So, you saw all those big grocery chains like Walmart, or Amazon (wtf) and were like :

Why can't I HAVE THAT?!?

Well, now you can! Even without all the downsides, like people...

uh... anyway


Supermarket Simulator starts as a small business, but it rapidly grows from a 4m x 4m store to a 96m x 96m shopping space. That's 9,212 meters squared, or 99,201 sq ft.

this is what I get for living in the USA I guess...

You are the cashier too, at first. Start as the person who orders, stocks, prices, and sells products, and then amass an army to help you SUPERMARKET.


This is probably the single most important mechanic to understand when it comes to progressing your store. It's basically EXP, with a set amount needed for each level. You can get SP by doing pretty much anything: checking out, cleaning, ordering items, hiring people, and unlocking licenses all increase SP. If you don't maintain your store, SP will decrease from unhappy customers or an unclean environment. Leveling up is how you unlock more products, space, etc.

...wow game has unlocks, so surprising...

sweet, sweet... mo- POWDERED SUGAR


It's always a good idea to keep extra stock. I know, like duh, but regardless it's a good idea to keep at least 2 boxes in stock once you get your store going. Initially, it's not that important since you will start with such a small inventory, but by the time you're able to get basic storage (minus racks) it should be a priority.

The placement of items do not matter when it comes to customer engagement. A customer that buys 2 things will buy those 2 things regardless of where in the store those things are, so the only real benefit of organizing is possibly speeding up the shopping experience depending on what the customer was going to buy. However, since there's no way to know who will buy what, it's purely personal preference. So, CuStOmIzE tO yEr HeArT's DeSiReEEe.

Certain items are in larger demand than others. From personal experience, items that only fit on a rack slot once (Toilet paper, Jaja cleaner, potatoes, chicken, etc) are more valued by your suckers....or uh, customers. Other items, like essentials, are also more frequently purchased. Reserve more shelf and storage space for these items to prevent running out during the day - at least 4 boxes worth. It's trial and error.

Just like how some items have greater demand, others have lesser demand. Again, from personal experience, candy, cake mix, and other non-essentials are purchased less by customers. It doesn't mean you should not have those things; you just need to give more shelf/storage space for larger demand items.


Always have at least one shelf dedicated to each unlocked item if possible. At the very beginning, it's pretty difficult to do this because you simply don't have enough money to buy everything you want, but it should be easy soon enough.

Remember to order after you (or your stockers) have finished refilling shelves. This is just to make sure you don't buy unnecessary inventory, which is especially important in the early game when money is tight.

Buying things at lower prices isn't all that important. Every time the price changes, it tends to not be by a significant amount. Honestly, if your prices are set well (we'll talk abt this in the pricing section) the minor differences in price don't factor into ordering much. At the very early game, it might be a bit more important when you have to pick and choose what you can stock but having a consistent inventory as soon as possible is what matters.

Shipping costs are very minor in this game, so don't be afraid to buy things in separate chunks if that's easier for you, because by the time the store is established the shipping costs have already become fairly trivial.

Speaking of, here's the shipping costs. It's based on how many items bought:


You can only order a maximum of 50 items at a time. This won't be an issue for a while, but when it comes into play it's really a minor inconvenience more than anything else.

Ordering painted furniture is more expensive than regular furniture, but only by $10-$25, depending on the item. So, it's up to you if those chartreuse fridges are worth it, but honestly I think the base white is pretty nice. Also, in the case of fridges, the color is only on the side, so you wouldn't even see it depending on how the store was laid out.

You can only order until 9 PM (21:00). Afterwards, whatever's in your cart will have to wait until tomorrow. Don't worry though, the cart does not reset between days.

sweet sweet mon- wait, no one cut me off that time, I wonder if- POWDERED SUGAAAAAR


The market price is the MINIMUM the price should be set at. Really, there is no minimum, but if you don't wanna go broke, the market price should be treated as a minimum rather than a maximum.

This game doesn't feature sales yet, so don't bother to set prices low to attract customers. It doesn't work yet, but it is an upcoming feature listed in the menu. Currently, the only thing that affects the number of customers is the store's size and the store level.

