Selling single cards destroys daily revenue. You lose a lot of money doing it.

[Space Bob (Paul)]

Adding a table that sells single cards will reduce your daily revenue by a LOT. Trust me. Test it.

My store consistently hits $6k-7k revenue every day without fail. It's still relatively small but I sell a full range of products. About 40 different products.
This is WITHOUT a table to sell single cards.

As soon as I add a table to sell single cards my daily revenue drops by 25%-30% to $4k-5k. It's always lower when I go to the trouble of building and stocking the single card sale table. Incidentally, I'm stocking it with cards that range in price from £10-$50. They sell quickly at market price +10%, and I keep it restocked all day.

I've tested this and the loss in revenue is consistent.

I believe the problem is that customers who choose to buy a card can't buy multiple copies of the same card like they can with other products. So instead of, for example, buying 4 of something that costs $30, they simply buy one card that might cost just $10. So we lose $100+ from that customer.

I also often see customers buying just a single card and nothing else.

Multiply this by just 10 customers and our revenue drops by $1000+. It makes selling single cards totally pointless. I consistently make a lot more money NOT doing it.

As I said, I've tested this and it's a consistent way to lose a LOT of money.

This is a huge shame and a big problem because it makes that entire side of the game not only pointless but highly punishing to the player. I'm sure this is not working as intended.


POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS:
• When a customer buys a single card give them an increased chance to buy another product.
• Better yet base the chance of customer buying another product on how much they have spent relative to how much money they started with. So a customer who has $500 and has only spent $10, has a much higher chance of buying a second product than a customer who has already spent half their money.


I believe the more players who are aware of this the better as it spoils a big chunk of the game.

Edit: Over the course of the replies we have discovered that selling cards above about 70% of the average spend per head of our customers is viable. Selling cards below that level will negatively impact revenue. For example, at level 35 (the level I was at when I wrote the above) my customers average spend per head was about $100. Selling cards below $70 would cause a loss in revenue. Selling cards at $10 or less would cut my revenue in half!

This is of course still a problem. This leaves us with no way to sell the bulk of the cards we own without losing a lot of money by doing it and the problem increases as we level up.

[yanloup64]

I concur.

Made the test with my shop lvl 30 and my sales skyrocketted by 25-30%. Plus saving me time as I don't have to refill the tables.
Obviously it's a flaw of the economic logic in the gameplay.

[Moka]

Came here to comment that i did my own very quick and dirty test to see, and yeah. My profits shot up nearly 2k a day after i sold my card table.
I wish the dev would fix how they buy singles, or at the very least change how the self visit mechanic works when interacting with a card table :(
Early access tho, So i'm gonna just be happy that someone made the game i've been dreaming of for years XD

[stump]

This reminds me of the bad old days when video games were rather new. There was a auto racing sim in which players could make endless adjustments to their motors, suspension, aero kits, etc. Folks had detailed discussions about camber, toe in, toe out, front ride height, rear ride height, etc, etc. In the end, 90% of that stuff was nothing but busy work the developer had added as window dressing. It really had no effect to very little effect on the car at all. Turns out TCG shoppers are just RNG'ing every move :-)

I just play the game as I like to play it and don't worry about maximizing earnings. Everyone can play in the way they enjoy.

[DescipleOfZen]

Whenever a shelf is empty and I've not inventory to restock it, I box it up. Customers dice roll your shelving, so it's best to take it out of play if not in use. I have 12 small shelves that are purely for boxes and a few misc small shelves for other items to please customers who want a specific item, it's easier to manage this way.. making 26k a day and spend 10k to accumulate excess boxes, 5k on misc items for the misc shelves.

[roboticaust]

I have a maxed out shop offering every item and even play tables despite them being questionable and make 48.4% of my income off selling singles, with 32.9% being off items and 18.7% being off the tables. I've also never done the "card box only meta". That said, if you are comparing it to that meta or spending all day in a corner goblin opening cards and ignoring the tables; yeah you're going to lose money on them because npcs will come up to an empty table, shake their heads and storm out.

Just pointing out play style can drastically change things. I personally make a profit exceeding 100k daily and roughly half of that is selling singles. I start the game day off letting my stockers fill in the final few items, order restock and let them fill the warehouse back up, then splurge in a ridiculous amount of cards to open (yes I use the fast opening mod). Then open the shop and baby the card tables by constantly refillling them with the highest selling duplicates I have on hand as npcs take them off the tables. 50k a game day easy off card tables.

Now am I playing this the fastest way possible? Hell no, not even close. I'm more interested in completing the card collection and in doing so have broken level 100 and have everything unlocked. Do I play all day every day? Also hell no. I play a few hour session a day that makes up roughly one game day of advancement now, most of it while playing Satisfactory during cards opening.

Anyways it can be profitable, very profitable. But is it how most people play? Unlikely. That said, I won't be removing my card tables. But you do you.

[Space Bob (Paul)]

If the devs browse this thread it's obviously useful for them to see that others are confirming my findings, so thanks to those who also tested this out and got the same results.

Also, the guys who are actually making single card tables work seem to be either using mods to open cards fast enough that they can focus on selling high value cards only, or are spending large amounts of time opening packs while the shop is closed. Doing any and all of those things is obviously up to the player, and it's good that the freedom to do that is available, but neither should be required to make the single card tables work.

