There are four statistics to pay attention to: gold, experience, popularity, and sociability (1-4 pink stars)

Gold - make more gold by making clothes that make the most gold per hour and accepting gifts that make the most gold per hour. Crissylodmell posted a great spreadsheet showing the most profitable clothes. https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?...thkey=CPucp-MB - Thanks SO much Crissy! As you can see, the short term items make the most gold. Please note, her spreadsheet shows gold earned per hour, it is NOT the way to calculate the best gift.

Gifts - If we ever find out what the sweaters are worth (2g or 5g each), it may be them, but in the meantime, the shoes are worth the most gold. (so please stop sending me the handbags, they are worth 100g, while the shoes are at least 400g) You don't have to accept every gift. You get the most recent 20 gifts, so you can log on throughout the day, accept the shoes, and the other gifts will gradually move down and off the list, and hopefully, more shoes will come on, which you can accept. I'm not sure what "declining" a gift does. I just ignore the gifts I don't want. On a good day, you can get all shoes, if that's what you want. Before I go to bed, I accept whatever is left and put it in an inside row where I can swap it out if I have an outside rack get empty.

Experience - experience is what makes you level up. You get experience from making and displaying clothes, but you also get a lot of experience from giving and receiving "Likes". Keep as many racks and tables filled as you can to get more tips. Visit other people to raise your sociability rating (1-4 pink stars), as that brings in more people to leave you more "likes".

Make it easy for people to "like" you. Keep your racks or tables filled. Pick up your "likes" often, so there is always room. I like to put my tables and racks in groups of 3, so experienced players know that I want Likes and will come back often because they can expect that my tables will be available. I personally hate waiting to load someone's shop and all the racks/tables are full -- or worse, they have no clothes, so that I can't 'like" them either.

Overnight - starting out, it is hard to keep racks filled overnight, or other times you will be away for hours. I use Design mode to move a flowerpot or cushion to block the door so that the customers can't come in. You don't earn any gold, but you keep your tables and racks filled so that you can get "likes".

Extra tables & racks - You can create extra tables and racks for "likes" by putting them together so that the shoppers can't get to them. For example, if you put two rows of tables at the edge of the shop, the row on the edge of the shop isn't touching a shopper, except for the end. I put flowers to block the ends so I have the entire row to fill with Mastery (1) items I earn or with small stack items, like the Wedge shoes (15). I also put dress racks together with outside rows of profitable items (Velvet dresses, Red Crop Tops, Red Silk Tunics) and an inside row that the shoppers can't reach with Mastery items and low numbers of less profitable items so it looks pretty.

Buying items with Gems and expanding - you also get experience that way, but I haven't tried to keep track of it, and don't know much about it.

Popularity - Maybe others have better ideas, but I just keep the racks and tables filled, and keep Full Length Mirrors and Dressing Rooms at opposite ends of the shop. Blocking the door when you run out of clothes (see Overnight in the Experience paragraph) will keep your popularity high.

Sociability - Get a bunch of neighbors by visiting people (Social -> Community tab) and writing your Storm8 ID (not your boutique name) on their wall asking them to add you. Try to have a attractive shop with stocked tables and racks so there is room to 'Like". I never add people whose shops are hard to "like". Visiting neighbors is worth more than visiting strangers. You get double the "likes" (6 instead of 3) and you get a daily bonus of gold, experience or both.

When you visit someone else's shop, you will see a pink number and a bar across the bottom. You start out with 0 or 1. The more you tip, you will see the bar advance to level 2, then 3, then at level 4 the bar disappears and you just have a star with a 4 in it. The first day you get that 4 star, visit a lot of people (more than 20) then after that, you can keep a level 4 just by visiting the neighbors that leave you a gift.

Those are my starting tips. I hope others find it useful and post some more ideas -- or disagree with mine! I never mind being wrong if it improves the game, and I really love this one more than the other Story games. It is more challenging, I think.