Guru's, you need to spend some time playing Open for Business. You really need to experience the game for yourself. Then you will see what the simmer sees and you will know what works. Use that knowledge when you are thinking about tweaking Sims 4 for the better.
I don't have a download link but I've spent more then enough time doing retail to contribute some feedback that is appropriate for your inquiries.
I have a total of 4 retail shops, 2 clothing and 2 bakeries(my idea of a bakery anyways) I'd have more but you guys left out coffee shops and night clubs so well not gonna go there but ya I kind of went there.
My feedback is this:
With the clothing shops it feels like a real store, like a real contribution to my sim community. It is a way for me to develop a repertoire with the sims in my neighborhoods/communities.
I wake my sims up, send them to their shops, I create outfits/make food and by opening I have a nice assortment of items for purchase. It works out ok, I usually make ends meet, I don't lose a lot in profit at first and eventually have a gain. It's not enough though, my workers are always insubordinate and I have a hard time getting them to comply to my management. I've had to remove ambiance from my businesses because my workers will spend to much time watching television or dancing to music instead of doing the jobs I consign them to. I'm not apposed to business, I think it's by far the best feature the developers have introduced thus far. It's a mechanic that stretches my game play from places to go to things to do.
One thing I've noticed in my businesses, even across them all is that it is ALWAYS the same costumers. From my retail shop to my bakery, it's the same sims coming in. Why is that? I find it odd that something as important as a business you develop in a sims community, that it's always the same sims coming in. I have stripped my game of EA/Maxis npc's, I have only sims I've created in my game and I know every single one of them. It is the same ones in every shop I run, where is the diversity? How am I supposed to create shops that bring in a different group of sims to interact with sims that work there or go there? It's all about consistency for me right now and a consistent strain of the same customers is not at all what I'd like. My clothing shops have only womens clothes in them, why is it full of men, why are they confused trying on the outfits? Why do my working sims have to continue to approach them even though they can't wear the clothes? It's odd and it doesn't work, it's a waste of my time in game, it's a waste of a great feature to build community in the world our sims live in.
The shops I run, I've spent a great deal putting them together, they're fun for a bit. It begins to fall short in customer rotation, it begins to fall short in employee management. I think I could really get over the customer participation if the employee management could be looked into a bit more. I'm having a problem running a clothing store because while the sim I am actively playing is working their 🐸🐸🐸🐸 off, the sims under me, that are lucky to have the job, are talking, chatting, using their cell phone and doing nothing to contribute to my hard work and profit. Is it a big issue, ya it is. If you're going to implement a business then you need to make sure that our sims that choose to own that business can run it efficiently, without jumping over hurdles to get it right. The sims we hire should be automated to do their job and that's it. I shouldn't have to worry about my sim owning a business and being riddled with awful employees. If it's the occasional employee then great I get it, it's real, it's how it should be and I like that, that's how it should be, random. When it is EVERY employee that I hire through every single type of business that I open then it's not an anomaly , it's a problem. There's a difference.
If this is a question into restaurants then I feel more then capable of supplying a good deal of knowledge on how to make, not only own-able restaurants a success but businesses in general. I've been playing the sims for 16 years there are certain things that have and have not been included in different iterations and if you are considering restaurants then I'm on par.
Restaurants need to be handled not as a retail store, it's a completely different type of business. The businesses we have now are places to go to buy things, restaurants are places to go to do things. It's much like the bar, the night club, we don't send our sims there to buy stuff but to do stuff. There needs to be a different approach to owning a restaurant and in all reality if you approach it right you'll open up our games to owning a bar, night club or even a coffee shop. Hopefully if it's implemented that way then we will be able to own the bar, night club, coffee shop, even the spa. Why not do it now? Make the effort, the idea is there, expand it, give us the tools to take our games even further and give us the opportunity to create meaningful, long lasting game play. I for one, could spend months on this feature, I'd be happy to wait for the next ep.
