Deja Letov Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Hi! It's been awhile since I've been very active on the forum...been off caring for my new little monster. Anyway, I've recently started back to building in SL and catching up on the merchant forum ( you guys have been busy). I'm still seeing a lot of posts about how merchants are giving up their in world stores and keeping it just to marketplace. And in other forums like the general discussion forum I keep seeing lots of people asking for things to do in SL, interesting places to see, etc. So it got me to thinking, why are we not slacking a tiny bit on the actual store front and instead shift a bit of our focus on providing some sort of entertainment to the users of SL. Would this not do two important things...1. Increase our traffic count and 2. Potentially bring in new customers (assuming the entertainment matched what it is you are selling)? It just seems like a no brainer as a way to increase traffic and sales.I realize for new merchants, this wouldn't be feasible. They may not have the space nor the extra linden to waste any space at all for entertainment purposes. But for those of us established merchants, couldn't we scale the shop down just a bit and make way for something valuable to give back to the SL community? I've got my own idea for what I'm going to do, and it's definitely something I think that will be fun and give residents a place to explore and hang out. And most importantly my shop will be right smack dab in the middle of it. I'm also thinking this may help with some resident retention by giving people more things to do. Just imagine if 50 shops did this. People would stop complaining that there was nothing to do in SL and the next time someone asks for something to go do on the forum, someone might just post "hey you should go check out X's sim because they have this activtiy oh and they have a cool store there too."Yay or nae? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 I can't do anything like that for a couple of reason, the first being that every time I release something new I have to delete something because I am out of prims. Second is that there is only one of me, and I barely have enough time just to run the store and build things and do CS. Third is that I already have too broad a product line, to branch out into entertainment would be crazy. Fourth is I want those who come to my store to be interested in shopping -- shopping IS the entertainement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deja Letov Posted January 22, 2013 Author Share Posted January 22, 2013 Yes I am in the same situation for prims. It sucks. I am always having to delete to make room. What I am thinking of doing is cutting down that prim count drastically by using rezzers instead. I'm already doing that for some things now because I had to. But am thinking I could do it even more and if I package them up by department..like kitchens, bedrooms, etc and do 2 rezzers per section, then I shouldn't run into too many issues with people not being able to get what they need. Not to mention marketplace still overruns my inworld sales no matter how hard I try. I'm not really going to branch out into entertainment as far as something related to my products. I'm talking more along the lines of making it more than just a shop slammed down in the middle of a sim. Things like... 1. People are loving those 7seas fishing areas, so a fishing pond would be ideal I think. 2. Water areas...people love those little romantic spots so why not just landscape a bit outside, put in a river with a boat rezzer and let them float around the sim. 3. Dance Pavillion, give them a place to come and dance under the stars I'm just throwing simple ideas out there. There are some things anyone could do without really branching into the entertainment. Now...you could go massive and do things like a club, roleplay exploration, etc. It's there but ya it would be a lot to do and run a store. And I totally agree i want people there to be interested in shopping. But that's the point...to get ever more people to come and find out about our stores. people who are already coming will continue to come, I don't think you'd be taking that away. But if traffic is higher, more people may show up and if people are tlaking about your location, again more people would come, which would mean potentially more people shopping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melita Magic Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 This topic title caught my eye on the main forum / forum entry page. As a customer I vote for fun games. I like those ones where you can click to match the picture. Even if it goes whirrrr when you lose. (I want to send it some pepto bismol) But I often win some cool stuff and it's a fun thing to do while waiting for something to rez, or waiting for a friend you tp'd in to hit the lucky board, or just waiting. I will even stand in a store and play something like that, while reading something else online. Just to chill. I also like those random "so and so won a skirt just for being here" things. I also like when a store is simple inside and easy to fly in and easy to shop in, but the yard or garden outside is beautiful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madeliefste