OFB *home* business ideas for the creatively challenged?

[Liss]

I am really not all that creative and I'd like some new ideas for a home business.  I (obviously) already have robot, toy, and flower shops.  I also made a salon, a small electronics store, an art gallery, and a bakery.  Now I'm out of ideas.  Any suggestions?

[KellyQ]

Hehehe, thank goodness I'm not the only saying to themselves, Hmmm..what do I do now?

[Zoltan]

I got a bunch of 'adult' stuff from MTS2 and opened a porno shop for my sim Dirk McBlade 

[sanmonroe]

A furry/plushie store.

An opium den.

A brothel.

A casino.

A Christian Church.


All these have done quite well in my hood.

[TaWanda]

A Christian Church.

You're selling salvation? 
Or you got a little something going on in the church basement? 

[Fat D]

I prefer to do a ripoff house:
snapdragons near the ticket machine and in the owner's bedroom
price ~§100-§200
a TV if necessary
"dazzle"-interaction

[DMDye]

I'm *not* creative at all!
Someone at N99 thought of creating a brothel with the ticketing machine and the "Waterbed of Love" from MTS2.
From what she stated, it was dong very well.

[Ancient Sim]

I've read that people are selling puddles of pee, but when I tried to put one of Brynne's up for sale, it said I couldn't sell it.  I was thinking of starting a Grot Shop (only those UK readers who remember Reggie Perrin will need no explanation) ... basically, it would sell everything nobody wants.  Cheap tack at highly-inflated prices, in other words.  I was going to sell Brynne's pee puddle for around $1000 simoleans.

[Jysudo]

Ok, let me offer some clean ideas here. *Jysudo puts on halo and angel wings before begining*

You can open theme stores. Like Japanese theme store, Chinese theme stores or more genetric oriental theme stores.

Then a hollywood store, a bollywood store selling movie stuff.

Or get ur creative sims to paint canvas  and sell them at record high prices.

Or a zoo

Or a undertaking services, selling coffins for dearly departed sims ...

Limitless ideas for good clean fun !

[sanmonroe]

A Christian Church.

You're selling salvation? 
Or you got a little something going on in the church basement? 

Light a candle for a dollar.

Give to the needy (the priest who has huge lawyer fees)

Donate Church repairs (a wetbar with attached alterboy restraints)

Donate to improve relations with parishoners (money used for call girls).

The selling of indugences and false artifacts is a time honored tradition.

"Now dig deep into those pockets for this most worthwhile ministry, it will be a blessing to you and your family!"

Put you money in the collection plate. You godless bastard.

[Sagana]

I think the trick is to specialize/theme according to your sims personalities. Don't open 'a toy store' - open a dollhouse and sell only collectible dolls and teddy bears and doll-sized furniture. Open a beach-themed store and sell life preservers, floats, swimsuits and wet suits, seashells and aquariums. If you want to sell the water toys, have the sim running this buy them from others that know how to make them.

Have your sweet little old lady start a weekly bingo game and have her husband sneak a poker game into the back room. Run alcohol in a dry county (where selling alcohol isn't legal for those of you not in the US). Open a wax museum (hm, I haven't played with the servos, but they might be fun for this) and have the exhibits 'come alive' when the store is closed.

Have a Knight-themed restaurant where the servers wear costumes and do a show at specific times of day. Open a Chuckie Cheese (or whatever they call it these days) or a playhouse where the kids go for birthday parties and play on all the stuff. Open a used furniture/junk store and have the owner buy all the stuff they sell from other sims (have yard sales and auctions and flea markets to stock it).

Any store you like, any one you see in real-life or have read about in a book. How about a drugstore? Or a gift store where they sell gift wrap and ribbons and paper for the love notes and cards and the like? There's so many things :)

[Jysudo]

A Christian Church.

You're selling salvation? 
Or you got a little something going on in the church basement? 

Light a candle for a dollar.

Give to the needy (the priest who has huge lawyer fees)

Donate Church repairs (a wetbar with attached alterboy restraints)

Donate to improve relations with parishoners (money used for call girls).

The selling of indugences and false artifacts is a time honored tradition.

"Now dig deep into those pockets for this most worthwhile ministry, it will be a blessing to you and your family!"

Put you money in the collection plate. You godless bastard.

All that your picture tells me is that you are trying to wring money from fat middleaged white men 

[Sagana]

But selling pieces of the true cross could be kinda fun. And you could do the bingo game at the church. And maybe have people "donate" to 'Be Healed'.