A clothing store, a bakery, a "retail" business as you call it consists of completely different things then a restaurant, bar etc. You have goods to sell, you have "things" to sell and not a service to offer. With a clothing/bakery shop you have an item to sell, a list of items. With a restaurant you have a service to sell, an experience for our sims to indulge in. We send our sims to a restaurant(or even club:hint) to do an activity, not to buy an object. There's a difference there, I know you know, I just said it either way. In the approach to owning a restaurant which I'll continue to push(a coffee shop/a bar/ a night club) it's not going to be the same as retail, it's going to be a service and not an item. If you're interested or fishing for ideas well my idea or feedback is to figure out a way to make selling a service a thing for restaurants. Sure with restaurants it's easy, there's a menu, there's a tip. It could be implemented though in a way that makes owning other service type venues an optional type of business, I'm really hoping you guys will handle it this way.
I'm not a player that wants without effort. I have been playing the sims a long time and I would love to see this part of the series start going in the right direction(I've been waiting for it.) If you're thinking about restaurants, a business that is focused on a service rather then a product then please at least open up the possibility for other service(non product) businesses for us simmers. There is a great deal of potential in building a community of diverse sims amongst a great deal of businesses and careers and it really shouldn't be looked past.
What really makes Me so Mad about all this is, when you ask a EA Rep about something that is going on in the game and such, Some of them do NOT have a Clue, Why? Because some of them Have Never even played the Sims games Ever!!, and I tell them, to get Me someone who knows what I am talking about, and they won't do it, instead they say I will go ask the Supervisor, Rolls Eyes, If they Have Never even played the Sims games, then Why are they on the phone as our help consultants? it makes no sense to me what so ever, And sorry the only house I bothered to build in Sims 4 was My haunted House, and I'll keep it thank you.
PS, Vagenius, great Ideas up there I agree with ya yup, .
Please can you make it possible to open a food court in a community lot without having to change the lot type. I want to have a little burger stand or a small cafe in a community park. I'm not sure how difficult that would be to make happen but please look into it.
I don't know if anyone mentioned this, but it's something thing that really bugs me. Staff uniforms should stick, even if you sell the shop back to the community (as a visitable but unowned lot).
If I spent the time making a hippy crystal, candle and incense shop, then I want the employees to be dressed in flowing skirts and boho chic.
Generic retail uniform, in a random colour for each staff member, just doesn't cut it.
@Vagenius Everything in your posts is what I agree with.
I think that we are getting antsy waiting for content, but at the same time, I don't mind waiting for it if it is going to make the end result better.
1 month could take your work from 75% to 80%, and that extra 5% could feel like 15% (sometimes even higher) to a lot of people, depending on what it is you are working on. It's really tricky to know what exactly the community will love v. like, because there are so many cool ideas, opinions, and objects that you may want to implement, but it can be done, and the widespread support of the community is within reach if the content is good enough.
@Vagenius Everything in your posts is what I agree with.
I think that we are getting antsy waiting for content, but at the same time, I don't mind waiting for it if it is going to make the end result better.
1 month could take your work from 75% to 80%, and that extra 5% could feel like 15% (sometimes even higher) to a lot of people, depending on what it is you are working on. It's really tricky to know what exactly the community will love v. like, because there are so many cool ideas, opinions, and objects that you may want to implement, but it can be done, and the widespread support of the community is within reach if the content is good enough.
@Luke i haven't played the game in two weeks, i need new content now.....2 years and they released more stuff packs then Expansion packs...
I don't know if anyone mentioned this, but it's something thing that really bugs me. Staff uniforms should stick, even if you sell the shop back to the community (as a visitable but unowned lot).
If I spent the time making a hippy crystal, candle and incense shop, then I want the employees to be dressed in flowing skirts and boho chic.
Generic retail uniform, in a random colour for each staff member, just doesn't cut it.
@EmmaVane I feel you i pick my uniform even in my game play for some reason they wear different colors shirts when i want them in the same colors...
What really makes Me so Mad about all this is, when you ask a EA Rep about something that is going on in the game and such, Some of them do NOT have a Clue, Why? Because some of them Have Never even played the Sims games Ever!!, and I tell them, to get Me someone who knows what I am talking about, and they won't do it, instead they say I will go ask the Supervisor, Rolls Eyes, If they Have Never even played the Sims games, then Why are they on the phone as our help consultants? it makes no sense to me what so ever, And sorry the only house I bothered to build in Sims 4 was My haunted House, and I'll keep it thank you.
PS, Vagenius, great Ideas up there I agree with ya yup, .
Was just writing something in another thread about this so I thought I'd come share it here since this is about retail.
