Percentage or flat above market price?

[ily]

I have been trying to find answer to this and it seems there are two kind of people (well three if you count them who sell for market price and make least profit). One kind of people add 5-7% to market prices (or even up to 10% but thats nuts) and second kind of people add flat price like 0.15-0.50 on top of market price.

I have tested 5% and I keep getting complains each day from people trying to buy expansive stuff. Adding flat 0.15 gets me complains whenever someone is trying to buy cheap stuff. I don't feel like I want to mix them because then it would take too much time to price individually everything and would become nightmare to remember everything during prices changing unless I create a sheet for it but I don't feel like I want to open every morning a sheet to check out prices because then this game becomes all about running a sheet.

What I found is that % people tell they get complains but in long run they win because people buy lots of products so them not buying a few one is not a problem. Flat people tell they don't get complains at all even from yoghurt but I get complains so they either lying or im doing something wrong.

I have seen people telling someone has tested them out but I could not find these researches. Can someone link me who has calculated what is the most optimal way to price products? Or if someone has any kind of data ill gladly take it and calculate myself and share my calculations.

[Grace1957]

I usually round it up to the nearest 25 cents (just because it makes it easier to give change early game when I'm the cashier).

[ily]

Originally posted by Grace1957:

I usually round it up to the nearest 25 cents (just because it makes it easier to give change early game when I'm the cashier).

Yes you can do early game what you like and it works out. Im talking after store level 40 when you don't get more daily clients anymore. It becomes about min-maxing your profit.

[xenoview]

I round to nearest dollar. 69 cents and lower round down. 70 cents and higher round up. Don't get complains about prices.

[CrazyIvan512]

Originally posted by ily:

I have been trying to find answer to this and it seems there are two kind of people (well three if you count them who sell for market price and make least profit). One kind of people add 5-7% to market prices (or even up to 10% but thats nuts) and second kind of people add flat price like 0.15-0.50 on top of market price.

I have tested 5% and I keep getting complains each day from people trying to buy expansive stuff. Adding flat 0.15 gets me complains whenever someone is trying to buy cheap stuff. I don't feel like I want to mix them because then it would take too much time to price individually everything and would become nightmare to remember everything during prices changing unless I create a sheet for it but I don't feel like I want to open every morning a sheet to check out prices because then this game becomes all about running a sheet.

What I found is that % people tell they get complains but in long run they win because people buy lots of products so them not buying a few one is not a problem. Flat people tell they don't get complains at all even from yoghurt but I get complains so they either lying or im doing something wrong.

I have seen people telling someone has tested them out but I could not find these researches. Can someone link me who has calculated what is the most optimal way to price products? Or if someone has any kind of data ill gladly take it and calculate myself and share my calculations.

There is no "perfect" way to set pricing, as You say.. there are multiple schools of thought on it and some do one thing, some do another..

It all comes down to what You are comfortable with, I personally do not like complaints, so I set my pricing at .15 cents over market for everything except Yogurt which I leave at Market Price, I also raise the price over .15 cents on items above 15$ ... by 5 cents until I get a complaint on that item then I go back a little until no complaints.. It takes a LONG time to do this .but there are not a ton of products over 15$ so overall it isnt that hard to do while there is nothing to do during a store day with workers handling it all.
If You dont mind complaints .. price items what you want, you will still sell to some customers as long as it isnt a crazy high mark up, and honestly beyond level 40 complaints dont hurt much for leveling , since Profit is the real enemy at that point you will always be waiting on money to get licenses or expansions, the leveling will beat the profit gain
No matter what You do for pricing.. You cant Get over an average of 4k to 5K PURE PROFIT ... in one store day for more than a few days and that is only if You do not buy any restock on those days, and it only gets worse as you gain levels and add product and expansions.. they all cost way too much, at level 90 store, it takes me minimum of 25 store days to get money saved for expansions, at 20 mins real time per store day, thats 10 real hours of play for ONE expansion, just as the Dev/s want it.... Sadly

[ily]

Originally posted by CrazyIvan512:

Originally posted by ily:

I have been trying to find answer to this and it seems there are two kind of people (well three if you count them who sell for market price and make least profit). One kind of people add 5-7% to market prices (or even up to 10% but thats nuts) and second kind of people add flat price like 0.15-0.50 on top of market price.