Oh Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Our shopping audience, builder and creators, do not often go out to make fun. Many do hardly leave their building platform, so adding entertainment to the shop surrounding won't have much impact in our case. Still we do want to make it attractive to visit the in world shop, we do offer something extra there. For our shop it is important that this extra is not time consuming for creators. And the item or activity must add a value for creators and builders. At the moment we have two things: an education package and a contest. The educational package is our only freebie. It contains an item, that is both made as a sculpty and as a mesh. It contains a notecard in which the main differences between sculpties and meshes are explained. People can play around with the free example to experience these differences by themselves. The contest we have is a 'Suggest a mesh', in runs on monthly base. We invite customers to drop their ideas for items they would like to see in our shop in our suggestion box. Once a month we pick a winning idea, we make the item, and the winner gets a full perms version for free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deja Letov Posted January 22, 2013 Author Share Posted January 22, 2013 Madeliefste Oh wrote: Our shopping audience, builder and creators, do not often go out to make fun. Many do hardly leave their building platform, so adding entertainment to the shop surrounding won't have much impact in our case. Still we do want to make it attractive to visit the in world shop, we do offer something extra there. For our shop it is important that this extra is not time consuming for creators. And the item or activity must add a value for creators and builders. At the moment we have two things: an education package and a contest. The educational package is our only freebie. It contains an item, that is both made as a sculpty and as a mesh. It contains a notecard in which the main differences between sculpties and meshes are explained. People can play around with the free example to experience these differences by themselves. The contest we have is a 'Suggest a mesh', in runs on monthly base. We invite customers to drop their ideas for items they would like to see in our shop in our suggestion box. Once a month we pick a winning idea, we make the item, and the winner gets a full perms version for free. I can see how businesses catering to creators might not benefit from this idea too. I know for me, getting me to leave my sim is like pulling teeth. I leave to go demo animations, looking at sculpts and find textures. My assistant tries to get me to leave once in awhile but it just doesn't happen. lol I love your contest idea. What a great way to get your customers to interact with you and get them to come back every month to submit new ideas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czari Zenovka Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Welcome back, Deja I've missed you. My shop is very small so my answer will be quite a bit different than that of merchants with larger shops. I'm currently working on completely revamping my older items, building new products, and restructuring my store layout. When I have this completed my goal is to provide a shopping experience that is more like visiting a warm, inviting home rather than a store. I've mentioned on these forums several times how I discovered small, quaint shops while exploring SL in years past and loved them. I would spend a lot of time sitting in a comfy chair, perhaps having some tea that was provided, and enjoy checking out the often one-of-a-kind items for sale. The whole atmosphere was reminiscent of quaint used bookstores or antique shops I love in RL. This is what I have in mind to recreate in my store. A garden area was mentioned. In my shop rennovation I plan to make use of my garden area as the landing spot for tps. I will place designer group signs, hunt notices, etc. on a board visible from the landing spot. My goal is to make the garden area attractive and peaceful and decorate it with my creations that will be for sale by purchasing a copy. I recently visited the shop of one of our regular forum posters and spent more time than I normally would if I were just going to a store to buy something because it had this quaint, cozy look I adore. I walked around and admired the layout, the landscaping, how cleverly the merchandise was arranged, etc. This would be the type of shop that I would take friends to because of its unique look. Different types of stores appeal to different types of people but, at the end of the day, it is our marketing that gets people to our stores - what we offer encourages them to stay and become customers. Apart from tangible aspects, I offer personalized service to my customers including house calls. In 4 1/2 years I have had maybe than ten customers request this service, but each time the visit has yielded very positive results. The most recent of these was the wierd glitch with my animated closet that you figured out and provided the solution (THANK YOU sooo much again, Deja!!!). By going to my customer's home to observe the issue, I saw the style of her furnishings and where she planned to put the closet. This inspired me to create a closet to better blend with her decor. My customer was thrilled and I now have two new items to offer as a result. