Shops

"Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping."

— Bo Derek

NOTE: The shop pages were started by Banatu back in the day and have not been finished or updated. These pages are not a great source of information.

Overview

Shops are a vital component of My Free Zoo, providing one of the primary sources of revenue in the game. While animals draw visitors to the zoo, shops give visitors a place to spend their Zoo Dollars (ZD).

Note that shops are distinct from vendors and restrooms, which also provide revenue but are completely separate revenue chains.

Shops can be broken down into to two broad categories:

Standard shops are purchased from the in-game shop, assuming level requirements have been met.
Unique shops are acquired through campaigns, either awarded as prizes or available for purchase for a limited time period. These shops are generally unavailable for purchase once a campaign ends.

Both of the above types of shops may cost either Zoo Dollars or Diamonds. Most standard shops have trading cards which are fairly easy to acquire; unique shops do not have trading cards. All shops can be returned to inventory and sold for a fraction of their purchase value.

More details about each shop can be found on the individual shop pages found on the right-hand column of the My Free Zoo Wiki, using the collapsible menu under the Shops category.

Construction

Once a shop is purchased or otherwise acquired, its card will appear in inventory. To place a shop, click on the card and then click on the desired location in the zoo.

All shops have a construction time, ranging from 20 minutes to 16 hours. Once placed, the time remaining until construction is completed will appear over the construction plot. During construction the shop does not generate revenue. As a general rule, the higher the level requirement for the shop the longer the build time will be.

Clicking on a shop during construction will bring up several options; the building can be rotated and moved within the zoo, or returned to inventory. If a shop is returned to inventory its build-timer will be reset.

There are two additional items in the menu pulled up by clicking on a building being constructed, one of which is the Speed Up Construction option. This option becomes available every 10 minutes, and selecting it will shave 10 minutes off the remaining build time. This icon will also appear over a building once the option is available and can be clicked without the need to first enter the building menu. Speeding up construction is completely free.

The other item is the Finish Construction option, which will complete construction instantly. This option always costs Diamonds, the amount of which depends on how much time is remaining before construction is completed. Clicking on the icon will bring up a confirmation screen which states the amount of Diamonds required and gives you the option to proceed or cancel the action.

Visitor Needs

Visitors have two needs which are fulfilled by shops; hunger or thirst and keepsakes. All standard shops meet one or the other of these two needs. It is unclear if unique shops satisfy these needs or not; it seems likely that they do.

Hunger or thirst is a single need met by any shop selling food or drink. A soda stall, for example, while it does not explicitly indicate it sells food, will satisfy the hunger or thirst need; likewise a burger stall, though it does not explicitly indicate it sells drinks, will also satisfy the hunger or thirst need.

The keepsake need is fulfilled by any shop which sells non-food items; namely the souvenir shop and the toy store.

If there are insufficient shops in the zoo visitors will have a thought-bubble showing which type of shop is desired. If hunger or thirst needs are not being met the thought-bubble will contain a burger, soda and coffee cup; if more keepsake shops are desired the thought-bubble will contain balloons.

It usually takes quite a few shops for visitor thought-bubbles to disappear, but a lack of shops does not appear to affect either visitor numbers or mood. However, since shops are a significant portion of your revenue in My Free Zoo, more shops are generally better.

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Revenue

As mentioned above, shops are a significant source of income in My Free Zoo — second only to revenue from the front gate. Understanding how shop revenue works is vital to maximizing your income.

In the Visitor Needs section above we discussed how there are two types of shops, which satisfy the two shop-related visitor needs; hunger or thirst and keepsakes. These two types of shops are separate revenue chains; visitors will not spend extra money in keepsakes shops if there are insufficient hunger or thirst shops, and vice versa. Having plenty of both types of shops is important.

Note that all shops generate Zoo Dollars; no shops generate Diamonds.

Generating Revenue

Visitors in the zoo will spend Zoo Dollars in shops over time. Zoo Dollars are distributed over all shops in a given revenue chain; if you have one small keepsake shop, for example, and visitors spend 6 Zoo Dollars on keepsakes, 6 Zoo Dollars will show up in that shop. But if you have 6 small keepsake shops and visitors spend 6 Zoo Dollars, 1 Zoo Dollar will show up in each shop.

The amount of Zoo Dollars visitors spend depends primarily on two factors: the number of visitors in the zoo, and the quality of the shops available. Visitors will spend more money in larger shops which cost more to purchase. Thus a big coffee stall will generate more income over a given time period than a small coffee stall.

The speed with which income is generated also depends on the two factors; the number of visitors in the zoo and the the number of shops in the zoo. Because income is spread among all shops in a revenue chain, a small amount of shops will produce a large amount of income relatively quickly, while a large volume of shops will fill slowly.

Collecting Revenue

All those Zoo Dollars visitors spend in zoo shops aren't worth much if you can't collect them. There are a few ways to collect shop revenue; the method most players utilize at the start of the game is to click on the building and collect the Zoo Dollars, if available, from the menu icon which looks like a stack of cash:

^{Click the pile of money to add it to your account. Hovering the cursor over the icon will tell you how many Zoo Dollars are currently available for collection.}

When a certain quantity of Zoo Dollars are available in a shop, a collection-bubble featuring the stack-of-cash icon will appear above the building. The collection bubble conveniently allows you to collect all Zoo Dollars in the building with a single click, instead of opening the building menu. Collection bubbles typically appear when the building is at or very near revenue capacity (see below), so clicking on collection bubbles as soon as they appear is advisable.

