How do you sell real life items in Second Life?

[Lycus Yarrowroot]

I'd like to try and make a little store on second life so that I can sell my real life products to people.

[Wolwaner Jervil]

Not sure if it still exists, but have a look there: secondlife://Starfruit/124/123/25 - this is (or was) Fleurop selling RL (and SL) Items. The SL Items are made so they look like the RL things.

If it doesn't exist anymore (I currently have no SL) let me know and we can talk about.

Greetings, Wol

[Irene Muni]

With the Shared Media feature of Viewer 2 you can use Commerce Software in SL.

It's only a idea.

PS. I'm not sure about if SL is a accurate way for sell REAL items. Sometimes we have problems buying online, then maaany problems for buy in SL. But realy it's possible, just my opinion.

[Irene Muni]

Additional info at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:I_want_to_sell_real-life_items_through_Second_Life.

Consider the following scenario:

Bob Avatar encounters, inworld, a store called CompuBuyPlace  selling computer equipment. He finds a kiosk with a picture, taken from  real life, of a nice wireless optical mouse, which he decides to buy.  The Kiosk asks him to pay L$1,000,000 and supply his real-life address.  Bob Avatar pays the million Linden Dollars and enters his address. Sure  enough, two weeks later, a box arrives at Bob Avatar's real-life  apartment from CompuBuyPlace containing the nice wireless optical mouse.

Can this actually happen?

Nothing in the Terms of Service prohibits this, but you should be  aware that Second Life generally isn't designed to be a platform for  "real world" business transactions, as Linden Dollars aren't designed as  a "currency" or currency substitute. You therefore take these steps at  your own peril, including potentially subjecting yourself to potential  fraud (such as fraudulent L$ exchange), and subject to any relevant tax,  licensing or other laws. Further, Linden Lab doesn't own, operate, or  insure third parties like the one described above, and therefore will be  unlikely to be able to resolve any disputes that arise. If you have any  other questions, you may wish to consult an attorney.

[Lycus Yarrowroot]

no it wasnt there. If i cant sell RL items, what if I just linked a shopping cart from my website on to second life? is that possible?

[Irene Muni]

See my comments below .

[Lycus Yarrowroot]

so its possible to link my website's shopping cart in second life and theoretically sell items there?

[Irene Muni]

Of course. You can use a simple script for open your web (http://cterport.ed.uiuc.edu/technologies_folder/SL/link.html/) or use Shared Media (Only for Viewer 2 and third party viewers that enabled that feature): http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Shared_Media

[ELQ Homewood]

This has actually always been possible. What you may find harder are would-be customers who do not want to give you their RL details in order for you to ship your RL product. However, to get past that hurdle you could use a well-known shopping cart such as PayPal or Amazon's storefront (just for instance) in order to complete the transaction in a way which will assure the customer of security.

[Lusus Saule]

Isn't it against the TOS to solicit RL information about residents, which would be needed for RL inworld shopping transactions? ELQ offers a good work around for this though.

[Irene Muni]

Lusus Saule wrote:

 

Isn't it against the TOS to solicit RL information about residents....?

No .

[ELQ Homewood]

No, it's not against TOS to solicit RL business in SL, including details. It IS, however, against TOS to share that information with others inworld. A clear and easy to understand - read "translated into other languages" - Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for your service or products would certainly be something which would garner good will and possibly a little more trust from your would-be customers.

[Gala Caproni]

Just my opinion, but I think maybe the best way would be to have a "store" or "kiosk" set up that could have pictures of your items for sale, but when you click to buy said item it takes the buyer to your existing website.  Therefore when they buy from you online, you don't know if they came from SL or not... they are just another customer.  So you wouldn't be soliciting RL information as you would have no way of knowing if that customer came to you from SL or not. And even if you did know they came from SL, you would not know their inworld information.

[ELQ Homewood]

That's actually what we are talking about. However, the idea that the vendor will not know the order came from SL or the inworld details of that customer is patently false. Storing that data is another question, and storing it in any connected way would be a bad idea. Storing customer information is fine, and necessary for any business, but in this situation you would want to be as transparent as possible. Tell the customer exactly what you store, why you store it, and emphasize that RL/SL data is stored separately, non-sequentially, and non-relationally. Best practices for all business data storage is never store data you do not absolutely need.