Dear Retailers #17 - The final touches on the upcoming update.

Dear retailers! Time for another update on what we have been working on over the last month, and what you can expect in the upcoming patch.

We are still aiming for a March update and are now adding the final touches to the remaining implementations.

In the last newsletter, I showed the work done on scheduling, contract renegotiation, and employee management, all of which received major upgrades.

This was followed by more content for storage and delivery units, helping those of you running larger stores manage your operations more effectively.

We have also continued working on ways to make the game simpler and faster for those of you who feel overwhelmed by the many stats and parameters, and just want to get on with selling products.

But that is far from all. We have also continued improving several core parts of the game.

--- End of Day ---

The End of Day screen used to show your sales, and not much else. That has now received a major upgrade.

It is now becoming a proper overview hub, giving you the most important information in a much more useful format. You can see your top-selling products, reputation growth, and how your store is developing over time.

This also begins laying the foundation for the upcoming HQ systems. Stores and concepts will now start building influence and attraction over time, much like in the first game.

Your concept will also begin positioning itself based on the products you sell. Are you running a niche or generalist store? Cheap or premium? Your decisions shape how the market sees your business.

This is also an important first step toward concept talent points through HQ, helping smaller and more specialized stores become strong businesses in their own right, instead of everything always pushing toward giant “sell everything” stores.

--- Customer behavior and simulations ---

To support all of this, many under-the-hood systems also had to be expanded.

Stores now run more detailed per-product simulations and reordering logic, making them feel more alive and more accurate even when you are not personally present.

This also allows the game to provide better product summaries and a clearer sense of store progression.

Product reputations are no longer just a race to max everything out. Instead, they now reflect what customers actually buy in your stores, which then influences what they come looking for. In practice, this means you will increasingly sell more of what your store becomes known for, making store identity feel more natural and far less random.

--- New product management screen ---

Many of you have told us that product management was difficult, especially because it was hard to judge what prices products should be sold at.

To address that, I reworked the product info screen to make the relevant information much easier to access and understand.

--- Starter stores ---

We are also continuing to expand the different ways you can get started.

Right now, we have a bakery, a clothing shop, a cosmetics store, and an electronics shop.

--- Phones ---

Finally, as part of the electronics store, we also wanted to offer something beyond traditional hardware. Phones will therefore be joining the game as well.

--- What else ---

There are also many other smaller changes and improvements, such as:

- The Hard Sales minigame has been reduced from