Industries to avoid?

[sadhukar]

To me, cars just seem like a long and expensive process which is also very production material reliant, meaning you'll need to get the best and most expensive ore sites which also means it's hard to get a competitive edge over a competitor due to over abundance of high quality minerals in many city games. So trying to break into a market after the AI is very difficult as the AI will have a similar quality product but more brand power.

Anyone else have any industry which they think people should avoid?

[Esoteric Rogue]

As far as the supply chain (resource gathering, manufacturing, or retailing), retailing has the most profit potential and stability/versatility. That's logical once you realize that all profit comes first from the consumer giving money to the retailer. It's the retailer's prerogative on how much of that he's willing to pay to the supplies. Similarly, it's pointless to run a mine if there's no retailer for the end products. The further away from the consumer you are, the more dependent you are on other companies for both money and opportunity. With that said, having full control of your supply chains is the most profitable and stable arrangement.

As far the different product classes: there are differences, but the devs do strive for balance. If you think something is too strong or too weak you should speak up. That said, rumor has it that Automobile was nerfed too much.

Market Investment: should not be avoided.

Real Estate - Rentals: It may not be too good because population growth is very low at best.

Real Estate - Land Development / Speculation): I haven't tried it yet, but I hear good things.

Intangible goods - R&D production: It's supposed to be viable, but it's fully dependent upon others.

[azxcvbnm321]

The problem with retail is that there's a lot of competition and you do not control the supply or quality of the goods you are selling. If I were to pick a single path, I would choose manufacturing as you are guaranteed to sell out as long as you can maintain top quality. As the poster above said, the best option is to control the entire supply chain.

Real Estate Rentals are actually a very stable source of money, but starting capital to build is high for the return and you can make more elsewhere. Still if there's a city that needs housing supply, then you will be able to make money consistently, all of your apartments or commercial buildings will be 90%+ full.

For specific categories, I've never gotten into the auto business because it takes a lot of capital to enter. The various inputs like engines all require R&D and the manufacturing process is complex. I would say that autos would be the final category to expand into, after electronics and computers even.

It is hard to break into a product category because of R&D. R&D is the most important factor in the game, it is the way to make your product a higher quality than your competitors. As long as you have higher quality, people will choose your product over others and you can decide where to set your prices to gain the market share you want. Brand loyalty depends mostly on quality, so if you can offer a higher quality product, eventually you'll get the brand loyalty. It's almost useless to do advertising with an inferior product because the effects won't last, and people will give you negative brand loyalty or zero loyalty.

You can corner a market with R&D. Monopolizing all the resources is not necessary, plus it doesn't really work unless you deliberately set the game up to do that or use exploits (like not building on resources). I set it up so that there are imports of raw materials to make it easier for the AI to compete with me, but I can still get nearly 70%-100% market share on products where I have a significant R&D advantage.

R&D is priced far too cheaply. I'm glad AI companies refuse to sell R&D at times because R&D is incredibly valuable and the key to success. Without being able to buy my way into R&D, I'd have to spend years of time and have a R&D center completely devoted to that product in order to catch up to the AI.

[keshiba]

To me, cars just seem like a long and expensive process which is also very production material reliant, meaning you'll need to get the best and most expensive ore sites which also means it's hard to get a competitive edge over a competitor due to over abundance of high quality minerals in many city games. So trying to break into a market after the AI is very difficult as the AI will have a similar quality product but more brand power.

Anyone else have any industry which they think people should avoid?

Auto industry is the last thing you should touch. I have had similar experience in leather industry as well, but then I always play the game with 30 competitors and maximum 3 cities, so there is a lot of cannabalization.

[Etym]

Late to the party - again.

FWIW, in addition to automotive, I generally avoid cosmetics and comm devices (along with hi-tech devices in general). I find that they both require me to locate or build too many input sources, and take a long time to become profitable because: (1) these products seem always to have a high customer satisfaction level for the local producers, so they require very low prices to gain market share, and (2) for the same reason, they require substantial start-up costs for advertising. Also, the early electronics (along with tobacco) seem to experience significant decline in global demand over time.
This represents a big difference from Cap II, where cosmetics, electronics and tobacco were highly profitable once market share was established, and only got better as the years rolled along.

[WilliamMGary]

1) these products seem always to have a high customer satisfaction level for the local producers,

Have you noticed any other benefits giving to local producers? In an old Capitalism II game my company was so large I started mfg everything locally, retailed locally, and just import raw and made adjustments to the business based on the local needs. So far in Capitalism Lab I've been centralizing a lot but I do have a need to have another centralizer MFG location for the more complex products. Might be good to build that new location in the largest market if there's meaningful advantages to local producers.