If the price is too high, people will only buy a few items at most. This leads to a massive loss in profits so it is better to set the prices somewhat higher but not to the point of gouging. If you consistently run low on stock (but not out) by the end of each day that's a good indicator that you're adequately meeting the demand without being greedy.


Setting the price to be above the market price by 19 cents almost guarantees no angry customers. From what I've been able to tell, each customer has a random value assigned to them that, combined with the market price, determines whether or not an individual item's price is too expensive for them to buy. By setting the price to be exactly 19 cents (and no higher) I have been able to get at most 1 unhappy customer each day, except for times where I am simply unlucky due to RNG.

You can set below the 19 cent threshold to guarantee no unhappy customers, but the extremely minor decrease in SP from the occasional cheapskate is much less important than the money you'll make from most of those suckers.

I don't wanna talk, for fear o- POWDERED SUGARRRRRR


Hiring multiple cashiers (Steves) is not necessary if you are willing to wait. Once a customer enters a store, they can only leave by purchasing the items they have. It doesn't matter if they complain, because the AI can't actually leave without purchasing something.

Early on, the self-checkout (SCO) is not worth it because it's just too expensive. The first person you are likely to hire is the cashier, who costs $100 upfront and has a daily wage of $80, which is much more manageable than $900.

Later on, the self-checkout is definitely worth it. I was once a FOOL who didn't understand the wonderful SCO (Thank you StarsAndBars!). For a one time fee, you can get a cashier that at most takes 10 days to repay itself, saves a ton of space, and the only downside is that it occasionally breaks down and you need to come over and manually checkout the customer which takes like 10-15 seconds. That sounds kinda bad until you realize that by now you have stockers to do most of the work for you.

Hiring a customer helper is - as of the latest update - maybe helpful? It depends on your play style honestly. All they do is weigh items for customers (bc for some reason they can't just do it themselves >:/ ) and fix the SCO when it occasionally breaks. By the time you got stockers and SCOs doing everything for you, I think that weighing things and fixing SCOs manually is more than enough for me to do, but if you're more the cashier-type for example, then you should probably just bite the bullet.

...mmmm gunpowder tasty...

You can customize your stockers (Pauls) by changing individual settings. You could make one stocker only refill shelves and another refill racks, for example. Other settings, like not having your stockers pick up boxes, are useful if you want to be able to move things easily (more on this in the Misc. section).

If you are rearranging items, it is a good idea to turn off your stockers first. They will make the task of sorting much harder because the item will be refilled before you're done, and then they will throw out the empty box (if they have one) which will make it nearly impossible for you to put the items back where you want them (more on this later). Just make sure to turn them back on before the day starts!

Your stockers will not actually start filling shelves until they are 75% full or less. In addition, they occasionally get stuck with a box in their hands and are all like "I cAn'T pUt tHe BoX AnYwHeRe; StOrAgE iS fUlL." Just free up space either on racks or shelves to fix the problem.

You can click on your sla- I mean employees, to boost them. It costs $3 for a boost. This can help stave off the need for another stocker, but only as a temporary solution. Eventually, the store will become large enough that multiple stockers are needed, because a boosted stocker is still worse than 2 unboosted ones.


Generally, the first person you'll hire is a cashier. They have an upfront cost that goes up the more you hire, but the daily wage will stay the same. You might ask: "why hire somebody if I can check out myself? I'm cheeeeeap." Well, it's simple:

They don't ever make a mistake.

I mean its not that you can't still cashier yourself it's just that getting an employee will really speed up the process and you can stock until you get another checkout but like you can wait until the stocker and just D.I.Y. until then it's yer life not mine ok byeeeeeeee....

The second (and more important) hire is the stocker. See, if a customer is waiting for a checkout to open up, it doesn't matter much to have only one cashier because there's nothing the NPC can do to leave once they've picked up something except purchase it. So, having NPCs complaining about full checkouts is actually a non-issue since they don't affect future customers coming in. On the other hand, empty shelves result in less products being purchased that otherwise would have had the item been on the shelf instead of in storage.

After a while, you will have gained enough money to purchase a self-checkout (SCO) machine. The SCO is supposed to replace the cashier with a one time fee instead of a daily wage, so it pays for itself soon enough. The caaaaaatch, you may ask??? It breaks on occasion. You just have to go over and fix it, and the customer helper is supposed to do it for you, but they defeat the purpose of the SCO if you ask me.

