More Awesome Than You!

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!

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!!!"

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.

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 ...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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  ;D

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.

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.

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  :(

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

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

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".

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

Speaking of Monique, instead of using the faster buy I picked up her no (various) pranks and no autonomous flavor paks. Now I can keep my sims in line without having to chase them around so much or worry about those stupid pranks in my stores. I dont really like playing with freewill off as I do like them to be autnomous, and I dont want the game eaiser persay, just a little less annoying without the stupid behavior. Pranks are fine in grade school and college, but not for grown "adults" especially in a store...

Those that are too poor to purchase are always banned from the lot, period.

But in real life, you're not paying for the privilege of buying the overpriced items. You're paying for the show, and the overpriced stuff is just side stuff that they hawk to you. If they charged you dough to get into Macy's or something, I'm sure that profit would take a gigantic hit. So yes, in RL it's unrealistic to charge pple to enter a store.

Sims have no idea what you're running, though. And no, it's not necessarily unrealistic to charge people to get into a store. Plenty of stores have an "exclusive" clientele that you have to pay some kind of membership fee to be a part of.

Think of it this way: Sims are buying your store's air, without which they would have to hold their breath the entire time.

Besides, so what if it hurts your profits? You're allowed to make decisions that hurt your profits, otherwise it wouldn't be much of a game.

But that's the thing- it DOESN'T hurt the profits, it helps- and it keeps out the sims that are too poor to pay for anything. Plus, any time they buy a ticket, you get a star!

Well, there's a reason why some shops institute membership fee policies like that. And it doesn't ALWAYS help your profits, that greatly depends on your situation. And keeping those grubby poor people out always improves your store's atmosphere, after all.

Charging at the door hasn't been working to well for me. I have one comm. lot business, arcade/dancehall that I started with charging $70 then went down to $50 but only one or two sims pay to enter. I'm using the Bluewater arcade lot and I remodeled it a little and included a DJ booth. My sims has gained sales badges from trying to interest people, but they won't pay. What's the problem?

I also tried throwing a pay-party. I had my sim throw a house party on the phone and put a ticket machine out front charging $20. The person I invited to the party, even stopped to consider to pay. The music was playing and food was out but again no one entered.  :-\

Sounds like it's hurting your profits. :P

Yeah, I thought throwing a pay-party would be a quick way to make a fast buck, but nope.  ::)

If you want to make a fast buck send your playable sim to someone else's community lot that has a ticket machine on it.

Wouldn't that subtract from my playable sims funds?

How does that make sense? If a playable sim visits someone elses lot, doesn't that mean that they have to pay?

Anyway, I did it by setting the price to around $20. It is cheap enough that they always pay, unless they have no money. The majority of my profits come from actual sales- this just offsets the cost of paying the employees.

I dont know what the logic is, I just know that when I sent my sim to a community lot owned by someone else that had a ticket booth on it, my sim pocketed the money each time someone paid. And I dont recall my sim going over to the ticket booth and paying for anything. I sent her there to meet some contacts to make friends with for her job promotions since she didnt know anyone.

I sat there in astonishment as her money count kept going up each hour as all the sims on the lot paid their dues. I thought surely she wouldnt keep it when she went home, that it would be reset - but it wasnt. The money earned on that lot with the ticket booth increased my sims funds. I did not see this happen on any other lot without a ticketbooth. I guess it could just be my game, but try it and see if that happens to you.

Nectere, I doubt it's just your game.  This type of problem's been in the programming since TS1 days.  With Unleashed my sims would go to a community lot and pay for the burgers every time another sim grilled.  I think it was only after the patch that the money would actually be refunded them upon their arrival home.

This has not been my experience.  Since I've used the JM's No Playable Shoppers (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=3419.0) hack, I haven't once had a sale turned down due to lack of funds.  I think townies must have unlimited funds... I routinely sell them several plasma TVs!

No. They have bottomless pockets but your playables don't and that's one of the reasons for using that particular hack.

If the sale is turned down, it is likely that they are picky (grouchy sims are typically more "picky" than the other types) or one of the other many variables that modify the sales interactions. Shy sims may also be a problem although you wouldn't expect them to be, instead you'd expect them to cave just to get the salesman out of their personal space. :P

Yes, it can be like one of those "price clubs." You can charge sims to get in and then sell them giant vats of mayo.

