Retailing

Opening a store and then selling other player’s products to the customers is one of the most complicated in management. But on the other hand yet the most profitable, activities in Virtonomics.

Local suppliers

In game players have to compete not only with other players, but also with local suppliers in cities. These are retail enterprises in a city and originally they had full control of retail market.

Each and everyone retail product in every city has average price and average quality, which means that this product is sold at this price and with this quality – in case if there are no enterprises created by players in the city.

In most of the cases to compete with local suppliers successfully you must offer goods of higher quality at lower price. But that’s not usually the case, as a lot also depends on where the shop is located, what is the customer’s wealth index and overall store’s efficiency.

Preferences of customers

Wealth level is the most important factor to define customers preferences. In cities with low wealth level people spend almost all their money on most needed goods (foodstuff) and they have no big interest in luxury goods. Besides, they pay special attention to the price: they prefer buying cheaper products instead of famous and high-quality goods.

On the contrary in cities with higher wealth level people can afford buying clothes, household equipment, cars and jewelry. In their opinion, high quality is more important than low price. Wealthy customers first of all require good service.

On the picture we can see the price per weak of shoes in red frame. It is lower than sale price in blue frame. Despite the much higher price than the cities average this shoes sells really well, because of its high quality (and brand) and excellent service. Customers preferences often change in favour of one or another goods. These changes can often be unpredictable, however marketing research can reveal consumer trends.