As stated previously, depending on play style, you might want the customer helper. Starting from the early game, you'll be able to get the helper before the two big hires (the cashier and the stocker) but I honestly don't think it's worth it simply because the customers will just sit there and wait at the scale just like they do at the checkouts. In addition, I've noticed that weighing items seems to be the last thing the customers do before going to checkout.

You may have wondered why I didn't mention janitors: I don't think you need them. Like, there's no reason you can't have them, but if the store is, at most, half dirty by the end of the day, and you need almost full dirt for SP to go down by even a bit, then what's the point doob?

...hmm support community........or make $MAHNEE$.....andbythatImean POWDERRREDD-

SUGARRRRRRR.....and by that I mean cocai-


The most important thing to understand is that the amount of customers depends mainly on the size of your store. I've done some testing, and it looks like SP level also factors into customer count, as well as a random number function.

If a customer has not finished checkout, you will lose profit by ending the day early. So, make sure every customer has left the store before hitting enter to end the day.

Customers will not look for other products until they are unlocked. When purchasing a license, make sure you have ample funds so you can immediately purchase the unlocked items. This helps minimize the amount of missed items until you have time to build up stock.

Leaving a customer waiting at the checkout is actually totally fine. It doesn't decrease SP, the customer doesn't leave, and it doesn't change the amount of future customers that enter the store. The only real issue, potentially, is that the day will take a bit longer since you have to wait for everyone to checkout before closing.

The customer will also stand there like a dingus at the scale, and that's also ok! The same rules apply here as for the checkout. These people are the most patient potatoes I've ever seen.

No wonder I like this game so much... it's so unrealistic...


The second most important thing is knowing the different expansion options. The "growth" section of the computer is what increases your store size and number of customers. The "storage" option, which is initially locked behind an $800 paywall, is just extra space to place things in that weird room you probably saw at the beginning of the game and were like "wut is thaaaaat?"

Side note: I may have totally forgotten that the storage section literally says "storage" above it.
...so smarrrrrrrrrrrrt...

Eventually, the locked door will open into the storage area, connecting the 2 areas.

Don't you DARE take my POWDERED SUGAAAAAR


Shoplifters can be disabled in the settings menu at any time. Remember: The best way to stop shoplifting is to magically disable it entirely!

The main way to deal with shoplifters is to swing them with a bat. (bruh) Just don't hit the regular shoppers with your bat because....for no reason I could possibly understand....random people do not enjoy being SHLAAPED with a bat.

Hitting a customer seems to be currently broken. After they get hit, they are locked in a panicked state and cannot complete the checkout normally, which will hold up the other customers in line. Be warned!

You need to use a crate to pick up the recovered items after dealing with the shoplifter. I guess using your hands is just impossibuhhhhh.

You can hire security guards and install antennas to deter criminals. After some testing, I've realized that the antenna is 100% required for the guard to work, so remember that they are a package deal! Anyway, here's a photo of the antenna setup:

Note: Only one antenna is pictured here.

Cameras also exist and work with the guard instead of the antenna. The general idea that I've learned is that security features are mix-and-match. Either you can have the guard + antenna (in which case the guard sacks the shoplifter as soon as they leave) or you can have the guard + camera combo, and in that case the guard will SHLAAPAH the thief while they are stealing something, and then put the items back.

The camera isn't totally useless like I thought at first! yay!

In the case of the camera, it'll only detect thieves where it happens to be aiming. It has a swivel, but it's manual, so multiple cameras are potentially needed to protect the store. Given this, the antenna + guard strat is much more cost effective since you will only ever need one antenna and can have, at most, 2 guards.

Oh.... nevermind...

The cameras also put a symbol over the thief when spotted. This can be kinda useful for identifying thieves if you don't have a guard yet, but honestly I can't think of many situations where I wouldn't just go with the antenna guard combo. Especially since you'll just hire the guard later anyway....unless you wanna be some one-man SWAT team or somethin' idk

Oh.... oh I thought... I thou- nevermind.....