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Porky Gorky Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Welcome back Deja and congrats on the new offspring. I don't think merchants need to necessarily design specific areas for entertainment, but they can strive to make the whole store into a tourist attraction. The Cream Shop springs to mind as a great example, I never went there to go shopping but just loved the sim and the atmosphere and the attention to detail and when I went there I often saw people just hanging about outside chatting etc, Another good example is Rustica. They really cashed in when sculpties rolled out and created, at the time, the best sculpted store in SL. It was talked about often, in the same vein as purely entertainment based sims and effectively became a tourist attraction. So creating a spectacular build or a very atmospheric store can go a long way to providing the social draw that you are talking about, without actually specifically setting aside space and prims to build a specific type of entertainment. The store itself is the entertainment. Allot easier said than done though :smileyhappy: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deja Letov Posted January 22, 2013 Author Share Posted January 22, 2013 Porky Gorky wrote: Welcome back Deja and congrats on the new offspring. I don't think merchants need to necessarily design specific areas for entertainment, but they can strive to make the whole store into a tourist attraction. The Cream Shop springs to mind as a great example, I never went there to go shopping but just loved the sim and the atmosphere and the attention to detail and when I went there I often saw people just hanging about outside chatting etc, Another good example is Rustica. They really cashed in when sculpties rolled out and created, at the time, the best sculpted store in SL. It was talked about often, in the same vein as purely entertainment based sims and effectively became a tourist attraction. So creating a spectacular build or a very atmospheric store can go a long way to providing the social draw that you are talking about, without actually specifically setting aside space and prims to build a specific type of entertainment. The store itself is the entertainment. Allot easier said than done though :smileyhappy: This and what Czari mentioned are exactly what I am talking about. When i say "entertainment" I guess what I mean is something other than just strictly commercialized shopping. It doesn't have to be all games, flashy lights, etc. Even a sitting area with coffee, could fall under what I am talking about. The garden areas, even just an atmosphere worthy of visiting would all over something other than shopping and could draw people in. And oh yes Rustica was beautiful. I remember riding a motorcycle over the terrain there lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trinity Yazimoto Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Hi wooo, this is a thread i like hehehhehe my shop is a comfy lil cottage, located in a beautifull garden (i may say it, bec im not the one who did the lanscaping lol... im horrible for this hehehhehe). In my garden you have several lil spots where you can sit, pose for pics, do yoga, swim in the river and in the pond, and for this winter we did also a lil icerink. The landscaping has been made by a dear friend who is awesomely talented. So yes, im really proud to own such land. Its really over all i could dream, and ill be thanksfull forever to my friend for this. In spring we will switch again to the normal garden, so the ice rink will be again a pond, with ducks and fishes. and flowers, tons of flower will replace the snow. We will also rerezz the picnic rug and some towels beside the river shore. And i have already some gym rugs i bought recently, ready to be rezzed there too. Im sorry but i hate sand and beach, and althought my land is facing the sea you can easily avoid it and think you are in a peacefull valley with a river. Sadly, ive bought some winter games to entertain my visitors, but these ones, like a battle with snowmen, need i open my land... and lol, no way... i dont want to open my land hehehehhe.. so i had to derezz them and keep them in my inventory. My store doesnt look like a usual store either, as i said its a comfy cottage, you can sit there on the sofa and seats and chit chat. I left for free 2 of the secondary rooms to 2 of my friends for they rezz their vendors, so my customers can also find some diverstiy. One of these friends is my landscaper, and the second one is my best sl friend and she does the same for me in her store. There are also 2 porchs, one on the front and one on the back with table, rockin chairs, seats etc.. there is even a hopscrotch and a schoolboard where you can sit. I really hope that my visitors enjoy my garden like they do for my store. oh and since some days... my visitors can enjoy also a precious lil closet that make you move inside as soon as you clik on it ehehhehehehhe... Well, this one has been gifted tome by a well known forumer heheheheh... Ive already told some of my regular visitors and we had happy moments with this closet :smileywink: ah and something important for me... my followers know that they are always more than welcome to come in my land whatever they come for shopping or only for hanging out.