So yeah I guess I'm late to the party and all that but recently I became interested in testing to run a business. There are some things I could use a bit of advice on. Maybe good mods to make it work even better.

What can you run a business off? I know there's toys, flowers and selling stuff. But what about clothes? Can you sell clothes? Or pets? Anything else?
Magazines and games? I can't interact with any magazine shelves when visiting a owned business. Does that mean I can't sell that kind of stuff on my business plot?

Is it even possible to bump up the AI? I have been on a few business plot to check things out and the playable owners (which isn't active when I visit with my SIm) doesn't do anything. They play chess, smells flowers etc. Everything but interacting with customers. It was so bad that 4 Sims, my own included, threw their baskets on the floors and stomped out. XD Is there a mod for that? Making the owners actually active as a seller?

As for mods:

There are several fixes here http://www.simwardrobe.com/ (go to Sims 2/Programs/OFB Fixes)
Starting on Page 2 and going through to Page 4, there are various OFB mods: http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/forumdis...p?fid=53&page=2
ofbfixes here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/al/hacks/ (these are compatible with AL). If you don't have AL, there are other versions here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s.../topic,7.0.html

Your playable owners obviously have appointed horrible staff members - bad cashiers will cause customers to throw stuff on the floor. I don't know if you play with townies, but I always try to appoint cashiers and salespeople with at least one badge and some charisma points. Since I started doing that business have improved steadily in my hoods, though there is no such thing as immediate success

I too only recently started playing businesses after buying OFB in October. I started a thread at the time, and you will probably find some of the posts in it useful.

To sell clothes you have to mark the clothes rail(s) For Sale. I haven't tried magazines or games yet, but I suspect they're the same. Maybe the displays haven't been marked For Sale in the owned shops your Sims have been visiting.

Thanks! I'd got the Simwardrobe and Moreawesomethanyou OFB fixes. But that other site I'm not familiar with.

Those were Maxis made business. I visited the Electronic business and the pastry one in the Maxis sub-hood. It was Maxis made playables owners but they had more fun doing everything else but servicing customers. Neither Malcolm nor that Jaquet guy touched the cash-points. And then I do got OFB fixes.

Isn't there a risk they will try to sell the entire rack? The Magazine and Games shelves were non-selectable. (It was the Electronic shop owned by Malcolm something IV) But thanks, I'll look at your thread too.

For more Business ideas here and here are threads that go into the different types. The second thread is more a list of community lot ideas but most community lots can be turned into a business one way or the other.

Although it is far from a lock, the business owner and employees are likely to be doing the same thing, when another playable visits, as the last thing they were doing when they were at the lot. So if you tell your business owner to "be cashier" right before he goes home every time you play him, you'll have less of a problem with him wandering around instead of minding the register. The business will be in the same shape when visited as it was when it was last saved from the owner's lot, so make sure you get all the restocking and cleaning done before leaving the owner's household.

The more you play the business from the owner's household, the better habits the owner will develop. Remember that there's always a random element to an uncontrolled sim's behavior, but the more often they've done something, the more likely that action is to occur randomly, so micromanage them to stay on top of things when they run the business, and they will behave better when another sim is visiting. Also, they will build up their business badges, and get better at customer interactions.

I find that using family members at the businesses, and judiciously chosen employees, is a big help. For instance, the Casas own two businesses: daughter-in-law Lily's beauty salon, and patriarch Esteban's electronics store. Lily goes in with her husband Emilio, and he spends most of the day on the register while Lily goes around dazzling people into making sales, assisting lost customers, and occasionally suggesting an outfit or offering someone a makeover. The Best of the Best Award and the First Simoleon earned, which are good for motives, are near the register, so Emilio's motives decay slowly. When Emilio gets hungry or Lily starts getting tired, whichever comes first, Lily takes over the register while Emilio makes something to eat at the grill, or pulls something out of inventory to eat. When he's done eating, he closes the store and starts cleaning and restocking. When the last customer is rung up, they go home. Then Esteban and his wife Sue go back to the salon to finish any restocking and cleaning that needs doing before going next door to Esteban's store, where Sue assists customers and Esteban cleans and works the register because Esteban is the Grouchiest Man in Drama Acres and cannot be trusted with customers. (I'm serious. He's the only business owner I've seen lose stars when trying to Dazzle. If left to himself, he will randomly poke customers.) When Sue, who has the lower active points and isn't standing next to the motive-bolstering deco, starts to get tired she closes the store and starts restocking. Esteban stays at the register because that's the only thing I want that grouch to do when I send someone in to buy a computer. If Sue can't get the restocking done, Emilio or Lily can come back to finish it up, without opening the doors, once they've recovered from minding the salon.

Lily has just hired an ex-townie, Camryn, who has bronze badges in cashiering and sales, and a silver stylist badge, which makes her an excellent employee when I send sims to visit. With all those badges, she's also expensive, Lily will not be calling her in very often. However, Lily just got pregnant, so the last time I played Emilio went in alone, and needed the help. For the duration of the pregnancy, that's how I'll play the lot: Emilio won't stay as long as he would if it were him and Lily, but will assign Camryn as cashier for most of the day, until her indicator starts to fade; at which point he will assign her as stylist (so that's what she'll be doing when I send someone to the salon for a makeover), close the business, and take over the register. As soon as the last customer is rung up, he'll send Camryn home, and depending on how tired he is do all the restocking himself or leave it for Esteban and Sue to do later.

