If you build a factory and not advertise, it would be hard for your product to compete because another manufacturer can sell the same or even an inferior product and make up the difference with brand rating. I would not expect the ai to spend money advertising another company’s products.

So you need a good product rating and a good brand rating for the product to be competitive and then maybe the ai can try to sell it assuming the margins they can get is attractive and there is plenty of stock available.

[quote=cantdownloadit post_id=41454 time=1716360117 user_id=2164]
they may not want to sell them, or they may consider quality to low, could be low demand, they may make the product themselves ? lots of possible reasons
[/quote]

It's this.

However, I've noticed that the AI usually won't buy your products if they make it themselves. This seems to be true even if your products are better than theirs. I have one game where my furniture products have double the rating of all of the competitors, but I pretty much had to use my own retail stores to sell the products.

Assuming that there is no problem with your product (as in, your stuff is actually competitive with the same products currently being sold by the AI stores), then you're probably going to have to create your own network of retail stores to sell your product.

The most cost-effective way to do it is:
[list=1][*]Build a few stores and set them up to buy the products from your own factories/warehouses (I'd use warehouses, but factories can be used)
[*]Set up a subsidiary with enough money to purchase the stores from you ($25-$50 million or so should be enough)
[*]Hire a CEO for the subsidiary with a high retailing expertise
[*]Set the CEO's management policies to whatever you are comfortable with, but make sure that you use the policy that only lets him/her purchase supplies from you and your other subsidiaries
[*]IPO the subsidiary in order to fill up its bank account with cash
[*]If your captive retailer is not expanding as quickly as you want, build more stores yourself and sell them to the subsidiary[/list]

By IPOing the subsidiary, you do sacrifice some of the profit that you would have earned by owning 100% of the stock yourself. However, it should still be more profitable for you than if you relied solely on AI competitors to purchase your stuff. In addition, IPOing some of its stock means that it is going to be less dependent on you for financing, and it sounds like that's what you want.

The basic goal of this is that you get an AI-controlled company selling your stuff, and you get back the money that you spent building up the stores when you sell them to the subsidiary. Plus, if you don't like to do all the micromanagement of stores, I found that the AI is pretty good at that as long as you have it set to sell only your products.

I have played various games where the AI companies bought my products for retail.

If you would share your save games, I'd be happy to take a look at them.

It is actually a problem with the way the game is set up, though. There's no market for your products unless you make one with retail.

[quote=cantdownloadit post_id=41454 time=1716360117 user_id=2164]
they may not want to sell them, or they may consider quality to low, could be low demand, they may make the product themselves ? lots of possible reasons
[/quote]
Basically this. If they can produce their own products with a better rating they may choose those instead of your products. Also I think they are less likely to buy your products if you already retail them as well.

they may not want to sell them, or they may consider quality to low, could be low demand, they may make the product themselves ? lots of possible reasons

No matter how low i price my factory products AI dont buy them to sell at retail stores. Internal Sale is off. Help pls