Do decorations actually affect popularity gains?

[GavinGWhiz]

I'm at the late-game stage of grinding the MANY hours necessary for popularity level increases and I'm trying to maximize the popularity gains of my shop.

Currently it's crammed full of wall decorations and floor standees because when I first played the game I was under the impression those helped somehow. Now, over a year later, there still aren't definitive guides discussing how popularity works besides "do the challenges when they pop up."

Being at the late-game stage I am, the very common "serve _ customers" challenge is physically impossible for my best employee or me, as my customers are buying over 10 items per transaction. If I'm gonna lose those challenges all the time, it feels like the best choice is to either ditch every decorative item for maximum shelving or cram AS MANY decorations in as I can.

[Goth Taroth]

No they do not affect anything. They are just there for aesthetics. I don't know how you can't do the serve customers challenges as my employees have no issue with them late game.

It's possible that some of your standing decorations are causing customers or even the employee to get stuck which stops them from serving customers.

[GavinGWhiz]

Originally posted by Goth Taroth:

No they do not affect anything. They are just there for aesthetics. I don't know how you can't do the serve customers challenges as my employees have no issue with them late game.

It's possible that some of your standing decorations are causing customers or even the employee to get stuck which stops them from serving customers.

My level ten employee can only get through two or three customers a minute. This combined with the normal rate of spawning customers without a party bus leads to nowhere near the 30 to 45 the challenges ask for.

That, and the game seems to be randomly deciding what counts as getting tipped/serving a customer and will stop counting them for a while.