This is a store.. you are a customer... BUY SOMETHING!

[Metalkatt]

Feel free to make fun of me, or to offer helpful suggestions...  I'm running into major irkitude with my stores.  I've set buyable things as buyable.  I put one fun object on the lot so my employees can take a break and chill... and that object is the focal point for everyone who isn't ventrilo-farting each other.  >_<  Why won't they just buy something--after all, they came to the smegging store.  I don't go to the grocery store to prank strangers, I go there to buy food!

[skandelouslala]

Remove the fun object.  Have nothing but what you are selling and the necessities to do that.  It doesn't matter if you are providing the fun objects for breaks, b/c in the long run breaks for your employees accomplish nothing. Most of the time they wander around aimlessly and then become angry when you tell them to get back to work.  Not only that but you would have to give your employees three or  4 hour breaks to actually get their motives up to something reasonable.  Once they're down I find it best to send them home and close down shop..or there's always that cheating option by maxing motives

I tell the customers that decide they are going to do nothing but stand around, prank, shove, slap whatever goodbye.  They usually reappear a few hours later unfortuantly but it gets them out of your hair for a bit.

[Zoltan]

did you set the price of the items?  were they highlighted in yellow as you 'priced' them?

[Emma]

Put the fun object behind a lockable door-and lock it for househod sims and employees only. In one of my test shops, the only place my customers can go is in my shop and the bathroom!

[Metalkatt]

Lockable doors!  Why didn't I think of that?  This is why I have no qualms admitting that I am completely nonawesome. 

Zoltan--I did price them all and make them glow yellow, but I didn't pick *specific* prices, I just set them all on "average."  Was that wrong?  This is my first ep without a prima guide, and the counterintuitiveness is driving me fruit bats.

[buddha pest]

It's weird because for me, it seems like they behave like that more on community lots than in home businesses where I  by default  have tv's, chess boards, etc all easily accessible to them.

I've got a community lot business, and I put one of those new giant statues outside for decoration, and the customers just stand out there and stare at it and babble to themselves about it rather than browsing.

Then I try the "show item to" interaction to lure them back inside the store, and there's an icon in the queue that says "just browsing," and they get all pissy at my sim.

It's sort of amusing actually, but I guess it'll get old soon.

[LordHellscream]

some sims are so poor and they just come to my store to hang out and never buy anything
it really pisses me off and i have to ask them to leave the moment i see them in the store.

[cyperangel]

I seem to recall that twojefffs have a vistor controller thing that lets you ban sims from the lot. Which i happily use to ban those that dont want to buy..
"Not shopping? Buh bye!!!"

[J. M. Pescado]

The BlueSoup Store has an answer to this: BUY OR DIE! If a customer doesn't buy anything, BlueSoup pummels them to within an inch of their miserable lives.

The other thing that's helpful to discourage loiterers is to charge admission to even get in the store. This tends to drive off the slackers and bums, and if they wanna putz around, hey, at least you're still getting money out of their sorry asses.

[Ancient Sim]

The problem with charging admission is that they spend forever deciding whether to part with $9 (which is what one of my stores started at, it was the recommended average price) that they never get around to actually looking at the goods on offer.  Took me quite a while to realise that you had to use sales tactics to even get them to pay the admission.  That sales thing drives me crazy, it's S-O-O-O-O boring having to do it over & over again.  I keep looking for a Macrotastics "Sales" option ...

[buddha pest]

some sims are so poor and they just come to my store to hang out and never buy anything

I'm wondering about townies. Don't most of them only have a few thousand dollars? At some point will they run out of money altogether and stop buying anything?

I've been playing a neighborhood with a pretty small controllable sim population. I deleted all the downtownies too. Would it be possible to get really low on customers because of this? Maybe some of them would be making it up if you were employing them in shops, but I can't imagine it'd be much if you weren't playing the lot constantly.

[Ellatrue]

Pretty realistic, if you ask me- I was selling halloween costumes at a small flowers/gifts store and a group of about 6 people came in. They hung around for about an hour waiting for their friend to try on every costume in the damn store, blocking the entrance and crowding the shop, and in the end she changed her mind as I was ringing her up and decided it was too expensive. *$#@! The price is right there on the costume!

I just added a few of my reward objects and started charging people to visit the shop, and set the price below ridiculously cheap. They always come in anyway, unless they don't have any money in the first place, and it pretty much covered the cost of the employees. They don't use the reward objects, but it seems to draw them in, along with a photo booth I stuck in there. In real life it would be ridiculous to charge people just to shop in your store, but it works well in the sims.

[seven]

I started a home business to test things out and spent time setting up the store, but with even one fun object in the house I couldn't get the customers to buy anything. One of the sims finally got the gold sales badge so when she dazzles someone they sometimes buy, but not always. So I gave in and just added a bunch of fun objects and charged customers and now the business has a really high rank and is very profitable. The average price to enter is $99. I changed it to expensive and everyone pays.

