*** Rules In this game, you play as the manager of a manufacturing company and sell products to clients to increase profits and grow your company. There are three major retailers in Japan, one domestic wholesaler that brokers products to small and medium-sized retailers, and one overseas trading company that exports products overseas. The player's company does not have the means to sell products directly to consumers, so it must create an environment in which its products can be sold to consumers through one of these clients. In order to sell products at a high price, research and development is necessary to improve the quality of the products. If you can improve the quality through research, you will be able to sell your products even if you raise the list price. However, since competitors are also conducting research and development, if research is delayed, you will gradually have to lower the price of your products or they will not sell. You will also need to manage the production of your products. The more materials you procure at once, the cheaper the price will be, but if you buy too many materials, you will incur a loss. You will also need to make sure that your workers work appropriate hours. You will not be able to attract workers unless you pay them a salary that is commensurate with their working hours. *Because game balance is prioritized, there are some aspects that differ from actual trading, but please enjoy it as a game. *** How to play the game After setting the [Products], [Research], and [Trade] panels, click the progress button [>>] in the upper left to advance the time by one day. *** Winning or losing the game There is no specific goal to clear in this game. Set your own goals to increase your profits, conduct research and development, and find your own management style. However, if your cash becomes negative, the game is over. Even if your business is going well, you should be careful because buying excess inventory can cause you to go bankrupt all at once. *** Production of goods In order to increase sales, you must first produce goods. To produce goods, you need to purchase raw materials and hire workers. To produce one product, you need one raw material. There are three ways to procure raw materials: Purchase domestically Purchase in 1 unit per day Import from overseas Purchase in 1000 units per 10 days Produce in-house Purchase in 100000 units per 30 days The larger the unit, the lower the price per item, but the larger the amount you pay at once. Please note that if you procure materials in excess of the company's funds, you will go bankrupt and the game will be over. You also need workers to produce goods. The amount of goods a worker can produce in a day is Daily productivity = number of workers x working hours x 0.1 . The longer the working hours, the higher the productivity, but the longer the working hours, the higher the premium, so profitability may decrease. To hire workers, the company must first prepare an environment to accept workers. This costs 16 per person. Workers will gather within the range of the number of available workers you have prepared. The higher the wages for working hours, the more workers you will gather. Salary base value = 8 + working hours 5 For example, if the working hours are 8 hours, 8 + (85) = 9.6 is the base value. If the wage is lower than this, it will be difficult to gather workers, and if it is higher, workers will be easier to gather. *** Business partners There are five types of business partners: Retailer A, Retailer B, Retailer C These are retailers that deal directly with the player's company. Since there are no middlemen, both the player and the retailer can earn high profits, but the amount that can be sold is smaller than that of wholesalers and overseas businesses. The size of the store is also A>B>C. (Depending on the initial settings, it may be reversed.) The larger the store, the more likely it is to sell to consumers at a lower price, so there will be a slight difference in the break-even point. Wholesale price (%): Retailer A 85-90% Retailer B 88-93% Retailer C 90-95% Selling expenses 5 Domestic wholesaler A company that intermediates products to domestic retailers. Many small and medium-sized retailers purchase products through wholesalers, so they have a high market share. In addition, wholesalers sell products to retailers with a middleman's margin, so if they do not sell at a lower price than the price they sell to retailers, they will not make enough profit and will not buy the products. Wholesale price (%): Domestic wholesaler 80-85% Selling expenses 3 Exporter (overseas) A company that exports products overseas. Exporters first sell products to importers in the exporting country. The importers then sell the products to wholesalers or retailers in their own country. Therefore, the number of vendors through which goods reach retailers and consumers increases, and goods will not sell unless they are sold at a price significantly lower than in Japan. However, there are about 10 times as many consumers overseas as in Japan, so if you can dominate the overseas market, you can expect huge profits. Wholesale price (%): Exporters (overseas) 70-75% *Tariffs are