Is there any way the devs could let us have MORE employees? I mean I want to keep my business open all day, it would be really cool if we could have 2 shifts and hire a set of employees for one shift and another set for another. We could set schedules and all that for our employees and maybe even give them days off and stuff like that. Or like if we get a crappy employee, instead of firing them we start giving them less hours so they will eventually quit because they aren't making a good enough living. I always put an apartment above my businesses so that my sim can just live there and usually don't go home for much, if anything. I would like to be able to have enough employees though so that my sim in say like my bakery can bake while the shop is being run by enough employees or even take a nap mid day and not have to worry about the shop for a bit.
Also a functional office would be great with an actual object that's an office desk. Then we could take employees in there and talk to them about their job performance, give them a raise etc. I know you can do those things now but a functional office would give it a bit more realism. Employees could come in the office or ask to talk to you in the office maybe, asking for a raise, whatever. Maybe this is a stretch though.
It would also be really great if we could promote a sim to management, that way our business is always profitable whether our sim is there or not. A feature to call the management to check in on the business would be nice and at the end of every day, you'd be able to see how the business did and collect the daily income. I'm not sure if that would work and how the income would be randomized but it could go off what you usually make when your sim is there.
Back to the first thing though, the number of employees. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to run a restaurant with 3 employees. I'll need a few waiters, a hostess, a cook or two, maybe someone that cleans the bathrooms or a bus boy. I'm going to need about 6-8 employees to run a restaurant efficiently and if we ever get the option to have a manager.
Just some ideas for improving retail and owning a business in general.
edit: Just wanted to add that I understand that we use perks to get more employees but maybe if that was just taken out to increase the amount of employees, you could just make the perks for other things and get rid of the employee gating behind perk points altogether.
@Luke i haven't played the game in two weeks, i need new content now.....2 years and they released more stuff packs then Expansion packs...
TS3: Release June 2009.
WA - November 2009
A - June 2010
LN - October 2010
Then May 31, 2010, Generations was released, which is basically a GP...
So TS4 was released September 2014 ... we have GTW, GT, 2 GP's, and then Restaurants being released this month will make 3. I never thought that GP's were 1/2 an EP, but 1/3 is much more realistic.
At 20 months, TS3 had 3 EP's and 3 SP's, along with the TS3 store items which were overpriced.
By this time, TS3 had 3 EP's, along with their overpriced store items. TS4 has 2 EP's, 2 GP's (3 in a couple weeks), and 6 SP's (7 in a couple months) ... but even if you want to count Generations as a fully fledged EP's, there is still a lot of content. The SP's kick any TS3 SP out of the water. They basically boil down to 25 cents per object in a TS4 SP, give or take. GP's also surpass TS3's SP's (and TS4 SP's) in terms of objects, and then you get the gameplay mechanics, traits, collectibles, CaS items, etc as well.
So, this is the dilemma that is happening ... we either get charged an inflated price that fluctuates, and get content more frequently, or we get charged a fixed price, and get content at a steadier pace.
I prefer the latter, to be honest; EA/Maxis took away the TS3 store for a reason. If a GP, EP, or SP flops, they can't just release a bunch of random content through a store to glaze over their mistake ... they have more pressure now to learn from their actions, which I feel wasn't really done in TS3.
People are saying, "Why doesn't EA/Maxis listen", yet we constantly have interaction from Guru's, and they way they have developed TS4's sales is drastically different than TS3; on top of all of that, we are even seeing our concerns addressed in announcements, patches, etc...
I completely understand if this is not enough for you and other people, but the content gap is pretty normal compared to other games, not to mention all the content that we have already, and that there is still 4 months left for another EP.
They should change their focus a lot more to family play though ... I think that family play is what the majority of peoples playing style is, and it's why a lot of people are getting bored ... I think that they know this, and they were trying something different (which they even did with TS3 a lot), but I think that they have seen that people need more family oriented gameplay and are going to work on it more. I predict that this will be their focus in the coming months, and I do feel as though the content that will be released later this year will be received positively in a big way. I could be wrong though ... maybe they aren't focusing on family play. Maybe they want to make the game about socialising and partying ... which I don't understand why, because TS2 is by far one of the most beloved games of the franchise, and was entirely about family play. You watched your Sims grow in life with love, career, education, etc., but the end result was always to have some sort of family ... it really was all about creating a legacy, and continuing life from generation to generation.