Revenue Capacity

Every shop has a maximum revenue capacity. When this capacity is reached, the shop can no longer hold additional Zoo Dollars and it will stop generating revenue until the Zoo Dollars are collected. A shop's revenue capacity depends on the type of shop in question; smaller, inexpensive shops have a much smaller capacity than large, costly shops. Similarly, small shops tend to produce collection bubbles when at revenue capacity, while big shops show collection bubbles when near revenue capacity.

A particular shop's revenue capacity can be seen by hovering the cursor over the shop, or over the construction plot of a shop not yet fully built. Alternatively, you can reference the shop pages in the My Free Zoo Wiki.

Managing revenue capacity is a balancing act each player must determine for himself. In small zoos with few shops it's easy to click on each building and collect revenue frequently, and because Zoo Dollars accumulate slowly with few visitors, income lost through maximum capacity is rarely a problem. In large zoos with dozens of shops and hundreds of visitors, however, collection is not such an easy task and significant amounts of potential Zoo Dollars can be lost if buildings are filled to maximum revenue capacity.

Fortunately, revenue capacity is quite easily managed by adjusting the number of shops in the zoo. If capacity is being reached too quickly, simply add more shops in the respective revenue chain. If shops are filling too slowly, try removing a few until visitor numbers are increased.

Buildings do not need to be near a path in order to generate revenue, but they do need to be near a path in order for the treasurer employee to access them.

Treasurers

The Treasurer employee will wander around zoo paths collecting revenue from any shop which is displaying a collection bubble. He will not collect Zoo Dollars from partially filled shops that are not displaying the collection bubble.

Treasurers can only travel on paths and can only reach shops that are within 4 fields of a path. This employee will also empty all shops held within a Shopping Mall, provided the shopping mall itself is within 4 fields of a path.

Like all employees the treasurer is hired for Diamonds from the Administrative Building. 7-day treasurer teams are sometimes awarded from vendors.

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Standard Shops

Standard shops are found in the main Shop menu by going to the Buildings and Special Places tab and then the Shops sub-tab. All standard shops have minimum level requirements which must be met before the shop can be purchased.

All standard shops also come in three sizes; small, medium and large:

Small shops tend to be inexpensive, cost Zoo Dollars, have a short build time and a low revenue capacity.
Medium shops may cost either Zoo Dollars or Diamonds and in the middle as far as build time and revenue capacity.
Big shops cost Diamonds, have a long build time and a high revenue capacity.

While there are no trading cards available for small shops, cards for medium and big shops are plentiful and, for the most part, easy to come by. Medium and big toy stores are usually the most difficult shops to acquire complete sets for, but it is definitely possible to acquire both these stores through trade alone.

Standard shops include:

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Unique Shops

Unique shops refers to all shops that are acquired outside of the main in-game shop. These shops typically come from campaigns, either purchasable during a campaign or awarded as a prize after the campaign ends.

So far unique shops are largely similar in that they have a 1 hour build timer and a revenue capacity of 250-260 Zoo Dollars. There are quite a variety of unique shops in the game already, and will likely be more in the future.

Unique shops sell either food and beverages or keepsakes items, and presumably count towards satisfying these visitor needs. It is uncertain if this is, in fact, the case, however; the game does not clarify one way or the other.

There are no trading cards available for unique shops, and these buildings are so far unavailable for purchase by any means once the campaign from which they were acquired has ended. It is possible a particular shop will return at some point, as most animals do, and new shops are very likely to appear in future campaigns.

Unique shops include:

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Shopping Malls

As mentioned above, between visitor desires and maximizing revenue most zoos quickly become cluttered with a large volume of shops. Shopping Malls provide a convenient solution for this problem; these buildings have a small exterior, taking up little space in the zoo, but a large interior which can be filled with shops. Both standard and unique shops can be placed within a mall.

Shopping malls are found in the same location as standard shops. There are no trading cards available for shopping malls, however; malls must be purchased.

An additional benefit of having a shopping mall in your zoo is the beautification items available for these buildings. Like other decorations, mall decorations contribute to popularity and help satisfy visitor beautification needs.

More detailed information about shopping malls can be found on the Shopping Malls page.

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Demolition

The Demolition option is a means of returning all shops in a given area to your inventory; shops are not actually demolished, as the term implies.

Demolitions must be purchased by opening the main Shop menu, going to the Buildings and Special Places tab, and then opening the Demolition sub-tab. Two sizes are available, both of which cost Diamonds. It is not possible to trade for Demolition pieces.

Once purchased the demolition card will appear in your inventory. To use it, click on the card in inventory and move the cursor over the area from which you'd like to remove buildings. The affected area will be highlighted and the number of buildings that will be picked up indicated on the confirmation screen. Only buildings will be removed; decorations, plants, animal enclosures and other items will remain in place.

Note that this version of demolition is for "Buildings". There are also demolition cards for decorations, found under the Decorations tab of the main Shop window.

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