I had a free buffet table, but got rid of that and tried charging them for food. No one will buy food ever no matter what I do -even with ridicously cheap prices. It's interesting to see what works and what doesn't.

I also have sims show up that annoy others so I ask them to leave.

[angelyne]

In real life it would be ridiculous to charge people just to shop in your store, but it works well in the sims.

Happens here all the time.  They call it a "show".  Basically you pay for the privilege of shopping.  They get money from you and they get money from the booths.  The booths are filled with overpriced items that you can cheaper elsewhere that they sell suckers with some slick "dazzle" techniques..   Then you wander the aisles getting offered "free" promotions and "enter here for a chance to win".  The only thing you win are phone calls of the type "Congratulation, you are our grand prize winner, please come and collect your prize....you'll only have to listen to a short "presentation".

Nice racket.

[Zyrcona]

Feel free to make fun of me, or to offer helpful suggestions...  I'm running into major irkitude with my stores.  I've set buyable things as buyable.  I put one fun object on the lot so my employees can take a break and chill... and that object is the focal point for everyone who isn't ventrilo-farting each other.  >_<  Why won't they just buy something--after all, they came to the smegging store.  I don't go to the grocery store to prank strangers, I go there to buy food!

This is annoying. There seems to be a weird pattern of the customers I get in my shops. There's always 2-3 people who come there and loiter, never buying anything even when offered to have something shown, and either dance to the stereo or talk/ snog/ beat each other up (and there are a handful of sims in the neighbourhood who have descended into being enemies through no conscious action of my own, and I am sick to death of that 'poke' interaction and the other one where one sim punches another and stars appear around its head). Even when asked to leave, these people keep coming back, and the only way to get rid of them is to ban them. There is one particular sim in my neighbourhood who comes to a shop immediately when it is opened, and spends all the time beating up every other single sim that comes in. I'm sick of everyone being distracted by this sim flying about with someone else inside a cloud with expletives issuing from it. I banned the sim, and all the time the shop is open, this sim appears, enters via the door, approaches the counter, and is teleported away in an endless loop. I mean, it's not even realistic. You don't go into a shop and beat someone up or snog them, however you feel about them. You'd be arrested.

Oh yes, and get TwoJeff's no pranks hack. I hate these interactions, and uninstalled University for a long time because of them.

[angelyne]

I mean, it's not even realistic. You don't go into a shop and beat someone up or snog them, however you feel about them. You'd be arrested.

There is a hack that does that.  You call the police and they arrest the troublemaker.  I am waiting for them to update it to OFB. 

[anelca]

i like my customers enjoying themselves...i don't really give a rats arse if they buy anything or not. this is probably why i take so long to get above 5 in the ranking but i don't actually care. i don't have employees, i use members of the family who don't get paid and Merolas mirror so no-one who works there needs to take a break. i keep them there for days on end
i do draw the line at customers breaking out into a brawl though, so the visitor controller zaps the offenders off the lot, never to darken the doors again 

[simmiecal]

Thank you Monique!
(She's gotta be surfing this site. )

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=138882&page=1&pp=25
Browse and buy faster (25% or 50% faster)

Although, the MTS2 servers are a little busy right now.
Between JM's cash register hack and this one, I just might be able to tolerate a shop in my game.

[Metalkatt]

As soon as MTS2 gets their server in gear and stops telling me it's a bad request, I might try playing the game again.

[Sleepycat]

Thank you Monique!
(She's gotta be surfing this site. )

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=138882&page=1&pp=25
Browse and buy faster (25% or 50% faster)

Although, the MTS2 servers are a little busy right now.
Between JM's cash register hack and this one, I just might be able to tolerate a shop in my game.

Oh Thank the goddess!! I'm gonna try the 50% file.

I managed to get it downloaded and I thanked her, doing anything else at mts2 was impossible - today I keep getting the "server is to busy" message 

[Metalkatt]

Delphy fixed the link, so it's loadable now.

[anelca]

and as well as Moniques hack, which i have to admit i d/loaded as i was starting to get bit fed up with the length of actual browsing time
there is one by Squinge to stop fighting in the shop, on MTS2

[Giggy]

thats strange. in my game townies have unlimited money and I force them to buy stuff.

[radiophonic]

thats strange. in my game townies have unlimited money and I force them to buy stuff.

Same here.

On the topic of the "Shop Faster" hack: Be prepared to hire a second cashier and stockboy if you use the 50% version. The sales happen too fast, in my opinion. However, under the right conditions, faster sales will be more cash flow (if your cashiers can keep up) and that will balance out the need to pay more employees. The 25% version seems to be more "realistic".

[anelca]

i have just had a succession of sims pleading poverty coming into my newly opened computer store, many of whom i know for a fact to be as rich as Bill Gates because i have made them so ...... tight as ducks arses they are, wouldn't even buy at ridiculously cheap when offered then went and bought an alarm clock and pissed off

i am about to try the 25%, i downloaded both versions but thought i'd try that one first. sounds like it might be about right