Here's a little reminder for anyone that has forgotten:
What really makes Me so Mad about all this is, when you ask a EA Rep about something that is going on in the game and such, Some of them do NOT have a Clue, Why? Because some of them Have Never even played the Sims games Ever!!, and I tell them, to get Me someone who knows what I am talking about, and they won't do it, instead they say I will go ask the Supervisor, Rolls Eyes, If they Have Never even played the Sims games, then Why are they on the phone as our help consultants? it makes no sense to me what so ever, And sorry the only house I bothered to build in Sims 4 was My haunted House, and I'll keep it thank you.
PS, Vagenius, great Ideas up there I agree with ya yup, .
Since this enhancement of the retail system does not include new features have some things I would like to see improved.
The first has to do with photographic studios. When your sims photographing clients, of course the photo of them should go to their inventory and not for the inventory of who was shooting. I wish to be improved.
Second, any item purchased by sims not controlled should be in their inventories. It's very strange you see another Sim you control buying something in your store, as a decorative object, for example, and when playing in his household, the object is not in your inventory.
For larger objects, such as refrigerator, could stay in the family inventory.
I was playing yesturday my game where i have retail store "NICOL galery &photo studio" and i dont like that we have photo studio and we cant hire models for photo shuthing and pay them. And when i go out with that sim who own retail before i close store and back with diferent sim on that lot automaticly my sim owner going from lot. I dont like that it shuld be stay the owner and disqouse with costumer about store r something. And that sim with whom i came later, not owner he r she just have option to buy products. I dont like that it shuld be able to browse products for sale and options to disqouse with employees about products. And shorly i dont like that when my owner is on the lot and sell something to someone and when you go to play that sim nothing is In teire inventory. I understand why becouse it wuld be lots stuff In teire inventory but you gays cen fix that by reducing same sims to show up on lot over and over. Then teire inventory wuld not be fuul. That's it for now. i wuld like to send you save file but i dont know how. Please tel me.
One thing that I do not like of the actual retail system is that if a store is owned by one of my families and a Sim of one of my other families go to buy something there, he has to pay for it, but the family who owns the store does not get one simflouz and still has to pay to restock.
I think I'd like a multi-purpose retail lot. It would be cool to get a lot that is a mall someday. I tried making a lot into a bakery, paint studio and photo studio and the photo studio part isn't working right. Sims just do not want to get their photo taken.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
Comments
I have a total of 4 retail shops, 2 clothing and 2 bakeries(my idea of a bakery anyways) I'd have more but you guys left out coffee shops and night clubs so well not gonna go there but ya I kind of went there.
My feedback is this:
With the clothing shops it feels like a real store, like a real contribution to my sim community. It is a way for me to develop a repertoire with the sims in my neighborhoods/communities.
I wake my sims up, send them to their shops, I create outfits/make food and by opening I have a nice assortment of items for purchase. It works out ok, I usually make ends meet, I don't lose a lot in profit at first and eventually have a gain. It's not enough though, my workers are always insubordinate and I have a hard time getting them to comply to my management. I've had to remove ambiance from my businesses because my workers will spend to much time watching television or dancing to music instead of doing the jobs I consign them to. I'm not apposed to business, I think it's by far the best feature the developers have introduced thus far. It's a mechanic that stretches my game play from places to go to things to do.
One thing I've noticed in my businesses, even across them all is that it is ALWAYS the same costumers. From my retail shop to my bakery, it's the same sims coming in. Why is that? I find it odd that something as important as a business you develop in a sims community, that it's always the same sims coming in. I have stripped my game of EA/Maxis npc's, I have only sims I've created in my game and I know every single one of them. It is the same ones in every shop I run, where is the diversity? How am I supposed to create shops that bring in a different group of sims to interact with sims that work there or go there? It's all about consistency for me right now and a consistent strain of the same customers is not at all what I'd like. My clothing shops have only womens clothes in them, why is it full of men, why are they confused trying on the outfits? Why do my working sims have to continue to approach them even though they can't wear the clothes? It's odd and it doesn't work, it's a waste of my time in game, it's a waste of a great feature to build community in the world our sims live in.