When a playable visits as it stands right now, pregnant Lily is wandering the sales floor or standing at the register (because that was the last thing she did last time she went in before she popped) and Camryn is at the stylist chair. If I tell the playable to get a makeover as soon as she gets onto the lot, Camryn is in position to see to it right away. By the time the playable has selected any new clothes she needs, Lily - an experienced owner by now, who will see and respond when people start taking bags to the register - has probably reassigned Camryn to the register; if not, the playable can hang out greeting people, browsing, or even fire up the grill until I see Camryn at the register. The playable can then be first or second in line, and even if Camryn is very slow, will be able to get out before anyone has thrown bags to the floor.

In my experience, once you hire an employee, the business owner will do much less work when the lot is visited, but will respond to the needs of visitors by reassigning the employee. Reassignments seem to happen on the hour. Armed with this information, I can save the lot with the assignments configured in the way that will work best for most of the visitors I send there; and I can structure visits to take advantage of how I saved the lot. Things can still go wrong, due to the randomization factor; but the more experience the lot owner has, and the more you as player understand the mechanics of the lot (building the lot for efficient customer circulation etc.), the easier it will be for the business to run smoothly when uncontrolled.

ETA: No, there is no risk of the entire rack being sold! I sometimes have to try two or three times to set a sales appliance (the game, magazine, and clothes racks; the electronics and jewelry stands; and the various grocery bins) with the For Sale tool, and I'm not sure what the problem is, if I'm clicking them on the wrong spot or what, but the appliances themselves do not get sold. You can, however, sell sales counters if you happened to buy them wholesale - and anything on them will hang in mid-air!

Thanks for the tips. it's reassuring to know that the things themselves won't be sold. I think the OFB fixes adds in custom OFB magazine and games shelves. But I'm not sure.

So the answer is to make sure Buy Wholesale is turned off when you're buying counters, display cases, shelving, etc.? Unless of course you're running a shop fittings business?!

(You'll know when you're buying at wholesale prices, because everything in the Buy catalogue will have a yellow background colour.)

When you take a playable to a business as a customer and the business is owned by another playable only the owner will show up and employees. So in the case of Malcolm's electronic store, if you have not taken Malcolm there and set things for sale and had Malcolm assign his employee a job such as working the till, then they will goof off and things won't be for sale. If the shop is unowned then only certain OFB items can be bought from. So the grocery bin, makeover chair, clothes rack, games racks, magazine rack, mobile phone kiosk thing, pets and pet collars. I think that is all. Items that are filling shelves like radios, toys, deco items will not be buyable in an unowned business. You need a sim to buy the shop, visit the shop, set such things for sale.

When customers storm off in high dudgeon because the cashier is too slow for their liking, can the business suffer a direct financial loss?

I was playing the Ramirez's shop in Bluewater (getting white Tea Party in Teak dining chairs into stock because I was going to send Gloria Jones there to buy them). Checo Ramirez's townie employee (whose name I can't remember, but I only met him yesterday) as yet has no badges and is painfully slow on the till. A restive queue developed when the shop was closing, and one customer (actually Veronaville Town Councillor Garry Mackay -- Gloria's boyfriend no less!) threw his bag down and walked out. Now he didn't actually steal the stuff (I think it was two cheap tables) -- I've checked his inventory and there's no furniture in it, but he did remove them from where they were displayed, and Checo almost immediately restocked them. So I reckon Checo has lost the original ones and has paid for replacements, so he's out of pocket. Unless the game has put the tables somewhere, or recompensed him financially.

If the business has genuinely lost money, then I think we'll have to get Checo's employee trained up to operate the till faster and get him at least his bronze badge. (I have a mod that lets Sims [including children] practice on the tills while the shop is closed. I think someone linked to it on my own OFB thread.)

If you clean up the bags the customer threw on the floor, the store should be refunded for the wholesale price of the tables. So no, no financial loss. But yes, the items will need to be restocked.

Ah! So there should be a discarded carrier bag lying on the floor somewhere near the till! I never noticed it, not even when Gloria went in to buy her dining chairs, but then it's a big shop and I wasn't looking. I'll have to send Checo or Lisa in to look for it. Thanks, iCad!

don't start a restaurant with one sim and without NL.

@AndrewGloria: Yes, there should be discarded bags somewhere. If's a pile of three of them lying on the floor. Usually it's right by the till, where the disgruntled customer was standing, but I suppose if there isn't room there the bag pile might have migrated somewhere else. Anyway, once you find it, click on it and there's an option that comes up. I think it's "Clean up," but I'm not 100% sure of the wording. I think it's the only option, though, so pick that, and the pile should disappear and the store should be credited for the wholesale cost of whatever the customer was going to buy.

Thanks iCad! Lisa managed to drag herself away from everything that was going on at home (they had four visitors) and went to check the shop. Sure enough there were 3 bags lying in a pile near the till. She got 162 Simoleons back when she cleaned them up. I'm a little surprised I never spotted them myself. They were just out of shot in this picture . It's a wonder Gloria didn't trip over them!