Why My Shop Felt Better Than The Market
- Rahmah Devi Aninda
- Apr 8
- 3 min read
At one point in Tycoon Online, I started feeling like my own shop was doing more for me than the market ever did.
At first, I thought it might just be my imagination. The market was easy. I could move goods there directly from my warehouse and sell them at the current market price. But once I started paying attention to how shops work, I realised there was a real reason my shop felt stronger:
Shop prices are set at 150% of the market price.
My first assumption was wrong
At first, I treated the market as the most obvious place to sell everything.
That made sense at first. The Wiki says that when you sell goods on the market, the market price decides how much money you receive. You can move goods from your warehouse to the market and sell them there like everyone else.
But over time, that approach started to feel limited. The market price can change, and when you sell there, your goods are queued together with goods of the same type sold by other players. That means the market is useful, but it also feels less like your own controlled sales channel.
The moment it clicked
The big realisation came when I checked the Wiki and saw the exact rule:
Shop merchandise is sold for 150% of the market price.
The prices page gives a simple example: if one newspaper is worth 50 iKr on the market, a shop will sell it for 75 iKr.
That instantly explained why my shop felt better.
It was not just a feeling. It was built into the game system. Selling through my own shop meant the same product could fetch a higher price from customers than selling it directly on the market.
A simple example
Let’s say a product has a market price of 40 iKr.
If I sell it on the market, I receive 40 iKr because the market price decides how much money I get. If I sell that same product through my own shop, the shop price is 60 iKr, since shop prices are 150% of the market price.
That was my beginner “aha” moment.
Same product, but two very different selling experiences. The market helped me sell goods. My own shop helped me sell them at a stronger price.
Why the shop felt more rewarding
What made this even more interesting is that shops are not only about the higher price.
The Wiki also says that every unit sold in a shop adds 1 iKr to the company's value, and 10% of what you make in shops is set aside and paid as a dividend to shareholders every Sunday. So shop sales can feel more rewarding because they connect to more than just immediate revenue.
That made my company feel more complete. Instead of just producing goods and pushing them out to the market, I felt like I was building a full chain that kept more value inside my own business. This is an interpretation based on the shop pricing, company value, and dividend rules in the Wiki.
But shops are not magic
At the same time, the Wiki does not suggest that shops are effortless money.
Shops need merchandise, and they automatically collect the goods they need from your warehouse. That means your shop still depends on supply. If you cannot keep products flowing, the shop will not feel powerful for long.
So the real lesson for me was not “shops are always easy.”
It was: shops can feel better than the market because they give you a better selling price, but only if you can keep them stocked.
My beginner takeaway
My shop felt better than the market because, according to the Wiki, it really does sell merchandise at a stronger price.
The market still matters. It is useful, flexible, and important. But once I understood that shop prices were 150% of market prices, I stopped seeing a shop as just another building. I started seeing it as one of the first places where my company could capture more value from the goods I was already making.
And for a beginner, that is a pretty great realisation.
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