It will be pre stocked for you. You can buy and sale item also. Your caps that the store makes off of your settlers will be in your workbench. I do not know if you buy from the store if all, part or none of the cost goes in to your workbench.

The annoying thing is all buildable stores share an inventory meaning if you sell stuff at one weapon store everybweap9n store will be out of caps

Game magic. You fund it, and they end up with goodies.
But you'll not see a ROI on your caps. It's all bout hateful little mud grubbing settlers being happy. Not sure why you care if they're happy.
All you really want is an adhesive farm so you can mod your weapons and armor. What's that? Maybe 3 settlers and one hand water pump? And one more settler to be a provisioner to the next settlement in line.
yes, you want to build to get XP, but you don't need 20 settlers.

Interesting replies, and thanks to each of you. Built an armor store in Sanctuary and soon afterward found 30 caps in my workbench. I must say, this is a fun part of the game I overlooked back when this game came out.

You get a max of 50 caps a day for all stores.
Trading stand: 300 caps
Armor stand: 500 caps
weapons stand 500 caps
Drink Stand: 250 caps
First aid Station: 600 caps
Clothing stand: 200 caps
Total all stands: 2350 caps.
Number of in game days to break even: 47 days, at best.
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Stores?so=search

I think stands are only practical for happiness points. Easier to build cat traps, imho. I've had all the Emporiums in one play through, barely broke 83 happiness. Settlers are mean little creatures that are NEVER happy.

Originally posted by Xenon The Noble:

You get a max of 50 caps a day for all stores.
Trading stand: 300 caps
Armor stand: 500 caps
weapons stand 500 caps
Drink Stand: 250 caps
First aid Station: 600 caps
Clothing stand: 200 caps
Total all stands: 2350 caps.
Number of in game days to break even: 47 days, at best.
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Stores?so=search

I think stands are only practical for happiness points. Easier to build cat traps, imho. I've had all the Emporiums in one play through, barely broke 83 happiness. Settlers are mean little creatures that are NEVER happy.

But you can sell stuff to them to get caps. So that changes the break even dramatically. Like sell some unwanted lower level guns. Or farming water or whatever. You can make thousands over time like that.

Sorry for reanimating this post... I feel like complementing this one is better than opening another one for others' future reference...

There is one thing I didn't get yet with the stores... I built one of each and a clinic as well. I assigned a settler to each of them and Curie as the doctor because of course, but I'm unable to trigger the stores or the clinic. They are all behind their stands, the stand lights are on, indicating they are in business, but when I talk to them to trigger the store, all I get is the normal trade items with the settler's own inventory and not the store...

What am I missing?

yeah it can glitch out. did you move them from another settlement to this location?

if you plopped the settlers out of thin air with console commands, make sure you use the right one, the settler randomizer one that actually assigns the proper workshopNPCscript keywords, I think it's 20593 but you can look that up... you might have used a beacon or moved them from elsewhere or something, which usually doesn't glitch, unless you get the weird all-farmers farming bug, where it takes ALL settlers and assigns them to farming, even if there's not enough plants, and assigning them manually to scavenging stations, haircutter, stores, etc makes them just behave like "wanna trade" and that's it... no idea what causes it and I tend to disable & markfordelete those glitchy ones and bring in new blood.

I try "kicking" them... go into workshop mode, highlight em, press R, send em anywhere else. any settlement with room (not grayed out). wait a second til they start walking away.... press R again and re-assign them here, then E them and then E on the stand again... exit workshop... try talking to to them (they do not have to be at their booth, as long as you got the "assigned" popup anywhere near is fine, usually).

if that works for one of them, it'll probably work for the rest.

and don't forget your profits go into the workbench, so there might be a lot of caps at a lot of settlements if you're just selling your loot to them.

Does Curie require a t3 stand to sell things? Who specifically are you putting at the others? Because 'named' settlers with quests often cannot BE assigned.

If you're building your stuff too far from the workbench, too, that may indicate something is off.

There are areas (usually near the edge of various settlements) that aren't properly tagged in the game files to make vendor stands work properly if they're placed there.

I have a list of the affected settlements, the areas affected in each one, and the settlement objects known to be involved (it affects a few others besides vendor stands).

https://steamcommunity.com/app/377160/discussions/0/3810661398174199221/?tscn=1692152950

Originally posted by Death Approaches:

yeah it can glitch out. did you move them from another settlement to this location?

