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What Shops Do You Build?
MissyHissy
Posts: 2,022 Member
So I'm working on a street of shops in Magnolia Promenade and will most likely be doing the same in Newcrest. It did get me wondering what shops you guys build in your games.
The retail system was one of the things I loved about Sims 2 and I've spent a really long time finding creative ways of developing one in Sims 3. So the introduction of a retail system in Get to Work was music to my ears!
I know a lot of people felt the same, yet I don't see many shops being built in people's games, not here, on Twitter nor on Tumblr. So I was curious about your shops. What shops do you build? How often do you create and use NPC shops?Pictures would be lovely!
*All my mods can be found on The Daily Plumbob*
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Comments
Owning a shop was my favourite thing to do in ts2, I loved doing the sales and shelf restocking as a couple and usually had a teen son or daughter helping on the till.
I have a few retail stores in my current game, mostly because I was recreating some from ts3; the bakery from ts3 store, the pet shop, a consignment store and Aleisters Elixirs. I downloaded a clothing store and an outdoor supplies store.
At the moment they are all used as npc stores but I do need to buy and run a shop at some point for my current legacy challenge.
I love running stores, but not in TS4. They just don't work properly. I end up with a gathering of the entire sim population having a giant groups conversation with my sim, while my sim is trying to sell stuff and raise their bar... It just turns into a giant day long group conversation where my sim tries to sell stuff, and only about 2 sims actually buy anything
But, if they did work properly, I would have made a whole sims world photography store (to showcase the natural beauty of all sims worlds), a bakery, a florist, an electrical appliance/computer store for my geek sims, inventions/gadgets store... sooo many! In previous sims games, I used to love my handy sims owning car stores, and then restoring old cars and selling them - that was literally my favourite thing ever!!
I hated shops in Sims 2 as well as in Sims 3 and 4. I have never built one in Sims 4, and built... two, total, in Sims 2. Got bored within 10 minutes each time. I used that pack for one thing only: The Servos. At least in Sims 4 the Servos are connected to a pack I actually use (I enjoy University way more than I thought).
(I hate playing any kind of commercial lot; I got equally quickly bored with the restaurant, vet clinic or whatever as with the actual stores).
To each their own tho
Running a store in TS4 for me was tedious and mind numbing. I love the concept of running a store or a small coffee shop in the game for fun. However, I did not find it fun. The system is very time consuming compared to the profit. It would take all day to sell just 2-3 paintings. My Sims spent more time mopping up paint from kids then I care to remember. Do not put your shop in Windenburg. Lots of fights in that one section and customers would run to watch the fight without buying anything.
For me the selling table is best placed on the home lot with a fence and locked gate around the home. (or keep your doors locked but angry Sims kick over bins and smash dollhouses) Locks keep the customers from going into your house and eating your leftovers etc.
I don't have restaurants in my saves either.
What's so 'awful' about the retail system then? I've been playing with it and I don't spot glaring differences from the Sims 2 system. So...what so terrible about it? @Oldeseadogge mentions everything being supplied automatically - aside from clothing, Sims 2 was exactly the same?
I didn't realise so many people weren't bothering with shops. I'm surprised, to be honest. It's a lot better than the 'system' we had in Sims 3, yet nobody seems to be using it.
I have built and run a vet clinic though, and I found that fun.
So tell us what you like about running a shop in TS4 @MissyHissy and how it has worked for you. I might need some tips as I will be doing it in my legacy at some point.
Edit: Some pics of my shops for you:
Bakery
Pet store
Bookstore
So firstly it turns out you do have restocking after all! Somebody told me they didn't but they do!
The only difference I've spotted was indeed not using the tills at all. You ring up the customer on tablets. I haven't yet had any large groups of chatting so I can't comment on that yet. I'll let you know if I see any though.
I can understand why that might bother some people. I'm not fussed particularly but I definitely understand that.
@elanorbreton Love your pictures! The bookstore looks very familiar - remake of Sunset Valley's, by any chance? Looks lovely!
Edit to add:
Okay, I'm definitely not having problems with making sales:
I'm not actually having to talk to the customers much to make these sales? The only advertising they've got is television advertising. No perks yet, they've only just bought the place.
