Hi there!
I’ve gotten very into the campaign lately and have a few questions around my experience so far.
#1: In terms of nations, it’s my understanding exporting a car to another country costs that consumer a bit more making your car less competitive in that market. For example, all my current production is in Hetvesia and I’m looking at starting a large premium car and heavy utility vehicle line in Gasmea. If my above assumption is correct, the car will be more competitive there especially if it’s more tailored to their tastes, ie bigger and prestigious. If those cars engines are built elsewhere, I would assume there would still be an import charge but smaller than a whole model correct?
#2: Designing a car for a demographics that other buy. For example, I have my Swift line of compact commuters with a sportier flair in the 8-12k range, my Sparrow line of medium sized family cars geared for b.family to family going for 5-9k range and my large Nutcracker line geared towards the b. premium and premium at 12-19k. With all three cars being built, they are all, even the higher end trims are mostly selling to the family and b.family demographic. It’s a huge issue as the Swift is killing it but the Sparrow and Nutcracker are underselling significantly.
I know it happens all the time in real life, cars selling to a unintended demographic but there are significant differences to these cars. I don’t get why my Nutcracker Gold is selling primarily to the family market when it’s double the price and not even very competitive with that segment. On the opposite end of the spectrum my Cardinal line, hand crafted luxury in small volumes has 50+ months of demand in the premium demographic despite being 37k+.
#3: Pricing and affordability. In the markets tab, we have an average and spread along with desirability. My intent with the Nutcracker premium car line was to make it very competitive with the b.premium and premium markets, make it affordable to manufacture, ie costs 16k to make. If I sell it at 25k, it’s in line with the premium average, that demographic only takes into account the sale price rather than the build price. In theory that should incur higher margins right?
#4: Marketing, Prestige and Reputation. I started spending money right off the bat in every country to boost my reputation and prestige. It’s grown from nothing to 25 rep and 12 prestige average. Are some of my above sales troubles have to do with my low prestige and how to do you grow these? I’m assuming higher quality cars boost rep and prestigious cars do the same with prestige, issue is that I’ve appeared to stall at around 12 with prestige for the last number of years. If prestige is too low is that why I’m having issues selling more prestigious cars at larger scales?
In terms of marketing, the individual safety etc tabs, I guess they market the features of your cars which in theory increases sales? With the current UI I have no idea and the 3 drop down menu’s next to it don’t appear to do anything.
#5: Market Awareness and Dealerships. I’m assuming my massive marketing budgets are what’s adding the 0.8%-1.6% I’m getting per year along with competitive products. Higher awareness allows for higher sales I would also assume. The issue I’m having is my awareness with Family cars is around 18% whereas in premium it’s 26% but as above my premium car is mostly selling to the family demo’s.
In terms of Dealerships, I’m assuming, higher awarenss = higher sales = more cars = more margin = happy dealers who expand their respetive networks. The more happiness and larger networks add to awareness and higher sales? What makes Dealers happy an grow? My cars with demo crossover seem to have improved Dealer happiness and gorw in size quicker than my more specialized projects.
This is a long post, but any insight, tips, tricks etc is appreciated, thank you!