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Am I the only one that doesn't mind the new stores?
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Balon Swann RJ: Balon Swann CO: Balon Swann Post Rating: 6 + / - Total Posts: 19 Karma: 15 Joined: Apr 12, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 I like the 8 shelves. The system allows me to be more competitive in the market. I do not need to worry about being way out sold by some huge retail outfit that sells literally everything, anymore (well, less worried at least). I can corner specific products that are high demand and adjust as the market is saturated. Previously big retail companies could literally sell *everything* in a market, fulfilling demand on *every* product in the market, making it harder for me to sell anything with my smaller stores. Now the bigger companies need to decide what to sell- they can corner 8 products with all stores or vary the lineup from store to store; either way it decreases the market impact on at least some items (completely for the items they are not selling and vastly on every item if they vary store lineups). So far I have not felt a single hiccup on my b2b sales, either. People are still buying my stuff. I also see *less* micromanagement with some of my stores; I don't need to buy 100 different products every couple hours, anymore... only 8. That is very nice. |
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David Donlon RJ: Fenious Buttersmith Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 79 Karma: 53 Joined: Apr 10, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 You aren't the only one. I like being able to narrow my focus down.
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Josh Millard RJ: Tex Corman CO: J. Quaff Arabica Post Rating: 1 + / - Total Posts: 167 Karma: 231 Joined: Apr 3, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 I'm having a real mixed reaction at first blush, based on the impact on my three companies.Giant Donut self-produces almost the entire Cafe product line; I've been expanding my stores just to raise overall retail sales revenue on what had previously been a "manage one store, all stores are clones of that" basis. Now that I'm looking at having to split up that management of product across a whole handful of stores, I'm feeling not so enthusiastic about it -- it feels like I've *added* micro to my process instead of having anything simplified. I can't just take a store at random down now for expansion, because instead of being a small dent in total product sales it's a much bigger dent in only those specific products. This is probably sort of manageable by distributing sets of eight products to pairs or trios of stores so that I can "fail" one store, like a drive in a RAID array, and have things still behave reasonably in terms of reduced but ongoing sales, but it's a new way of having to think about that side of things. On the flip side, Bonsai Ichiban makes nothing but Bonsai, Bonsai Plant and Bonsai Pot. So nothing has gotten any trickier with the change; I'm still managing a very simple sales structure tied to a very simple manufacturing structure, and setting up the stores to work under the new regime took no time at all. So on that front I'm happy. Splitting the difference, butts lol fashions makes a full line of Apparel Store goods, which is less than a Cafe by a skosh I think but still pretty busy. With the upcoming server move, I'm not sure I want to rejigger my thinking on these existing companies in too much detail. (There's Diablo 3 to play, after all.) But in the spirit of trying *something*, I may just really streamline the inventory-heavy businesses to "Top 8" or "Top 16" models with products chosen such that I can eliminate some of my secondary manufacturing facilities, double up on the remaining factories, and stock either one or two store inventory models and just hammer the shit out of those. Feels weird to retract my manufacturing models when I worked pretty hard to build out that inventory breadth, but I'm not sure I'm bothered by the change (I wanted to be able to do specialty stores in the first place, so I kind of got my wish there) so much as just feeling disoriented by it. |
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Moe Jack RJ: Moejack CO: Moe Jack Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 128 Karma: 74 Joined: Apr 7, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 It has worked very nicely for me.
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Andrew Naples RJ: Clemen Salad CO: Clemen Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 214 Karma: 89 Joined: Apr 26, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 It helps monetary wise I guess (i have electronics stores) but its less fun because I made all the items myself but now I only need a couple. To make the most money before you needed as many things made/stocked as possible. Now to make the most money you only need one really good item, anything else is non optimal.