No, I seldomly use the terminal. I only used it with lasting effects once, to be able to initiate the brotherhood questline because of a bug in the police station where it starts. I also don't use mods.

Originally posted by Death Approaches:

I try "kicking" them... go into workshop mode, highlight em, press R, send em anywhere else. any settlement with room (not grayed out). wait a second til they start walking away.... press R again and re-assign them here, then E them and then E on the stand again... exit workshop... try talking to to them (they do not have to be at their booth, as long as you got the "assigned" popup anywhere near is fine, usually).

if that works for one of them, it'll probably work for the rest.

Thanks, I'll try that out

Originally posted by Death Approaches:

and don't forget your profits go into the workbench, so there might be a lot of caps at a lot of settlements if you're just selling your loot to them.

Yes! I've seen caps there. I only use Sanctuary though, becase, honestly, I think the settlement system is superfluous. All I wanted was to have a safe house to store my stuff, so I ended up sticking to Sanctuary as it seemed to me the most logical choice given the MC literally lived there before the war and has plenty of space for stuff. So I will probably not have money on other settlements

Originally posted by Zekiran:

Does Curie require a t3 stand to sell things?

I don't know. I was hoping her to cure diseases and addiction more than a clinic store

Originally posted by Zekiran:

Who specifically are you putting at the others? Because 'named' settlers with quests often cannot BE assigned.

So... the thing is that since I don't really care a lot about the whole settlement thing, I don't look for settlers. Sanctuary is just storage for my companions. All my settlers are named. Here are the assignments I have:

- Armour: Sheffield
- Clinic: Curie
- Weapons: Piper
- Clothing: MacCready
- Bar: Cait
- General: Danse

Weirdly enough, Sheffield's store correctly triggered while I was trying to find who I put up on each store. It was during the day and there was Sheffield and Curie in their posts. Curie didn't work at this time. Then I waited to night time, which I noticed is more likely people gather around the stores and the stores are open for business. During the night, Sheffield's store was back not working again. Only triggering the usual conversation.

Originally posted by Zekiran:

If you're building your stuff too far from the workbench, too, that may indicate something is off.

So, there is the house where the workbench is set by default, right? The two houses on both sides of it were scrappable. The closest one to the left (when facing it from the front) is where I have my storage units and my collection of unique power armour full sets and the one to the right down the slight slope is where I keep the stores and my collection of power armour frames that I always pick when I can. The stores are on the far side of what used to be that house. Not sure if this is "too far".

I would send a screenshot if Steam wasn't so damn confusing

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

There are areas (usually near the edge of various settlements) that aren't properly tagged in the game files to make vendor stands work properly if they're placed there.

I have a list of the affected settlements, the areas affected in each one, and the settlement objects known to be involved (it affects a few others besides vendor stands).

https://steamcommunity.com/app/377160/discussions/0/3810661398174199221/?tscn=1692152950

I checked the item for Sanctuary and doesn't seem to be one of those areas

I think I found a way to share the screenshot. This is what my store setup looks like and where it is:

https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/16309741609885309878/D5AEE5A6029616EFB98CFE3A3ABFF8E2C4EECF1C/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

And yeah, Carla's bramin is on the roof for days now lol it's there even when Carla's not

I don't think any of those assignments will work properly, is what the issue is, but also night time is not when they SHOULD be working, as the load screen blurb will tell you.

The only thing that should work overnight is the bar.

Put normal people, settlers without npc names, at the ones that don't work. Make sure they can get to their beds away from their work stations. they don't have adequate navmeshing on that platform, I don't think.

I have curie working the Surgeon station (not the clinic) and have put Deacon, McCready, and Preston on police station security units. Vault Tec dude gets his own t4 (t3 when placed, becoming t4 when he starts using it) GENERAL store, Anne Hargraves on Clothes (same thing, set it down as t3 and it will sell t4).

I don't even know that Danse will do ANY selling? He should be on patrols.

then I also have sheffield casually as a lil' ol bit of tail, (a simple mod not one of the smooty ones) but I have sometimes had him as a 'busy' chem (it's just a scavenger station). got Cait as chem scav currently.

The companion NPCS rarely work very well because they lack dialog options for being behind trade stands. That's what regular settlers and hireable NPCs like the Vault Tec ghoul and Anne from the radio station after you save her friend and can recruit Strong, and some of those random others around the commonwealth are for instead.