This guide was written while Mall Simulator is still in Early Access. It assumes that advanced quality-of-life features—such as labeled shelves, inventory filters, scheduled purchases, and mass ordering—are not currently implemented and may or may not arrive in future updates.

Most players start with the goal of being extremely organized. This works fine when you only have a few stores, a limited number of products, and low customer traffic. However, as your mall expands and your catalog grows, this approach becomes increasingly time-consuming and unsustainable.

The goal of this guide is to outline practical, low-effort inventory strategies that scale well from early to late game without requiring constant micromanagement.

If you find an inaccuracy or a need for improvement, please drop a comment below.

As your mall grows, there are several ways to approach inventory management. Listed below from slowest (most precise) to fastest (least effort):

• Stockroom Comparison: Check how much of each item is in storage relative to others and order up to a personal “baseline.”
  
• Showroom Inspection: Walk the sales floor and look for racks, shelves, or displays that are no longer full. Order items to cover visible shortages.
  
• The "Eyeballing" Method: Check your stock room and estimate how much stock remains (i.e. 50%). Order a fixed number of every item in the store based on a sales strategy (see below)
  
• Flat Bulk Ordering: Order a fixed number of every item the store sells, regardless of current stock.

This guide uses all four approaches depending on the store and game stage, generally favoring faster strategies whenever possible. Not all items sell at the same rate, so strict rules are often not possible.

Eventually, this can evolve into a mental model like “Buy X of this item every X days”, but more observation is required before that can be done consistently.

• Always add more shelves.
  Storage space is almost never a bad investment.

• No space? No problem.
  If expansions are too expensive, you can:
  
  • Place shelves directly on the showroom floor
    
  • Place shelves outside the store
    
  • There is no penalty for unconventional shelf placement.

• Overstocking is safe (for now).
  If you order more items than your shelves can hold, your restocker will simply drop the boxes on the stockroom floor. This is perfectly acceptable and often useful.

Note: If you order stock and the boxes go above the ceiling of your mall, they will pile up in front of the stockroom door the next day. You can use this to your advantage to shorten the time your stocker has to travel between trips.

When you have extra cash, aim to “plus up” your inventory so stores can run for several in-game days without intervention. Early on, this can be difficult due to the proportionality of sales—you may only be able to afford a few boxes of a product at a time. As you acquire more stores and unlock higher-tier licenses, this approach becomes more practical thanks to increased sales volume.

In theory, you can hold 8–9 days of supply, but fully restocking at that level can cost over $1,500,000 and take 20–40 minutes to complete. This is largely due to the lack of quality-of-life features, requiring countless button presses. Large restocks can also cause performance issues, including significant lag or even multi-minute freezes while the game generates entities.

On the other hand, there is no real benefit to checking stock levels every in-game day. Even in the early game, when supplies may not last a full day, the only penalty for running out of items is missed sales; it will not make or break your mall.

In practice, the sweet spot is maintaining roughly five days of supply per store, supplemented by larger restocks every three days. In the late game, assuming around 200 customers per day and approximately $250,000 in daily sales, these restocks typically cost between $300,000 and $500,000.

This keeps costs manageable while significantly reducing the amount of time spent restocking.

This will leave you with roughly $250,000 in store-generated profit assuming that all prices are left at default and you make no money from parking, arcade games, or machines.

Sales Rate Notes

• Jacoste, Madcat T-Shirts, JanJack, and Silk Jackets sell at 2x the normal rate
  
• Jacoste and Madcat T-Shirts run out of stock easily because they sell in boxes of 5 instead of 10 (like every other item sold).
  
• Due to these disparities, this store requires more attention than most others

Stocking Strategy

Early Game
When showroom stock runs low:

• Buy 4 boxes of Jacoste and Madcat T-Shirts
  
• Buy 2 boxes of JanJack and Silk Jackets
  
• Buy 1 box of all other item as needed

Late Game

• Keep 4 shelves each of Jacoste and Madcat T-Shirts
  
• Keep 2 shelves each of JanJack and Silk Jackets
  
• For all other items, buy 2 boxes every 6 days

Easy-to-Remember Formula
Every six days, buy the following:

• 48 Jacoste
  
• 48 Madcat T-Shirt
  
• 24 JanJack
  
• 24 Silk Jacket
  
• 2 of everything else

Sales Rate Notes

• Shoes (and rollerblades) are the top seller by a large margin
  
• Balls, sticks, weights, and boards are ancillary items

Stocking Strategy

Early Game--Keep:

• 6 boxes of each shoe
  
• 2 boxes of each ball
  
• Replenish when showroom stock runs low

Late Game

• Keep one full shelf of each shoe (including roller blades)
  
• Alternatively, order 12 boxes (one shelf) when shoe stock dips
  
• For all other items, order 2 boxes when stock runs low

Sales Rate Notes

• NOTE: (12/19 Update) French Fries sell at an extremely slow rate. If you purchase French Fries with every order, the eyeballing method becomes more difficult because, over time, most of your shelves will be filled with boxes of fries instead of other grocery items.
  
  
• Cold goods sell at half the rate of shelf-stable items. These include
  
  • Milk, Orange Juice, Pizza, Corn Dogs
    
  • Eggs, Yogurt, Apple Pie
    
  • French Fries, Beef, Chicken Sticks
• Fruits and vegetables (produce) also sell at half the rate of shelf-stable items:
  
  • Broccoli, Potato, Pineapple, Orange
    
  • Avocado and Pomegranite

Stocking Strategy

• Always buy shelf-stable goods in even numbers
  
• Buy cold goods, fruits, and vegetables at half that quantity
  
• Example: 4 bags of dog food → 2 cartons of eggs → 2 boxes of potatoes
  
• However, the best way to tell if you need to order more French Fries is to check the showroom floor for shortages. Then, and only then, is it safe to buy more. Buy 6 boxes at a time.

