Socially|Mundane

Second Life markets are riddled with scripted vendor machines. A scripted vendor's purpose is to present many products in as few prims as possible. However they can be painfully slow to rez the product art - especially if product art is not optimized. By this I mean each time a shopper presses the "next" or "previous" button, they must wait for the new texture to rez.

It is better to use one-prim sales boxes than to use a scripted display vendor if you can. Not to mention, you'll be saving money by making the best use of your rental or tier fees.

When you shop for a market booth, look for a place with the least traffic possible. This allows faster rezzing of the market and you will likely get a better deal in price-per-prim anyway. Many markets offer between 25 and 50 prims for your use in the booth. Unless you have more products to sell than prims allowed, there really is no reason to use a scripted display vendor.

Rather it is better to set-out one-prim sales boxes, even if they are "single-item' versions of a scripted network vendor machine (such as Apez or Hippo). Even though the initial rezzing time might take a little longer, once rezzed all your products will be visible at once, making it easier to find what I am looking for and also browse the rest - which could turn into an impulse-buy or two. If you use a display vendor, I'll get what I want and then I'm outa-there. I won;t bother flipping through your vendor to see what else you sell.

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

Make it easy as possible for me to give you my money.

With 'system' sales boxes, there are no failures to speak-of. These are simply prims that are set to "sell" either a copy of itself or the contents. It is not scripted at all. And there are never "undeliveries" you must deal with - ever, except in a single case: when the Second Life Transactions system is on the blink. Not to mention that on purchase, the item is delivered instantaneously (and did I mention without fail...ever?)

I don't really intend to endorse any particular product or creator in this series, so I won't provide a link in this instance. However, if you want to offer gift purchases through a one-prim "system' sales box, the "Simple Box Vendor" from Sarah Showboat is probably the best script I have purchased in all my time in SL. (You can find it on XSL or at her point of sale in-world.)

As for "sytem" sales boxes: simply name your sales box with Company-Product-Location. This makes it easy to find it in inventory (and if it's sold as a copy - it's already highlighted in the Objects folder of my inventory after I purchase it) - and will appear in your transactions history clearly labeled.

I sell furniture. So my box might be named: "Blackthorne-Sofa White-Croix".

• Instant delivery.
• Never a failure.
• Easy for the buyer to locate in inventory.
• Clear transaction reports.

And the side benefit is when a shopper enters my POS location - all boxes are rezzed for easy perusal - rather than with a vendor where it's 'click-wait, click-wait, click-wait." and so on. This, along with using permissions to control sales can help you increase sales and help allow your business to grow.

What more could you ask for?


**********

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.)


art: Paul Graham Raven