Occasionally, the guard gets stuck with an item that he can't put back on the shelf because a stocker already beat him to it (DAMN YOU PAULS!). Just grab whatever's in the way with your crate and he'll put his items back like normal. You can also just transfer from his crate to yours. Neat!

You can tell the shoplifters apart by the lack of a paper bag. When they walk out of the store, the shoplifter doesn't use a bag. Of course, you have to be careful because customers entering the store also don't have bags, but they pull one out of their ass as soon as they go to grab items. The shoplifters have more obvious tells, but this is useful when there's a large influx of customers and it's difficult to see what's happening. It's also useful to make sure your muscle (Frank) is doing his thing.

Moving shelves while a customer is using it may break the customer and prevent them from checking out. They will just hover where the shelf was until the end of the day. The only way to get rid of them is to start a new day. This seems to happen much less as of 0.4.1, but just in case, don't move shelves while customers are using them.

One paint bucket is equal to 8 walls. That's it. It's preeeeeeeetty simple.

In case you were curious, the total cost to fully SUPERMARKET your supermarket is a little over $1.6 million. dats a lotta monnnieeeeees

Bills increase by the number of appliances you have, and by the length of time you keep the lights on. If you keep the lights on 24/7, bills will be $$$, but if the store's lights go on at an appropriate time, you will save a significant amount of money. In fact, the lights in the store might not need to go on at all, since the customers apparently use sonar.

For some reason, the last thing the customers do before checking out is use the scale. You know, if they bought anything that needs it. ....what? that was obvious? ok.

You know what isn't obvious? You need to put in the code for the individual item when you're using the scale. The whole screen is totally useless to you. ....what? that was also obvious? I just didn't notice because I can't read tutorials? ok.

You can't know in advance where items go before unlocking licences so I will list what goes where right here.

• Ice cream - Freezer
  
• Pizza of any type - Freezer
  
• Veggie mix, potato pops, Green beans - Freezer
  
• Chicken (whole), crab sticks, fries - Freezer
  
• Soda (single) of any type - Fridge
  
• Cheese of any type - Fridge
  
• Fess and BK brand Beer Blonde Ale (single) - Fridge
  
• Teochew brand Beer Lager (single)- Fridge
  
• Bottled Water of any type - Fridge
  
• Eggs of any type - Fridge
  
• Juice or Milk (single) of any type - Fridge
  
• Yogurt of any type - Fridge
  
• Butter, houmus - Fridge
  
• Fish of any type (including shellfish) - Fridge
  
• Moussaka, lasagne - Fridge
  
• Steak, Veal, Beef, Ham (+ variants), Proscuito, Chicken (Leg) - Fridge
  
• Any non-branded food - Stall
  
• All other items - Shelf

You need a box (or a crate) to move items around. Different items fit in different sized boxes, and will not fit in boxes of the wrong size. The crate is supposed to fix this, but a shelf's worth of some items will not fit in the crate, so keeping boxes to move things around can be very useful. You are now allowed to scream.

The day won't start until you open the store, so make sure to get everything ready before customers come in. In addition, closing in the middle of the day will still advance time so there is no practical benefit unless you are in omega panic mode or something.

You don't actually get penalized for a dirty store until the dirt meter is nearly full. Personally, I just clean everything at the start or the end of the day because the meter is, at most, half full by then.

Loans are totally unnecessary and ultimately a long-term problem. To be honest, I play most games without loans because ADULTING SUCKS in general, and usually it's just not worth it for that really short term gain. It's almost like you end up paying outrageous amounts of money in interest or something!

You can sell any furniture you don't want for 50% of its sale price. Just pack it up with "C" and sell with "F"!

Hold "LShift" to sprint! Also, you don't seem to have any sprint limit. You'd think with that kind of superpower you'd be doing something else with your life, but idk man I guess you always dreamed of SUPERMARKETING

A full day from opening to close lasts about 7 minutes. Each hour is about 32 seconds. Don't ask me why; I timed it OK?

I'm sANe I sWeAr HaAHAhaHAHAhaHahhaa

I hope you enjoyed this guide! Here's my Obligatory Thank You Section (TM) to show my appreciation. So uh...........



thanks.

ok you can leave now.








Why haven't you left yet? JUST ♥♥♥♥ O-