Here's A Few Tips For You

[Swisspike]

Story mode. When you are asked to get one rounded display case, don't buy one, buy THREE.

This way, you can sell cheap flowers, cheap gifts, AND expensive gifts.

I was getting $2400 profit a day by the end of the first week.

Next..buy a storage unit for the back. Your employees will automatically restock the display cases.

Next..with your first employee, don't put him directly in the store. He (or she) sucks. Train them for several days. You're making 2k+ profit per day, and their training is only about 15% of your profit. My dude, day 14 now, is trained up to almost 70%.

Give yourself one day off a week, to re-stock. I left my apartment at 7:30 am, and didn't get finished re-stocking until 5 pm. You're just not going to do this in an hour or two.

Track your sales, daily. I am at the very start of my third week, with a full week of sales. I just boosted up the cost of my three products, incrementally. I will see total sales, and total profits, at the beginning of the next week. I will PRECISELY determine what price gets me the most profit this way.

Buy cleaning supplies, and when your store closes each evening, clean to 100%. This is a no brainer. LOTS easier to do it, and still get eight hours of sleep, instead of trying to do it in the morning, when you're pretty busy.

I have already spent twelve thousand dollars getting the most expensive interior for my store, floors and walls. If you don't, you will lose ratings, customers, and money, FOREVER.

I still need music.

My first employee is part time. I have him working six days a week, for four hours. 9 am to 1 pm. I work the rest of the time, from 1 pm to close at 8 pm. This gives me all morning to run errands, AND saves me a buttload of money. $35 an hour for 24 hours in a week is $840 a week. Full time, at 40 hours, is $1400 a week. I can use this extra $560 a week for other things. I only work seven hours per day, plus the cleaning.

I am not sure if I will ever hire a cleaning guy. This is a LOT of money. Many when I am rolling in the dough.

Buy a truck. Holds twenty boxes. I need about eleven boxes a week for my three products, total. Can't do it in the starting vehicle, unless you make two trips. Nope. Inefficient. Get the truck. Take Monday off, get your four boxes of cheap, four boxes of expensive gifts, two boxes of cheap flowers, and some paper bags.

There are two wholesale stores. Use the one farther south. It is cheaper, and a drive through.

Using the information above, I am generating about $17,000 profit a week. I plan on completely paying off my loan, and saving up - cash - to start my second business.

[Swisspike]

Damn. Ten minutes, and it's been bumped to the second page. Shameless bump.

[Pedroig]

Unless something has changed, $5000 was the lower limit for the "ugly floors and walls" debuff. Music is easy, and pretty much anything else is more or less cosmetic only.

One part time cleaning person per business is not much at all, invest in the training though. $2400 a day and can spend $60 a day for cleaning after investing $750 into the employee.

Using loans early is pretty crucial. You want to get an office open as soon as possible and start importing, having logisitics, and marketing all running. Profit per item will end up about the same due to sunken overhead costs, but once the fourth business is open, the profits increase quite a bit due to the overhead costs being fixed and divided out amongst all of them.

Finally, different parts of the city have different price thresholds, and the Garment District is the "cheap part of town"...

[Swisspike]

Originally posted by Pedroig:

Unless something has changed, $5000 was the lower limit for the "ugly floors and walls" debuff. Music is easy, and pretty much anything else is more or less cosmetic only.

One part time cleaning person per business is not much at all, invest in the training though. $2400 a day and can spend $60 a day for cleaning after investing $750 into the employee.

Using loans early is pretty crucial. You want to get an office open as soon as possible and start importing, having logisitics, and marketing all running. Profit per item will end up about the same due to sunken overhead costs, but once the fourth business is open, the profits increase quite a bit due to the overhead costs being fixed and divided out amongst all of them.

Finally, different parts of the city have different price thresholds, and the Garment District is the "cheap part of town"...

Fair enough. I will own the majority of the city after a period of time, in any event.

I am not against loans..just not sure I'm going to need them. The overhead costs for HQ, warehouses, and others DO need more revenue to support. For that reason, I am slow to hire employees for my first store, and saving up for my second. I am leveraging my own labor to increase my rate of return.