Shelf layout:

• 1 shelf per shelf-stable item
  
• 1 shelf per 2 cold items (including French Fries)
  
• 1 shelf per 2 produce items
  
• Put another way: If it's shelf-stable, the item gets it's own shelf (12). Otherwise it must share a shelf with another product (6) for one product, (6) for another.

Eyeballing Method-- If shelves appear ~50% empty:

• Buy 2 boxes of each shelf-stable item
  
• Buy 1 box of each cold item
  
• Buy 1 box of each produce item

Sales Rate Notes

• All items sell at roughly the same rate

Stocking Strategy

• Candles, Cups, and Bedding Sets come in boxes of 5 instead of 10, so you'll need to purchase twice as many in each restock to keep up.
  
  Early Game
  
  • Do not go beyond a Tier 2 license
  Per order:
  
  • Buy 4 boxes of Candles
    
  • Buy 4 boxes of Cups
    
  • Buy 4 boxes of Bedding Sets
    
  • Buy 2 boxes of every other item
  Mid-to-Late Game
  
  • Since most items sell at the same rate, look at how much shelf space is empty and buy in proportion.
    
  • Buy twice as many candles, cups, and bedding sets per order

Sales Rate Notes

• Popcorn sells faster than other items
  
• Exact ratios are unclear, but the difference is noticeable

Stocking Strategy

• Fewer items make this store easy to manage
  
• When displays are less than full:
  
  • Buy a few boxes of each item
    
  • Always include one extra box of popcorn

Bonus Tip
Common sense would suggest that you need a variety of movies to keep customers happy and returning to the theater. In Mall Simulator, that isn’t the case. Although there are 12 movies available and only six screens, extensive playtesting shows that customers do not complain about a lack of variety. As a result, showing the most expensive movie (Titanior) on all six screens consistently generates the highest profit

Sales Notes

All items sell at a fairly marginal rate except for the Razox Mouse and the PearPods Max. These two items will need to be restocked each cycle, while the others can be restocked one, two, or even three boxes at a time as needed to top off inventory.

Stocking Strategy

This is perhaps the easiest store in the game to maintain.

Early Game:

• Do not go beyond a Tier 2 license.
  
• Keep 3 of each item in stock.

Late Game:

• Keep 12 of each item, except for the Razox Mouse and PearPods Max—keep two shelves of each instead.
  
• When restocking, prioritize shortages with the Razox Mouse and PearPods Max.
  
• Backfill all other items when they start getting low, which is typically every 3–4 restock cycles.

Sales Rate Notes
All items at these stores sell at roughly equal rates.

Stocking Strategy

Early Game

• Buy one box of every item every day or two

Late Game

• Keep one shelf (12 boxes) per item

Use the eyeballing method as a guide:

• When ~50% empty, buy 6 boxes of every item

This leaves you the choice to backfill items every 3 days when the stockroom is between 3/4ths and 2/3rds full for less money or every 6-7 days when it is around halfway full for higher-cost restocks.

Special Notes

• Sushi Bar: California Roll, Dragon Roll, and Maguro Roll come in boxes of 5 instead of 10; you will need to buy twice as many of these items to maintain an even stock flow
  
  
• Florist: Lemon Tree, Cactus, Palm, Pothos Plant, and Prayer Plant come in boxes of 8 instead of 4; you only need to buy half as many of these items
  
  
• Also Florist: Many plants come in boxes of 4 (as mentioned above), so you will run through stock quickly. Consider restocking every 3 days at 50%

There are no restocking employees for machines or bathrooms, meaning all maintenance here is manual.

Bathrooms

• Stocking toilet paper and hand soap only offers opportunity for earning more mall points
  
• Customers do not penalize you if supplies run out, nor do they grant a significant number of mall points to justify the time and effort

Vending & Specialty Machines

• Customers do not complain or penalize you if a certain machine does not exist. However, you will get complaints if a machine does exist and is empty.
  
• You are not penalized for having no machines at all
  
• Therefore, its most beneficial to only keep/maintain the machines that you feel like stocking. Your fleet of machines will gradually decrease as opportunities for passive income (billboards, arcade cabinets, parking) become available or when high-dollar items become available (gold claw machine)

Machines such as vending machines, candy machines, and TGP machines are particularly tedious:

• They require multiple boxes
  
• They must be stocked by row
  
• They are often far from the box delivery point

Efficiency Tip:
Place machines as close as possible to the delivery area (to the left of the mall exit where boxes spawn).

Claw Machines

• Buy the Tier 3 license (~$60,000) as soon as possible
  
• Fill machines with gold for high returns

Photo Booths

• Gold photo options generate strong income

Billboards

• Tier 4 billboards require no restocking
  
• The “Epic Female” ad generates revenue the fastest

Parking Booths

• Don’t forget to collect money regularly

Arcade Cabinets (not a machine per se, but works similarly)

• Passive income per play
  
• No restocking required

• Jewelry Store
  
• Burger Shop

This guide prioritizes time efficiency over perfect optimization. As your mall grows, minimizing micromanagement becomes more important than squeezing out every last percentage point of efficiency. If you can restock quickly, keep shelves mostly full, and avoid frequent emergency runs, you’re doing it right.