Service Industry DLC — Tips and FAQ

The Service Industry DLC adds the parts of a consumer economy the base game left out: shopping malls, food and drink service firms, import and export companies, logistics, and retail space built into the buildings you already own. This page collects the limits, the numbers and the questions that come up most often, with each answer linking to the page that covers it in full.

In this guide:

• Limits at a glance
• Shopping malls
• Service firms
• Import companies
• Export companies
• Logistics
• Retail space in your buildings
• Knowledge Points and startup mode
• FAQ

Limits at a glance

Most of this DLC’s design comes down to hard caps, and knowing them changes what you build first.

Shopping malls

A mall’s rating is the sum of what is inside it

Customer traffic in a mall — which every store in it shares — is driven by four things: the area’s customer traffic index where the mall stands, the boost from service firms such as restaurants, the range of products and services across all the stores, and their average product and service rating. A mall of five near-identical shops underperforms a mall with a spread of categories, because two of those four factors reward variety directly. See Shopping Malls.

Build one good mall, then copy it

Once a mall is filled with stores that suit your supply chains, the whole thing — mall and every store in it — can be replicated with a single firm-duplication action. That makes the first mall a template worth getting right, and every one after it nearly free to plan. Four mall buildings are available, differing in rental capacity, construction cost and running cost.

Moving existing stores in is easy, and reversible

Open a store’s relocation menu from the icon at the top right of its detail window and choose Relocate to Mall — or Duplicate to Mall to leave the original where it is. Pick a mall in the same city, click [Set Up a Store], and choose [Existing Firm]. The same menu moves a firm back out to a city location or across to another mall. On the firm list, anything inside a mall is labelled “In Mall”.

Renting in someone else’s mall is low-risk

You can close or relocate your stores in another company’s mall without penalty, and leases renew automatically unless the landlord decides otherwise. The thing to watch is the rent: the game alerts you when a renewal comes in more than 10% above the market average, and that threshold is adjustable in the Options menu — or can be switched off entirely if you would rather not be told.

Service firms

A factory and a shop in one building

A service firm’s 3×3 layout will look familiar, with one important difference: Input units buy ingredients, a Prepare unit turns them into the product, and the Prepare unit feeds a Sales unit directly. There is no distribution chain, and you cannot sell service products to other companies — everything prepared in the firm is sold in the firm. Four types exist, each with three products: Fast Food Joint (hamburgers, French fries, fried chicken), Pizzeria (beef, chicken and parma pizza), Cake Shop (chocolate cake, lemon tart, strawberry cake) and Coffee Shop (caffe americano, cappuccino, latte). See Service Firms and New Products From Service Firms.

Prepare units trade speed for cost

A Prepare unit produces at half the speed of a Manufacturing unit, and costs half as much to set up and run. Service firms are therefore small-scale by design — the way to grow is more outlets, not bigger ones.

The brand belongs to the firm, not the product

This is the biggest strategic difference from retail. A service firm has a single brand rating shared by everything it sells — you recognise the restaurant, not the individual pizza. Advertise once and every firm of that type you own benefits, along with all their products. Brand Awareness comes from advertising, Brand Loyalty from consistently good products, and the two together make the Overall Brand Rating. One advertising campaign can carry a chain of twenty coffee shops.

Service firms make their neighbourhood more valuable

Each service product class carries a Customer Traffic Boost — a fixed value you can see by hovering the icon on the firm interface (no icon means nothing this firm sells is a draw). The firm’s brand rating adds to it. The effect raises sales in nearby retail stores and can lift local real estate values, which makes clustering your own restaurants, shops and apartments a deliberate play rather than a coincidence.

Start with coffee

From the community Service Firms Strategy Guide by Stylesjl: a hamburger needs tomatoes, frozen beef and wheat from a farm plus three factories for patties, flour and buns — expensive at the start. Coffee needs coffee beans, milk, sugar and a little paper, all cheap and available early, and paper can simply be bought from another company or a seaport until you can afford your own supply chain. The guide’s route is coffee first, then pizza, then cakes and fast food as the shared ingredients accumulate.