not taken into account because they are levied on importers. Selling expenses 3 Each vendor has a wholesale price. This indicates what percentage of the list price the vendor will sell to the next vendor or consumer. There is a random range of 0-5% each day. Business partner profit Wholesale price (%) - Player's selling price (%) If the player's selling price exceeds the wholesale price, the vendor's profit will be negative (in the red), and the vendor will not purchase the goods. In addition, sales expenses are set on a monetary basis for each vendor. In reality, the break-even point for the supplier is whether the value obtained by subtracting sales expenses from the supplier's profit is positive or negative, and if it is negative, the supplier will not purchase the product. Suppliers also evaluate profits on a monetary basis, not a percentage basis. Suppliers have limited sales capacity, and they place importance on the actual profit they can make per product sold. For example, suppose a player sells a product to a wholesaler at 65% and the wholesaler sells it at 85%. In this case, if the product's list price is 50, (50 x 0.85) - (50 x 0.65) = 10 10 - Sales Expenses 3 = 7 If the product's list price is 100 under the same terms of trade, (100 x 0.85) - (100 x 0.65) = 20 20 - Sales Expenses 3 = 17 The result is as follows. In other words, the higher the list price, the greater the profit from selling product 1, and the higher the profit of the business partner, the more the business partner will purchase. However, this criterion is the opposite of the consumer's criterion; the lower the list price of the product, the more the consumer will purchase, so how you set the price is an important key to winning the game. You can set a sales price (%) and a daily sales limit for business partners. Even if the business partner has room to purchase, they will not sell more than the sales limit. *** Consumers Consumers are broadly divided into three types. Consumers in large cities Consumers in rural and small cities Overseas consumers The number of consumers increases in proportion to the population of the city. The standard value for how much a consumer will purchase in a day is calculated as follows: Consumption standard value = city population x 0.01 . The consumption standard value for a city with a population of 1,000 is 10 per day, but since there is competition with other competing manufacturers, the actual number sold is often less than this. However, if the quality of the product is high compared to the list price or if the sales ability of the business partner is high, this number may be exceeded. Consumers have three criteria for deciding whether to purchase a product. Practicality Storage capacity (compact, easy to organize, etc.) Appearance, appearance Consumers look for quality in products that fit their criteria. Consumers who belong to the practicality category judge the appropriate price for purchasing a product based on the practicality of the product, while consumers who belong to the storage capacity and appearance category use the quality of each element as their purchasing criteria. Fair price = (quality of the player's product / average quality of competitors) * 100 For example, if the consumer attribute is utility, the player's utility quality is 50, and the competitor's utility quality is 100, Fair price = (50 / 100) * 100 = 50 . Consumers use this fair price as a standard, and if the price is low, they will buy more products, and if the price is high, they will buy less. Therefore, in order to sell products at a higher price, the quality of the product needs to be higher, but to do so, they need to invest in research and development. *** Research and Development Players can invest in research and development to improve the quality of their products by setting a research budget per day. For research, they can choose utility, capacity, or appearance. The quality of the product will increase little by little each day depending on the amount invested. As the quality increases, the fair price of the product will increase, and the product's sales will be maintained even if the list price is increased. However, rival manufacturers also conduct research and development, and the actual fair price is determined by the relative quality compared to rival manufacturers. Fair price = (quality of the player's product / average quality of rival manufacturers) * 100 Initially, the quality of the player's company is significantly lower than the industry average, but by allocating the appropriate research budget, the quality can be improved at a faster rate than rival manufacturers. The maximum price that can be set is 200. *** Asset valuation Asset valuation is the value of the company's assets, such as cash, goods, and raw materials, converted into cash. It does not directly affect the progress of the game. Cash: The money held by the company Goods: The number of goods in stock multiplied by the selling price Materials: The material price multiplied by the quantity, with the material price set at 10 Patents: Patents for the company's products. Does not change. Real estate: Land assets such as factories owned by the company. Does not change.