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Porky Gorky Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 In the old days allot of stores had automatic social areas because lots of people were gaming traffic. So you would have the camping chairs, which were people cleaning the floors or washing windows or sitting around, then you had the lucky chairs and poeple stood around chatting and waiting for their letter to come up. If you were paying decent rewards then there would often be people queing up waiting to get on the camping chairs too. They were all there for the money but the bi product of this was that social groups would form, the same campers would come back every day and they befriended each other and as well as coming for the money that also came to hang out with their friends and very occasional to buy something. I got annoyed with them all in the end and booted them out. Bloody freeloading scroungers messing up the place :matte-motes-big-grin: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Porky Gorky Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Deja Letov wrote: Yes I am in the same situation for prims. It sucks........ If you have been away for a while you may not be aware of some changes related to the mesh rollout that will bring your LI down. First is you can make prims larger than 10m now without resorting to megaprims, but hopefully have worked that one out already. The more important thing to know is the trick of using convex hull physics on normal prims to lower the LI. In some instances it is possible to lower the LI by up to 50% but there are risks and loopholes to be aware of. Have a look this blog post by Ciaran Laval for more info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czari Zenovka Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Porky Gorky wrote: In the old days allot of stores had automatic social areas because lots of people were gaming traffic. So you would have the camping chairs, which were people cleaning the floors or washing windows or sitting around, then you had the lucky chairs and poeple stood around chatting and waiting for their letter to come up. If you were paying decent rewards then there would often be people queing up waiting to get on the camping chairs too. They were all there for the money but the bi product of this was that social groups would form, the same campers would come back every day and they befriended each other and as well as coming for the money that also came to hang out with their friends and very occasional to buy something. I got annoyed with them all in the end and booted them out. Bloody freeloading scroungers messing up the place :matte-motes-big-grin: Why am I suddenly seized with this urge to come hang out at your store? :matte-motes-tongue: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deja Letov Posted January 22, 2013 Author Share Posted January 22, 2013 Trinity Yazimoto wrote: Hi wooo, this is a thread i like hehehhehe my shop is a comfy lil cottage, located in a beautifull garden (i may say it, bec im not the one who did the lanscaping lol... im horrible for this hehehhehe). In my garden you have several lil spots where you can sit, pose for pics, do yoga, swim in the river and in the pond, and for this winter we did also a lil icerink. The landscaping has been made by a dear friend who is awesomely talented. So yes, im really proud to own such land. Its really over all i could dream, and ill be thanksfull forever to my friend for this. In spring we will switch again to the normal garden, so the ice rink will be again a pond, with ducks and fishes. and flowers, tons of flower will replace the snow. We will also rerezz the picnic rug and some towels beside the river shore. And i have already some gym rugs i bought recently, ready to be rezzed there too. Im sorry but i hate sand and beach, and althought my land is facing the sea you can easily avoid it and think you are in a peacefull valley with a river. Sadly, ive bought some winter games to entertain my visitors, but these ones, like a battle with snowmen, need i open my land... and lol, no way... i dont want to open my land hehehehhe.. so i had to derezz them and keep them in my inventory. My store doesnt look like a usual store either, as i said its a comfy cottage, you can sit there on the sofa and seats and chit chat. I left for free 2 of the secondary rooms to 2 of my friends for they rezz their vendors, so my customers can also find some diverstiy. One of these friends is my landscaper, and the second one is my best sl friend and she does the same for me in her store. There are also 2 porchs, one on the front and one on the back with table, rockin chairs, seats etc.. there is even a hopscrotch and a schoolboard where you can sit. I really hope that my visitors enjoy my garden like they do for my store. oh and since some days... my visitors can enjoy also a precious lil closet that make you move inside as soon as you clik on it ehehhehehehhe... Well, this one has been gifted tome by a well known forumer heheheheh... Ive already told some of my regular visitors and we had happy moments with this closet :smileywink: ah and something important for me... my followers know that they are always more than welcome to come in my land whatever they come for shopping or only for hanging out.... An ice rink has been really popular for us this year too. I've put up my own gothic ice rink every year and as soon as I announce it's available in December, we have people over the whole month long. It's slowed down now, with V-Day just around the corner,but I still have it up (it's in my cemetery which is weird lol). