You dont have to buy from local suppliers, you can buy from any nation. When at the buying screen, you will see tabs that say [Quantity] [Quantity Available] [Price] [Customs] ... [Quality] next to those titles are arrows ^, these arrows by clicking on them will help organize and make your decision process faster. So if you want to buy High Quality goods and don't want to sift through 9 pages...just click on the down arrow and it will organize by HQ goods first. The same goes for available goods. If you click the down button it will show the highest amount of available goods first.
0 Available goods, means you will not receive goods, unless your contract is bumped up in queue, or the factory is expanded and more goods are made.
If you see a number like 2800 for example, that means you can purchase up to a maximum of 2,800 and will receive it, however sometimes like in real life, it's not guaranteed.
As for a warehouse, they are really more for logistics purposes. If you are a retailer and own let's say 15 stores in different nations. It would be a pain to have to constantly make purchases in each store and try and find suppliers. A warehouse means you can buy your goods first and sell them to the retail stores so you don't have to constantly go back and forth between stores. Also warehouses are great for making bulk purchases for example if you see a high quality good selling dirt cheap, you can just make a huge purchase and just store the good until your store needs them (Stores can only hold so much and overloading it will affect your efficiency). Also warehouses are great for ensuring a reliable source of goods to your stores, since you will only need to check one place to see if shipments have been canceled, instead of 15 different stores (AKA makes life easier)!!
However there are some downsides to warehouses, you can make a large bulk purchase and find that the price of goods has fallen below the price you have purchased, so you either stuck with a bunch of goods you can't sell unless you short, or you are back to making independent purchases from each store.
In short Warehouses can be a great tool if you wish to apply it, but it's not the be all end all to your problems.
Since you are still small, I don't really recommend it. I didn't have warehouses until my company was worth around $8 billion...even now I still hardly get much use out of them, since I tend to find them inefficient when it comes to maximizing profit, but then that's just me and my style. I use warehouses to stock up on goods for my stores since I own 5 and don't want to have to constantly tweak, however a lot of my stores purchase goods outside of my warehouse simply because there are better deals and when I get around to trying to get my warehouse to make the purchase, the availability has ran out, so I don't get much use as compared to others, but that's my way of doing business and business is like music...there's a certain style for all of us and you will find what works best for you.
It sounds like there are hardly any goods available, if that's the case then this is the perfect opportunity to start producing. When I got into the business (game :p) the economy was severely lacking supply, so it was a producer's market, meaning that those who were manufacturing goods were making the easy profit, while retailers were struggling...now the winds of business and economics have changed and it's retail that is making the money
Stick with the food industry...business is idiot proof, the secret is to just stick with what works. If food is bringing home the bacon (yes couldn't hold back the pun) then stick with it. At your stage I wouldn't even bother venturing into other fields, but remember the success of this game depends upon nobody but yourself...this is not a game dictated by algorithms, it's dictated by some of the most chaotic and unpredictable equation out there....people. So if you see something good that others don't, you might be wise to heed your words.
Hope this helps and you're welcome. |