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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 20th Jun 2014 at 1:53 PM
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Years ago when I got the OFB expansion pack I was disappointed. I tried playing the bakery and failed dismally. I also noticed that it took me away from the regular game. I moved on to other expansion packs(up to Seasons) and ignored most aspects of OFB. At the beginning of this year though I moved a third generation Sim and his bride(both recent graduates) into a house with a little shop for a home business(Floral). The house came with the "Golden Creek" neighborhood that I renamed Cozy Creek. I though maybe I would try and see if it would keep them afloat until he got a job and she could continue it in her spare time. I was pleasantly surprised and got so engrossed in the Shop that I never did get him a job. They managed to have one child--a son who is now a teenager and helps out in the shop. I enjoyed it so much I decided to try another home business. I download a small house with a tiny bakery in it for an elderly couple to supplement their retirement. That did not work out so well--it became clear that they were going to die off before the bakery got off the ground. So I cheated a little. I created a young adult sim and had her baking her way through college so that she had an inventory of baked goods as well as 10 cooking points and 8 creative points when she graduated and moved in with the surviving elder just before she died. She has done alright with the bakery so far. She is only making a small profit and had to hire a cashier to keep up. I don't think she would be able to raise even one child at the same time. The bakery seems to be a much bigger challenge than the florist shop, I am wondering what type of home business would work for elders. Also most of the houses with home business are multistory. I have not been able to find a single story house with a shop to download.
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Scholar
#2 Old 20th Jun 2014 at 2:00 PM
Why not try to build the one story house with a shop yourself? That way you can set it up anyway you like & sell anything you want.

For an elder-run business, why not just have them run a little gift shop type thing? Random stuff from the deco category or paintings?
I generally let my elders just putter round in a garden or go vacation (they've worked hard all their lives) but I have one couple who sell their produce in a little stall & they do fairly well at it. It's unlikely to ever be a level 10 business but that isn't the point of it. George loves his garden, grows way more than him & the wife can eat. Edna (the wife) likes taking their grandchilren on weekend trips to ThreeLakes or to the museums & the stall gives her the pin-money to do so.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#3 Old 20th Jun 2014 at 2:05 PM
The bakery that comes with Blue Water Village was set up by a money-in the dark. I would be impressed if anyone new to OFB could run that as it is set up.

As to business's for older folk, how about sewing or painting while also having catalog nicknacks or pot plants for sale.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#4 Old 20th Jun 2014 at 2:17 PM
A makeover chair. It's traditional! My gramma had a friend who did hair in a little place like a closet with just room for the sink, chair, and dryer. An OFB makeover chair takes up even less space. You don't even need a cash register, because the money is subtracted from the customer and added to the beautician at the chair. If you want to do full townie makeovers, you can also have a clothes rack.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Mad Poster
#5 Old 20th Jun 2014 at 2:42 PM Last edited by gazania : 20th Jun 2014 at 7:10 PM.
I've done a bakery, and have found that the only way it can work is to also sell knick-knacks. I sell some cooking-themed decor to at least make a little profit. Also, my Sim adopted a child, and he is the cashier. No hires outside the family. Bakeries can be challenging.

One big money-maker that I have used in the past (pre-FT) is to have an elder, who in my mind is a well-revered artist, sell artwork in his house. (Much like joandsarah77 suggested.) Little overhead, and he can do it part-time. I made sure he got some big bucks for the masterpieces, though I did include inexpensive pictures as well. Once he became more established, he hired a young lady to be a cashier, the two fell in love, and she moved in with him. She also learned to paint, and sold her works as well, commanding higher figures as she improved. Unfortunately, I decided to nuke the hood, but had I kept it, she was going to be a great artist in her own right.

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RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
Scholar
#6 Old 20th Jun 2014 at 5:39 PM
I think businesses are great for legacy families. The elderly parents can run a home biz while taking care of the grandkids, and the teens can help out after school.

Paladins/SimWardrobes downloads: https://simfileshare.net/folder/87849/
Instructor
#7 Old 20th Jun 2014 at 7:48 PM
One way to save a little money is to use the automatic cash register from simlogical (I believe). Basically, sims can walk up to it and pay, without there being a need for a cashier. It's great for lots where a traditional cashier doesn't really work or where there's just not enough money for a cashier if you want to make a profit.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#8 Old 20th Jun 2014 at 11:01 PM
Quote: Originally posted by gazania
I've done a bakery, and have found that the only way it can work is to also sell knick-knacks. I sell some cooking-themed decor to at least make a little profit. Also, my Sim adopted a child, and he is the cashier. No hires outside the family. Bakeries can be challenging.


