---
title: "Supermarket Together: Complete Guide"
game: "Supermarket Together"
game_url: "https://qna.gg/games/supermarket-together"
author: "Qloud"
author_url: "https://qna.gg/players/Qloud"
summary: "Everything you need to run a profitable store in Supermarket Together, solo or with up to 16 players: the daily loop, pricing, franchise perks, employees, thieves, departments (online orders and manufacturing), and the…"
url: "https://qna.gg/g/supermarket-together-complete-guide-09c21f48"
published: "2026-09-27T17:00:43.475Z"
updated: "2026-09-27T17:00:43.475Z"
source: "QnA.GG"
---

# Supermarket Together: Complete Guide

Everything you need to run a profitable store in Supermarket Together, solo or with up to 16 players: the daily loop, pricing, franchise perks, employees, thieves, departments (online orders and manufacturing), and the new store layouts added in 2026.

*Researched September 2026 — current as of the "Routine Patch: Event End" update (5 September 2026). Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.*

## Quick Start

1. **It's free to play.** Grab friends; the more players in the store, the more demanding customers become, so solo is a genuinely different (and valid) experience.
2. **Stock what sells, then expand.** Early days are about a handful of product types kept full, not a huge range of half-empty shelves.
3. **Never price above double the unit cost.** Customers refuse to buy items priced over twice the Price Per Unit.
4. **Spend Franchise Points on staff and speed first.** Extra employees and their efficiency perks are what let the store scale.
5. **Watch for shoplifters from around Day 10.** Hit them with your broom before they reach the edge of the parking lot, or the goods are gone.
6. **Keep the store clean.** Cleaning is a "secondary duty" that directly improves customer happiness.
7. **Recycle empty boxes.** Clutter slows everyone down, and the Recycling perks make disposal faster.
8. **Save/quit is disabled on Day 1** (added in April 2026 to stop money exploits), so plan to play through your first day.

## The Daily Loop

1. **Morning (store closed):** Check money, order products from the computer, and restock shelves from storage.
2. **Open the store:** Customers enter, shop, and queue at checkout. Someone (you, a friend, or a Cashier employee) must work the tills.
3. **During the day:** Restock empty shelves, catch thieves, clean spills, and keep boxes moving from storage.
4. **Close:** Once the last customers leave, the day ends with a financial summary. Stolen items that escaped cost you at the end of the working day.
5. **Evening:** Spend Franchise Points, buy expansions, rearrange shelves, and order for tomorrow.

There is a short cooldown on the close-store button (added April 2026) to prevent duplicated invoices from spam-clicking.

## Pricing

- The core rule from the community wiki: **price up to 2x the Price Per Unit**; above that, customers won't buy the item.
- Market prices shift over time (the wiki notes they change every Thursday). Re-check prices regularly so an old price doesn't end up above the 2x limit or leave margin on the table.
- A franchise perk (listed on the wiki as **MART OS 2.0**) automates pricing once unlocked. It's a big time saver in solo games.
- In multiplayer, assign one person to pricing so shelves don't get conflicting labels.

## Franchise Points and the Skills Blackboard

Owning a successful supermarket grants **Franchise Points** as the store levels up through checkouts. Spend them on the **skills blackboard** (Franchise Points Board). Most nodes cost one point; stronger ones (marked with stars) cost several.

| Category | Examples | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Employees | Employee tiers (each adds a hireable worker), Recruitment (daily rerolls) | More hands equals more throughput |
| Staff efficiency | Cashier and Restock Formation courses, free energy drinks and coffee | Faster workers mean fewer queues |
| Revenue | Marketing Courses (employees earn +10% at checkouts), Bad Weather Boost (stormy/snowy days bring more online orders and triple their earnings) | Straight profit |
| Store comfort | Wi-Fi, Air Conditioning | Attract more customers |
| Operations | Logistics (see product locations), Recycling courses and container, time acceleration while closed, efficient lighting, accountant automation | Quality of life and cost savings |
| Products | New product categories | Expands what you can sell |

**Star perks** are the multi-point nodes. The September 2026 patch added **Vacuum Expansion** (5 perk points), which makes the mini transport vehicle automatically pick up stolen items on the floor when they touch its front.

Suggested early order: one or two employee tiers, then cashier/restock speed, then marketing and customer-attraction perks, then quality-of-life automation.

## Employees

- There are **18 employees** available for hiring. Their wage depends on experience.
- Seven roles: **Cashier, Restock, Storage, Security, Technician, Packaging,** and **Manufacturing**.
- Employees earn experience in the role they're assigned and gain advantages as they level, so avoid constantly reshuffling your best workers.
- The employees' blackboard lets you set **priorities** and save/load priority layouts (seven extra slots were added in July 2026).

| Role | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Cashier | Always your first hire when solo; queues are what lose customers |
| Restock | Once you have more shelves than you can keep full |
| Storage | When storage boxes pile up faster than you can sort them |
| Security | Once shoplifters become regular (around Day 10 onward) |
| Technician | For maintenance tasks as the store grows |
| Packaging | After unlocking online orders |
| Manufacturing | After unlocking the Manufacturing department |

## Store Space, Storage, and Layouts

- **Expand public space** to fit more shelves; a fully improved store can hold up to 49,000 products.
- **Expand storage** so you can order in bulk and restock less often.
- **Demolish pillars** for better decoration placement and customer navigation.
- **Layouts:** When creating a store you choose a layout. **Classic** is the original; **Plaza** arrived on 18 June 2026 and has longer entry/exit paths (the game adds extra customers to compensate). The developer has named **"The Big One"** as the next layout.
- **Logistics Desk** (July 2026): transfer money from an older, more advanced store into a new one. Limits: $1,000 per day passed in the new store, only while the new store's day is lower than the source store's, and per-layout caps. Starting more layouts makes this more useful.