I have tested 5% and I keep getting complains each day from people trying to buy expansive stuff. Adding flat 0.15 gets me complains whenever someone is trying to buy cheap stuff. I don't feel like I want to mix them because then it would take too much time to price individually everything and would become nightmare to remember everything during prices changing unless I create a sheet for it but I don't feel like I want to open every morning a sheet to check out prices because then this game becomes all about running a sheet.

What I found is that % people tell they get complains but in long run they win because people buy lots of products so them not buying a few one is not a problem. Flat people tell they don't get complains at all even from yoghurt but I get complains so they either lying or im doing something wrong.

I have seen people telling someone has tested them out but I could not find these researches. Can someone link me who has calculated what is the most optimal way to price products? Or if someone has any kind of data ill gladly take it and calculate myself and share my calculations.

There is no "perfect" way to set pricing, as You say.. there are multiple schools of thought on it and some do one thing, some do another..

It all comes down to what You are comfortable with, I personally do not like complaints, so I set my pricing at .15 cents over market for everything except Yogurt which I leave at Market Price, I also raise the price over .15 cents on items above 15$ ... by 5 cents until I get a complaint on that item then I go back a little until no complaints.. It takes a LONG time to do this .but there are not a ton of products over 15$ so overall it isnt that hard to do while there is nothing to do during a store day with workers handling it all.
If You dont mind complaints .. price items what you want, you will still sell to some customers as long as it isnt a crazy high mark up, and honestly beyond level 40 complaints dont hurt much for leveling , since Profit is the real enemy at that point you will always be waiting on money to get licenses or expansions, the leveling will beat the profit gain
No matter what You do for pricing.. You cant Get over an average of 4k to 5K PURE PROFIT ... in one store day for more than a few days and that is only if You do not buy any restock on those days, and it only gets worse as you gain levels and add product and expansions.. they all cost way too much, at level 90 store, it takes me minimum of 25 store days to get money saved for expansions, at 20 mins real time per store day, thats 10 real hours of play for ONE expansion, just as the Dev/s want it.... Sadly

Yes actually it was you talking about this exact thing here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/2670630/discussions/0/4352239547061544694/

I understand your point of view but I am not looking for same kind of comfortability than you. For me comfort is knowing I min-maxed everything making maximum total profit possible.

As for going crazy high up I started testing out one group of products at a time starting from 50% going down by 5% each day if an item gets more than 2 complains. 0-1 and I keep price at that level. If product survives for 7 days with 0-1 complains on certain percentage I think that is sweet spot for it. I just wish this mod still worked: https://www.nexusmods.com/supermarketsimulator/mods/143. It would make my life so much easier lol

I don't think devs want that for us. Also I don't think current state of late game is what they have planned for us. I think they keep it this way so they can easily add new features to game without breaking it. This is still an early access game after all. If you try to balance late game now you will have trouble adding more content to it later. Its easier to keep it empty and if someone is crazy enough to grind to max then let them but other option is to wait a couple patches for new updates and you don't have to grind so hard anymore. Im all about grinding so thats why I am curious about how to min-max profit.

[Knottypine]

The amount a customer is willing to pay for a product is RNG. So there is no perfect markup strategy that will always have no complaints.

My strategy is to markup by ~8% on the dollar. Pretty much ignoring the cents unless I need to round a bit to the nickel. When there is a complaint on a product that I catch, then I drop my price by five cents. Usually have 1-2 complaints per day, some days no complaints, with currently around ~62 customers per day.

[Parvekefilosofi]

Wait you guys really sell your stock that cheap? I've been marking up A LOT. If market price is $7,42 i set price to $9-$10. Always mark up by at least 2-4 dollars.
LVL 60 with one register, 4 self check outs, one guard, two customer helpers and all restockers. Zero lights in store since it costs money to run those.
79 customers a day and 6k income

[ily]

Originally posted by Knottypine:

The amount a customer is willing to pay for a product is RNG. So there is no perfect markup strategy that will always have no complaints.

My strategy is to markup by ~8% on the dollar. Pretty much ignoring the cents unless I need to round a bit to the nickel. When there is a complaint on a product that I catch, then I drop my price by five cents. Usually have 1-2 complaints per day, some days no complaints, with currently around ~62 customers per day.

