COO and pricing

[tromozil]

Hello,

After a long break from Cap Lab, I've started a new game with the latest version and no DLCs, but I struggle with the pricing management.

Short summary of my game:

I started building apartment blocks with 6 retail shops (electronics, department store, supermarket, leather, toys and cosmetics) and few commercial buildings. All retail shops initially sell best available quality seaport products and include 2 X (1xPU+1xPL+2xSU) + AU. I am using corporate branding.

After spreading to all cities and repaying my loans, I invest heavily in research for 1-2 years for cosmetic products (my specialty) - reaching 80-120 technology.

Then I build 1 x large factory for each of the 4 cosmetic products, 1 x factory for the sub-products and 2 x warehouses to simplify logistics in the future. All factories set to Internal Sale.

At that point I change the layout of my cosmetic shops to 4 X (PU+SU) + AU and link all PUs with my warehouses.

I hire a COO with highest expertise in Retail and set price policy to Maximize Market Share. COO controls all firms. COO is not allowed to change products, training budget and R&D projects, but he is allowed to look for better supplies and change advertising budget.

I don't do any change in individual prices, but when I look into product details, my products have a minimal market share, because.... the warehouse inflates prices to insane levels - like 10X!!

This way my overall rating for the products is among the lowest for each product. Besides that my brand rating is 0 and the COO disconnects my AUs from the SUs and sets their budget to 0.
How is the automatic management with COO supposed to work? Any tips will be appreciated, because manual price adjustment for each product seems like too much micro-managment. How do you deal with pricing?

Cheers!

[rafaeltodero]

Hello Friend,

I have this same problem, I did several tests. When I hire a COO it disconnects the advertising lines from the products. Usually he leaves only one or the other product with advertising.

In your case, if you hired a COO you have to put him as a manager in your store. See if he's already as a manager.

I auditioned these days with the COO. I defined the price policy to maximize market share and he got a good share, but then he lost Market Share, but in this case I forgot to do R&D of the products. There it became more and more difficult to compete.

[tromozil]

Hello Rafael,

The COO manages all stores. Regarding the disconnecting of AU - do you have a one brand strategy, like me?
Regarding inflated prices - anyone can help with that? What is included in the calculation of product prices - advertising expenses as well?

[rafaeltodero]

yes, each product has its own brand.