Once you understand what your country’s market will pay for a particular level of quality, you’ll need to understand the size of the market you are servicing. You can look at the world map, which will give you the total annual demand for each product, but the game refines this using Consumer Profile groups.
I’m using Spain as an example. So for Smartphones the total annual demand is currently 204 million broken down into 6 groups of 30 million and 1 of 24 million. To get to the (game)daily demand you have to divide by 360 so the daily demand is 566,500.
| Consumer Profile | Population Percentage | Market Demand | Brand | Price | Feature | Quality | Signage Service |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smartphones | SPAIN | ||||||
| Group 1 | 15% | g30,000,000 | 20% | 10% | 20% | 20% | 30% |
| Group 2 | 15% | g30,000,000 | 20% | 20% | 15% | 15% | 30% |
| Group 3 | 15% | g30,000,000 | 0% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 30% |
| Group 4 | 15% | g30,000,000 | 10% | 40% | 30% | 0% | 20% |
| Group 5 | 15% | g30,000,000 | 15% | 50% | 0% | 30% | 5% |
| Group 6 | 15% | g30,000,000 | 20% | 15% | 40% | 10% | 15% |
| Group 7 | 12% | g24,016,493 | 30% | 10% | 10% | 40% | 10% |
If you have a fully developed sales team you can sell a max of 800 phones a game day so the max price you can get per phone is 566,500/800 = 708g. So you are faced with a market that even now will not fully support a single maxed out retailer. Even if you are the only retailer in the market, it won’t support even 60/60 phones so you may as well look for 0/20 phones that theoretically sell for 710 and price them at 708. And if a competitor comes into the market - forget it!
Note at this point there is no need to discuss brand, feature, signage etc.
Let’s look at cars… 245 million gives a daily demand of 680,500 so we face a similar problem but now the groups are hurting us as well
| Consumer Profile | Population Percentage | Market Demand | Brand | Price | Feature | Quality | Signage Service |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automobile | SPAIN | ||||||
| Group 1 | 12% | g30,000,000 | 20% | 10% | 20% | 20% | 30% |
| Group 2 | 12% | g30,000,000 | 20% | 20% | 15% | 15% | 30% |
| Group 3 | 12% | g30,000,000 | 0% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 30% |
| Group 4 | 12% | g30,000,000 | 10% | 40% | 30% | 0% | 20% |
| Group 5 | 12% | g30,000,000 | 15% | 50% | 0% | 30% | 5% |
| Group 6 | 12% | g30,000,000 | 20% | 15% | 40% | 10% | 15% |
| Group 7 | 12% | g30,000,000 | 30% | 10% | 10% | 40% | 10% |
| Group 8 | 12% | g30,000,000 | 30% | 5% | 15% | 50% | 0% |
| Group 9 | 2% | g5,145,898 | 15% | 5% | 50% | 15% | 15% |
If the calculation was straight line and you had full sales staff allowing you to sell 10 cars the maths would say max price of 68,050 but there are only 8 full groups. The last group will only have a max sales price of 5.146m / 360 = 14,290 (so nothing). So your max price is 83,333 but for a max of 8 cars per day (switch off a salesperson and look for 60/40 or 60/60 cars max quality)
Lastly let’s look at a bigger market - India Automobile.
Total annual demand of 669.3 million or a daily demand of 1.86million and 10 full groups each with a demand of 185,900.
| Consumer Profile | Population Percentage | Market Demand | Brand | Price | Feature | Quality | Signage Service |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automobile | INDIA | ||||||
| Group 1 | 10% | g66,928,415 | 20% | 10% | 20% | 20% | 30% |
| Group 2 | 10% | g66,928,415 | 20% | 20% | 15% | 15% | 30% |
| Group 3 | 10% | g66,928,415 | 0% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 30% |
| Group 4 | 10% | g66,928,415 | 10% | 40% | 30% | 0% | 20% |
| Group 5 | 10% | g66,928,415 | 15% | 50% | 0% | 30% | 5% |
| Group 6 | 10% | g66,928,415 | 20% | 15% | 40% | 10% | 15% |
| Group 7 | 10% | g66,928,415 | 30% | 10% | 10% | 40% | 10% |
| Group 8 | 10% | g66,928,415 | 30% | 5% | 15% | 50% | 0% |
| Group 9 | 10% | g66,928,415 | 15% | 5% | 50% | 15% | 15% |
| Group 10 | 10% | g66,928,415 | 0% | 60% | 20% | 0% | 20% |
So if you’re on your own in that market you can go straight to 100/100 cars with full sales team to maximise your profit. You will sell 10 cars a day at the max price of 106,500. Even if a competitor comes in and sells 40/40 cars for 71,500 you will remain unaffected.
As soon as that competitor moves up to 60/60 cars and sells them at 80k or above your sales will likely drop to zero or at least plummet. Contested markets behave very strangely in this game at I’m still not convinced I understand the logic behind the sales allocations.
At this point your brand, signage quality should all start to count.
Take each group individually - some give huge emphasis to price and almost none to quality - cheaper priced cars will be allocated a sale first. If they get the sale for the group and your price is higher than the remaining balance - you will sell none for that group. If there is still demand left after the first pass and the cheaper car still has unsold units of their sales potential, they may be allocated a second sale to that group. Other groups have higher weighting on quality and brand on not on price so the quality should get priority and be allocated a sale first.
So if your sales suddenly drop, check the consumer profile report against your sell price and then check the product competitive report to see what opposition you have. (Refer to The guide - 4)
A quick look at that shows a market in deep hurt with 3 competitors vying for a market that can’t support 2.