Tobacco Shop Simulator - Tipps & Tricks for success!

In this guide, I will tell you the little tipps and tricks of this game, to make more profit and for more understandings of the game mechanics.

EXP (or XP)

One of the most asked questions, is to make more EXP for faster progress.

This affects your EXP:

Special info about EXP:

• If you terminate a contract (and paying a lot of money), you can subcribe this contract again and getting again the EXP. If you dont know where to bury your Millions, but you need badly a lot of EXP, this is your trick.

Note: To get the cleaning EXP and thief beating EXP, you must activate these features in the options menu beforehand!!

Money, Money, Money!

What is those kind of game without making money?

Here are some tipps on how to do this more efficiently:

• Don't buy storage shelves, decorations, floor and wall paintings, bag, and employee colors in the beginning or too early!
• Wall racks cost more money than other shelves you have to place on the floor; both have the same effect on customers.
• Don't buy the smaller storage shelves; the larger ones are better (price -> space relation).
• Always set your prices to the recommended prices. You COULD take more, but it's not recommended (because the more profit is too low, and you will risk losing EXP).
• Subscribe to every contract as early as possible, but only when you have money for a shelf or enough space in shelves to offer your new products.
• Avoid running out of an item! You waste money AND EXP.
• Complete each online order. Don't care about how much money this brings. It IS extra money, and you don't want to miss the EXP.
• Expand your shop and your storage ONLY when you need the space! A larger store and larger storage space mean higher rental costs, but neither brings in more customers.
• Automated checkouts are very expensive, but don't have daily costs (like a cashier). But only buy it if you really have the money to spare!
• Trained employees want more salary! But in most cases, you need this extra boost.
• You COULD save money by working the checkout and stocking the shelves yourself, but that can be very stressful. By the way: A restocker or cashier on pause still costs salary.
• Think one or two steps in the future. Do you need the money you want to spend the next day for subscribing to a contract and buying the new unlocked items?

Customers (Quantity and Behaviours)

Your customers means everything for your shop, for sure.

With these tipps, you will understand their behaviours:

• The higher your shop level, the more customers will come per day.
• The higher your shop level, the more items a customer can buy at once.
• Cheaper products attract more customers. So don't ban cheap products from your shop!
• A customer will prefer a checkout with fewer customers.
• A customer will complain when he/she doesn't find a free slot at the checkout or when the prices are too high. Also, a dirty floor and when they don't find their products will all reduce the expected EXP from this customer.
• A customer doesn't complain when the checkout takes too long! They only complain when they can't go to a checkout because it's too full.
• When the clock reaches 10 pm, no customer can enter your shop anymore, but all customers in your shop can still buy items. So, don't close your shop when you have customers in there! Customers kicked out in this way keep the products they took while shopping without paying for them!
• Right now, decorations (and all other stuff, like wall and floor designs) don't affect customers in any way (a change for this is planned by the devs!).

Employees

At some point, you will need help keeping your busy business under control.

Here are some informations about your employees:

Cashier:

• A cashier will work at the checkout and will take a free checkout automatically. If a checkout is closed, no cashier can work there.
• A cashier can have 4 customers in the row; more customers who want to go to checkout will complain.
• If no checkout is available, your cashier(s) will stand outside (in front of the shop) and wait for a free/opened checkout.
• The cashier training only brings 20% speed, but before you can hire a second cashier, it's better than nothing.

Restockers:

• A restocker will fill up your shop shelves and racks. He is not very fast, but even though you could do this job by yourself way better, you will want them very early!
• In order for the restocker to work, he needs storage shelves with placed item boxes, and these items must also be in your shop shelves/racks. When the shop shelf is not full, the restocker will take the box from the storage shelf and fill up the shop shelf until it's full or the box is empty.
• You can choose (in the employees menu) how the restockers should work. Consider this before hiring a restocker to avoid chaos.
• Ordered boxes, laying on the ground of the delivery area, will be picked up by your restockers if there is enough space in the storage shelves.
• You can also lay boxes on the ground of your shop if you need a free hand. The restocker will pick them up as well.
• Note: When you purchase items for your online orders, the restockers don't know about it and could pick up those boxes in the delivery area!
• If you want to rebuild your shop, the restockers can be very annoying. Send them to break in the employee menu (upper button). They stay there until you click this button again. They still cost salary when you end the day and they are still on pause.
• When the restockers stand still behind the delivery area, it means that there is no item to fill up anymore. A good sign for checking if all items are in stock.
• The restocker trainings are only 10% movement and 25% faster restocking, but you want these upgrades as soon as possible, I bet!