Another idea, if you like putting in your own sound tracks for the radio and tv, it would be fun to do an advertising agency and sell commercials.

[TaWanda]

 I don't have oFB yet, which is why the Church idea made me wonder, but I have been thinking along the lines of furniture stores, greenhouses, hardware store, etc. Basically sell everything your sims need to set up house and then whenever a sim moves or upgrades their home I will have them buy from a store. Would this work?

[Lythdan]

Well, I started a Window Empire with Sim Rentech and Pescado. It's doing pretty well at the moment. Funny thing is, that in the living quarters (coughbunkercough) they have no windows.

These windows are so cheap, we don't even use them!

[flowerchile]

Before my reinstall I had the boomingest electronics home business with computers, desks, chairs, TV's, and small electrical; you get the idea..The Simmies loved it!  And I made them pay 50 simoleans to enter the store.

[radiophonic]

Real Estate is quite profitable.

Selling swampland to townies and offering free espresso. 

[JenW]

I like the idea of selling Sim-painted pictures...hadn't thought of that A whole gallery of one Sim's pictures, how fun.

On another board I saw someone was going to do a plumbing shop, and someone built a lot on TSR for a lamp shop. Hm, can you do a clothing shop? That might be cool, like running a consignment shop out of your house. I might do a mission-style furniture store at some point, between what came with OFB and custom stuff I've got several sets of furniture and I love that style. I've seen mention of a book store but I'm not sure how that works, maybe you can only sell magazines...there's another idea, a newstand. Magazines and coffee

[radiophonic]

Jen, the clothing stores are highly profitable.

I have one called "Just Clocks" where you can only buy alarm clocks at insane prices. 

How about a nursery? I haven't tried yet, but I'm sure you can sell trees. It would be cheap since you wouldn't need an actual building to house the business.

[J. M. Pescado]

Jen, the clothing stores are highly profitable.

I have one called "Just Clocks" where you can only buy alarm clocks at insane prices. 

I have a store, "More Awesome Than You", where you can buy my stuff at insane prices. Cuz those Lot Debuggers ain't free, you know.

[JenW]

Oooh, I like the nursery idea. If you can't sell real trees you could sell potted plants, and maybe stuff like Windkeeper's plastic bushes. I have to admit when I first saw "nursery" I thought you were talking about a day care, and I thought "What???"

Cool about the clothing store, gotta try that one.

Oh a few more ideas...if you have the holiday pack you could sell Christmas items. Used car lot   La-z-boy store with recliners. Music shop selling instruments. Or a yard sale selling all the raggedy stuff from Uni, Heh heh.

[simmiecal]

I have a couple of farms. Using Echo's crops from MTS2, the husband spends the day tending the crops. The wife bakes and "makes preserves" on alternate days. The other day, she is minding the roadside stand where she sells the cookies, cakes and preserves that she makes. Also, have some farm animals and mark milk cans and baskets of eggs for sale. It doesn't make a lot of money, but enough that the two of them can afford the mortgage on the farm and neither has to get a job off-lot.

[Sagana]

Oh that's very cool Simmiecal. I love the sound of it. I'll have to steal that one :) I didn't even get the harvestable crops yet and I love how you've got the wife scheduled.

[radiophonic]

Oooh, I like the nursery idea. If you can't sell real trees you could sell potted plants, and maybe stuff like Windkeeper's plastic bushes. I have to admit when I first saw "nursery" I thought you were talking about a day care, and I thought "What???"

Cool about the clothing store, gotta try that one.

Oh a few more ideas...if you have the holiday pack you could sell Christmas items. Used car lot  La-z-boy store with recliners. Music shop selling instruments. Or a yard sale selling all the raggedy stuff from Uni, Heh heh.

I also have a Vampire who sells tombstones and urns at a makeshift cemetery. One could do that with a zombie sim and I suppose it would be more fitting. Then all you would need are some brains to put on display. 

[Emma]

I have a couple of farms. Using Echo's crops from MTS2, the husband spends the day tending the crops. The wife bakes and "makes preserves" on alternate days. The other day, she is minding the roadside stand where she sells the cookies, cakes and preserves that she makes. Also, have some farm animals and mark milk cans and baskets of eggs for sale. It doesn't make a lot of money, but enough that the two of them can afford the mortgage on the farm and neither has to get a job off-lot.

* Emma makes notes to steal Simmiecal's idea