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deja Letov Posted January 22, 2013 Author Share Posted January 22, 2013 Porky Gorky wrote: Deja Letov wrote: Yes I am in the same situation for prims. It sucks........ If you have been away for a while you may not be aware of some changes related to the mesh rollout that will bring your LI down. First is you can make prims larger than 10m now without resorting to megaprims, but hopefully have worked that one out already. The more important thing to know is the trick of using convex hull physics on normal prims to lower the LI. In some instances it is possible to lower the LI by up to 50% but there are risks and loopholes to be aware of. Have a look this blog post by Ciaran Laval for more info. Oh ya I'm aware. I've only been gone for 2 months or so. I've slowly been making way into mesh. I just still have so many customers who refuse to buy it or can't see it due to their viewer, I haven't made the full leap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Porky Gorky Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Deja Letov wrote: Oh ya I'm aware. I've only been gone for 2 months or so. I've slowly been making way into mesh. I just still have so many customers who refuse to buy it or can't see it due to their viewer, I haven't made the full leap. Yeah, tell me about it. My customer base seems to be split. For many years I had 2 prefab brands, one selling modern, one selling traditional, run completely separately from each other. Intense customer interrogation by me resulted in half the customers wanting mesh and the other half not wanting mesh. I didn't want to compromise my 2 old well established brands so I ended up opening a 3rd prefab brand with another old timer who is in the same boat as me. So we started making traditional mesh prefabs and that goes ok, but then I get bored of traditional and want to do modern again, so I opened another mesh prefab brand about a year ago selling modern designs So in order to keep my building styles separated and my mesh and non mesh brands separated I now own 4 prefab brands all independent of each other and run on different accounts so I don't get confused. Its a **bleep**ing nightmare. I would like to merge the mesh brands into the other main brands but I still think it is too early and don't want to risk alienating my non mesh adopting customer base. And to make matters worse, all the time I spend devoted to the newer mesh brands the older non mesh brands are growing stale because I am not building new content for them. I really thought mesh would have been more widely accepted among the populace by now but it isn't, especially when it comes to buildings. Even if people are using mesh viewers some are afraid of putting up a large prefab in case their neighbours or visitors can't view it yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Jetaime Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 I think it is important to have a great store and surroundings with a few things around to encourage people to hang out. But it is even more important to have a shop that is optimized so that it doesn't take forever to rez. My own experience with 'entertainment' has been mixed. Having entertainment for special events or temporarily for a season draws a crowd and therefore increase sales. But having ongoing entertainment separate from the shopping experience never seemed to do much for sales and took time managing it and policing it. Last year my partner and I experimented with this by moving both of our businesses to the same sim and setting them in a authentic landscaped setting based on the wilderness of the Cascade mountain region of the north west US. All landscaping was done with plants and trees from the area, with a riding course on a volcano pebble road common to the area, two kinds of fishing and swimming in a lake. We gave freebie swim gear and other freebies around the sim and had motorcycles for people to ride if they didn't have one of their own. It also had a small karaoke club with more games such as pool and darts. We had live performances in the club and an occasional DJ too. We received tons of compliments on the sim and had a lot of people visit to hang there. Despite everything theat was there it was lag free even when a lot of people were present riding vehicles. We got a lot of steady traffic each day, but shoppers mostly came for shopping while the tourists rarely went into the shops. We also had to keep a close eye on it as we got a LOT of people there that thought it was a great place to have sex in the wilderness, even though the landing points all had rules given that it wasn't allowed. The sim was a mature sim, and we didn't want open nudity or sex there. There were some people