Its hard for me to believe its full random because then you would get complains even when keeping exact market price and that has never happened to me. Im guessing its some kind of percentage that grows the higher the price. Here is example of how its most likely coded:
Market price = 0% complain chance
Market price + 10% = 10% complain chance
Market price + 20% = 22% complain chance
Market price + 30% = 36% complain chance
Market price + 40% = 52% complain chance

Yes it is RNG at that point if you do get complain or not but there is a magical number where x% more money is worth the x% complains. If we use above example and you sell 10 products and market price is 10$ it would make:
Market price = 100$
Market price + 10% = 104,50$
Market price + 20% = 106,80$
Market price + 30% = 106,60$
Market price + 40% = 103,60$

These numbers are just imaginary that I just made up but it shows you that there is a point where you get most profit and then it falls off. In this example it would be percentage between 10% and 30%.

But what makes this very complicated is that single person can buy multiple products and someone who complained might have bought only one. On that part you are right, it makes whole thing full RNG.

I just wish I knew what the percentages are behind code.

Originally posted by Parvekefilosofi:

Wait you guys really sell your stock that cheap? I've been marking up A LOT. If market price is $7,42 i set price to $9-$10. Always mark up by at least 2-4 dollars.
LVL 60 with one register, 4 self check outs, one guard, two customer helpers and all restockers. Zero lights in store since it costs money to run those.
79 customers a day and 6k income

How much do you get revenue per day? Because I noticed adding 50% to prices got me around 30% less money.

[Bunky]

There's a chance for complaints the moment you add a single cent to any market price. If you want to make money, stop worrying about squashing out complaints, because you can't have both.

I have unlocked everything and I have tried a number of different percentage increases while I was at it. I can concur that +10% is best for max profits. You will average $4-5K in net profit daily, at max store level. But net profits range from 3K to 7K in my experience.

If you start going higher than +10% the number of complaints will start to outweigh the number of sales and profits will be worse off. To be fair, I tested +20 and +30% -- these definitely yielded worse results -- however, +15% may be worth exploring.

A lot of people like +7% because the profits are good and the complaints don't really impact store level growth at all. Let me tell you right now though, you will never struggle to increase your store level unless you run the place immensely backwards. Just keeping the shop stocked enough for your customers will be all the store points you need.

If profits aren't a big concern to you and you'd just like to earn as much money as you can, without upsetting any of your customers, +3% results in no complaints the vast majority of the time.

[Parvekefilosofi]

Originally posted by ily:

Originally posted by Knottypine:

The amount a customer is willing to pay for a product is RNG. So there is no perfect markup strategy that will always have no complaints.

My strategy is to markup by ~8% on the dollar. Pretty much ignoring the cents unless I need to round a bit to the nickel. When there is a complaint on a product that I catch, then I drop my price by five cents. Usually have 1-2 complaints per day, some days no complaints, with currently around ~62 customers per day.

Its hard for me to believe its full random because then you would get complains even when keeping exact market price and that has never happened to me. Im guessing its some kind of percentage that grows the higher the price. Here is example of how its most likely coded:
Market price = 0% complain chance
Market price + 10% = 10% complain chance
Market price + 20% = 22% complain chance
Market price + 30% = 36% complain chance
Market price + 40% = 52% complain chance

Yes it is RNG at that point if you do get complain or not but there is a magical number where x% more money is worth the x% complains. If we use above example and you sell 10 products and market price is 10$ it would make:
Market price = 100$
Market price + 10% = 104,50$
Market price + 20% = 106,80$
Market price + 30% = 106,60$
Market price + 40% = 103,60$

These numbers are just imaginary that I just made up but it shows you that there is a point where you get most profit and then it falls off. In this example it would be percentage between 10% and 30%.

But what makes this very complicated is that single person can buy multiple products and someone who complained might have bought only one. On that part you are right, it makes whole thing full RNG.

I just wish I knew what the percentages are behind code.

Originally posted by Parvekefilosofi:

Wait you guys really sell your stock that cheap? I've been marking up A LOT. If market price is $7,42 i set price to $9-$10. Always mark up by at least 2-4 dollars.
LVL 60 with one register, 4 self check outs, one guard, two customer helpers and all restockers. Zero lights in store since it costs money to run those.
79 customers a day and 6k income

How much do you get revenue per day? Because I noticed adding 50% to prices got me around 30% less money.