I'm so glad to hear about these hacks. Some Sims I automatically 86 now because I know they're going to be assholes.

And about fun objects in a store...I put a stereo in my flower shop and they were dancing to the shopping music from Sims 1. Sims are so smurfy...they'll dance to anything. I had to take it away. SHOP, DAMMIT!

LMAO! You said "Smurfy"  :D

the 50% one does seem to be too short a time.  I'm double-checking the 25% one and seeing how that works.  I will report back when I've tested.

Heh...I have quit a few enemies running around b/c of this now.
A dream of a hack that somehow checks for poking/slapping/beating actions on business lots and when it is detected the sim who initiated the action immediatly  bursts into flames.  :)

So the sims are supposed to approach the counter? I was getting pretty sick of all the sims entering the store and heading to the counter, getting in the way of customers trying to check out, and often enough two will come in and start interacting in front of the register, making it impossible for anyone to check out until I boot them out of the way.

I turn away for one moment, then look and see my register is surrounded by bags thrown down in disgust and two sims happily playing red hands in front of it  ::)

If they come in and loiter you need to make them shop. Use the "Show Item To..." or "Show Menu To..." commands and make them loiterers useful. After they've made a purchase, kick them out the door.  ;)

Shame they didn't give us security guards or shoplifters.

i'm finding the 25% one is just about right. 

Thanks, Anelca.  Between the asthma and the job, I haven't had time to play in awhile.

Which ones? Generally, pple are not paying a membership fee to shop at a store. They're paying for VIP service or uber-luxury or whatnot. Sometimes a store will screen and trim the clients for exclusivity, but even then, they don't charge their clients, they just limit their services to the rich pple.

Price clubs you charge for a membership so you can sell them stuff at cheap cheap prices. But in the sims, I don't think ticket sales could offset the low profits from cheap products, unlike in RL, where companies like Walmart boast some of the biggest profits in the world.

As for the counter-blocking, I've found that if you stick a semi-fun obj in a corner somewhere, it helps to keep the customers away from the counter and shopping. I stuck a cheap TV on my sim's lot, in front of a cheap couch, and the customers will occasionally sit and watch TV and chat, but after a bit they get up and start shopping again. It also helps to put the shopping counters in a long nook somewhere, as sims generally pick wide open spaces to stand in, just like they never excercise unless they've got a boatload of room.

You pay for a membership at Sam's to get the large discounts. Businesses do the "Hey, pay this much for a membership card good for one year and you'll always get discounts when you shop here" so that you WILL SHOP THERE. Why go to Barnes and Noble when you have a membership card for Waldenbooks that gets a discount and you earn points for giftcards? They're trying to enforce customer loyalty. You'll buy more from them if you are paying less than you should. That means you might buy one or two items from them that you might not have done otherwise. It's the same with the buy two get one free gimmicks. You came to the store to buy one, but because of the sale you buy two. So the store got an extra item out of you where they were origionally only going to get one.

Impluse buying. Gotta love it.

I was in retail for too long...  :'(

Well, over here, we have "buy one for the price of two, get one free!". Truly a real steal, this offer is worth considering when renewing your subscriptions!

 :D

Yes, yes, it is the deal among deals. Do you have the five bucks?

Here we have a several bookstores (all owned by the same people, but with different names).  They peddle the same kind of deal.  Buy our card for 20$ and you'll get a 2% discount on all purchases. Woopie

So basically you loan them 20$, and after having purchased 200$ worth of books off them, you start getting a 2% discount.  So if you buy 400$ worth of stuff off them, you might save a measly 20 buck. You are basically paying them so they can track your purchases. 

And they call that a deal?  It's not even worth the space it takes up in your wallet.  The women behind the counter look all puzzled when I angrily turn down their "membership" card.

Maybe if bookstores weren't a monopoly in this  province, we'd have better deals.  Anyway, I screw them, because I come to their store, check out their books and buy them off amazon where I get 30% off.  No cards and no bullshit.

Yeah the bookstore here is 10% off and after you spent a 100 bucks in the store they mail you a $5 gift cert. Big whoop. I had it for a year before I discovered amazon.com's free shipping. =)