Are you looking for ideas for retail shops in The Sims 4? While I don’t tend to use the careers that came with Get to Work on a regular basis, I’m always using the ability to create unique retail shops! Sometimes, my sims actually run them, but more often than not, I create them in a “building only” game file with a throw-away sim who owns it just to set items to be purchasable. I then use the builds to fill up my regular game with shops!
To create any retail store, you are required to own The Sims 4 Get to Work Expansion Pack. From there, you can utilize any pack you have to create the store of your dreams. Just like in real life, when creating a retail store, you want to fill a missing piece of your sims world with a shop. With the majority of clothing in CAS, furniture in build/buy mode, and food always in the refrigerator, it’s easy to wonder if there really is a need for any retail store. I’m here to tell you that there most definitely is. It’s time to think outside the box at all of the stores you can create depending on the packs you own!
Home Improvement Shops
The Upgraded Furniture Shop
The beauty of this shop is that it doesn’t require you to own any additional packs and it fulfills a very important need for your sims world. You can sell all types of upgraded furniture in one shop or focus on a niche. Maybe you need a shop dedicated to upgraded appliances and plumbing? Or maybe you need some high quality electronics for your tech oriented sims? Or maybe you just need some better mattresses for that bed frame you LOVE but it has a terrible rating? The sky is the limit!
Rewards Object Shop
Maybe you have been playing your sim’s family line for many legacies. Or maybe you have an overachieving sim who just wants to get to the top of every career! If they’ve unlocked a whole slew of reward objects by now, open a shop and start selling them to all of the sims who aren’t lucky enough to have them available in buy mode!
The Hand Crafted Furniture Shop
Additional Pack Suggestions:
- Eco Lifestyle
- Knifty Knitting
Create a shop with only custom furniture that your sims can’t get anywhere else. Whether your sim has crafted objects in the base game using the woodworking table, the fabricator in Eco Lifestyle, or knitted some flower pots to hang from the ceiling, your sim can sell their original creations.
Robotics Shop
Additional Pack Needed:
- University
If your sim has been spending all of their time building robots, why not turn it into an even bigger profit and service your neighbors too?! Sell any of the robots you build including deactivated servos. By the front counter, you can also include small robot toys for kids and building parts for sale. Combine your robotics shop with upgraded electronics and inventions from the Get to Work pack for even more profit!
Home Decor Shops
Art & Personal Touches Shop
Additional Pack Suggestions:
- Knifty Knitting
- Eco Lifestyle
- Cottage Living
If your sim is the artsy type, get them to work painting original pieces of art, creating candles, knitting some designs for around the house, and cross stitching some cute patterns! Sell them all in a one-of-a-kind home decor shop! If you have Cottage Living, you can also sell yarn for crafty sims!
Treasure Shop
At Least One of These Packs Are Needed:
- Island Living
- Jungle Adventure
Maybe your sim is the super adventurous type and just craves spending their days searching for hidden treasure in the deep waters of Sulani or the jungle of Selvadorada? While your sim could just sell these treasures from their inventory, why not mark up the price 100% or more and sell it to the locals? Besides, if you ever play a different sim, your super rich ones can now buy a fancy gold plate for $20,000+ to display and show off their wealth!
Flower Shop
Additional Pack Suggestions:
- Seasons (additional plants, flower arranging)
- Wedding Stories (wedding bouquets)
- Outdoor Retreat (additional plants)
- Cats & Dogs (additional plants)
If your sim spends their time gardening and searching the worlds for rare flowers, maybe it’s time they open a flower shop to help others perfect their gardens too! Take it to the next level and have your sim make beautiful scented flower arrangements for sims to decorate their homes with or even wedding bouquets for them to walk down the aisle!
Collectables Shop
Additional Pack Suggestions:
- City Living
To be honest, I rarely have sims who just go around collecting items from the worlds and building their collections. If your sim is a collector though, it may be time they open their own shop! Then, you can send your sims shopping for cute MySim statues, snow globes, posters, gems, and more!
Food Shops
The Supermarket
Additional Pack Suggestions:
- Cottage Living (additional fruits & veggies, milk, eggs, canned goods, oversized crops, animal treats, sugar, flour)
- Island Living (additional fruits & veggies, additional fish)
- Jungle Adventure (additional fruits & veggies, additional fish)
- Eco Lifestyle (fizzy drinks)
- Horse Ranch (nectar)
- Wedding Stories (cakes)
- Outdoor Retreat (additional plants, additional fish)
- City Living (additional fish)
- Spa Day (additional fish)
- Seasons (honey)
What to Stock the Store With:
- Homegrown Fruits & Vegetables
- Milk
- Eggs
- Jams
- Fish
- Homemade Fizzy Juice
- Homemade Nectar
- Baked Goods
- Cakes
- Premade Meals
- Flower Bouquets
For those of you playing with just the base game and Get to Work, your market may be more of a small grocery store than a supermarket but you can still have plenty of fun stocking it with homegrown fruits and vegetables, baked goods, cakes, and various types of fish! Expand it further by creating a salad bar or hot food bar for your busy working sims to grab a premade meal.
