City AmbitionsThe sentence at the top
Store Pulse opens with one line, for example: "About 120 shoppers come in today, 18 of them regulars, wanting 150 items." It then names the limit that bites first:
- The shelf is empty. Order stock in Supply.
- Stock runs out first. You have fewer items than people want. Order more, or rent storage once it opens.
- The line is the limit. Your staff cannot serve everyone. Hire for another block, raise the price, or both (see pricing).
- You can serve every one of them. The shop is healthy. Grow demand: promotion, more lines, more hours.
The factors
| Factor | What it means |
|---|---|
| Basket | How much an average shopper carries out. One product on the shelf means one thing per shopper. Several lines in real depth and the same shoppers spend more. |
| Location traffic | How busy the block is. It is the base for promotion. |
| Promotion | How many of the block's shoppers know your store. Campaigns raise it above location traffic, up to 100%. |
| Open hours | Shoppers only come while the doors are open. Afternoons and evenings bring 70% of a day's shoppers, mornings 20%, nights 10%. |
| Reputation | Recent reviews as a demand multiplier. Three and a half stars is neutral; a five-star shop pulls about three times the crowd of a one-star shop. |
| Staff skill | Average sales skill of today's staff, with their morale. |
| Product trend | Where your main product sits in its cycle: rising, peak, saturation or dead stock. |
| Rivals | The share of walk-ins your store keeps when rivals open on the same block. |
The day of the week matters too. The busiest day brings about 1.7 times the shoppers of the quietest, so a slow day is not always a problem to fix.
How regulars work
Regulars are people who count your shop as theirs. They walk in again without any marketing behind them, and they are what makes Day 100 feel different from Day 3.
- Winning them: every night, about 1 in 9 shoppers who were served properly becomes a regular.
- Visits: each regular drops in on roughly 1 day in 5.
- Losing them: regulars drift away by about 2% a day even when nothing goes wrong. Every percent of the day's shoppers you turn away (empty shelf, long line, closed door) adds to that drift.
- A bad day wins nobody: if more than half of the day's shoppers leave unserved, no one new becomes a regular that night.
- A ceiling: a block only holds so many people who could adopt one shop, so regulars level off over time.
The lesson: an empty shelf costs more than today's lost sales. It thins out the regulars you spent weeks building. Keep stock and staff ahead of demand, especially in the first month.
A checklist when sales stall
- Read the Store Pulse sentence. Is it stock, the line, or demand?
- Check the shopper feed for "found the price too high". If it dominates, step the price down.
- Count staffed blocks. Two of four blocks means the doors are closed for 30% of shoppers.
- Look at Product trend. A cooling product needs a new line beside it.
- Compare tomorrow's Daily Close. Change one thing at a time so you can tell what worked.