Big Customer Update
Hey shopkeepers! This time we rebuilt the customer system from the ground up. Before, the more goods you put out, the more you sold, and nearly all your income came from potions. Now it matters who walks into your shop, when they walk in, and what you do with them.
In short
- The day has a rhythm now: the noon crowd and closing bell are busy, the hours between are quiet
- Every customer has their own purse, mood and patience
- You can haggle with a customer who hesitates
- You can sell straight from your bag to anyone out on the street
- A single customer can buy more than one thing per visit
- Customers now carry what they've bought in their hands
- You can see what customers came looking for but didn't find
- Your reputation decides how many customers you get, not your shelf count
- Decoration finally does something: it decides who walks in
- Expensive goods can genuinely be sold for the first time
- Killing an innocent now carries a lasting cost
- New skill: Bulk Selling
The rhythm of the day
Customer flow used to be a flat trickle. There was no difference between nine in the morning and seven in the evening, and you spent the whole day waiting for someone to wander in.
Now there are two peaks: the noon crowd and the closing bell. There's a dead hour between them. The quietest moment of the morning and the evening peak are about three times apart, and you're told when the traffic shifts.
That turns the quiet hours into something other than empty time: they're set aside for market runs and building work. The busy hours are when you need to be behind your counter. Total daily traffic stayed almost the same, it just spread out.
The customer as a person
Every customer arrives with their own purse, mood and patience. Some are generous, some are tight-fisted. A customer used to be a figure that rolled a die and either bought or didn't. Now there's someone standing in front of you.
Hesitant customers and haggling
A customer who found your price too high used to walk out in silence. Since they took the goods off the table and paid on their own, your standing there changed nothing.
Now, on most lost sales, the customer hesitates for a while. You can walk over and haggle. They might accept, make a counter-offer, refuse, tell you they can't afford it, or simply walk off. Every offer costs them patience and goodwill, and once their patience runs out, they leave.
Here's what matters: customers who can't afford your price now hesitate too. They used to leave without you ever noticing, even though they're the most natural people to haggle with. They want the item, they just can't pay that much for it.
Haggling can't earn you more than the counter would; the price you settle on can never exceed your own tag. So haggling rescues a lost sale, it doesn't create new profit. You're not allowed to sell at a loss either.
Selling on the street
An entirely new channel. You can walk up to anyone wandering through Katra, or to a customer eyeing your window, and sell them something. You pick the item and you name the price.
Someone who strikes a deal won't talk to you again for 4 minutes; someone who doesn't, for 90 seconds. These sales don't affect your shop's reputation — what you do on the street stays on the street.
Approach someone who has already finished their shopping and they'll tell you they've got what they came for.
More than one purchase per visit
A customer no longer has to buy one thing and leave. Once a sale goes through, their purse shrinks and they head for another shelf with what's left. The same customer can buy both a sword and a potion, and those can come from completely unrelated shelves. Up to three stops per visit.
The chain ends with a customer who leaves empty-handed: someone who found your prices steep or couldn't afford them isn't walked around the shop for nothing.
If a shelf runs empty, the customer looks at another table first, and only says there's nothing left for them once there's genuinely nothing suitable. They used to walk straight out even when the same item was sitting on another table.
Stock is also locked when the customer reaches the shelf now, not when they come through the door. It used to be reserved while they were still on their way, and that carried two invisible costs: traffic dropped even with full shelves, and sometimes ghost stock sat there that nobody could buy.
Customers are looking for something
Some customers arrive wanting an item you don't have on display, and when they can't find it, they let you know what it was. An "Asked For, Out of Stock" section has also been added to the end-of-day summary, listing the three most requested items along with how many customers asked for each.
This system doesn't change your income or your traffic. All it gives you is information — but important information: tomorrow's market run is now based on a list instead of a guess.
Only items you've unlocked and that fit in the customer's purse make the list. A request you couldn't have filled isn't information, it's an annoyance.
Reputation
Your reputation now decides how many customers come through your door. Table count doesn't drive traffic: setting out 15 shelves doesn't bring a bigger crowd than 3 — your name getting around does.
What raises it: customers who leave satisfied, selling cheap (a modest boost), keeping variety on display (distinct items, not quantity; a small contribution).
What lowers it: a customer who walks out over your prices, a dirty shop, killing innocents.
Daily gains are capped, so it doesn't spike overnight. It's a curve that grows with patience. The ceiling starts at 60 and rises with your speech skills.
Decoration and purses
Decoration decides how wealthy the customers walking into your shop will be. A well-furnished shop appeals to people with money. As wealthier customers become more common, expensive goods start moving and bulk purchases get larger.
So decoration doesn't increase your customer count; it changes who shows up and how much they can leave behind. It's a lever on your margin, not your volume.
Every decoration item has a point value and a count limit; setting out the same item forty times won't inflate your score — variety is what's rewarded. You can see how many points each item gives and whether you've hit its limit in build mode.
Expensive goods can finally be sold
We're writing this up as a fix rather than a feature. Customers always went for potions because they were cheap; expensive goods sat on display and nobody bought them. Decoration, meanwhile, contributed nothing at all — it was just scenery. More than half the items in the game were quietly dead content.
Decoration now sets the ceiling on customer purses, which makes it the answer to that problem. The early game was left exactly as it was; the gains are stacked entirely in the late game, so nothing got cheaper or easier in a shop that hasn't invested.
The chance of an item selling, by your decoration score:
Decoration230g503g650g1287g
0%0%0%0%0%
50%20%11%6%0%
100%97%59%38%27%
Your shop card shows the most expensive item you can sell, and you get a warning if something on display is above that limit. For the first time, you can see why it isn't selling.
If you're thinking "customers come in but they don't buy anything," you either need to invest in decoration or put out cheaper goods. One small tip: that customer hesitates now, which means haggling can still save the sale.
None of it is hidden
We've added an explanation for reputation, decoration, average customer purse and the most expensive sellable item. You can read what affects what, and exactly what happened yesterday — how many satisfied customers, how many disgruntled ones, dirt, innocents.
Crime and punishment
Killing an innocent now costs you reputation. The fine alone wasn't a deterrent; for a wealthy shopkeeper it was just another expense. Losing reputation takes days to make up. Two innocents can wipe out an entire good day. News travels fast in Katra.
Thieves
When a thief takes something of yours, a marker now appears above them, so you won't lose track of which one they are in a crowd. The marker goes out the moment you deal with them.
Skills
- Bulk Selling (new, 4 points) · While locked, you can only sell one unit per haggle. Once unlocked, you can sell several units in a single haggle.
- Flying Broom · cost raised from 2 points to 4.
Price balance
The Merchant Guild has adjusted earnings. The prices you set yourself are still intact in existing saves, so we'd suggest taking a look at your tags when you open up shop. The Guild may make further adjustments in the days ahead as things develop.
For new shopkeepers
Your grandfather's welcome letter now mentions the busy and quiet hours, and that you can haggle with a customer who hesitates over a price.
Still in progress
There's still room to improve in these systems — they aren't finished. Even so, we've opened the new system up to everyone; it'll settle in over time as more changes land.
Existing saves
Unaffected. Your reputation is calculated and granted based on your past sales.