The shops I run, I've spent a great deal putting them together, they're fun for a bit. It begins to fall short in customer rotation, it begins to fall short in employee management. I think I could really get over the customer participation if the employee management could be looked into a bit more. I'm having a problem running a clothing store because while the sim I am actively playing is working their 🐸🐸🐸🐸 off, the sims under me, that are lucky to have the job, are talking, chatting, using their cell phone and doing nothing to contribute to my hard work and profit. Is it a big issue, ya it is. If you're going to implement a business then you need to make sure that our sims that choose to own that business can run it efficiently, without jumping over hurdles to get it right. The sims we hire should be automated to do their job and that's it. I shouldn't have to worry about my sim owning a business and being riddled with awful employees. If it's the occasional employee then great I get it, it's real, it's how it should be and I like that, that's how it should be, random. When it is EVERY employee that I hire through every single type of business that I open then it's not an anomaly , it's a problem. There's a difference.
If this is a question into restaurants then I feel more then capable of supplying a good deal of knowledge on how to make, not only own-able restaurants a success but businesses in general. I've been playing the sims for 16 years there are certain things that have and have not been included in different iterations and if you are considering restaurants then I'm on par.
Restaurants need to be handled not as a retail store, it's a completely different type of business. The businesses we have now are places to go to buy things, restaurants are places to go to do things. It's much like the bar, the night club, we don't send our sims there to buy stuff but to do stuff. There needs to be a different approach to owning a restaurant and in all reality if you approach it right you'll open up our games to owning a bar, night club or even a coffee shop. Hopefully if it's implemented that way then we will be able to own the bar, night club, coffee shop, even the spa. Why not do it now? Make the effort, the idea is there, expand it, give us the tools to take our games even further and give us the opportunity to create meaningful, long lasting game play. I for one, could spend months on this feature, I'd be happy to wait for the next ep.
A clothing store, a bakery, a "retail" business as you call it consists of completely different things then a restaurant, bar etc. You have goods to sell, you have "things" to sell and not a service to offer. With a clothing/bakery shop you have an item to sell, a list of items. With a restaurant you have a service to sell, an experience for our sims to indulge in. We send our sims to a restaurant(or even club:hint) to do an activity, not to buy an object. There's a difference there, I know you know, I just said it either way. In the approach to owning a restaurant which I'll continue to push(a coffee shop/a bar/ a night club) it's not going to be the same as retail, it's going to be a service and not an item. If you're interested or fishing for ideas well my idea or feedback is to figure out a way to make selling a service a thing for restaurants. Sure with restaurants it's easy, there's a menu, there's a tip. It could be implemented though in a way that makes owning other service type venues an optional type of business, I'm really hoping you guys will handle it this way.
I'm not a player that wants without effort. I have been playing the sims a long time and I would love to see this part of the series start going in the right direction(I've been waiting for it.) If you're thinking about restaurants, a business that is focused on a service rather then a product then please at least open up the possibility for other service(non product) businesses for us simmers. There is a great deal of potential in building a community of diverse sims amongst a great deal of businesses and careers and it really shouldn't be looked past.
PS, Vagenius, great Ideas up there I agree with ya yup,
If I spent the time making a hippy crystal, candle and incense shop, then I want the employees to be dressed in flowing skirts and boho chic.
Generic retail uniform, in a random colour for each staff member, just doesn't cut it.
I think that we are getting antsy waiting for content, but at the same time, I don't mind waiting for it if it is going to make the end result better.
1 month could take your work from 75% to 80%, and that extra 5% could feel like 15% (sometimes even higher) to a lot of people, depending on what it is you are working on. It's really tricky to know what exactly the community will love v. like, because there are so many cool ideas, opinions, and objects that you may want to implement, but it can be done, and the widespread support of the community is within reach if the content is good enough.
@Luke i haven't played the game in two weeks, i need new content now.....2 years and they released more stuff packs then Expansion packs...
@EmmaVane I feel you i pick my uniform even in my game play for some reason they wear different colors shirts when i want them in the same colors...
@BlueBlack007 that's messed up....
I agree, it should count as having a job...there should be more levels of advancement to...
Is there any way the devs could let us have MORE employees? I mean I want to keep my business open all day, it would be really cool if we could have 2 shifts and hire a set of employees for one shift and another set for another. We could set schedules and all that for our employees and maybe even give them days off and stuff like that. Or like if we get a crappy employee, instead of firing them we start giving them less hours so they will eventually quit because they aren't making a good enough living. I always put an apartment above my businesses so that my sim can just live there and usually don't go home for much, if anything. I would like to be able to have enough employees though so that my sim in say like my bakery can bake while the shop is being run by enough employees or even take a nap mid day and not have to worry about the shop for a bit.