that came as tourists and ended up buying but after trying it for six months we were forced into the conclusion that the the additional sales were just not enough to justify the added time and expense of maintaining the entertainment on the sim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted January 23, 2013 Share Posted January 23, 2013 I think over time ppl's computers will get old enough they will replace them -- with newer faster ones that can process mesh better. So we are in a transition period -- a good thing for many of us who have lots of good looking non mesh content. What are your other brands? Or is that a secret???? We will not tell anyone, we promise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikki Miles Posted January 23, 2013 Share Posted January 23, 2013 first: my business (musical instruments) is definitely a niche, and different from furniture, clothes, prefabs or such. I rented half a sim for my main store, and I'm far from running out of prims; to the contrary I'm getting more prims daily, since I replace my old prim instruments by mesh builds, and my customers want just this. My sales are about 50/50 MP and inworld store, this is apparently not typical nowadays. I offer demos of a great part of my items, and ppl come not only to test them before buying, they come to play around and enjoy them just for the fun of it. One line of instruments is build to play along together, and there are times when my store is crowded with ppl doing a jam session together, just for entertainment. The traffic is almost always between 800 and 1200, which is pretty good for a place like this (I think), and I don't run any bots! The demos are unlimited as long as ppl play it in my store, I think that's important to make such a place an attractive destination for more than just buying something. edited to add: oh, and of course it makes a difference if you display the "real" thing instead of pictures, but you all already know that... the experience is so different then Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trinity Yazimoto Posted January 23, 2013 Share Posted January 23, 2013 Mikki Miles wrote: first: my business (musical instruments) is definitely a niche, and different from furniture, clothes, prefabs or such. I rented half a sim for my main store, and I'm far from running out of prims; to the contrary I'm getting more prims daily, since I replace my old prim instruments by mesh builds, and my customers want just this. My sales are about 50/50 MP and inworld store, this is apparently not typical nowadays. I offer demos of a great part of my items, and ppl come not only to test them before buying, they come to play around and enjoy them just for the fun of it. One line of instruments is build to play along together, and there are times when my store is crowded with ppl doing a jam session together, just for entertainment. The traffic is almost always between 800 and 1200, which is pretty good for a place like this (I think), and I don't run any bots! The demos are unlimited as long as ppl play it in my store, I think that's important to make such a place an attractive destination for more than just buying something. i like this :smileywink: i will surely come and visit your store in the next days :smileyhappy: ETA : i just visited it... and im not disapointed at all... i like it, it has a real soul... Its obvious you take a real care to the way to display everything...congrats :smileyhappy: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ciaran Laval Posted January 23, 2013 Share Posted January 23, 2013 Social areas are a money sink is part of the problem, more's the pity. Then there's the time issue. I've got a roleplaying sim, one thing I've always wanted to plan, but never got around due to the realities of time and space, is intergrating merchant items into the roleplay. For example buildings are for sale, accessories are for sale, trees and plants are for sale, yadda yadda yadda. Part of the problem there being that you may attract people who aren't roleplayers into the roleplay area and therefore upset the roleplayers. However I think with the right planning, something like that is viable, it gives people something to do and it gives merchants an opportunity to display their wares not only inworld, but in an environment exemplifying their usage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zanara Zenovka Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Good thread with some interesting ideas. Because my customers are mostly business owners, and my products are things designed to assist/increase your business, I made a corner of my store into a Business Reading Room, with posters and links to online articles which I think are essential for any SL business owner to know (eg, "Creating a Unique Selling Proposition" (everyone needs to do this), defining your target market, building customer loyalty/relationships), tips for store, ad and product image design, and some marketing methods that relate to SL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deja Letov Posted January 25, 2013 Author Share Posted January 25, 2013 Ciaran Laval wrote: Social areas are a money sink is part of the problem, more's the pity. Then there's the time issue. I've got a roleplaying sim, one thing I've