Some people split these shops but I find they need to be together - just like battle and magic. At least within my own malls, i find that bakery gets significantly less hits so it doesn't really keep that member happy. Just my .02. If the mall is powerful enough, you'd might get away with the bakery spot alone but it's a long shot now as hut exposure is nearly dead compared to what it was before. There's still a few huts that are pretty darn decent but not much of those out there

Having both categories together requires an extremely substantial shop size. I dont recommend it under shop size 600. Food/Drinks and bakery/sweets are huge categories.. Honestly, variety is pretty much the biggest requirement in making money in Bakery/Sweets or Food/Drink. I havent had the hits issue within the nursery, my bakery shop usually keeps up with my food shop. Not sure on the reasoning. Malling is all about pricing competitively now, so its entirely possible to make a ton of money as bakery/sweets (without food and drink). There is a lot of overlap with the categories though. Ice Cream, though technically a food item is most definitely a sweet, and so is all the Kiko Lake Food. Its mall discretion as far as overlap goes.

Yeah I definitely think it depends on the mall. I think the most logical solution to limiting overlap is for the food and drinks shop owner to try to limit their bakery and sweets items, because obviously food and drink is a much more general category.

The market has been changing a lot. As of now, pretty much any spot can be made to work if you are willing to price competitively. Traditionally, I've had bakery mallers constantly leave my mall due to low sales so I eventually did away with the spot and merged it into foods. As for shop size, i think most sizes above 300 or so should be decent (stock wise, disregarding huts). With tools like neomallers portal, you can easily stock more of the ones that are popular, and 1 of each for food items that barely sell.

idk y people do that, but it could possibly get the mallers more shop views with another category added to it. although a lot of people do both categories in a mall so idk.

I think it's up to each mall owner and the respective shopkeepers on what overlap is allowed. I stock Bakery and Sweets right now. I stock whatever is categorized as Baked or Candy. I also carry some items that are in other food categories that are considered sweets. There are many cupcakes and ice creams that are Food but I stock them because they go with my category. Conversely, I only stock sandwiches that are labeled Baked because I feel that sandwiches are more food items and would be detracting from the food seller in my mall. I used to stock Food and Drinks and loved it. It was my preferred category. I switched malls a few years ago and then took a brief break. Bakery was open and I was looking for a change so I tried it. Sales and hits on Neo are nothing close to what they were a few years ago, and I'm still trying to figure out what works best for me. Having the Portal would be a big help, but I'm a Mac user. I'm just working on increasing the overall variety of items. Most of my prices are competitive.