Via TheSims.com!

Get Ready for Your Grand Opening

The Sims 4 Get to Work* has been out for almost a week now, meaning many of you have already tried your hand at some of the new features of the expansion pack. You’ve messed with your neighbours as the Scientist, saved lives as the Doctor, and cracked cases as the Detective.

But today, I want to focus on the part of the expansion I’m most excited about: retail stores. Granted, I might be a little biased since it’s the part I worked on, but seriously – you can open your own shop! You can sell almost anything! That’s super cool.

I pulled together six things you should try out while you’re making your own shop.

Mess with your employees. Being able to hire employees opens up plenty of opportunities to business-owners. Some are useful, while others are more devious. For instance, you can hire a highly skilled employee and demote them to the bottom pay level. Their job satisfaction will take a huge hit, but if you sweet talk them enough (and have the Mega Manager business perk), you might get plenty of bang for your buck. You could also create a special uniform for your employee of the month… or alternatively dress up an employee who’s doing poorly in an embarrassing clown outfit (or a hotdog, my own personal favourite).

Create a store within a store. On the outside, Drake’s clothing store was fairly typical and ordinary. It sold shirts, pants, hats, and even some sleepwear. But in the back room, he had a… something else. Wander back there if you want to buy the secret stuff: the slickest Gnomes money can buy.

Create the perfect side business. You can make your retail business your main job. Create a store, open it every day, and work until your Sim is nearly falling asleep on the floor. But if you want, your store can be supplemental to your main career. Writers can sell their books, or – if you’re looking to double up on The Sims 4 Get to Work’s new features – you can have your Scientist run an Elixir shop as a side money-making venture.

Run a specialty store. Nearly everything in The Sims 4 can be sold in your retail store, meaning you can theme your shop in any way you want. Obviously you can run a Bakery or a Photo Studio, but if you want to get more specific and creative, you can do some really cool things. You can open a Seafood Market by catching fish and selling them from cold display cases, or even a Wedding Shop. You can sell wedding arches, wedding gowns, wedding cakes, wedding flowers, wedding furniture… even a grand piano. Everything a bride-to-be needs!

Take advantage of advertising. Creating a shop is only half of your job as a store-owner – you also need to make sure you’re successful. One way to do so is by advertising, but you can manage your ads even closer if you really want to maximize profit. Purchase an Advertising Campaign on the web to create a rush of customers to your store, and hire extra employees to deal with the extra customers. Once the effectiveness of the advertising starts to wear off, send the excess employees home for the day so their hourly wages don’t eat into your profits.

Play with your customers (and employees) emotions. Sims in The Sims 4 can be very emotional, and you can take advantage of that if you’re running a retail store. Sims that are in a good mood are easier to talk to, and employees that are inspired are better at schmoozing. If you put items around your store to manipulate these emotions, it’ll be easier for your customers to have positive social interactions, making them more likely to buy.