Big Ambitions Imports & Deliveries

Why imports matter

Once you outgrow wholesalers, importers are the biggest margin lever in the game. They supply goods at far lower prices than wholesalers, so switching your sourcing to importers raises profit at the same retail price. The trade-off is setup: importing requires a warehouse, a Purchasing Agent, a Logistics Manager, and delivery drivers before a single box moves. The effort pays for itself quickly at scale.

The seven importers

In 1.0 there are seven importers in the city. Four carryover names are widely documented from the Early Access era, JetCargo Imports, SeaSide Internationals, United Ocean Imports, and BlueStone Imports, while three further importers were added by 1.0 and are not individually named in public data yet. Each Purchase Agent can manage only one importer contract at a time, so to source from all seven you would need seven Purchase Agents. You can inspect any importer's stock and prices in-game or through the purchase-prices tool.

Prerequisites before ordering

You need a small chain in place first:

• At least one warehouse with at least one Pallet Shelf.
• At least one Delivery Driver assigned to a delivery vehicle.
• At least one Purchasing Agent at the HQ.
• At least one Logistic Manager at the HQ.

Without these, the importer order screen will not function, which is the most common reason new players think importing is broken.

How ordering works

First visit the importer and speak with the manager to set a contract contact. Then open BizMan, go to the HQ, open the Purchase Agent tab, select the product, enter the quantity (in items, not boxes), and choose the warehouse to receive the goods, then confirm with Order or Cancel. If your balance is too low at 2 a.m. or the pallet racks are full, the entire order is canceled. A triangular exclamation mark means a shortage with a sharply higher price, and a circle means global out-of-stock for about 14 days.

Smart Delivery and Urgent Orders

Smart Delivery lets you set a target stock level per product; the system only ships enough to reach that target, so a warehouse already holding 500 of 1,000 just receives 500. Urgent Orders bypass the standard seven-day cycle for next-day arrival but carry a 100% surcharge, useful only for covering an unexpected stockout that would otherwise lose sales.

Logistics Manager routing

Once goods sit in the warehouse, the Logistics Manager at HQ sets the route, with one manager bound per warehouse. Add a destination, choose the store or warehouse, and set a minimum stock level per product at each store, for example 500 pizzas with a top-up when it drops to 100. The store needs enough shelves to receive the delivery. The manager's skill determines how many delivery points one route can serve.

The Freight Truck is the best delivery vehicle: 4 standard points rising to 8 at full skill, needing a 75%-plus driver. New players can start with the cheaper Mersaidi Dash, which needs only 25% skill. Trucks are sold at General US Trucks on 78 3rd Street, City Cars on 76 3rd Street, and Manhattan Luxury Cars on 15 Broadway.

Delivery points versus vehicle points

Do not confuse the two systems. A vehicle's delivery points cap how many stops one driver can serve; the Logistics Manager's skill sets how many points a route reaches for a given vehicle. A high-skill manager in a Freight Truck unlocks the full 8 points, feeding up to eight stores from one warehouse. The vehicle ladder is covered in Vehicles.

Common mistakes

The usual failures are ordering before the warehouse and staff are ready, entering quantity in boxes instead of items, letting the 2 a.m. balance check fail, and under-skilling the driver so the best truck cannot be used. Fix the prerequisites first, watch the clock on order day, and train delivery drivers specifically. Once stable, importing plus automated logistics is what lets a single player run a city-spanning retail empire.