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Alexia Perdhaer RJ: Alexia Perdhaer Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 100 Karma: 30 Joined: Apr 6, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 my sales went up 3-4X, at first at least. Partly because people were slow to get their shelves stocked (I still have 70-80% market share on some very profitable items (!)). When I saw that my manufacturing-retail had shifted so radically I added more stores. So today's store sales are going to be close to 5X what they were yesterday.I was producing 130ish items across the food/beverage line, I narrowed it to 55, a little more than a quarter of which are ingredients I don't sell. I hadn't finished unloading everything, so I'm still using some shelves to finish divesting the stuff I no longer wish to sell. My market percentages are still crazy high though, leading me to believe a lot of stores are still sitting idle from people who haven't logged on yet. |
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Bob Malone RJ: Bob Malone CO: Malone Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 341 Karma: 191 Joined: Apr 17, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 (Last edited on May 17, 2012) I guess there are really big economy crisis in foreign country because of severe import drop in Econosia :)I think it's too early to evaluate the impact on the game. On my side, one company is selling like hell, but it was calibrated for the new system. Others will adapt in the coming days. I am quite happy to not have to spend many hours on import/B2B to fullfill all my stores. Drawback : I dont need B2B market anymore, it's dead for me. |
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Balon Swann RJ: Balon Swann CO: Balon Swann Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 19 Karma: 15 Joined: Apr 12, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 "My market percentages are still crazy high though, leading me to believe a lot of stores are still sitting idle from people who haven't logged on yet." Possibly, but I bet it is more so because people have this false belief: "Now to make the most money you only need one really good item, anything else is non optimal." The problem is that that 'really good item' changes based on supply and demand. Now that 'everyone' is selling 'only' that one really good item, supply outstrips demand, quickly. Laptops used to be a huge money maker for me, now I make 2.8x as much per tick on dvd players than laptops; I assume this is because people with Clemen's thinking are mass selling laptops and ignoring the 'bad items' like dvd players... well guess what, laptops are at 112% demand met while dvd players are only 47%, right now. With each passing hour I am liking the system more and more, now that I see the market work. |
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Andrew Naples RJ: Clemen Salad CO: Clemen Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 214 Karma: 89 Joined: Apr 26, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 It doesnt change as fast as you seem to think. Im using all 8 of my slots anyway simply because its really boring otherwise and Id quit playing. (also selling DVD players)
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Alexia Perdhaer RJ: Alexia Perdhaer Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 100 Karma: 30 Joined: Apr 6, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 (Last edited on May 17, 2012) @Balon: yes when I was planning for the switch I did a lot of chuckling to myself about how much people seemed to believe this, and how much hurt they were going to experience ramping up to sell only one product.One of the products that made the cut for my initial selection has already dropped below some of the items I'm still trying to dump from before the switch! And it still has so many people selling it that I have only 2% market share, while on other items that are now 10 times as profitable I have 50-70%. |
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Jim Eikner RJ: Jim Eikner Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 23 Karma: 21 Joined: Apr 12, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 Several observations:- I quickly gleaned that 8 items at 100% efficiency would in most instances out-perform a single item at 65% efficiency on the shelves. - The One Factory, One Store model afforded to plantations, fruit plantations and farmers markets is quite efficient. Currently they only require 2.2 square meters of factory to 1 square meter of store. - Longer supply chains (factory to factory to factory, etc.) quickly scale beyond the affordable requiring 5 or more square meters of factory to each 1 per store, often at multiple levels. This will be a major barrier to higher end products. Expect the B2B to suffer in this regard. - After a long respite I am once again shopping the B2B. I have a farmers market that I call my B2B Bargain Basement Bin. I set a cost/price threshold and then go shopping for 8 bargain items to fill my store for 24 hours. I buy those things I could produce for my farmers markets but choose not to. So far I have had no trouble finding 8 suitable items for my shelves... |
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Alexia Perdhaer RJ: Alexia Perdhaer Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 100 Karma: 30 Joined: Apr 6, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 "Longer supply chains (factory to factory to factory, etc.) quickly scale beyond the affordable"I was too lazy to analyze high end vs low end food products fully mathematically, preferring to do it experimentally. I can tell you that in the food industry, the highest end items are among the most profitable. Also, factories are cheaper to build and run than stores. The larger you get the more disproportionately expensive it is to expand stores vs. factories. |
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Edwin Quintanilla RJ: EdqMaster CO: Edqmaster Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 74 Karma: 9 Joined: May 3, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 I dont mind it either i just cant produce enough product I had like 50 % of the market in some of the items.
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Jim Eikner RJ: Jim Eikner Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 23 Karma: 21 Joined: Apr 12, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 Combining, re-combining, refining and re-refining makes my head hurt. Yes, some of the best markups in the game lie in food processing but they are also logistical nightmares now that 8 shelves sell as much as an entire old store and they must be fed. If I had had the infrastructure in place at the conversion I would have probably opted to adapt it. But from scratch? I think not...
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Jim Eikner RJ: Jim Eikner Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 23 Karma: 21 Joined: Apr 12, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 Also, factories are cheaper to build and run than stores. The larger you get the more disproportionately expensive it is to expand stores vs. factories.True, but factories without stores can only sell to the B2B at a significant discount whereas factories with stores can always sell at the full retail price... |
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David Gray RJ: graydoo CO: graydoo Post Rating: 23 + / - Total Posts: 11 Karma: 29 Joined: Apr 19, 2012 |
Posted on May 17, 2012 From a relative newb company on a miniscule budget it is also a good change. It allows me to B2B in a relative bulk of a few goods rather than mess about buying tiny amounts of everything every few ticks. This really works towards making sure that you are making optimum profit without constantly checking up on it. |
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