Import companies

What imports are for

An Import Company buys consumer goods, semi products and natural resources from overseas — most valuable early, before you can produce everything yourself. The list filters to [Only Show Items Unavailable Locally], and items already available locally are flagged. Once imported, direct your own retail stores, factories or warehouses to buy from it. See Import Company.

The settings decide what kind of game you are playing

• Import Product Variety — low variety is a real constraint: you either do without a product or build to make it locally.
• Import Semi Products Only — no finished goods, so a pure retail strategy stops working and you must manufacture.
• Constant Supply — switch it off and imports do not last forever; you need a plan to replace them.
• Import Quality — cuts both ways. High quality helps you, and helps every competitor drawing on the same imports.

Two strategies that work

From the Import Company Strategy Guide: import finished goods to stock retail stores while you accumulate cash, then pivot to manufacturing — a low-budget opening that works for almost any product. Or import semi products and add value locally: steel and electronic components open up appliances and electronics; leather from your own farm plus imported textiles turns wallets into jackets, handbags and briefcases. Note the guide’s warning that imports do nothing for software, internet, telecom, banking, insurance or real estate — if that is your opening industry, skip the import company entirely.

Export companies

Deals are the currency, and points are how you buy them

Set an Export Client Search budget and your export company finds clients; each deal then costs one Export Deal Point. Points come in at one per year plus one for every five clients found — so the search budget is really a point generator. Alternatively spend 3 Knowledge Points to create a deal directly, which the strategy guide recommends early, when waiting is expensive. Each deal shows its expiration date, its daily export demand (set by the product’s overall rating) and its monthly sales. See Export Company.

Where the revenue actually lands

Goods ship straight from your factories to the overseas client, so the sales revenue appears in the producing firm, not the export company — the export company shows only operating expenses. Its books will look like a loss centre while the group’s profit rises. That is expected, not a bug.

Export slack, not scarcity

From the Export Company Strategy Guide: export products where the farm or factory has genuine spare capacity, and never where local demand already exceeds supply unless you intend to expand production. Watch seasonal crops especially — a client can strip an entire harvest before the next one, starving the factories downstream, and exporting wheat can quietly cost you the flour business worth more. Products with a low marginal cost make the best exports: software, whose only per-unit inputs are paper, DVDs and freight, and raw materials whose mine has already been paid for. Build the export firm early with a maximum search budget, then cut the budget once the deals you want are in place.

Logistics

One company, the whole group

A Logistics Company handles local routes inside cities and city-to-city routes between them, and every company in your group uses it automatically unless it runs its own. One per corporation is all you need. AI companies without their own logistics hire third parties, choosing on staff skill and available capacity on the route — which is your opening to sell them service. See Logistics Company.

Three budgets, and an Auto button for all of them

Each route takes a budget for freight capacity and a monthly training budget that raises staff skill from 1 to 9, improving service quality and attracting customers. With many routes this is a lot of clicking, so use [Auto] per route, or [All] and [None] to switch every route at once — no COO required.

The IT system pays for itself

Operating costs split into fixed costs, charged on freight capacity whether you use it or not, and variable costs, charged only on capacity used. A fully developed IT system cuts up to 40% of fixed and 20% of variable costs — and because fixed costs accrue on idle capacity, the saving is largest exactly when business is slow.

With the Digital Age DLC, e-commerce feeds it

Your e-commerce firm automatically uses your logistics company for deliveries, and you can expand freight capacity specifically for e-commerce. The two businesses grow each other.

Retail space in your buildings

With the Apartment and Commercial Buildings Have Retail Space option enabled, every apartment or commercial building can host one retail or service firm on its ground floor. The store’s size must match the building’s footprint, so a 2×2 building takes a 2×2 store and the new 3×3 buildings can hold something as large as a department store. Six new buildings ship with the DLC — three apartments and three commercial, in 2×2 and 3×3.

The point is compounding: rental income and retail income from one plot, a coffee shop drawing on its own building’s residents, and less land needed in exactly the dense districts where land is expensive. On the firm list, these are marked “In Apartment”. See Integrated Retail Spaces and New Apartments and Commercial Buildings.