always wanted to plan, but never got around due to the realities of time and space, is intergrating merchant items into the roleplay. For example buildings are for sale, accessories are for sale, trees and plants are for sale, yadda yadda yadda. Part of the problem there being that you may attract people who aren't roleplayers into the roleplay area and therefore upset the roleplayers. However I think with the right planning, something like that is viable, it gives people something to do and it gives merchants an opportunity to display their wares not only inworld, but in an environment exemplifying their usage. ya I'm not sure roleplaying would be a good option to use as a form of entertainment for what I'm talking about. But I don't think it would be much of a money or time sink for most of the other ideas mentioned. Most of it should be a one time build. For example, the idea of having a sitting area in your store, with coffee dispencers and maybe a contest as someone mentioned. Not much time or money put into that once it's done. Now, if you do something on a larger scale, especially RP...ya that's a huge time sink. I ran a RP sim...and oh goodness I don't think I would ever do that again. LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poenald Palen Posted January 28, 2013 Share Posted January 28, 2013 Yeah, build a place to do something in rather than just a place to buy stuff at. The odd thing about this is...well, I think there was a survey or stat on how LL saw people logging in and staying at the same few places most of thier time! They bought the marketplace....see. Just previous to this I remember people on the XStreet forum saying they had tried multiple locations, Malls and so on and wanted to know if anyone else had any luck with multiple locations. Malls where a joke. The Mall in RL is some place to go so you don't have to stare at walls and screens in the house. If you walk down your street (in some places) in the US you see...well, houses and cars and streets and grass and...boring. In Europe...well, it can be cold! So, a center may be nice, you can sort of see a few things and walk around to a few stores and not be in the rain! Not that people there are strangers to an Umbrella or 10 in thier life! I mean, once again it depends though...I speak of northern europe. Basically, you have a reason to go to a mall, city or 'some place' other than where you can walk in 5 minutes. But, some people DO go down the street to thier friends big porch and chat. Maybe they hang around in the garage. So, you have city streets, Mall/Shopping Center, home and that one or two places you hang out....hey, maybe a Pub or a bowling alley. 3-4...maybe5 places. The rest is neccessity! You HAVE to get food.....this is NOT going to happen in SL much. So, LL says on the wiki to build a place. But, why? Yeah, you spend a few minutes at the grocery looking at the new plants...maybe they have free samples of a new food...so you try that. 5 Minutes of extra shopping, that's it. You don't want to hang there. So, a bowling ally at a clothing store? Seee what I mean? Now, I think there is an issue for some locations. They need to split costs. So they offer space. They say "You hang here, so please support here! Buy from our mall" and that makes sense to people. So, LL says dont' make a store...make a place. I think this was in the Wiki. Not a quote, but yeah....not just a store or mall standing all alone. The issue is....private land....you can do as you please! Anything a place offers your friend with the sim can offer! So, private closed off places are something that may work better for some. So, the marketplace comes into play here. People may like to support a place, but the marketplace is much faster, search is faster....I mean, yeah visiting in world can be nice. But some trust brands, items with no scripts or maybe reviews. Some may even figure...well, it is only .50c...why not! They can always complain and leave a bad review to warn others! Vengeance via greifing? You never know, some may be just looking for an excuse. So, yeah....I see many reasons why the marketplace is popular. I also see how it is hard to make something at a store worth working on. So, I expect the trend of people not making much to do as a continuing one that is based on the fact....well, you just don't have time in SL to stay around a store and you may even only buy things a friend recommends or owns themselves.....so, little motive to hang around a hang out that is majority a store. Now, if it is the reverse....then maybe so. There are lots of people who don't have a place. If you have vendors there at your hangout fun place....yeah, I can see that. The marketplace will always be there for the hurried shopper, or a convenient store occlusion method to hide the party people (skybox store, store with walls or a hill to make the people having fun not so visbale) and...well, yeah...you get the idea. For me? I have never tried anything but rented at a place that was a locaiton to hang out. This was easy, I make cars! So, I rented a place at a track. Didn't make any sales, but rented anyway because I used the track and figured I am simply paying for my time there...sort of. So, I can't say it works IF you place doesn't somehow appeal enough to where they want