player to work (retail venues only have to have things marked as "for sale", restaurants and vet clinics just work). I would guess the player might have actively own them once tho to set the desired activities and tasks for the staff.

And the new residential home business to basically work like resi rentals, so theyll probly not work unless the player actively plays the owners.

probably they wont work by their own. Anyways I can buy clothes from retails(get to work) or I can buy grocery from stand(cottage living).

I do wish EA would confirm how small businesses will work whwen not playing the owner. It is essential to our planning re the new pack. 

It would make sense if our Sims could visit a small shop owned by another one of our Sims, no? I mean, according to the gameplay trailer, we can assign tasks to our staff, so I don't see why we shouldn't be able to put one of them in charge and have the owner Sim do something else. Also, for rotational players, it would be nice if a member of household A could visit a shop owned by a Sim from household B. But then, just because it makes sense doesn't mean it will be in the pack. 

I saw that we can sell our business in the gameplay trailer, so I believe that the business will still run on it's own. Maybe it's set up like the retail businesses? I don't think they would require our sims to be active owners in order for the businesses to work. Looking forward to the livestream on 2/28 to find out more answers as to how this all will work.