Socially|Mundane

A huge problem many retailers in Second Life have is that their products are not seen by many potential buyers who want that product and are willing to pay for it. This is because of the urge many creators have to present high-resolution, detailed "product art". Because these textures are nicely detailed, high-resolution images, they take a long time to download and they are in a queue with everyone else's high-resolution textures... all waiting to download to the shopper's viewer. Hence: the 'gray box city' at every market, mall and most landing points. Add bots and campers on the sim to the mix and your customer might never see what you have to sell, an imperative reason to list all your products on XStreet SL.


Remember, the hunter is impatient. They are on a hunt. They have places to go, things to do. Often, if the gray boxes don't start coloring-in fast enough, they'll teleport away to the next destination on their search result list. So you simply must optimize your product art for this purpose, allowing your textures to rez faster than everyone else's. The more potential customers that actually see your product art, the more who will translate into actual buyers.

It is highly recommended you have points of sale in-world and also at XStreet SL. Because of this, it will take a little planning when preparing your product art. So here are some recommended steps for optimized product art that will help boost sales:

First, set your product against a neutral background. Plain white or black works very well. A subdued washed-out background also works well. The point is to not take attention and detail away from the product you are showing. This also allows your texture to compress well when uploaded and still maintain good detail in the image - all translating into fast download, rezzing quickly.
Once you have your product highlighted cleanly and clearly, run a "sharpen" filter on it then brighten it a touch, save an 800x800 pixel high-resolution image. This image should be used on your XStreet SL listing - many hunters will shop XSL first because it is faster and more convenient than teleporting all over the grid and dealing with lag and rezzing and bots and campers at each location.

Then save a copy as a 256x256 pixel "vendor version" that you will upload into SL. Yes, that's right: 256x256 pixels - half the size of the standard texture most will upload for product art. This will ensure your vendors rez blazing fast compared to most others. Save the file format as Portable Network Graphics (PNG) if you can - it's a non-lossy format which translates well after being compressed by the uploading process.

With your product set against a neutral background, detail will be maintained and compression done well, making it a very small file to stream to the customer's viewer. In a mall booth, this means your vendor textures will rez faster than most others, giving you the visual advantage to hunters and gatherers alike. See SLST 01 to know how to have your textures and vendors download and rez before everyone else's.

Want the whole kaboodle? Successful Business in Second Life (SBSL - Second Edition for 2009/10) is available at XStreet SL. The book includes both, an in-world and eReader version as well. Amazon Kindle version comes with the in-world version also.

And remember, just because your product art files are optimized for fast-rezzing, they still need to look good and properly highlight your product.