How many of the same type of retail store per city?

[amax3002]

What is the ideal # of retail stores (of the same type, so only jewelry stores for example) should I place per city? It seems like the AI will place a lot more stores than me. Should I keep pace with them?

Also, is there a good way to quickly update all the products being sold in a same type retail store (again jewelry store for example)? So if I start selling gold rings, instead of going to every jewelry store in every city, is there a quicker way?

Thanks!

[bdubbs]

This depends on how much demand there is for a given product in your game, which fluctuates game to game, as well as the total population and real wage rate of your city. You can get an idea of what the total demand / city is at the product details screen. You can safely keep adding retail stores as long as your sales units are 100% utilized (or very close). If you start noticing sales units utilization dip then you'll have to increase your "overall rating" for your product compared to the local market, so you'll need to decrease price, increase product quality, or increase your advertising rating. Poor consumer traffic index can also hold your sales units back, but I'm pretty sure can be overcome with price.

If that doesn't work then the problem is probably on the manufacturing or supply end if you don't manufacture your own goods.
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[Berbe]

You can safely keep adding retail stores as long as your sales units are 100% utilized (or very close).

Mmmh that is quite a dangerous piece of advice, since it simply means the unit is overloaded. If the unit is level 1, there is no way to tell merely by looking at it if a simple training to higher level won't help mitigate the congestion.
Spawning new shops increases fixex costs drastically. If the units end-up being under-used, you are in for huge surpise down the line.

If you start noticing sales units utilization dip then you'll have to increase your "overall rating" for your product compared to the local market, so you'll need to decrease price, increase product quality, or increase your advertising rating. Poor consumer traffic index can also hold your sales units back, but I'm pretty sure can be overcome with price.

Once again, very narrowly-focused analysis, not taking into account the sector state. Sales unit use can still crash with the best product rating around if global demand stalls or even lowers. Cutting margins or throwing cash a marketing is only going to make the situation worse.

What is the ideal # of retail stores (of the same type, so only jewelry stores for example) should I place per city? It seems like the AI will place a lot more stores than me. Should I keep pace with them?

Also, is there a good way to quickly update all the products being sold in a same type retail store (again jewelry store for example)? So if I start selling gold rings, instead of going to every jewelry store in every city, is there a quicker way?

Thanks!

The generale idea is to get an estimate of your position compared to opponents:

1. Is the local market saturated for that product (ie sector)? Yes: you are going in a market share/product rating war; No: you got room for organic growth
2. If your sales units are saturated, you are not going to improve your market share. If demand exceeds greatly your capacity, new openings are in order. Otherwise, consider training as a better investment.

To sum up the only reasons I see to open new store is a huge gap in market share is to be taken swiftly, either because your product(s) leaves competition behind, or because the sector is under-saturated.