I'm pretty sure Joja Mart would have went out of business regardless of us completing the community center. There's no way they got enough customers in this little rural town to cover overhead, stock, & employee wages.
Well Morrison manages to "move" out every single town member from Pierre's store to his beloved joja mart in one of the first scenes in the game.
Yeah. It is implied that while Pierre's store had quality, a lot of the folks in town were buying from Joja cause they were incredibly cheap. Unless apparently you are a farmer! I always thought it kind of quirky that apparently Joja is super cheap yet their stuff for you is more expensive than at Pierres. I guess it's because most folks aren't buying seeds but the various food items. That or everyone spent 5k on their Joja memberships or something. That said, I tend to not think of economics too much in the game considering I apparently live on a farm where I can make sashimi out of snails I fish out of my farm-pond and I can apparently sell my entire stock of produce to Pierre without it ever effecting him financially.
They get coupons from Morris in that cutscene where he enters Pierre's shop. 50% off at JojaMart. Plus they probably do have membership cards too. And yeah, I don't think about the economics in this game either. I grew up on a farm and I can tell you, small-scale farmers don't make millions. Heck, the SDV farm is way smaller than my dad's farm was and we were struggling with money. So yeah... The economics is one of the not so realistic parts of this game.
Jodi mentions that the food isn't the greatest, but with such cheap prices she likes to shop there. Penny mentions *cheap prices* are the main reason Pam shops there too. I suspect Joja is like Wal-Mart (who I suspect the store is modeled after) - a multimillionaire company that can afford to prop up the Joja In Stardew Valley because they are swimming in money.
a couple things to keep in mind regarding jojo mart (Wal-Mart). i grew up in a small town. i can tell you from experience that Wal-Mart DOES invade small towns and can unfortunately do very well. consequently, they can put the locals out of business. hence why there are many protests, and multiple efforts to try and block wal-mart from going up in a small town. reasons why they do well: they can undercut the locals. make prices significantly cheaper. when you are in a small town and dont have much cash.. a 5-10% savings on your grocery bill can mean EVERYTHING. as horrible as wal-mart is.. they provide that savings. they offer products not generally available in small towns.. no need to drive 30 miles anymore to another city. in the end though.. the savings and convenience is why wal-mart does well in small towns. it sucks because local businesses largely cant compete.
It could also be a long-term plot. The Joja company could subsidize the Stardew Valley store and let it run in the red long enough to drive Pierre out of business. Once their only competition in the area is gone, Joja jacks up prices because they have an undisputed local monopoly on food and other necessities. I wouldn't put this level of economic manipulation past Joja.
After reading this thread I really had to think about the gap between Joja having the infamous reputation of being cheap and you paying more than at Pierre's. Is this maybe a trick from ConcernedApe to push us in a certain direction? Won't the villagers notice that Joja is only cheaper with coupons? In that case Lewis wouldn't have to worry.
Joja also has a cola , Wal-Mart not. Those cola just thrown all over the river bottom. Like Coca-Cola. Joja must be something giant, even governmental. SDV has a train station, while no train stops there. There're only about 30 population in SDV. Why joja built such a big supermarket in such a small and isolated place? Why they want a warehouse built in such place? Considering monsters and ghosts and non-human races does exist in SDV world, we can say the real thing joja wants to get in SDV should not be just 30 unweaithy customers, they want SDV the place itself. SDV really got some extraodinary resources...
I think Joja's more than just Walmart you worked at then in an office. It's like Nuka Cola from Fallout, it's literally taking over a piece of the world.
I think i can solve this mysterium: There are plenty of junimos in SDV. This is the real reason why jojamart want to have this old shabby north of pelican town. They want to be nearer of a new group of consumers.
IDK I was told you can only get Good Value brand products at Wal-Mart. Joja is kinda like Wal-mart with the whole non-wealthy customers thing too really. Most of the time people consider Wal-Mart evil but can't afford to pass on the savings you get there. While I don't doubt they might try to gain something from SDV itself, I believe they basically say if you go the Joja route that they picked it as a small test. If they can succeed in such a small rural place they can succeed anywhere right?
