This is a basic starter guide to running and earning money with your new store.
Contents
Day 0 – Creating Your Own Store
All credit goes to Freya Blackthorn!
After you’ve finished creating your store on the main screen you will be taken to your store where you will be able to view the quick tutorial, after this you will need to start setting up your store by completing the objectives shown.
Once you have placed the staff room computer table, the stock room pallet and storage display and your register, I would recommend starting with 1 shoe wall display, 6 clothes wall displays and 1 floor clothes display, which should leave you with around 10K -12K left depending on if you’ve decorated the store.
Now comes the fun part, you will need to order your stock, you do not want to go overboard and will want to keep at least 1,000 left over because you will have an hourly electric and tax bill.
I would recommend the cheaper 35.00 and 50.00 T-shirts and a couple of the 100.000 t-shirts and tops maybe a few hoodies too, Also with the shoes i would order 3 designs of of the cheaper trainers mixed with a pair of the more expensive footwear.
I would recommend ordering 5 of each item apart from the more expensive shoes which you could order around 2 or 3 of for now.
Day 0 – Office
After you have finished setting up your store, you will be taken to your office/home, which will give you a tutorial of what you can do in your office.
Firstly as tempting as it may seem do not take out a loan and do not hire any staff because (a) you will find that the loan will soon get you into debt as you wont make enough sales to cover the extra hourly loan bill, (B) you will not need the staff because the first few days you will have very little traffic to your store.
For your first day i would leave everything as it is and then start day 1.
Day 1 – Opening the store
The first thing you will want to do is turn on your register.
Once the store is now open you will need to go outside to attract customers inside the store, whilst some customers will enter the store by themselves, most of them will need convincing outside.
To do this when they stand still outside your store with an icon over there heads, you will need to walk up to them and press E, Click on would you like to come into the store and then you will have a display, you need to get the Sincerity and influence bars up as high as you can whilst not losing the customers patience.
This can be slightly difficult as i am still learning this process myself, although a good combination tends to be pressing the bottom left green icon then the middle green icon then the clock icon which will give the customer more patience, then hit the middle green icon again then either the influence or sincerity button (one of the blue icon buttons) after this the customers happiness may go down so you will need to click on the green icon then the smiley face then the timer.
Keep doing this for a while, its always good to press one of the left or middle green icons before hitting the clock icon as this seems to help. Always try to use the clock icon when you can as this will give you more time with the customer.
If a customer goes into your store always follow them inside in case they need help, even if this means pressing the red end conversation icon with the person you are talking to outside.
When helping a customer inside the store its always best to keep the view where you can still see the register incase a customer is waiting to purchase an item, If this happens, you will need to end the conversation with the customer you are helping and serve the customer at the register.
Whilst this may seem rude to the customer you are talking to, it is more important to get the sale that is for 100% guaranteed rather then one that is a possible sale. Also this will only effect the item that the customer was needing help with and any items he or she has already picked up will still be brought.
For example if a customer picks up one t-shirt and one hoodie and then asks for help while looking at the shoes, if you do not help the customer or have to end the conversation where he/she is unhappy/unconvinced then the customer will still go to the register and purchase the t-shirt and hoodie but not the shoes.
Don’t worry if you only make one or two sales on your first day, this is perfectly normal and those customers that have purchased from your store will tell there friends, family etc which will increase your reputation, hence more customers to your store. You will make very little profit on the first day but you will be making profit.
Day 1 – Office and Interviews
Now that we’ve had a few sales and our reputation has increased a little, you should have a little bit more traffic to your store.
The first thing to do is to change your opening/closing times. I would recommend 9AM – 10PM.
This time frame seems to work well with staff as well once we hire some in a few days time.
Next you will want to view your interview tray and start some interviews.
When you interview someone you will be able to unlock 2 of there skill trees to preview what stats they have. This isn’t really too important but it can help to see what skills they have.
Always try to offer them 60 an hour first (anything under 60 seems to always be refused) if they refuse this you could try 63 an hour or 70 an hour and so forth, you only have 4 attempts though but don’t worry if they refuse and leave, you can re interview them again later in the game.
It’s always best to try and get staff at 60 an hour because whilst they might start out with very low to 0 skills, you can train them up with courses and they will get experience working in your store. which will save you money in the long run.
For example if you hire a highly skilled staff member at 80 – 90 an hour once there skills are maxed out you will always be paying them 80 or 90 an hour.
Instead you could hire someone at 60 fully train them up to there max and then you will only ever be paying them 60 an hour.
Once you have finished the interviews do not hire any staff yet as you wont have enough customers yet for them to be worth paying hourly. You can hire them abit later.
Day 2 – Store
Repeat what you did on day 1, you should notice a slight increase in traffic due to day 1’s sales. By the end of the day you will notice that you’ve now gone from the 1,000 to roughly 5,000 which is a good profit and you will still have tons of stock left in store.
Day 2 – Office and Restocking / Purchasing More Stock
On your PC you will want to click on order and then check how many of each item you have left in store, here you can restock them back so you have 5 of each again. This wont show any items that are currently out of stock.
You will need to click on summary as well to check if any items are out of stock.
Yes this will mean that your 5,000 will now be alot less because of restocking.
But this is good progress you will now have a fully stocked store and will still have around 4,000 left over or you can if you want to purchase another display and add abit more stock to your store although this isnt really needed at the moment.
Day 3 – Store Profit and Hiring Staff
On day 3 your items you ordered from the office last night will be delivered into the storage room where you will need to unpack the items from the pallet onto the stock shelf, then go out to the store and start to restock items.
You will now notice an increase in traffic again, always serve customers at the register first, even if a customer needs help, again its better to get the sale that you know is for sure rather then a possible sale.
By the end of day 3 you should now have around 10,000 in your bank balance. You can then repeat this process for another day or two without staff members until the shop becomes more busier or hire 2 sale staff members.
You will need 2 simply because you will need to rotate there working day shifts.
For example sales staff member 1 works while sale staff member 2 is on a training course. then the next day sales staff member 2 is working in store whilst sales staff member 1 is either on a course or has the day off.
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