[Jager]

didn't know the gift shop can sell flowers, might have to invest in one or two more stands then as i currently sell cheep and expensive gifts plus soda.

[Gerwanese]

Originally posted by Jager:

didn't know the gift shop can sell flowers, might have to invest in one or two more stands then as i currently sell cheep and expensive gifts plus soda.

Generally every shop can sell everything. It's just that their "main items" sell way better. Think of it this way: No customer will visit a gift shop to buy flowers or cigars, but if they come there for a gift, they might as well take a flower and some cigars as well.

[Swisspike]

Originally posted by Gerwanese:

Originally posted by Jager:

didn't know the gift shop can sell flowers, might have to invest in one or two more stands then as i currently sell cheep and expensive gifts plus soda.

Generally every shop can sell everything. It's just that their "main items" sell way better. Think of it this way: No customer will visit a gift shop to buy flowers or cigars, but if they come there for a gift, they might as well take a flower and some cigars as well.

This is useful. The more product you can shoehorn into a store then, the better. I am getting shopping bags with 2-3 items in there, routinely.

[Swisspike]

I added in a fourth product, ow generating $2500 a day in profit.

I am beginning to think that bigger is better, and get a second cash register in. Most starting shops are too small to justify (or allow) a second full time cashier.

[GinaTonik]

Nice. Gave you an award. Consider turning this into a "Starting Tips" guide so it doesn't keep getting buried.

[Swisspike]

Originally posted by GinaTonik:

Nice. Gave you an award. Consider turning this into a "Starting Tips" guide so it doesn't keep getting buried.

I may. Thank you.

I started a second game, a custom game. This is working out quite well.

[Roger Mexico]

You only need cleaning person a couple of hours at the end of each day. At my Gift Shop I I run 2 x 7hr shifts at the Cash Register and 1 x 2hr at Cleaning Station at the end of the 2nd Shift.

[Swisspike]

Originally posted by Roger Mexico:

You only need cleaning person a couple of hours at the end of each day. At my Gift Shop I I run 2 x 7hr shifts at the Cash Register and 1 x 2hr at Cleaning Station at the end of the 2nd Shift.

For me as well..but I schedule for the two hours prior to the store opening.

Day 29 for me, I have one store rocking with two employees, and my apartment is fully furnished with all sorts of electronics.

I spent close to 13k on my store, and it is done. For this custom game, I started with 20k, and borrowed 7k for a truck..now everything is paid off.

I am not near as good as many long-time players, but I am happy with a 40k net worth in the first month.

[Swisspike]

Your stats will tell you what your weekly sales are. Trivial to see weekly sales, and compare that to stock on hand. Divide stock on hand by weekly sales (300 cheap gifts, selling 150 per week - 2 weeks worth of supply left), and this will be your guide as to what to go get on Monday morning.

I have TWO storage units in the back of my store. Plastic bags, soda, cheap gifts, expensive gifts, and flowers. One storage unit holding 16 boxes just wasn't enough for me. (I'm a bit of a packrat).

[Pedroig]

I burn through a box of gifts every three shifts...

[Swisspike]

Originally posted by Pedroig:

I burn through a box of gifts every three shifts...

If all three shifts are the same day, then that's reasonable. I sell about 40 per eight hours. If you have two registers, that would be 80, and for the entire day would be 200+.

[Sarsgamer]

Sounds like you're off to a good start.

You definitely want to sell more than just cheap gifts at the start. The expensive gifts are more profitable and the more your store has to sell the more they'll buy.

When you get into importing> warehouse> delivery I do same similar types of retails so I only need one or two purchasers for that warehouse.

A cleaner yea you don't need until you're running multiple stores, just do it yourself. And they currently don't need to be scheduled all shifts the same as your cashiers, about half coverage is plenty.

I recommend avoiding restaurants, coffee shop, and clothing until you're using the delivery system unless you're just doing a small amount of products. One of my early plays I did a restaurant as second store and keeping that restaurant stocked was rough, basically my whole day was driving from/to wholesale store to the business. When I did the training the store would run out of products lol.