Just to expand on that suggestion a bit, if I may,. Sims cannot see or be motivated by anything that is on a residential lot unless they have been invited in and lot-greeted by a member of the household living there, even if there are no walls or doors to pass through. One way to get some shoppers is to throw a lot of parties or just invite a lot of sims over, but then you still have to do the tedious "welcome to my home" social lot greeting one by one as they arrive.

Inge's Ticket Machine mod, as KevinL5275 suggested, does the inviting and lot greeting for you. But do be careful with it as it can easily get carried away and the entire town can end up trying to cram itself onto the lot in question all at once even if the settings used didn't seem to dictate such a heavy handed shove in that direction.

That's a very nice video Sarah, the first one, I mean, but isn't it the same solution? Inge's Open for Business mod and the Ticket Machine that we have been talking about (I probably shouldn't have called it that since it doesn't actually dispense tickets) are different names for the same thing. Inge used the names interchangeably as well.

Yeah, this is what I thought. If LateNite is in play, the Room Markers are a great idea to separate the lot owner's living space from what should be the more publicly accessible (to the other NPC residents of the building) lobby areas, aka "the shop." While I think sims who are residents in town elsewhere or NPCs not otherwise hibernating in their own units in such a structure (the so-called apartment building neighbors) can come into the Public Room Markered lobby to browse, in most cases I don't think they are going to do that on their own.

On a simpler level though, without the LN tools in play players are often disappointed to find that they cannot operate a point of sale operation or even a lemonade stand, bake sale, or produce cart right out in the open on their front lawn. I mean, they can but they still won't get any customers because the inactive sims in town won't see what is on that residential lawn even if they are standing on the sidewalk just outside of it. Very counter-intuitive, to be fair, and hence Inge's creation.

Now for the usual disclaimer. I've never used Savvier Seller. But if I did, I would be sure to at lest try to lock the doors to what I would consider to be the private areas of my home that I really don't want guests snooping their little sim noses into even if they have been lot-greeted either socially or by a device. And I don't really want them helping themselves to the leftovers in my fridge (unless they express hunger and ask nicely first or I wish to serve them a meal), keeping me up all night playing my video games without permission, or commenting on the quality of the artwork or the fact that I never make my bed in my upstairs living quarters. But then again, maybe that's just me.

It's admittedly much easier to run these operations on an active-family owned community lot. You still might not get enough (however that is defined) customers, but at least sims know your store is there and is among the usually many things in town vying for their attention.