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Discounty is acozymanagementsimwhere you’re tasked as the sole operator of a fledgling grocery store in a small town. You’re covering every aspect from cashing, stocking, cleaning, ordering, and laying out the store to operate most efficiently.
With this in mind and since you’re mostly on your own to make things happen, it becomes obvious extremely early on that anything you may do to make your life easier is worth it. A big thing to focus on in this regard is the layout of the shelves, coolers, and products within your four walls.
But what’s the best way to set everything up to maximize sales, keep customers happy, and make your life more manageable? I’m so glad you asked, Mr. Manager.
Below, we’ll talk about the best way to set up shop for each and every iteration of the store you’ll own throughout the duration of Discounty. Things start off small, but with each new expansion to the store comes new real estate to get the most bang for your buck.
Your First Layout
Right off the bat, your first iteration of Discounty’s interior is going to be pretty small. You’ll also be limited to shelving and coolers that only hold a max of five of each item.
I’m someone that likes to set up my shop before the day, then have enough product on the floor that I don’t need to worry about restocking or running out of any items. For me, this meant having three shelves/coolers for each item in the shop if at all possible.
You’ll have to spend some extra money early on to get the additional storage space, but the peace of mind is worth it. Use up as much of the walls as possible, making sure not to trap any product in a corner that no one can actually reach.
Don’t ignore the space in the middle of the floor, either. You can arrange your shelving units to create paths through the store that still flow nicely and also give customers multiple angles to grab product from.
During this stage of the game, you should also be grabbing item boosters from the hardware store if possible. Yes, they’re pricey in the early game and they take up precious little space you can afford to spare in the shop, but they’ll come in handy. At least get the seafood booster and place your fish cooler nearby since fresh fish will net you the highest profit margins early on.
Expansion #1 Layout
In chapter two, after paying a sum of 8,000 shills to the bank, you’re able to expand. This couldn’t come at a better time, as I’m sure you’ve been extremely limited on necessary storage and shelving space for a while now.
At this point in the game, you’ll still mostly be limited to shelves and coolers that only hold five of each item. Once again, I tried to group everything in batches of threes to make sure I had enough stock on the floor to make it through the day.
Certain items will always be slower sellers, so things like oats, plastic straws, and chocolate bars can be relegated to just two shelves each to free up some more room.
You should have a couple of item boosters at this point. These boost all relevant items in a square grid around the booster itself. You should be able to wedge three or so boosters within the shop at this point with the appropriate product surrounding them in a full or partial square.
In this chapter, I opted for two seafood boosters and one animal product booster since, once again, these are your most expensive items on average.
Expansion #2 Layout
Chapter 3 is a riot… literally. But in the midst of an uprising in Blomkest, you’re also afforded some more precious space within Discounty. This is the largest shop you’ll have, so it’s time toreallymaximize your space.
Still, that won’t happen for a little bit until you’re able to fully upgrade all your shelving and coolers. The biggest thing to note here are the four coolers you now have on the left side of the store, which can each hold twenty total cold items. Keep in mind that you may’t mix things like ground beef and ready-to-eat food, since that’s a cross-contamination hazard.
I started with two coolers of ground beef, one for skim milk, and one for fries. As you get more cooler items unlocked, feel free to mix and match as best makes sense.
For me, I was still only able to utilize three item boosters effectively at this point due to my desire to have three shelves for each item on average. This still works great, so feel free to follow the same design here.
The most important thingduring this stage of the game is to begin to fully upgrade all your coolers and shelves. Check the hardware store daily for upgrades. The “bottomless” shelf holds twenty of any dry item, and the deep cooler holds ten of each cold item. Once you’ve swapped all your storage for these options, move on to the next phase.
Final Layout
Now we’re in business. This is, in my opinion, the optimal way to setup a fully expanded Discounty (minus a couple of item boosters I was still somehow missing at this point). With bottomless shelves for every single dry item, I now only had to dedicate one single shelf per item instead of two or three.
This obviously ismassivefor getting you more space within the store. The name of the game here is getting each type of item booster, then arranging one bottomless shelf for each item around the corresponding booster. You’ll finally have the space.
For the cold items, I still opted for two coolers per product since the deep coolers max out at ten items per unit. I always try to keep twenty of each product on the floor at all times, so that equals two deep coolers per item.
I didn’t have the shop setup like this in the picture above, but your items just inside the front door are most likely to be the impulse purchases that your customers make. As such, greeting your guests with a boosted selection of fish or animal products right when they walk in the door is the way to go.
The Storeroom
That takes care of the front of the house for the duration of the game, but any good shopkeep knows that the back of house is equally as important to a thriving business.
On average, I kept two or so crates of each product in storage for whenever I needed to restock. This fluctuated a bit of course, but two of each was about average.
To maximize space, make sure you’re combining boxes as able and clearing out the empties as frequently as possible. This is doubly important when Chester starts working for you, since he won’t always pull from the box that makes the most sense. Bless his heart.
Lastly, for route and stocking optimization, you should focus on arranging the storeroom to mirror where your products are on the retail floor as closely as possible.
For example, from left to right, my store was set up as such:
You don’t have to follow this same order, but having a method to your madness is key. It’ll take some extra work to organize so neatly, but it will save you time (and possibly money) in the long run.
Once the front of house is set, arrange your storeroom in the same manner. This speeds up stocking for both you and Chester, which is huge during a rush of customers.
