Guide to the Business Division

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Civil Worker's Union - Business Division

1. What the business division does.
2. How to get into the business division.
3. How the tiers may differ in the Business division.
4. The product list and prices.


1. What the business division does.
The business division is a section of the CWU that concentrates on the business aspect of the city. They look to making profits, and hopefully leading that to making the Union a better place. They sell any products available to sell that are UU branded and attempt to make a profit out of it.
Soon I will implement a system that involves dividends (Profits shared between the business division each week) and profit schemes.
If anyone is studying business studies at school or college, please bring your skills with you. We are trying to make this as close to a business as we can. More will be added.

2. How to get into the business division.
The way this works is you must prove yourself to the Business Commander or to the Organiser/Co-Organiser. This will mean that you will have to show that your interested in selling products to the public and that you have the ability to make a nice profit. The more profit you make, the higher your dividend will be. Showing us that you can do what it takes to make your own business, or with a colleague, will get you into the business division and into Tier 2.
Obviously it may take some time as we won't just promote you for selling a few odd products. We also won't just be noticing your ability to sell, we will be noticing your ability to RP what you sell.
For example, just buying shipments and selling them shows us you can sell, but you must include RP with it. So instead of making shipments appear, call into your radio for an imaginary colleague to drop off a few shipments to your shop. This will make it realistic as shipments don't appear of out thin air. Another way you can roleplay is to cook the food you sell, rather than just buy it and sell it. Use /me to cook your products such as boiling water in a kettle and pouring into a mug. This also allows you to choose whether you sell some food hot or cold like Noodles. So RP is very important in trying to impress the Organisers and Commanders.

3. How the Tiers may differ in the Business Division.
In the Tier system we currently run, we have Tier 2 and Tier 1. Which you will have to be in to be in the Business Division, however I may include some other Tiers with the Organisers permission. But for now we only have Tier 2 and 1. Tier 2 will be the shop clerks who mostly sell the products to the public. They may buy the stock and cook it, hence selling it. They will also be there to pass knowledge onto Tier 3's.
Tier 1 is a bigger step, you must record what products you buy in your shop, and keep a note of the total cost of your products. I will make a thread soon to include that. This means paperwork needs to be handed into the CWU on the Business Commanders desk. (It's on the first floor where the balcony window is.)
Soon I may include things like Supervisors or something for each Tier if our numbers grow enough.

4. The Product List and Prices.
This is a list of the goods you can sell, all being UU branded. The prices are included as a guideline, as it is the best choice between getting a good enough profit without losing customers due to high prices. Each price is the price for one of them. Not a shipment.
General Goods:

• Backpacks - 30 tokens
• Bags - 15 tokens
• Flashlights - 18 tokens
• Request Devices - Free
• Paper - 3 tokens
• Suitcases - 15 tokens

UU Branded Food:

• Stew - 15 tokens
• Doughnuts - 15 tokens
• Tea - 13 tokens
• Melons - 12 tokens
• Smooth Breen's Water - 12 tokens
• Milk Jugs - 11 tokens
• Chinese Takeouts - 10 tokens
• Lemonade - 10 tokens
• Milk Carton - 8 tokens
• Breen's Water - 7 tokens
• Gum - 7 tokens
• Bananas - 7 tokens
• Oranges - 5 tokens
• Potatoes - 5 tokens

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Different Promotion Tactics

One very important aspect of selling to your customers in all businesses is promotion.
Promotion is the advertising of your product or business to the public to bring them in and purchase your goods.
Another way to look at promotion is the deals you offer to customers to get them to buy your products.

• Advertising Strategies
• Using Pricing to Your Advantage
• Returning Customers

1. Advertising Strategies
There are several ways you can advertise your store to the public, some obvious, some not so obvious. Regardless of the way you advertise your business, you must ensure that you bring the customers in. Even if they don't buy anything, the awareness of your store is imperative to having customers in the future. Having an attractive store may being people in to see the furniture, at least they understand that your store is there. This may lead to them informing others that your store is open, bringing in more customers.

Advertising is the communication of information about your store to the general public.