Also a functional office would be great with an actual object that's an office desk. Then we could take employees in there and talk to them about their job performance, give them a raise etc. I know you can do those things now but a functional office would give it a bit more realism. Employees could come in the office or ask to talk to you in the office maybe, asking for a raise, whatever. Maybe this is a stretch though.
It would also be really great if we could promote a sim to management, that way our business is always profitable whether our sim is there or not. A feature to call the management to check in on the business would be nice and at the end of every day, you'd be able to see how the business did and collect the daily income. I'm not sure if that would work and how the income would be randomized but it could go off what you usually make when your sim is there.
Back to the first thing though, the number of employees. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to run a restaurant with 3 employees. I'll need a few waiters, a hostess, a cook or two, maybe someone that cleans the bathrooms or a bus boy. I'm going to need about 6-8 employees to run a restaurant efficiently and if we ever get the option to have a manager.
Just some ideas for improving retail and owning a business in general.
edit: Just wanted to add that I understand that we use perks to get more employees but maybe if that was just taken out to increase the amount of employees, you could just make the perks for other things and get rid of the employee gating behind perk points altogether.
TS3: Release June 2009.
WA - November 2009
A - June 2010
LN - October 2010
Then May 31, 2010, Generations was released, which is basically a GP...
So TS4 was released September 2014 ... we have GTW, GT, 2 GP's, and then Restaurants being released this month will make 3. I never thought that GP's were 1/2 an EP, but 1/3 is much more realistic.
At 20 months, TS3 had 3 EP's and 3 SP's, along with the TS3 store items which were overpriced.
By this time, TS3 had 3 EP's, along with their overpriced store items. TS4 has 2 EP's, 2 GP's (3 in a couple weeks), and 6 SP's (7 in a couple months) ... but even if you want to count Generations as a fully fledged EP's, there is still a lot of content. The SP's kick any TS3 SP out of the water. They basically boil down to 25 cents per object in a TS4 SP, give or take. GP's also surpass TS3's SP's (and TS4 SP's) in terms of objects, and then you get the gameplay mechanics, traits, collectibles, CaS items, etc as well.
So, this is the dilemma that is happening ... we either get charged an inflated price that fluctuates, and get content more frequently, or we get charged a fixed price, and get content at a steadier pace.
I prefer the latter, to be honest; EA/Maxis took away the TS3 store for a reason. If a GP, EP, or SP flops, they can't just release a bunch of random content through a store to glaze over their mistake ... they have more pressure now to learn from their actions, which I feel wasn't really done in TS3.
People are saying, "Why doesn't EA/Maxis listen", yet we constantly have interaction from Guru's, and they way they have developed TS4's sales is drastically different than TS3; on top of all of that, we are even seeing our concerns addressed in announcements, patches, etc...
I completely understand if this is not enough for you and other people, but the content gap is pretty normal compared to other games, not to mention all the content that we have already, and that there is still 4 months left for another EP.
They should change their focus a lot more to family play though ... I think that family play is what the majority of peoples playing style is, and it's why a lot of people are getting bored ... I think that they know this, and they were trying something different (which they even did with TS3 a lot), but I think that they have seen that people need more family oriented gameplay and are going to work on it more. I predict that this will be their focus in the coming months, and I do feel as though the content that will be released later this year will be received positively in a big way. I could be wrong though ... maybe they aren't focusing on family play. Maybe they want to make the game about socialising and partying ... which I don't understand why, because TS2 is by far one of the most beloved games of the franchise, and was entirely about family play. You watched your Sims grow in life with love, career, education, etc., but the end result was always to have some sort of family ... it really was all about creating a legacy, and continuing life from generation to generation.
Here's a little reminder for anyone that has forgotten:
No Kidding aye,
The first has to do with photographic studios. When your sims photographing clients, of course the photo of them should go to their inventory and not for the inventory of who was shooting. I wish to be improved.
Second, any item purchased by sims not controlled should be in their inventories. It's very strange you see another Sim you control buying something in your store, as a decorative object, for example, and when playing in his household, the object is not in your inventory.
For larger objects, such as refrigerator, could stay in the family inventory.
Family Carvalho Branco.