I love running bakeries and restaurants, but both take a bit of practice. The easiest bakery is just sell game cake or cc cake, which is no harder than any other retail business. Then add in jelly or cc deserts that you pull from the fridge or need a bit of mixing and offer the whole jelly/cake for sale. Sims don't care if all you sell is fridge jelly so your sim does not need to start out as any kind of baker if you don't want. With some cooking skill your sim can start to make some real cake and kids can bake muffins and those can be set for sale as well.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Lab Assistant
#9 Old 21st Jun 2014 at 12:12 AM
Quote: Originally posted by samantha_kathy
One way to save a little money is to use the automatic cash register from simlogical (I believe). Basically, sims can walk up to it and pay, without there being a need for a cashier. It's great for lots where a traditional cashier doesn't really work or where there's just not enough money for a cashier if you want to make a profit.


Woah I had no clue they had all these mods for OFB. It kind of feels like cheating using stuff like the automatic register and automatic restocking sign but it sure makes for a much less difficult and clunky experience. Maybe I'll actually be able to maintain a decent business now.

My biggest problem with OFB is that employees are so hard to deal with. I never really spent too much time with the EP so I still don't understand everything, but from my experience employees were just needy, high-maintenance wastes of time and money.
Mad Poster
#10 Old 21st Jun 2014 at 12:49 AM
Well, I have very little experience running a business, and have never had more than one employee, but this is what I find:

Most of the time, there is no need to call in the employees when actually running the business. (Note that the businesses I'm running are limited in scope: a couple of beauty salons, a produce stand, specialized retail stores, and entertainment venues; I've never tried it with a restaurant or bakery.) If the owner doesn't live alone, he can take as many active family members with him as he likes, and extort free labor from them. This is a huge cash saving. If you do have them come in, make sure they are paid well, monitor their plumbobs and give them a break or send them home when it begins to show signs of discomfort, and maintain a good relationship with them. Hire playables who you know to have home lives that leave them with good aspiration levels - an unhappy employee is a bad employee. Make sure that, at the time you send them home, they are assigned to the job you are most likely to want them assigned to when your other playables visit the lot.

Because that's when employees start to shine. In my experience, when you have a playable visit an owned business, the business owner will be doing whatever he or she was doing last thing before leaving the lot - which usually has to be cleaning up or restocking. The employee will be standing behind the register, if she has a register assignment, or waiting at the makeover chair, if she was assigned to be a stylist, or working the sales floor, if she was assigned to sales. So if you know you're going to send playables to get their hair done, you want the employee to be assigned to be a stylist, so you can walk straight in, get what you want, and get out; but if you like to send them to the store to buy things, the employee should be on the register. Otherwise, you'll have to wait while the owner detects a need and reassigns the employee, which tends to happen on the hour, and isn't always the need you think should be addressed.

The employee will earn badges during the visits of other playables, and will get paid (this is another reason to hire a playable - you know the money goes to a good home). They will fill wants (a Fortune teen with a good job spends a lot of time platinum from the "earn money" and "earn badge" wants), putting them in a good mood for the next time you call them in. And they will always be present, not just during the set hours that they work according to their schedule when you play their lot. But their motives will not decay nearly as rapidly as they do when you play the lot.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#11 Old 21st Jun 2014 at 12:54 AM
I use the automatic register at businesses where I don't want a till, like my hospital, but otherwise I rather like seeing them use a register. You can get mods for nearly anything-think it up and there is likely to be a way.

OFB works best if your own family can run the business or be very selective in who you hire and for what job. If you place a few snap dragons around you can keep your employees needs high so they will continue to work. Servos are also very hard workers.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#12 Old 21st Jun 2014 at 1:00 AM
I'd like the automatic cash register more if it actually looked like a cash register, and had the animation of them putting something in the money box. That weird metal-frame with unnaturally black center just won't look right in any lot I would build.

Maybe I should learn to make invisible recolors and make it invisible. I don't mind using an automatic one, as in my world people pay for their goods before they leave, by their own will, but it's so fugly I don't think I'll ever use it.
Undead Molten Llama
#13 Old 21st Jun 2014 at 6:46 AM
My businesses rarely have employees who, yes, are a pain in the butt. The only time they'll get an employee is if I intend to eventually have the business mostly run by a manager, so that I can badge up the employee and then hand the business off to (mostly) him/her. I don't do that often, though. Mostly, I run small shops where one person, the owner, can do everything. Or, if it gets bigger than I initially wanted/envisioned and the owner has kids, the kids will get conscripted as laborers. Might as well make the lazy-butts earn their keep, right? One of the reasons I don't like running restaurants is that they sort of require employees, which I don't like to have. It's hard to have one person be host, waitstaff, AND cook.

I don't generally like running home businesses; I prefer small community-lot ones. I use the Community Time hack so that the owner doesn't have to re-live the time when they're running their business and with the business on a separate lot, I can concentrate on just the business-owner and running the business rather than having to run a business at the home lot while also monitoring household members who may have nothing to do with running the business, particularly any toddler-age kids, who are needy and require care and attention. The drawback is that they can't run their business if they have small children because I don't allow nannies in my game. So, unless there's a caretaker left on the lot when they would leave to run the business, they can't open the shop that day. But I'm OK with that. In the real world, sacrifices often have to be (or at least should be) made for children, and I like having that reflected in my game.