We should be able to stock those tables with cards of any value without it having such a negative impact on our daily revenue. If nothing else we need a way to sell all the lower value cards. It's a problem that gets progressively worse as we level up too.

[Birck]

If you want to open packs and have anyway to sell the singles at all, you need a card table period.

Sure, it might be slightly better to not have it but every customer only has a set amount of money on them. In my first save file I opened a card worth over $10,000 early on and NO customer could afford it.

Even if I priced that card at like $11,000 which was a huge discount they would say things like "Wow, that is a great price but I don't have enough money." So yeah they might buy sealed products instead of singles but every customer has a hidden amount of money and even the ones that look rich in business suits have limited money that goes up as you level.

Claiming that card selling tables are all downside is absurd though, if I open a card worth $300 out of a box that cost me $200, I have no way to unload that card without it.

[Birck]

Originally posted by Space Bob (Paul):

If the devs browse this thread it's obviously useful for them to see that others are confirming my findings, so thanks to those who also tested this out and got the same results.

Also, the guys who are actually making single card tables work seem to be either using mods to open cards fast enough that they can focus on selling high value cards only, or are spending large amounts of time opening packs while the shop is closed. Doing any and all of those things is obviously up to the player, and it's good that the freedom to do that is available, but neither should be required to make the single card tables work.

We should be able to stock those tables with cards of any value without it having such a negative impact on our daily revenue. If nothing else we need a way to sell all the lower value cards. It's a problem that gets progressively worse as we level up too.

They have added a way to open packs a bit faster, but even early on I open 128 packs a day and that number goes up a lot as I get higher level, and more money.

If you ask me they should make it even faster in the game, since the mod makes it WAY faster and can have you auto-open and not stop on every new card or money card.

[stump]

Originally posted by Birck:

Originally posted by Space Bob (Paul):

If the devs browse this thread it's obviously useful for them to see that others are confirming my findings, so thanks to those who also tested this out and got the same results.

Also, the guys who are actually making single card tables work seem to be either using mods to open cards fast enough that they can focus on selling high value cards only, or are spending large amounts of time opening packs while the shop is closed. Doing any and all of those things is obviously up to the player, and it's good that the freedom to do that is available, but neither should be required to make the single card tables work.

We should be able to stock those tables with cards of any value without it having such a negative impact on our daily revenue. If nothing else we need a way to sell all the lower value cards. It's a problem that gets progressively worse as we level up too.

They have added a way to open packs a bit faster, but even early on I open 128 packs a day and that number goes up a lot as I get higher level, and more money.

If you ask me they should make it even faster in the game, since the mod makes it WAY faster and can have you auto-open and not stop on every new card or money card.

Not everyone wants it faster. If an option to control the speed is made, that would be fine, but I'm not interested in just getting all the money or all the cards and finishing the game as fast as possible.

I played a fishing simulator and some folks complained about the wait time between bites. They wanted no waiting at all. I guess they would have been happy if they didn't even have to use a pole. The fish could just jump in the boat as they zoomed by at 70 mph.

If folks like to play fast, fine. But that isn't a simulator. To me it just becomes a clicky rush to finish the game and be done with it. Just my opinion.

[Space Bob (Paul)]

Originally posted by Birck:

If you want to open packs and have anyway to sell the singles at all, you need a card table period.

Exactly my point. We have no option to sell cards any other way (other than sub $5 cards), and the card table has serious issues that this thread is highlighting.

Originally posted by Birck:

Claiming that card selling tables are all downside is absurd though, if I open a card worth $300 out of a box that cost me $200, I have no way to unload that card without it.

I totally agree with you. That would be absurd. However, nobody has claimed that at any point in this thread. I've personally explained multiple times in the replies how card tables can be made viable but the method has serious limitations.

The problem is that card tables negatively impact revenue, compared to selling everything else, unless we only sell cards that are close to or above the average spend per head of our customers.

At level 35 the average spend per head of my customers was $100. Selling cards below approximately $70 causes a loss in revenue due to the way the simulation works.

Now at level 45, the average spend per head of my customers is closer to $150. Now selling cards below about $110 causes a loss in revenue.

If I were to now sell cards at $10-$20, my revenue would halve compared to not selling them at all.

As you said yourself, there is no other way to sell cards. That is part of the problem. The only way we have to sell those cards punishes us for doing it. We make more money by literally not selling them.

There are lots of potential ways to resolve this problem, and that is what this thread is about. I described solutions in detail on the second page of replies.

I've put an 'edit' on the OP to better clarify our current understanding of the problems with the card table to prevent similar misunderstandings.

[roboticaust]

I did say I was using the faster opening mod. But even without it, the same strategy could be used but it would take a hell of a lot longer to do.

I also said I wasn't playing normal either. I literally hit a button and go play another game for awhile then come back to it and repeat until I've burnt away $100k in cards all while the time is paused because I haven't flipped the sign around yet.

I'm well past the point of playing the game normal and just grinding card openings to kill time between major updates on the game. Really wouldn't mind having 1 of every available card by the time certain features are added.

Anyways, the point I was making is they can be profitable if you have good cards to stock them with and keep on top of restocking them during the game day. That said, a normal player should keep a table on hand (preferably boxed up) that they can place and babysit every so often when they have a ton of high priced cards to burn through from a big card opening. Leaving it empty in a corner of your shop is going to lower your sales for sure, as is stocking it with low value cards.