Knowledge Points and startup mode

Knowledge Points have three uses

Earned by achieving goals, they can raise your player character’s expertise, raise your management staff’s expertise if that option is enabled, and buy import or export deals at 3 points each. All of it is configurable under Goals → Goal Rewards, including turning the system off, setting a starting balance and changing how many points each goal awards. See Knowledge Points.

Cash-strapped Startup is the hardest opening in the game

$1 million to start, and mall space must be leased rather than land bought — which is precisely why malls exist in this DLC. The option lives on the Shopping Mall page of the new game setup menu. See Cash-strapped Startup Mode.

FAQ

Why can’t I build a second import company?

Each corporation is limited to one, and it can import 10 product types at a time. You also cannot borrow another company’s import firm — a subsidiary’s included.

The product I need is not in the import list.

Spend Knowledge Points: [Use Knowledge Points] unlocks a product type for 3 points. Note that raw materials and farm products cannot be imported at all.

How many export companies can I have?

Two, exporting 8 products between them. If you merge with a company that also had export firms, they are kept, so a merged group can end up running more than two.

I have found export clients but cannot set up a deal.

You are out of Export Deal Points. One arrives each year, plus one for every 5 new clients your search budget finds — or spend 3 Knowledge Points to create the deal directly.

My export company shows expenses and no revenue. Is it broken?

No. Goods ship directly from the producing firm to the client, so the sales revenue is booked there. The export company carries only its operating costs; look at group profit to see the effect.

My export client stopped buying.

Clients have a total purchase limit, and deals expire on a set date and are then deleted. Move to another product, or set up a new deal.

Which products should I export?

Ones where production has genuine slack, and ones with a low marginal cost — software and already-paid-for raw materials are the classic examples. Avoid exporting an input your own factories depend on, especially seasonal crops.

Why is my mall’s traffic so low?

Traffic comes from the area’s own traffic index, the boost from service firms, the range of products across all stores, and their average rating. A narrow mix of similar shops leaves two of the four factors unused — add a restaurant or a coffee shop and broaden the categories.

Can I move an existing store into a mall?

Yes — relocation menu → Relocate to Mall, or Duplicate to Mall to keep the original. The mall must be in the same city. You can move firms back out or to a different mall the same way.

Is renting in a competitor’s mall risky?

Not especially. You can close or relocate without penalty, and leases renew automatically. Watch for the rent alert — by default it fires when a renewal lands more than 10% above the market average.

Why don’t my service firm’s products have their own brands?

By design: a service firm carries one brand shared by everything it sells, the way a restaurant chain does. The upside is that a single advertising campaign lifts every firm of that type you own.

Which service firm should I start with?

Coffee, on a limited budget — its ingredients (coffee beans, milk, sugar, a little paper) are the cheapest to source early. Fast food is the most expensive opening, needing a farm and three factories before the first hamburger.

Can a service firm supply my other firms?

No. Everything a service firm prepares must be sold in that firm. Some of its ingredients — burger patties, buns — can be sold in supermarkets, which is the usual way to link a service business to a food business.

How big can a service firm get?

Three floors, with a different product on each. The icon at the bottom right of the firm window shows all floors’ products on one screen.

Do I need a logistics company?

One, at most — it serves the entire group, and companies in the group use it automatically. It also sells capacity to AI companies that have none of their own, and with the Digital Age DLC it carries your e-commerce deliveries.

How do I put a shop in my apartment building?

Enable Apartment and Commercial Buildings Have Retail Space when starting the game, then use [Set Up a Store] on the building. One firm per building, and its size must match the building’s footprint.

Read more

Service industry features: Shopping Mall · Service Firms · New Products from Service Firms · Import Company · Export Company · Logistics Company

Property and modes: Apartment and Commercial Buildings Have Retail Space · New Apartment and Commercial Buildings · Cash-strapped Startup Mode · Knowledge Points

Community strategy guides by Stylesjl: Import Company Strategy Guide · Export Company Strategy Guide · Service Firms Strategy Guide

Don’t have the DLC yet? See what the Service Industry DLC adds.