Socially|Mundane

Ever right-click to edit so you can see who created something, found yourself intrigued enough to search for them on XStreet SL and... they aren't there? So you view their profile, hit the "Picks" tab to see where their main shop is. Only to find they have three, or five, or (I have actually seen) nine different places to buy their stuff? Yikes!

It's too easy for me to just teleport to your place. Please don't force me to pick between shop numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Just show me the one shop that has everything - screw the rest.

I am a hunter. I am impatient. I want it now.

Save your money, and shoppers' sanity.
Pick a place, stay put, don't move.

Many "experienced" merchants will buy-up dozens of market booths across the grid to get good visibility. That's good strategy, but please don't list them all in your Picks or classifieds. And don't pop in and out of markets based on whether you get any sales there. Stay put.

Pick the place with the least traffic and fastest-rezzing and call it your main showroom. Make it the only landmark, Pick, Classified, and SLURL destination you give or show people. Then find good deals on a few high-traffic market spaces. In these cases, high traffic is a good thing because the purpose of this space is solely for advertising - building brand recognition.

At a later time someone may look for you, they return to this market - hopefully you are still there so they can get that landmark to your main location because they don't know your name, or remember your company or anything other than what your adverts look like. Stay put so those future customers can find you.

In those high-traffic areas, the market owner will charge a premium. This is where you want to take into account the cost per prim. If a booth costs L$250 for 25 prims per week, that's L$10 per prim.

Let's make a deal!

How about I give you L$25 per week for a single prim that will be a sign (advertising poster) that gives notecards and landmarks and I don't even have to use-up one of your booths! I want to place it not at the landing point - but at the exit point, where the teleporter is to get into the sim proper (so it will be rezzed by the time people come to it.)

Now I have visibility where people will be unlikely to interrupt their current activity (headed into the sim proper) to shop and buy things. And I have this at a very low, cost-effective rate of only L$100 per month. I can get into ten-times as many malls this way for the cost of renting a single booth at a single mall.

And the market owner is actually making more money on that single prim than they would otherwise. Oh, and in that notecard you give-out from those advert posters, include not only a detailed description of what you sell, but the URL to your XSL (and other out-world) listings! Yes - inside that and every notecard you give-out! And remember: don't try to sell your product through these. Rather sell the visit to your point of sale. If you offer gifts, say so to entice them to visit. Once at your point of sale, then you can switch into "product-selling mode."

An alternative is to negotiate for a commission-based rate. Say, 35% commission on all sales. That way, you have the visibility without the cost unless you actually make sales. But remember, the real goal is to get people to your "official showroom" which is your main point-of-sale.

The same is true even with Network Selling!

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Want the whole kaboodle? There is far more detail in the 'how' and 'why' in my book: Successful Business in Second Life (SBSL - Second Edition for 2009/10; 270-pages) is available at XStreet SL. The book includes both, an in-world and eReader version. There also is an  Amazon Kindle version, (you receive both: ereader and in-world versions no matter where you purchase it.)

Now with regard to your product art... we need to talk.