## Departments

### Online orders (Packaging)

Prepare online packages for customers yourself, or assign Packaging employees. It's extra revenue once the main floor runs smoothly.

### Manufacturing (added January 2026)

- Unlock the **Manufacturing department** plus its extra store row and extra storage in the space acquisition blackboard.
- Place a **research unit** and feed it products to unlock **recipes** (breads, pastries, cakes, salads, sandwiches, and more). Research only progresses while the supermarket is open.
- **Manufacturing units** turn ingredients into products; the **Manufacturing Desk** (February 2026) lists your recipes and sends products to a global queue that feeds available units automatically.
- Salads, sandwiches and similar chilled goods go in the **manufacturing freezer**.
- April 2026 added ten more recipes: rice with chicken, pasta bolognesa, burgers, soup, tiramisu, apple tarts, pumpkin pies, cookies, pretzels, and smoothies. There's an achievement for unlocking all recipes.
- Customers now choose among several manufacturing shelves if they hold the same item (September 2026 fix).

## Thieves and Security

- Shoplifters start appearing around **Day 10**. Signs: an icon above their head, moving quickly with goods, heading to the parking lot.
- **Broom them.** Hitting a thief knocks them down; several hits may be needed to recover all items.
- If they reach the edge of the parking lot, an invisible wall stops you and the items are lost.
- **Security employees** apprehend thieves for you; an **Anti-Theft scanner** and a **CCTV / Surveillance Desk** help detect them.
- The **mini transport vehicle** with the **Vacuum Expansion** star perk auto-collects stolen items it drives over.

## Mini Transport Vehicle

Reworked in August 2026: more responsive controls, can spin on the spot, **auto-collects boxes** you drive over, and drops them all with one button (it needs free space on the left or right side). A panel shows which slots are occupied. If it gets stuck, the builder can move it a short distance. Three achievements were added for it in September 2026.

## Events and Cosmetics

The developer runs recurring limited events, each activated by placing a special decoration:

| Event | Trigger | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Alien event | Suspicious Looking Antenna, then wait until 18:00 in-game | Ended 5 September 2026 |
| Animals event | Event Cage | Ended April 2026 |
| Winter event | Abnormally Tall Mailbox | Ended January 2026 |

Events drop **tokens** and **broom skins**; the alien event could drop every previous event token and added **The Entropy Broom** (finish the alien off with a salt firework). Old event items stay placed but do nothing once the event ends. The DLC room holds paintable tablets (230 paint materials as of April 2026) and a gardening tablet with 25 hedge textures.

## Common Mistakes to Avoid

- **Over-pricing.** Anything over twice the unit cost simply won't sell.
- **Too many product types too early.** Empty shelves look bad and waste customer trips; fill fewer shelves fully.
- **Skipping cashiers.** Long queues cost more than any wage.
- **Leaving boxes everywhere.** They block aisles and slow everyone; recycle them.
- **Ignoring thieves until closing.** Losses are counted at the end of the day.
- **Joining with mismatched versions.** After updates, make sure everyone has patched or you'll get heavy desync.

## Advanced Tips

- **Group products logically** and keep high-demand items near storage to cut restock walking time.
- **Use priority layouts** on the employee blackboard to switch staffing between "rush hour" and "restock mode" quickly.
- **In large lobbies, split jobs:** one pricer, one or two storage runners, cashiers, one security. Customers scale with player count, so organisation matters more than speed.
- **Start a second layout** once your first store is advanced, then use the Logistics Desk to give it a head start.
- **Manufactured goods** add a high-margin product line; start research early since it only progresses during open hours.
- **Check the public server list** for difficulty, day, and layout before joining a random lobby.

## FAQ

**Is Supermarket Together free?**
Yes, the base game is free to play on Steam. The DLC room contains cosmetic items.

**How many players can play?**
Up to 16, or solo with hired employees.

**Why won't customers buy my product?**
Most likely the price is above twice the Price Per Unit, or the shelf is hard to reach.

**When do thieves start?**
Around Day 10.

**How do I get the Plaza layout?**
Choose it when creating a new store; the store creation menu lists available layouts.

**How do I start the alien or other events?**
Only while an event is active. As of 5 September 2026 the alien event has ended; watch the Steam news for the next one.

## Sources

- [Supermarket Together Steam news hub](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2709570)
- [Routine Patch: Event End (Steam, 5 Sep 2026)](https://steamstore-a.akamaihd.net/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/1842846814449326)
- [Supermarket Kart (Steam, 15 Aug 2026)](https://steamstore-a.akamaihd.net/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/1840944183782129)
- [Logistics Desk (Steam, 5 Jul 2026)](https://steamstore-a.akamaihd.net/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/1836506165574254)
- [New Layout: Plaza (Steam, 18 Jun 2026)](https://steamstore-a.akamaihd.net/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/1835871199304186)
- [Manufacturing I (Steam, 23 Jan 2026)](https://steamstore-a.akamaihd.net/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/1822556746162896)
- [Supermarket Together Wiki: Price](https://supermarkettogether.wiki.gg/wiki/Price)
- [Supermarket Together Wiki: Franchise Points Board](https://supermarkettogether.wiki.gg/wiki/Franchise_Points_Board)
- [Supermarket Together Wiki: Thief](https://supermarkettogether.wiki.gg/wiki/Thief)
- [Supermarket Together Wiki: Employees](https://supermarkettogether.wiki.gg/wiki/Employees)