eCommerce '99

It's 1999 and the whole world is about to move online. You have a garage, a beige PC, a dial-up connection, and a cat. Start selling.

eCommerce '99 is a first-person business sim that does not stop at the shop. You begin by packing every order yourself. Later you hire floor workers and office staff, open new warehouses, and set your prices against a living market of 1,000+ customers that pushes back. Most shop sims stop at the shop. Yours becomes a company.

Will you stay a scrappy specialist, or corner the market and build the next Amazon?

It starts in the garage, and you do all of it yourself. Print the order, build the box, pick the products off the shelf, then add the filling, close it, tape it and slap on the label before the delivery truck comes. Cut a corner and the review shows it. Every dollar goes straight back in: into better shelves, more space, and the first real warehouse you can call your own. The business grows around you, one shipped box at a time.

For a while, you do everything yourself. Then you hire your first packer, and the fulfilment table is not only yours anymore. Bring on stockers, buyers who reorder stock for you, web designers, and marketing managers who run campaigns to pull customers in. Praise the good ones, move them where you need them, and step back to watch the warehouse run without you. This is the moment a shop becomes a company. It is the part most sims never let you reach.

Your choices actually move the numbers. Behind your store is a market of 1,000+ customers, each with their own budget and their own idea of a fair price. Undercut your rivals to take the market, then raise your prices once it is yours. Push too far and elasticity lets the competition back in. Every save rolls a different customer base, so no two runs balance the same way.

Your company should look like yours, not a faceless corporation. Build your own website module by module, from a clunky 90s auction page into a slick modern portal, and every upgrade you add makes the business itself run better. Arrange floor and wall furniture, and kit out the garage, the office and every warehouse to your taste. Two people building the same business will end up with two very differently looking companies.

CRT glow, the sound of a modem connecting, a lava lamp doing its slow thing in the corner. Warm, a little worn, and exactly the decade you half-remember. Sell products inspired by the classics of the era, like the Game Man, the Run Man and the CRT TV. And through all of it there is Jeff. Your cat naps, hunts, follows you around when he is happy, and climbs into the boxes. Feed him and he warms to you. Forget, and he lets you know. Every stream needs a mascot, and yours purrs.