Communication, is the key word in that definition. Communication is the key to unlocking increased sales. Communicating to the general population leads to knowledge of your products and therefore leads to the public knowing your store. There are several types of communication available, verbal and written are the best and only ones on the server available so we will have to go with that.

• Verbal

- Verbal information is the communication of sound between individuals. This means word of mouth.
- Word of mouth is arguably one of the best forms of advertisement, simply because you cannot control it. A citizen purchases a good from your store or sees an advert, he talks to another citizen about it, they tell another and so on.
- A good way of getting this moving is to pay a citizen to talk to other citizens about your store. This will get the wheels of information going and awareness of your store will increase quickly.
- Another way of verbally advertising your business is to talk to others about what you sell yourself, this is the most reliable as you know you've sent the information around, and it's free.

• Written

- Written information is the communication of words between individuals by means of physical words.
- Written is a less reliable use of advertisement as it does not spread as quickly as word of mouth. However, seeing players recently tells me one thing about their intentions with items they see. If they see paper on a wall, they'll quickly read it out of curiousness. So paper is a good way of getting information about your store out to the customers quickly if an advert or two are in the street.
- If using paper, strategic locations are very helpful in getting your information out. These points are near the spawn exit, Ration Distribution, and Housing buildings. These are the most common places you'll find people, so placing adverts around these areas will ensure that information about your store will reach the eyes of the curious.
- Paper is probably one of the only written ways you can advertise your business, so be sure to stock up on paper and spread them around. If you don't have a physics gun, place it on a table in one of the strategic locations or ask an admin to nail it to a post or wall near.


Using Pricing to Your Advantage
The clear intention for any sale is to make a profit, that much is clear. However, there are ways you can use pricing as a promotional way of advertising. For example:

- Tea is sold for the same price it is bought for, making it cheap.
- Citizen comes into the store for the deal and looks at the list of products.
- Citizen buys a Doughnut with the Tea after seeing the list.
- The profit gained from the Doughnut covers and increases the lost profit from the Tea.

This example shows you that a citizen came to the store for the good deal, but he also saw other things he may of wanted, that he never necessarily came into the store to buy. This is a common business strategy in real-life supermarkets. You go in to get a deal, but see something else you want that isn't included in the deal but you buy it anyway.

Another way of using pricing to your advantage is when selling a product at the same price as its cost. This is to get awareness of your store increased. You then increase your price later on once you have more citizens coming into your store to buy your products. This is known as skimming pricing, you skim the cost of the product when selling, then increase it when your reputation and sales increase. This MAY decrease the sales of that product, as it is a risky strategy and is not always 100% effective. Not to mention it may take some time to gather the increased sales from selling the product at the same price as its cost meaning lost profit from that time. So don't always use this strategy. When looking to the pricing list above, don't worry if you don't follow it. It's only a guideline, so change the prices around to use pricing to your advantage.

Returning Customers
When selling your products, the majority of your profits/sales does not come from new consumers. It comes from repeat customers who have been to the store before and have come back to buy again. This is imperative to keep at a high rate as it results in increased profits. There are several ways to get customers to return:

• Make them feel wanted in the store, help them in anyway possible.
• Include deals in their purchases so they return and buy the same things.
• Don't rush their transaction to get to other customers

This and more will help to keep your customers returning to your store to buy your products. Usually this only works as food rather than general goods. This is because general goods are usually only needed to be bought once such as flashlights or bags/backpacks. Food is the major product that people return for. Be sure to make the roleplaying experience for both you and the customer a good one. They'll return to a store that included more RP than a store where you just bought and left.

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Civil Relations Centre

The CWU now have a Civil Relations Centre in which they answer questions that the public may have. Now the Business division owns it, we are in charge of making sure that it's always operational.

This isn't much to talk about, it's just a stand that answers the Citizens questions and hands out free request devices. This is to help the union with crime and questioning citizens. Any questions, PM me or the Organiser/Co-Organiser.

[Monkey with a gun]

As amazing as this thread is, I will be unsticking this thread due to no longer being relevant after the Civil Workers Union Overhaul. In the future the thread may be re-written and adjusted accordingly for the Overhaul changes.