Best Shop Simulator Games

Key Takeaways

• Shop simulators offer depth and excitement, hidden gems await those who explore beyond big-scale management games.
• Recettear
  charms players with its cute design, dungeon crawls, and strategic pricing plans; a classic gem of the genre.
• Dealer’s Life 2
  brings a twist to shop management with negotiation challenges and scammers, keeping players on their toes.

Management simulators often make the scale huge, having players taking control of whole countries, cities, or institutions like in Prison Architect. However, some of the best hidden gems of the management sim genre have been hidden in the Shop Sim category. Players take control of stock, purchases, prices, staff, design, and sales in these interesting games that seem simple on the surface but have depth and exciting developments when fans delve deeper.

The following examples are some of the best this niche genre has to offer to introduce any new players to some incredible games and to let fans of Shop Sims explore some new titles they may not have played yet.

Updated November 3, 2024 by Connor Hogg: The range of games available on digital storefronts allows for new and exciting gameplay to reach the hands of fans faster than ever before. Strange new niche simulator games and multiplayer takes on the established gameplay formula have made for a few new hits in the shop simulator genre. These new releases are fun, fresh, and add some new must-plays for any manageme nt pros.

1 Holy Potatoes: A Weapon Shop?!

A Charming Adventure With Silly Spuds

• Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS
• Release Date: July 13, 2015
• Developer: Daylight Studios, Daedalic Entertainment

Running a shop that sells weapons forged by potatoes to potato heroes, Holy Potatoes: A Weapon Shop?! is a surprisingly deep game despite its charming indie exterior. With random encounters and weather systems, as well as opportunities to expand the business and find new weapons to create, the game is stuffed with content for fans to sink their teeth into. Citing Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale as one of their main inspirations, this game is an exciting, if small, addition to the genre.

2 TCG Card Shop Simulator

Deep Dive Into The World Of Card Games

Putting players in the role of a budding new entrepreneur opening a trading card shop, TCG Card Shop Simulator gives players free rein over how they run their shop. Selling booster packs of games that bear a striking resemblance to Pokemon and Magic: The Gathering, among others, players can choose the price and even open their own packs.

This allows players to build their collections as well as sell super rare cards for maximum profits. Making sure to keep stocked up and have an inviting shop is also a core component of gameplay – TCG Card Shop Simulator has quickly become a fan favorite.

3 Supermarket Together

Turn Supermarket Management Into Multiplayer

Starting with a humble shop and quickly blossoming into a mega-corporation that turns into multiple franchised outlets, Supermarket Together is another game that lets players build up from meager beginnings, unlocking perks and extra space and storage until they become a powerhouse. Multiple players can join online, which means cooperative management and delegated responsibilities.

One player can order stock, another can arrange and stock the limited shelf space and yet another can run the checkout. Ensuring a clean shop means customers will be happier and shoplifters can be found and attacked with a broom for silly moments. Making shopping sims multiplayer is a genius addition to the genre.

4 Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale

Profit From A Classic Dungeon Crawl

• Platform(s): PC
• Release Date: September 10, 2010
• Developer: EasyGameStation

One of the most well-known shop sims with a reputation for being charming and cutesy, Recettear puts players in the role of Recette, a girl who takes on the management of a shop to pay off her father’s debts. Recette will be buying goods and selling them for a profit while perfecting the look of her shop and going on action-packed dungeon crawls. Regular customers can be befriended, and then they can join players in dungeons; through these randomly generated levels, loot that is collected can be sold back at the store.

Visually, the game is quirky and cute. The old-school 3D design is dated but holds up in a nostalgic way that makes filling orders and buying stock colorful and cartoony. The random generation of action segments keeps things fresh and provides an expansive post-game with more items to sell, more customers to appeal to, and more strategic pricing plans to create the best business possible.

5 Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator

Careful Concoctions With Extreme Effects!

Potion Craft has a fairly simple premise made exceptional by all the extras. Players are potion sellers who must brew potions, discover their effects, and then sell these potions to customers – haggling wherever possible for the best possible sale price. A journal keeps track of which potions have been created, and this can quickly become a completionist’s heaven as players slowly fill out more and more entries to eventually discover every combination of ingredients.

The huge list of ingredients and possible effects is impressive and certainly enables fans to specialize their shops into narrower niches for their customers. There is a lot of humor and fun in the stylized graphics of Potion Craft, and the whole package is one of the most heart-warming and addicting shop simulators of all time.

