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Important Info on Running a Store
SimGuruBChick
Posts: 1,013 SimGuru (retired)
[cobbled together from some posts made by @SimGuruGraham yesterday]
CLP, a mannequin is not needed to make an unowned store function. The reason why that seemed to work for you, is that clothing placed on mannequins is automatically set for sale. For an unowned store (or any store for that matter) to function, something must be set For Sale.
Devil, you answer you're original concern... whoever made the bakery that you downloaded from the Gallery probably didn't set anything in the bakery as For Sale, so when you placed it in your world it didn't become a functional store. If a player uploads a lot with items on the lot as For Sale, the store should immediately start functioning when you place it in your world. If you're building your own stores in your world that you want to be unowned so you can visit as a customer, you'll need to...
1) Build the store.
2) Own the store (so that you can set items as For Sale, which can only be done by the owner).
3) Mark the items in the store that you want it to sell as For Sale, by clicking on them in Live Mode.
4) Sell the store.
When you follow this process you'll now have an unowned store that's fully functional that you can now go shop at. You won't lose any money by buying the store to set it up either; you'll recoup all of those costs when you sell the store.
Your markup prices don't have an affect on the number of customers that arrive... that's determined by your curb appeal, which is a combination of the number of items you have for sale, the overall value of your store, if you have any retail signs or neon signs to attract customers, or if you've purchased advertising.
What markup prices do is determine how difficult it is to get customers to actually buy something. At 5% markup, customers will arrive with high purchase intent and you may not even need to interact with them for them to decide to buy. At 100% markup, customers purchase intent bar is nearly empty when they arrive, and you'll need to spend time giving them personal salesman attention to convince them that they should purchase. Is it worth your time giving individualized attention to each customer to get them to pay more, or would you rather have rapid customer turnaround times in your store? That's part of the fun
CLP, a mannequin is not needed to make an unowned store function. The reason why that seemed to work for you, is that clothing placed on mannequins is automatically set for sale. For an unowned store (or any store for that matter) to function, something must be set For Sale.
Devil, you answer you're original concern... whoever made the bakery that you downloaded from the Gallery probably didn't set anything in the bakery as For Sale, so when you placed it in your world it didn't become a functional store. If a player uploads a lot with items on the lot as For Sale, the store should immediately start functioning when you place it in your world. If you're building your own stores in your world that you want to be unowned so you can visit as a customer, you'll need to...
1) Build the store.
2) Own the store (so that you can set items as For Sale, which can only be done by the owner).
3) Mark the items in the store that you want it to sell as For Sale, by clicking on them in Live Mode.
4) Sell the store.
When you follow this process you'll now have an unowned store that's fully functional that you can now go shop at. You won't lose any money by buying the store to set it up either; you'll recoup all of those costs when you sell the store.
Your markup prices don't have an affect on the number of customers that arrive... that's determined by your curb appeal, which is a combination of the number of items you have for sale, the overall value of your store, if you have any retail signs or neon signs to attract customers, or if you've purchased advertising.
What markup prices do is determine how difficult it is to get customers to actually buy something. At 5% markup, customers will arrive with high purchase intent and you may not even need to interact with them for them to decide to buy. At 100% markup, customers purchase intent bar is nearly empty when they arrive, and you'll need to spend time giving them personal salesman attention to convince them that they should purchase. Is it worth your time giving individualized attention to each customer to get them to pay more, or would you rather have rapid customer turnaround times in your store? That's part of the fun
SimGuruBChick
Infinite Diversity, Infinite Combinations
Thanks to 06bon06 for my lovely new signature pic
Infinite Diversity, Infinite Combinations
Thanks to 06bon06 for my lovely new signature pic
37
Comments
Thanks for posting this. Its a good clarification for people who are still having some trouble getting retail lots to work.
Just don't say that I can't mark them as for sale and that this shelves and fridges are only decorative.........
created one sim.
have them buy the lot i want for the shop.
build it.
then go back to live mode and set things for sale just by clicking on them as if to have your sim interact with them.
now you can save the lot to your library or the gallery which ever and drop it into a new game and it will run fine selling items. you just have to have the original build actually owned at creation so you can set things for sale.
Thanks for this post ... Wish I had seen it last night.... I couldn't figure out why I couldn't Mark things for sale in build mode after downloading a shop and setting it to retail.....but now I know!
Hey, I'm having issues with Sims not being able to come in and look around to buy items. I can mark things for sale and my employee can come inside and restock the items that I purchased from before I bought the store.
Was speaking with him and used the "Go Here Together" interaction and the guy just stopped, had that bubble and just stood there.
Edit to add picture
> Sim_GuruBChick
> Hey, I'm having issues with Sims not being able to come in and look around to buy items. I can mark things for sale and my employee can come inside and restock the items that I purchased from before I bought the store.
>
>
> Was speaking with him and used the "Go Here Together" interaction and the guy just stopped, had that bubble and just stood there.
>
> Edit to add picture
I haven't played my own business yet... but do you have to set the hours for "open". I remember in Sims 2 and 3 you had to click on the door or register to set your open hours so customers could visit and make purchases. Just a thought... I need to try this out myself. Good Luck! :smiley:
are you putting ads?
Gallery ID: Gaia Puma (Click pic above if you would to download that exact building)
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/789742/the-sims-4-create-a-world-petition-212-signatures-200-signature-celebration/p1
For the fridges I had to mark the items for sale first then put them in the fridges and the sims just purchased the items from the fridge without any interaction from me.
For stuff you put on the selves, you just click on the item and click set for sale.
For the fridges I had to mark the items for sale first then put them in the fridges and the sims just purchased the items from the fridge without any interaction from me.
For stuff you put on the selves, you just click on the item and click set for sale.
Are you using debug items for sale. There was a thread in that causing issues and simguru graham said Using cheats to sell items may not work. Edit Nevermind if just saw that thread was your own and your issue sorted. Facepalm
I hired one that has pretty high scores all across the board at a rate of about $24/hr. This guy will sit at a table and chat up customers the ENTIRE TIME. The job I assign him? Ringing up customers.
So while he's sitting there making friendly, I'm busy refreshing stock, cleaning, talking to customers, and ringing them all up! I've tried employees other than him, but they all do the same thing! What the heck is going on?!
It seems they need a maxed out work ethic in order to actually behave like employees. I don't know why they didn't just make employees slow and inefficient (like in Sims 2) instead of making them useless.
This is my wishes for the base game and the TS4 GTW
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/826806/improvement-wish-for-the-ts4-and-ts4-get-to-work#latest