to help! Almost like they have a stake in keeping the place alive. One issue though....if they hate other cliques that hang there....yeah, they leave. They buy sometimes similar (yeah, on marketplace lol) and set it up at a friends hangout or home......so, yeah....you can't rely on it. I remember most stores where simply stores. That is boring. I wondered why there where not so many themed places, not more games etc. But, seriously....people sometimes just want to hang out at this one place where it is NOT public. So, any store needs to be public...it must be hard. I have seen places with play stuff come and go and it seems hard to do in my industry due to lag. You need a whole sim so you can restart it, low prim the whole thing and control what is rezzed....sad. Catch 22. You need many renters, but you need less peoples stuff to sell because it slows things down. If you sell only a few items and offer free trials...well, why would they buy if they can hang out anyway? Besides, many people have different taste or just want to drive thier own home built stuff. So few drive in SL. I am sometimes wondering how the tracks survive and can see why they generally sell some sort of vehicles themselves and can't rely on mall spaces alone. It is not a huge market. MOst seem to get cars to park or to hang out on or around. Which means my products need to become actual hangout places, almost. Or at least an item that adds to thier hangouts...the private ones, the ones LL is saying people actually are spending most time at! So, ironically I almost can't provide a place...but I can offer to enhance thier place. My stratagy is sort of based on this, if I can get anything done that is. Maybe a closet with interactable items. Like, you can animate putting on shoes and the shoes disapear when they are clicked on and the wearer chooses to put them on. This can be done with UUID swapping for some shoes (one master shoe that is worn and they get multiple choices all in one...sort of a fat pack that comes with a shelf with all the ones to choose from) so they can hang at thier home and role play trying things on? You would help them make a hang out, because they already have one.....LL seems to have indicated this in thier findings! Just a thought, I am a loser with to much time to think about this....so, take it with a grain of salt if you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medhue Simoni Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 Welcome back Deja!!! Hope all is awesome with the real life newbie! Me? I've never had a prim count shortage, but what do you expect from an animator. Plus, with mesh now, I'm actually saving tons of prims. Some of my renters do have prim problems tho, and I'm constantly getting asked if 1 of them can use more prims for special projects. I do have an extra 4000 prims tho, right now. I probably had near 10k prims extra before I started renting out parcels. My strategy with my sim was always to have things for users to play with. I guess this isn't really a stretch for an animator tho. For many people, just trying out animations is playing. That said, I do have a few things that are almost strictly for having fun. On the 3rd floor of my store, there is a boxing ring with a fighting system that any1 can use for free. Of course, I also sell the system, ring, and timer. Outside the north exit of my store is a combat area, with npcs and other different things to interact with. There is a free hud for the combat system so that any1 can play it for free. Besides all the animations in the store, I often find people trying out the dozens of couples walks that I sell and people can demo. My store sits in the center of the sim, with a road that goes all the way around the store, so people can test out the AOs, or the couples walks on the road. My whole store is set up to make it easy and fun to test out things. Last year, which was my worst year in SL, I decided to extent my idea of having a sim where people could find anything. Not a mall, but just a place where there were other types of stores. My thinking was that if I had a little for every1, each of us merchants on the sim would help the others with the traffic that each of us brought to the sim. Like I said, my store sits in the middle with a road around it. That road connects all the other stores, and I have signs that point people in the direction of the next store. Right now, I have me for animations, a script store, a store that sells buildings, a furniture store, a sculpt store, and a clothing store. My store also has a teleporter to each of the other stores. The crazy part is that I use less resources than any1 else on the sim. We are all pretty happy with the set up, and are each benefiting from it. I guess I'm lucky that I don't sell items that are prim intensive. If anything, scripts are really the issue for me now, but I can have the scriptor on the sim delete a bunch of BS on his build platform. lol. I think it is definitely a good idea to create fun areas, or other things on your sim for customers to play around with. In this day and age, we all have to come up with better ideas to advance our chances of making sales and keeping our sim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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