How to Make Money

The display case is your marketing

The display case does two jobs: it attracts buyers for what’s inside, and signs placed in it turn random walk-ins into specific sellers. Everything in this section comes from Display case and You by The Exceptional Fisherman. The guide is community-measured, written during the demo and updated on launch day Community.

Buyers: tags and tiers

• Buyers from the display case are always the first customers of the day.
• You get 1 display buyer at base. A buyer referral, the first case upgrade and the second case upgrade add 1 each, for a maximum of 4.
• If store attractiveness drops below 100, the case generates no buyers at all.
• The buyer type follows the item’s tag, and the tier follows the combined value of everything with that tag in the case:

If you have more tags than buyer slots, the tag with the highest combined value wins. Water has its own label-based tiers: gutterflow up to basewater draws tier 1, high-quality draws tier 2 and pure draws tier 3. Whichever scale reaches the higher tier applies.

Example tier-3 buyers include the upper-level servant (Household), upper-level private chef (Food) and upper-level hedonist (Substance). They are the highest-budget clients Community.

Sellers: signs, permits and boards

Signs don’t add customers. They replace random customers, and only up to the number of random customers you’re expected to get that day:

• +1 random customer at 200 store attractiveness, +2 at 250, and more at higher attractiveness.
• +1 with at least 20 Lower Levels reputation. −1 below that.
• −1 if you went out the previous night. 4 random customers max.

Signs roll in priority order. The order shows in-game in the clientele panel. Example odds from the guide:

Haggling and reputation

• Bargaining changes customer budgets Official.
• Buy-side and sell-side bargains affect reputation separately. The bargain panel shows a reputation multiplier for each direction Official.
• 诺布诺布 measured reputation losses at 2× Normal on the hardest difficulty. The guide suggests skipping hard bargaining on small deals and protecting long-term buyer and supplier relationships Community.
• The bulk-buying Merchant is an outlet for stock you can’t move. He takes a 25% cut on the hardest difficulty and less on easier ones Community. Since 1.0.0.1 he states his real discount for your difficulty, where before he always claimed 15% Official.

Sell into market events

Station events shift prices for a few days. These are measured values from Events and You Community:

Keep a buffer of the goods that spike (water, energy cells, medical) so you have stock to sell when an event hits.

Money while the shop is closed

• Vending machines, new in 1.0, keep selling overnight after you close Official.
• Production machines work overnight. See machines & automation.
• Scratch tickets. Winning tickets can be cashed in immediately Official. Hitting the jackpot unlocks Jackpot, which 6.2% of players had a day after launch Steam data.

The grey zone

The store page lists the tempting options: cut quality, relabel counterfeits as genuine, or fence stolen goods “if you believe Security won’t reach you” Official. Each has a cost:

• Relabelling gets noticed eventually. One player reports getting called out after selling about 100 L of mislabelled water Community.
• Contraband risks raids and confiscation. Read security, smuggling & augs.
• Winning without ever selling stolen goods or contraband unlocks Clean Hands, which only 0.7% of players had a day after launch Steam data.