However, when I do on occasion run a home business, it's usually a little beauty shop run out of a shed on the lot, with all the other exterior doors on the lot locked to all but household members. There's no overhead, aside from purchasing the chair, nothing to sell/restock, and no cashier needed. It can also be run fairly easily even if the owner has small children to tend because the tending can be done while the customer is deciding whether or not he/she wants to pay for a makeover. It makes enough money for the beautician to live on, and as a bonus I get to have better-looking townies. Well, once the beautician earns a badge or two, anyway. Until then, there's lots of "makeover fail" townies wandering around. But that can be amusing, too.

I'm mostly found on (and mostly upload to) Tumblr these days because, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day.
Muh Simblr! | An index of my downloads on Tumblr.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#14 Old 22nd Jun 2014 at 7:46 PM
While I have built houses, they have been residential house modified for the game from real house plans. I have never built one with an attached shop. I am uncertain of my ability to do so. I do however have a residence that has a apartment over an underground garage. I used a downloaded template for the underground garage. The apartment is currently being used by the elders of the family. I don't think they are going to live much longer and I am thinking of seeing if I can remodel the apartment into a shop after they die. The family has enough money for that, The twins sons will become teenager soon so they can help their mother with the shop. One thing I would like with the bakery is to have more things that can be placed in the chill shelf bins. The jello just doesn't look right in a bakery to me. I have several different neighborhoods and I want the home bakeries to sell different bake goods. I do have a shelving unit with some game cake and cc game cake--its easier to restock. I don't like the idea of selling decorative bake goods--I like my playable Sims to be able to eat what they buy.
Forum Resident
#15 Old 22nd Jun 2014 at 7:59 PM
I assume you mean to play without cheats??? I cannot imagine having a business without cheating. Always I use max aspiration and max motives for all of lot. I run them to death selling my favorite item the snapdragon so every sims house has a chance to have one. Also I have all-in-one maid by Christianlov help out because they sales pitch so well.

I notice this. It is best to keep business on bottom floor within one room only. The sims get stuck on stairs if you have them visit top floor and they seem to want to gather in only one room. I can never sell anything if I put it outside for sale.
Mad Poster
#16 Old 22nd Jun 2014 at 10:36 PM
Only way to learn building is to build, and try different things.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#17 Old 22nd Jun 2014 at 10:55 PM
I don't cheat when running a business that takes out all the fun. I do have a lot of mods, but nothing very much aimed towards businesses. I usually use 2 sims and juggle them. Like yesterday my couple who run a tiny grocery store went for just the afternoon and night seeing he had work in the morning. They drank espresso and ate birthday cake while their child napped on the bench outside (napping on the bench may be a mod) I find it fun trying to keep their motives up while running back downstairs to the till. Seeing it's a 1 by 1 lot I use the spiral stairs. I don't get too many traffic jams.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Test Subject
#18 Old 23rd Jun 2014 at 12:55 PM
One of my fave new businesses to run is a fish shop run by Walter Studebaker. He's a folksy old-timer who's just looking for a way to make ends meet, nothing crazy. I made a cute little studio apt behind his shop and he fishes in the morning (he's an early riser, like most elders. LOL) and he opens his shop when he feels like making a few bucks.

It's nice because he doesn't pay anything for the merchandise, so every dollar he makes is profit, pretty much. I've set the price more expensive for the Golden Trout or whatever that really rare fish is and he only stays open until about 2pm or so. Leaving him time to restock and relax with his cat in the evenings.

Sometimes, it's really nice to play Sims that aren't focused on a career or marriage or kids or anything. Just day-to-day life.
Mad Poster
#19 Old 24th Jun 2014 at 2:36 AM
One of the things that I actually love (though I can imagine lots of you finding it boring) is for a Sim to run a franchised corporation. For example, one of my Sims had bought Red's Fabulous 50's Diner in Downtown, and ended up making a lot of money off of it, and I decided I liked the style, so he took his newly-amassed fortune and opened another 50's diner in Bluewater Village... so on and so forth, until I had a single Sim owning a half-dozen similar 50's diners scattered across my mega-hood, and he was bringing in the obscene profits that you'd expect such a position to get. (That ended up giving him a sort of new-money curse, and ended up destroying his family life, so he spends lots of time being alone and depressed in his Downtown penthouse apartment, but that's another side of the story...)

Welcome to the Dark Side...
We lied about having cookies.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#20 Old 28th Jun 2014 at 2:09 PM
I could sure use the max aspiration and max motives. I had to shut the bakery down for a sim week to get everything back on track. I did use the elixir of life to keep her from becoming an elder.
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