More hours = more income?

[Oberst von Stauffenberg]

Is it worth opening your shop for more than 8-10 hours? Or are there so-called "peak times" and, in contrast, times when it is not worth staffing?

I would like to keep my jewellery shop (only 75m²) open with 2 shifts over 16 hours, but of course I also want it to be worthwhile. Is there a statistic that can be used to recognise when it is hardly worth opening the business?

Thank you very much
Staufi

[BobthenotsoGreat]

Originally posted by Oberst von Stauffenberg:

Is it worth opening your shop for more than 8-10 hours? Or are there so-called "peak times" and, in contrast, times when it is not worth staffing?

Indeed there are peak times, off times and outside normal hour times. Each type of store has varying times for each of these time periods.

I would like to keep my jewellery shop (only 75m²) open with 2 shifts over 16 hours, but of course I also want it to be worthwhile. Is there a statistic that can be used to recognise when it is hardly worth opening the business?

There is. In the bizman of the store under the insight tab is where you find this. In the bottom right there is a graph showing customers over the previous 7 days. There is also a "yesterday" option. If you click on this you will see the number of customers per hour (only shows your previous days opening hours).

Most stores have a penalty applied to actual customer flow based on the market price of the Main products. So your jewellery store will never reach the posted footfall in store. But this is because you only need to sell one or two items per hour to cover your staffing costs. So use the insight tab to work out your peak operating hours and ensure you staff these fully first. Then if you have time, and staff you can stretch out the hours. To me it is much better to offer all the products you can during peak rather then open 24h with only half the inventory. Peak hours are upwards of 60-70% of your revenue. If you have time and money, do both.

I open all my retail stores 24/7. Service orientated businesses can all be profitable in off peak by adjusting the schedule so you have just a skeleton staff to cover the much lower traffic.

[David Estes Creations]

Originally posted by BobthenotsoGreat:

Peak hours are upwards of 60-70% of your revenue

Quite a bit more now in EA 0.5! Probably closer to 90%!

Originally posted by BobthenotsoGreat:

I open all my retail stores 24/7. Service orientated businesses can all be profitable in off peak by adjusting the schedule so you have just a skeleton staff to cover the much lower traffic.

Although that might not be possible for all stores now in EA 0.5 :)

[Lelo Mariin]

Sometimes the xtra profit from a 24/7 is so marginal that I can live without it.
My current Gift store save had all my stores (except midtown) at 24/7
as an experiment i went for more reasonable opening times and canned roughly 50% of my employees. I got like 10k less a week.

[Ichinin]

Originally posted by BobthenotsoGreat:

I open all my retail stores 24/7. Service orientated businesses can all be profitable in off peak by adjusting the schedule so you have just a skeleton staff to cover the much lower traffic.

Although that might not be possible for all stores now in EA 0.5 :) [/quote]

So, how would stores like 7-11 work out then?

They operate around the clock and even late in the night/early morning they can do business, sure - not as much as during morning/afternoon rush + lunch, but there are still people there at off hours buying things.

Also business depends on location, i.e. comparing a place in the suburbs vs one next to a commuter hub.

Do you have any ideas like that? Population density/time of day.

[David Estes Creations]

Originally posted by Ichinin:

So, how would stores like 7-11 work out then?

There isn't a 7/11 type store in the game. But each store has its own unique settings, so if that store type were added, it probably wouldn't have any fully off-hours or peak hours.

Originally posted by Ichinin:

Do you have any ideas like that? Population density/time of day.

That's already in the game to an extent. Each neighborhood has their own citizen/class distribution, depends on time of day, day of the week, how many competitors there are in the district, what the lowest neighborhood pricing is, etc.