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Your Own Business - Mini Guide
MissSpiffey
Posts: 212 Member
OK so we all know there are a few different issues with GTW. Firstly, employees set to ring up customers are worthless. Don't waste your time. Secondly, using any fast forwarding will actually hurt you. It eats into your time because the game basically stutters and you lose precious game minutes. So due to my personal experience I recommend that you avoid anything but normal speed except when things are really dead.
This Guide will work best for people who have a handle on the basics and have a small savings to start with.
My Journey:
Bakery with some flower pots, only Flowers sold. Turned it into Flower Shop with a couple of paintings. Paintings sold well and had no mess, turned it into an Art Gallery.
Suggestions:
1) Get a capital of around 8k Simoleans (not including your basics: structure and cash register). Sell at Normal Rate.
2) Sell Paintings. Not the ones your Sim did, but good ol' Buy Mode ones. Pick ones that are at least 500+. Paintings just require plenty of wall space (make some fun little wall squares), but do not create a mess you have to clean due to no display tables. They give you an environment boost, which creates a good buying mood.
3) Have bathroom and kitchenette, maybe even 1-person bed, on site. Also have a speaker pumping music. All these amenities distract Sims, and you'll rarely see them walk off site without purchasing. Eventually adding a mini TV in your kitchen helps. I know some people hate all of these things for distracting their employees, but I would still rather have them for how they distract my customers from leaving and give my sim easy access to necessities.
4) Resist the urge to sell cheap things. When they DO buy, you want it to be worth your TIME. If you don't have my recommended 8k capital, then still sell higher priced Artworks, as you can at least close up shop sooner and still make the same profit, without the extra wages.
Routine:
1) At Day's start, set all employees to Answer Questions.
2) Talk up customers yourself. Queue up lots of interactions, ideally focusing on 1-2 customers at a time, as you do not want several ready to buy at the same time which of course means you'll increase odds of losing a sale.
3) When sales start to show, go into slow mode and get comfortable in regular speed.
4) After about 1/2 dozen units have sold, or 1/3 of your total stock, set 2 employees to refill stock. Sales will likely start to compound. Any leftover employees should continue answering questions.
5) Sales will be poppin, so queue them up in order they appear, and STAY IN SLOW MODE. Your job is to just to Ring Up Customers (and berate any slackers if you have the time, of course).
6) I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT USE ANYTHING BUT REGULAR SPEED once things are really rolling. You'll get smoother customer transitions.
My Most Recent Stint (Pushed my sim pretty hard): 18.5k Gross Rev, 9.5k Net Rev.
This Guide will work best for people who have a handle on the basics and have a small savings to start with.
My Journey:
Bakery with some flower pots, only Flowers sold. Turned it into Flower Shop with a couple of paintings. Paintings sold well and had no mess, turned it into an Art Gallery.
Suggestions:
1) Get a capital of around 8k Simoleans (not including your basics: structure and cash register). Sell at Normal Rate.
2) Sell Paintings. Not the ones your Sim did, but good ol' Buy Mode ones. Pick ones that are at least 500+. Paintings just require plenty of wall space (make some fun little wall squares), but do not create a mess you have to clean due to no display tables. They give you an environment boost, which creates a good buying mood.
3) Have bathroom and kitchenette, maybe even 1-person bed, on site. Also have a speaker pumping music. All these amenities distract Sims, and you'll rarely see them walk off site without purchasing. Eventually adding a mini TV in your kitchen helps. I know some people hate all of these things for distracting their employees, but I would still rather have them for how they distract my customers from leaving and give my sim easy access to necessities.
4) Resist the urge to sell cheap things. When they DO buy, you want it to be worth your TIME. If you don't have my recommended 8k capital, then still sell higher priced Artworks, as you can at least close up shop sooner and still make the same profit, without the extra wages.
Routine:
1) At Day's start, set all employees to Answer Questions.
2) Talk up customers yourself. Queue up lots of interactions, ideally focusing on 1-2 customers at a time, as you do not want several ready to buy at the same time which of course means you'll increase odds of losing a sale.
3) When sales start to show, go into slow mode and get comfortable in regular speed.
4) After about 1/2 dozen units have sold, or 1/3 of your total stock, set 2 employees to refill stock. Sales will likely start to compound. Any leftover employees should continue answering questions.
5) Sales will be poppin, so queue them up in order they appear, and STAY IN SLOW MODE. Your job is to just to Ring Up Customers (and berate any slackers if you have the time, of course).
6) I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT USE ANYTHING BUT REGULAR SPEED once things are really rolling. You'll get smoother customer transitions.
My Most Recent Stint (Pushed my sim pretty hard): 18.5k Gross Rev, 9.5k Net Rev.
Gallery: #ItzSpiffy - I make custom NoCC Wall Art for the game using only my sim's camera and in-game scenery! I also love building modern mansions among other things.
Post edited by MissSpiffey on
2
Comments
If efficiency and maximum profit is your goal, at the detriment of the immersive simulation experience, then yes. If my Sim didn't have a family I'd have her spend nights there, and actually I have a couple times. The only downside to that is that you are sort of tunnel visioning into one aspect of the game.
The only difference between a retail lot and a home lot is the mechanic of how "neighbors" interact with you. You'll have no privacy and whatever is on your property is at the mercy of shoppers. You don't have a fishing stream or the same area of exploration.. In the original Open for Business Sims 2 expansion, your home lot was often where you had your shop, except in that one you could lock doors to different groups.
also if you purchased all the sims 3 content in the past you should have gotten the emotion lamps in the Sims 4, putting confident lamps around the store boost you up to sell to customer much quicker...
My 2 cents
Start small. Keep it simple. Allow space for moving around. Sometimes it takes a bit of tinkering to get the layout working.
Items with an "environment" score of 2 or greater are more likely to sell.
Save up for the Retail Perks that effect checkout and customer interest. Don't bother with the other perks until later. You can earn retail points by using the retail interactions and restocking.
I don't hire employees until my store gets really busy. Employe's interactions with customers don't earn retail points - but do help with employee skills.
Paint some "Confident" paintings and put them around your store.
Don't add objects that will distract your customers, employees or your Sim. For example: computers, stereos or TVs.
If I want music, I only use the Classical Music speaker. No dancing. Your Sim can get some fun by listening to music while chatting with customers.
My most profitable store is a small Art Gallery. Started selling buy-mode Art while I built up a my Sims painting skills - and a stock of paintings. Now I only sell my Sims painting. I never restock. Just "remove sign" and replace with new paintings from my Sims inventory. Mostly small paintings. Recent Sales: 10 items sold for 12,256 in sales profits. Second generation in this store. No employees. No sales displays to clean.
Personally, I don't like to keep my stores open for more than 8 hours. Too exhausting. For me and my Sims.