I get 6k income and profit is somewhere around 2-4k depends on how much i restock. Only about 20 satisfied

[CrankyJay]

Maybe I don't make as much money as some people but I was profiting about 8k a day with an average of 83 customers at lvl 56 by rounding everything up to the next nickle based on market value. 0 Customer complaints

[ily]

Originally posted by Bunky:

There's a chance for complaints the moment you add a single cent to any market price. If you want to make money, stop worrying about squashing out complaints, because you can't have both.

I have unlocked everything and I have tried a number of different percentage increases while I was at it. I can concur that +10% is best for max profits. You will average $4-5K in net profit daily, at max store level. But net profits range from 3K to 7K in my experience.

If you start going higher than +10% the number of complaints will start to outweigh the number of sales and profits will be worse off. To be fair, I tested +20 and +30% -- these definitely yielded worse results -- however, +15% may be worth exploring.

A lot of people like +7% because the profits are good and the complaints don't really impact store level growth at all. Let me tell you right now though, you will never struggle to increase your store level unless you run the place immensely backwards. Just keeping the shop stocked enough for your customers will be all the store points you need.

If profits aren't a big concern to you and you'd just like to earn as much money as you can, without upsetting any of your customers, +3% results in no complaints the vast majority of the time.

Thanks! Ill try out some numbers later. I installed a mod to change all to certain percentage at one time so I don't have to click every single item when I want to test out something different.

Originally posted by CrankyJay:

Maybe I don't make as much money as some people but I was profiting about 8k a day with an average of 83 customers at lvl 56 by rounding everything up to the next nickle based on market value. 0 Customer complaints

Vanilla game should have limit in around 60ish customers I think. How are you getting 83?

[JoeHigz87]

I go 20 cents over market value except yogurt I go 10 cents over market. I will only receive 1 or 2 complaints a day which is fine. After maxing out the store level, growth and licenses without mods, it's is the best approach I could find. After your store level maxes out, the max customers is 110 to 120 a day.

[ily]

Originally posted by JoeHigz87:

I go 20 cents over market value except yogurt I go 10 cents over market. I will only receive 1 or 2 complaints a day which is fine. After maxing out the store level, growth and licenses without mods, it's is the best approach I could find. After your store level maxes out, the max customers is 110 to 120 a day.

Oh I didn't know it could go over 60. That means I don't have to worry about min-maxing for a while yet.

I have tested 20 cents on top of all. On stuff like sushi I feel like I miss so much profit so I want to find a better way.

[CrankyJay]

Originally posted by ily:

Originally posted by Bunky:

There's a chance for complaints the moment you add a single cent to any market price. If you want to make money, stop worrying about squashing out complaints, because you can't have both.

I have unlocked everything and I have tried a number of different percentage increases while I was at it. I can concur that +10% is best for max profits. You will average $4-5K in net profit daily, at max store level. But net profits range from 3K to 7K in my experience.

If you start going higher than +10% the number of complaints will start to outweigh the number of sales and profits will be worse off. To be fair, I tested +20 and +30% -- these definitely yielded worse results -- however, +15% may be worth exploring.

A lot of people like +7% because the profits are good and the complaints don't really impact store level growth at all. Let me tell you right now though, you will never struggle to increase your store level unless you run the place immensely backwards. Just keeping the shop stocked enough for your customers will be all the store points you need.

If profits aren't a big concern to you and you'd just like to earn as much money as you can, without upsetting any of your customers, +3% results in no complaints the vast majority of the time.

Thanks! Ill try out some numbers later. I installed a mod to change all to certain percentage at one time so I don't have to click every single item when I want to test out something different.

Originally posted by CrankyJay:

Maybe I don't make as much money as some people but I was profiting about 8k a day with an average of 83 customers at lvl 56 by rounding everything up to the next nickle based on market value. 0 Customer complaints

Vanilla game should have limit in around 60ish customers I think. How are you getting 83?

No mods or addons, I had 3 checkouts, and 4 self checks. I averaged about that. When I get rebuilt on this new save I'll double check it.