Security Guard:

• This little fellow fights against thieves for you.
• If he hits a thief, you also get the EXP.
• You, your security guard, and every other player (in multiplayer) can hit the thieves. Everyone is creating full EXP!
• Sometimes, two thieves are robbing you at the same time. Keep an eye on it, because the security guard may not handle both!
• There is no point in hiring a security guard if you have thieves disabled in the options menu.

Online Orders

A great additional income (of money AND EXP) is online orders.

All you need to know about it:

• The higher your shop level, the more online orders you will get.
• The higher your shop level, the more items may get ordered at once.
• By completing an online order, you will not only receive money but also 10 EXP.
• To do this, you have to accept the online order and carry the boxes with the wanted items to the post office, then put the items in the box on the counter (like you would fill up a shop shelf).
• You will get only the money and the EXP when you bring ALL the asked items. If you end the day, any brought items will be lost if you haven't completed the online order!
• Online orders have fixed times. For example: 10 am and 2 pm.
• You can wait until the end of the day to complete your online orders, but note: you will no longer be able to order items after 10 pm. Any online orders you haven't fulfilled will be lost when you end the day.
• Ending a day will remove all active online orders.

General Tipps

Here are some general tipps & tricks to know:

• To maximize your customer quantity, you should save your game in the morning after you filled up your shelves, and then load your game. Go to your "open" sign and click it when a customer is very close to entering. This time saved can be useful so that the last customers manage to enter the store at the end of the day. This can bring 1-3 customers more per day.
• My testing of serving customers as quickly as possible did not result in more customers. It seems that the amount of customers per day is fixed (by shop level). I'm not 100% sure about that. Further tests will show.
• You should always have an additional (closed) checkout. So you can open it quickly when you want to help your cashiers to avoid EXP loss from complaining customers.
• NEVER end a day when there are still customers in your shop! They will bring money, but when you end the day, all items they took are lost.
• You should have at least 16 (better 20) items of every kind in your shop to avoid running out during the day.
• In most cases, it's enough to have one box of each item in your storage. Only item boxes with very little content are needed to store more.
• The best way to check if you have everything in storage is to click on your computer, go to "inventory", and then select "in storage". Every item with a zero (0) at the end is empty. You can easily add them to the cart.
• Check your prices daily and always use the recommended prices. You can easily click on the computer, go to "set prices", then in the upper drop-down menu select "products with price changes", and click on every item to set the recommended price. Quick and easy.
• If you accidentally throw something in the green trash bin, don't worry, you can take it back.
• You don't need a free box to take items from a shelf. Just have a free hand and click the right mouse button on the items on the shelf.
• You can add items not only to fill up your shelf but also to other boxes on the ground or the storage shelf.
• Speakers, decorations, wall and floor designs, the color of customers' bags, or the color of employees' clothes have no effect on customer behavior or quantity.
• In a future update, customer reviews are planned. This will bring extra EXP, and speakers and decorations will have an impact on this.
• Different shelves and wall racks do not affect customers (different furniture does not have more/less attraction for items).
• A bigger shop (or storage) does NOT affect customer quantity. Only your shop level does.
• When you sell a piece of furniture (or a mop), you get 100% of the original cost back. Ideal for testing without having to worry about wasting money.
• To sell furniture, you have to take it (look at it and hold the left mouse button) and pack it in a box.
• Attention! When you sell furniture with items in it, they are lost. You will NOT get money for them.
• You can disable dirt and thieves in the options menu. But note: hitting thieves (with a mop or by security guards) earns EXP!
• Don't forget to buy alarm systems, and also don't forget that when you open Warehouse 2, the alarm system of Warehouse 1 does not protect Warehouse 2 (and vice versa). Additionally, the third alarm upgrade protects the boxes on the ground in your delivery area. Both alarms of Warehouse 1 and 2 do NOT alarm when thieves take boxes from the ground in the delivery area!
• You can buy a tablet at the computer ($5000). If you do this, you can sell the computer to free up space.
• Taking loans doesn't cost any taxes or interest charges. You pay back exactly what you took. Feel free to use them.
• If you created a single-player game but want to play it in multiplayer, you can change that when you (save and) load your game.