6 Final Profit: A Shop RPG

An Adventure Story Where Capitalism Is The Weapon And The Enemy

• Platform(s): PC
• Release Date: March 6, 2023
• Developer: Brent Arnold

While shop management simulators are often sandboxes that let players explore and adapt over time, Final Profit is different in that it has a very complex story alongside the business management side of the game. The narrative sees an undercover ex-Fae queen infiltrating the dystopian capitalist society of the Lords of Business to take it down from the inside after it threatens her Fae society. Featuring a cast of loveable characters, Final Profit goes a long way with its humor and not taking itself too seriously.

The interior of the player’s shop can be freely customized, and choices scattered throughout the game let Biz choose between doing the right thing and making an easy profit. The story takes Biz from small time at a small start-up, to paying off debts, to eventually trading stocks and rare commodities while buying property, to collecting rent and destroying capitalism. Final Profit is a shop simulator that feels self-aware and is stuffed full of strange asides, fun mini-games, and hilarious jokes.

7 King Of Retail

Explore The Intricacies Of Shop Management

• Platform(s): PC, macOS
• Release Date: March 26, 2019
• Developer: Freaking Games

For a shop sim that is more focused on realism and the intricacies of owning and managing a real-world shop, King Of Retail gives players control over every aspect of their store. The interior decor, the products that stock the shelves, the staff (including their wages, hours, and training); players are responsible for each part of the whole.

Giving fans of the genre access to advertising budgets, online store presence, and, eventually, the option to become a franchise with multiple locations, King Of Retail truly expands the focus of the shop simulator to the widest range of playable features possible. With the ability to recruit brand ambassadors and target customers with signs and designs, this shop sim gets as close to realism as it can while remaining a light and fun management game.

8 Winkeltje: The Little Shop

Master The Tricks Of Supply And Demand

• Platform(s): PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
• Release Date: February 19, 2019
• Developer: Sassybot

While King Of Retail is more focused on realism in its gameplay and setting, Winkeltje: The Little Shop lets fans run a store in a fantasy world for some grounded magical escapism. Buying low and selling high is the heart of Winkeltje, while tracking stock and being able to deliver for an extra fee, and buying from traders when they come through, allow players to try and match the demand they expect to see for their products. Food, weapons, tools, and potions are all for sale, and the player can even start a farm garden where they can grow produce to sell.

While managing the interior design, the player can also stretch their architectural abilities by expanding the building and making huge structural changes. Employees can be hired as part of an effort to expand, and managing supply and demand while staying on top of fair salaries based on training and experience can become tricky very quickly. Winkeltje is a charming little game that makes the world of shop simulator games cozy and warm.

9 Dealer’s Life 2

Run A Thrift Shop In A Unique Take On Retail

• Platform(s): PC, Android
• Release Date: December 16, 2020
• Developer: Abyte Entertainment

Tackling a different aspect of the shop management sim by giving players control of a pawnshop, Dealer’s Life 2 is a game about negotiation and haggling. Different sellers will enter the shop looking to sell pieces of junk that could be valuable or could not be. Fans will know to be cautious, as some sellers are scammers looking to sell forged items that are worthless. Players can hire experts who can value any potential products, or play mind games with customers to ensure the owner keeps their hands on their hard-earned cash.

With the game’s dialogue and negotiations stuffed with jokes and references, Dealer’s Life 2 is more cutthroat than most other shop simulators, but still keeps things lighthearted and fast. The addition of auctions for high-value items makes for a basic game that gives players plenty of options for how to decorate, as well as how to treat their regulars.

10 Supermarket Simulator

Real-Time Strategy Meets Simulator

Taking a page from King Of Retail‘s realism book, Supermarket Simulator lets players interact with a real-time market where the value of goods changes rapidly and often. The player must make an effort to buy products that they know will sell, while also ensuring that they are paying a reasonable price for them, so they can make a sensible markup in the store. Growing the shop and keeping it pleasant and approachable will take center stage while expanding into bigger properties and stocking more shelves to have more money-making opportunities fill out the rest of the management aspects.

Stock must be ordered online, and cash and card payments must be managed effectively, while also ensuring the player can pay to keep staff employed. These details will soon be expanded on; the game is still in Early Access, but the next features to be added will include shoplifters and customers ordering deliveries. Supermarket Simulator is shaping up to be the most authentic representation of shop management life on the market.