If you were to choose one extra pack to have to complete the grocery store experience, I’d recommend Cottage Living. Besides having eggs and milk, your sims can also live on “Simple Living” lots where they are required to buy fresh vegetables and fruit. With that lot trait, having a grocery store becomes critical if you don’t want to visit the Crumplebottom’s food stalls!
If you have all, or the majority of, the packs above, you can combine everything to create the ultimate supermarket, offering eggs, milk, canned goods, sugar and flour, homemade nectar, fizzy juice, and more. The sky is truly the limit!
How to Run a Supermarket in The Sims 4
Let’s face it, it’s easy to want to gouge our sims and set the prices extremely high! However, I really enjoyed the challenge of keeping the prices low and only restocking what my sim was getting from her garden and farm. If certain items were out of season, they stayed out of stock until she could grow them again.
By not paying restocking fees, she was able to still make a profit and by keeping the prices low, the store items would sell quickly. This also kept the store super busy which is always fun to see from a gameplay perspective!
Because her home was also off the grid, her bills over all were very low. Because I don’t cheat my sims needs, I would have her work at the store for a normal number of hours, close in the evening, and then close on certain days of the week so she could do work on her farm.
In her particular store, I didn’t offer pre-made meals. But if your sim is ambitious and loves to cook or bake, it could be fun to have a counter with a few fresh meals for sale too.
Pre-Cooked Food Market
Additional Pack Suggestions:
- Home Chef Hustle (pizza, waffles)
- Dine Out (experimental dishes)
Maybe a grocery store is just way too big and unnecessary for your sims. If your sims have a fear of fire from that recent stove incident, they may want to have a place to just pick up a tasty pre-cooked meal instead!
Bakery
Additional Pack Suggestions:
- Wedding Stories (cakes)
- Luxury Party (cakes and cookies)
- Spooky (spooky baked goods)
There are more than enough baked items within the game to open a bakery and with Wedding Stories, a cake shop. From cupcakes to donuts, birthday cakes to tiered wedding cakes, you can create an array of tasty treats to sell!
Beverage Shop
At Least One of These Packs Are Needed:
- Cottage Living (milk)
- Eco Lifestyle (fizzy drinks)
- Horse Ranch (nectar)
If your sims could care less about cooking or the gardening experience, opening a shop dedicated to beverages may be just the thing for them! Create a vineyard and sell bottles of wine, fizzy drinks, and seltzers or if you have a farm, you can sell all of your fresh and unique bottles of milk!
Clothing Shops
Rare Finds Clothing Store
Additional Pack Suggestions:
- Crystal Creations (jewelry)
- Knifty Knitting (locked outfits)
- High School Years (locked outfits)
- Dream Home Decorator (locked outfits)
- For Rent (locked outfits)
Has your sim been unlocking different outfits through work, thrifting, or at the night market?! Dress up the mannequins in these exclusive outfits and start selling them to the neighborhood! If your sim is also into jewelry making, this could be the perfect opportunity to sell their jewelry alongside the outfits as well.
Jewelry Store
Pack Needed:
- Crystal Creations
With the Crystal Creations pack, sims can now create their own jewelry. Better yet though, they can sell their products! While you could easily set up a small retail stand on the street, your sim could also go all in with their very own jewelry shop! Besides, who doesn’t want to send their sim ring shopping when they’re searching for just the right ring to propose with?
Bridal Boutique
Additional Pack Suggestions:
- Wedding Stories
- Crystal Creations
- Seasons (flower bouquets)
- Luxury Party
Out of every retail lot, this is probably my most used creation. While a sim can obviously can searching in CAS for the perfect wedding dress, there is something so fun about sending the shopping for the perfect dress instead! Set up mannequins with various dresses, sell wedding cakes, party decorations, wedding arches, and flower bouquets! If you have Crystal Creations, you could even have ring shop for those who are planning to propose.
What kind of retail shops have you created in your game? Do you have any other unique ones that I neglected to mention? Sound off in the comments! For my gameplay tips, stories, and more, please follow Sim Life Chronicles on Facebook.
Check Out My Other Gameplay Tips:
- Creating the Best Clubs in Sims 4 Get Together
- How to Stop Micromanaging the Sims in 5 Simple Ways
- How to Make Your Sims Personality Traits Interesting
- View all of my Gameplay Tip Blogs
