The Sims 2 Open for Business is quite a large expansion pack. That means there's plenty to do and lots of hidden content! You can discover so much by diving a little deeper into the game. Did you know, for example, that you can expand your family with a robot? One that does nothing but help you and your other Sims? Or that you can decorate your home with beautiful flowers, build new toys for the kids' room, or construct machines that keep the family fed around the clock? Above all, there's serious money to be made if your family decides to go into business.
Getting Started If your Sims have saved up enough money to open a shop, it's as simple as picking up the phone. If you want to open a home business, just select that option on the phone. If you'd rather open a shop on a community lot, choose the real estate agent on the phone (Property >> Buy Community Lot), and then you can pick the type of lot you want to purchase.
Shop Rank By keeping an eye on your shop's rank, you can see how successful it's becoming. Rank is determined by customer loyalty. Every time a customer has a great experience in your shop, you earn a gold star. Once you've collected enough stars, your shop's rank goes up, and you'll be rewarded with more visitors and business perks. Business perks range from a boost to your Sims' relationships with Sims they haven't met yet, to cash rewards or improved sales skills. Unfortunately, there's a downside to the ranking system too — if your customers have a bad experience (or are simply in a bad mood), they hand out red stars, which count as penalty points.
Starting Capital Over 10 Days There's no way around it: opening a business requires investment! That means only Sims with a decent savings account can open a shop on a community lot. Luckily, home businesses are a different story. By quickly setting up a shop at home, it's easy to earn enough money to eventually launch a shop on a community lot. Follow the guide below day by day!
Buy a house worth 15,000 Simoleons or less. Get yourself a ticket machine and a few small items for customers to buy. Make sure you don't purchase anything that needs a lot of upkeep — for example, a poker table, a billiard table, or the bubble blower. Set your prices to cheap!
DAY 1: Chat with customers
Leave the ticket machine running around the clock — even when you're not around. Remember to talk to customers when you're home, and be enthusiastic about selling tickets. Before long you should have three gold stars, putting your shop at rank 1. At that point you can collect 1,000 Simoleons in business perks. DAY 2
Win over your customers
Win over your customers! Remember: the better friends you are, the more interested the customer will be in buying from you. By now you should also be starting to see a small profit from your business. At the very least, have enough to invest in a mirror so you can practise becoming more charismatic. Charisma affects your ability to earn the gold talent badge in sales! DAY 3 Big money!
If everything is going well — and it should be — your business is now at rank 3. Go and collect the business perk money again. The cash prize is now up to 10,000 Simoleons, so the money just keeps rolling in. Now you can set the ticket price to medium. DAY 4 Community lot
When your business reaches rank 4, the cash prize under business perks is 20,000 Simoleons. Unless you've spent the money decorating your home, you should have enough to invest in a community lot. That said, it's handy to keep a bit of money for home furnishings, so let's keep going. DAY 5 Rank 5
After raising the ticket price to medium, it's harder to persuade customers. But now it's time to upgrade your shop with new activities! You've got plenty of money at this point — when your business hits rank 5, you can collect the biggest cash prize of all: a whopping 50,000 Simoleons. DAY 6 Just raking in the cash!
You now have enough money to buy a community lot and furnish your brand-new shop. But even so, there's no reason to close your home business. It practically runs itself, so you can just leave it ticking over and let it keep bringing in money for you. DAY 7
The Three Types of Shops
You can choose between three different types of shops: Sales, Service, or Time. Sales is simply a shop where you put out items you want to sell and set a price for each one. Service is based on offering a type of service — at a beauty salon you style hair and apply make-up, while at a restaurant you cook food and serve it to your guests. This is the most demanding type of shop, requiring you to be both skilled at providing the service itself and great at selling. Time, on the other hand, is the easiest to sell. You set up a ticket machine and customers pay for however long they spend in your shop. Your Sims still need to be a capable salesperson, though, since customers have to be talked into paying.