This is really interesting! Please keep us updated if this keeps working ok, I think I must need tips. I've tried so many stores on TS4, but it always turns into a day long group chat with very few sims actually buying anything unless I actively talk to them (which then leads to an even bigger group chat). If I don't chat so I can restock, then no-one buys anything at all. And when I try and ring up my sims purchases on the tablets, they automatically talk to the whole group which I then have to keep cancelling before they actually get to ringing up the customer, by which point my customer is angry because I'm taking so long
In TS2, customers just sort of bought stuff, and you could stay at the till, or quickly run off to restock, and still have a queue at the till, and it just sort of worked. I find that in TS4, to do anything, you have to battle cancelling all the conversations before you can do anything.
If yours continues to work normally I'd love to know. I really miss retail!!
I was reading in this thread this morning and I spotted a post from SimGuruGraham further down that mentioned the markup making a difference to how much persuasion customers need to buy stuff. As you can see in the picture above, I've got mine on 15% so maybe that's making the difference?
This was the end of the day (I had it open for 11 hours without even meaning to. It got busy!). So there were 12 sales in 11 hours. I had both Nancy and Geoffrey working in there, ringing customers up and one employee restocking. So there was about 244 simoleons paying her wages, plus 1800 for the television advertising I paid for, hence making a loss on this occasion. Overall though, it went really well.
So I wonder if the markup is making the difference with these group chats?
This picture was taken while Nancy was ringing up a customer (The one with the shopping trolley over her head). The blonde lady in the foreground was chatting with the other two customers but they were still looking at items. Both the dark haired lady and the guy in the back bought stuff from the other shops, so it did seem to be making a positive difference with their desire to buy. Now the lady Nancy's talking to? She'd not spoken to Nancy or Geoffrey at all, yet she went ahead and bought something.
One final thing; I set two lot traits on here, Convivial and Teen Hangout.
I might start a separate save soon and experiment with the various markups and see if any of that makes a difference.
It is interesting to read your account of retailing, shame about not having a till
In TS2 shops are needed for: the already mentioned clothing, food (or have it delivered), books/magazines/video games (in addition to what computer already has), jewelry if you want it once out of CAS, pets, furniture (yes, there is buy mode but there is also a store if you have Open for Business), amusement centers (pool table(s), video games, pinball), hair dresser, real bowling alleys (Mrs. Crumplebottom is hugely entertaining and a top notch bowler), clubs that are actually different from one another. That should do for now.
@elanorbreton I must admit, I haven't missed using the tills at all. I didn't get the time to miss them really. But then I used to get annoyed by the slamming of bags in Sims 2 if they didn't get served quickly, so I suppose each to their own?
@Hoverael I've been enjoying the retail myself. It doesn't seem all that different from Sims 2 really.
@Oldeseadogge Oh, okay then. I can understand why that might bother you if it feels pointless though. Fair enough!
I first build a small basic shop from a part of her savings (Windenburg, mid-nowhere), put the price markup on 50% and let Hazel work alone. She made over 4000 simeoleans. Shop had been open for 9 hours and 3 customers bought something..
I worked a bit on the shop (I like to see things grow), with what she had earned, and the second day she opened the shop, hiring one employee, assigned to help answer questions. She was open for 7 hours and earned more then 6000 simoleans (six customers bought something) . So it pays to get a help.
I haven't restocked yet. Does that work with selfmade items? But then, even if it does, she plans to make them all herself with the produce of her garden. Full profit.
She won't be opening her shop everyday, maybe make it a weekend shop. After all, she is already really busy in her garden during the mornings, and remaking the sold out bouquets. Besides that she works as a floral designer too. It works well together, since she has to make a bouquet anyway for her job and she works from home.
I'm sure she'll be living quite well from her earnings in the future.
What I have found difficult with shops (and the vet clinic) is the pacing of customers and some of the mechanics taking far too long to execute plus the needing to chat to the customers for three days (slight exaggeration) before getting the sale. Some of these issues are me not having the hang of it yet for sure but there is some clunkiness there as well. Retail shops and the vet clinic are very cool ideas and should be a lot of fun. I thought I'd give it a shot again to see if I can do better this go round.
This was my experience too. It was the local hangout more than a business, which would have been fine if my sim hadn't needed to earn a living.
Sporting goods
Alien Nation for satellites and freezerays and all things space (with a working portal to Sixam)
A cluttered curio shop to poke around in
@MissyHissy I searched my blog for some pictures, and actually found a video I had forgotten all about
Love your top post picture, that's also a great way to save lots, with several stores on the same block. And it looks realistic, too. Do one family own them all, or are they NPC owned?
Edit: Oh, and a link would probably be good: https://simmerville.blogspot.com/2019/04/how-i-play-4-shopping-malls.html