What store layouts have improved your sales?

[Eidolon Aeon]

I'm building a nicer, larger store, but would like a bit of advice before I go beyond the sketch phase.

 

* Have you made changes to your store layout that improved sales?  That reduced sales?

* Have you found that putting a second floor in reduces sales for products on the second floor?  Did it depend on whether the second floor was easily open to viewing, i.e, a balcony?

* Did close, intimate spaces work better, or more open spaces?  Separate areas, or one big room?

* What else should I consider?

 

Many thanks.

[Chelsea Malibu]

About 6 months ago I completely changed my layout. I had originally laid my lighting store much like any lighting store in RL. Crowded and intimate and a bit on the cluttered side. In fact, it looked very much like any lighting store you would go into in RL.

6 months ago I changed that. I created departments by type and seperated each piece more like a gallery.  The later takes a bit more to travel around the store but it shows my work much better and my sales have jumped significantly.

Whatever you do, try to focus on two areas. Allow enough room to move around and cam while keeping it small enough for your users who have their draw at 64M can see everything in the room they are standing.

Most important is how you set up your user rights. Do not make the mistake of disabling direct teleports and don't force your customers to an outside entrance, get them right into the middle of your store or at least inside, not outside.

Most is jut intuitive and you can see many comments on the forum post I did a few weeks back and "What your customers hate". There was a lot of great feedback there.

 

 

 

[Rene Erlanger]

In this day and age with a hobbled in-world economy (ie All search, Classifieds, Events...not being as effective as before), I wouldn't overdo it with an over-sized large Store occupying unnessarily excessive land, which you'll have to pay Tiers for.

IMO the days of owning a whole sim, placing a shop in the centre and using a 1/3rd to 1/2 the SIM's prims are over and a waste of money. It places an unnessary burden on generating sales (80k L per /mth or 2666 L p/day)...just to break even. It was an ideal model back during 2006-8...but not anymore.

Aside from say Furniture, Landscaping & Prefabs businesses...there's no need to overdo it in terms of Land area. If you are selling clothes or shoes or boots or hair or whatever....you really don't need to be paying 295 USD for a whole sim to be successful.....it's a waste of money and a bad business model.....always was! Consumers generally don't arrive at your shop to admire the landscaping outside your store.....I say generally!

You'll always make more sales at ground level than upstairs (lazy avatars!)...if you do have an upstairs make sure you have a large central opening....allowing visitors to fly up to top floor easily as opposed to walking up stairs. I've often gone with a central cut out and the 2nd floor being more of an encircled balcony. From the centre of the shop, you should be able to see that there are products being sold upstairs. (should be visible). The stairs should be wide and central.

I prefer large open space (1 big room)...so if i do a 360 degree cam...i can pretty much see everything.....sometimes i place small display stands around the main floor to break up the emptiness in the centre....but still good visibiliity to the back walls.

 

[Pamela Galli]

Since I have three sims (and yes use all the prims) it is easy to get lost, but I do have a teleport map and HUD with departments clearly marked. Ppl have told me these are really helpful -- if they don't use the teleport function of the HUD they can at least use the map to know which direction to fly. 

My whole store is flyable -- you can pretty much fly up from wherever you are. 

Toy's thread about the Round Store idea previously discusssed in the Roundtable is one I have been giving some thought to, as well.

Regarding large open stores -- it depends on what you sell. I have tons of textures so I have to put up walls at the landing point to block the viewer, or everyone would crash on landing. So I have mostly vignettes with separating walls in the store itself.

[TatianaDokuchic Varriale]

I sell antique furniture so my store tends to be prim heavy as I believe that every item I sell should be on display somewhere inworld for customers to be able to see and test.

To reduce rez time, the individual rooms of my store are quite small and the exits are easy to find. Over time I have curtained off most of the windows.  The views are great but I've sacrificed most of them for better performance. 

I have one straight, central staircase that leads to the second floor and my sales have always been good up there.

I put a lot of work into creating complete vignettes, illustrating the coordination of various pieces.  Some people come for tea & refreshments with shopping as an afterthought which is just fine with me :smileyhappy:

I hope this helps.  Best of luck with your new store, Eidolon!

 

[Rene Erlanger]

Disclaimer my above posts applies to fashion or avatar related products i.e oversizing and extra tiers.

 

It's understandable that a different model is required for Furniture, Landscaping and Prefabs i.e Land area & prims required.......our Furniture shop is arranged into departments by theme/ product type.....much like Pamela & Tatiana i would think. (also helps rezzing of trxtures)

[Madeliefste Oh]

For a big shop it's important to group your products together by category and it must be quickly clear for the customer where to look for what. It must be an overviewable system that brings order.

Then the atmosphere of the shop is important. What is the character of your brand? When you want to market your brand as a luxury brand, you need another atmosphere in the store then when you want to affiche yourself as a pricefighter, for example.

First floor or second floor, depends much on what you put on what floor. I have seen a lot of shops that bring the lower quality items to the second floor. This gives you as a customer the general idea that second floor is less interesting then first floor. But when I visit a shop it depends on what I find there if I will cheque out a second floor or not. When I'm a bit disappointed about what I see in the shop as soon as I enter, I won't cheque out the second floor as well. But when I really like what a merchant makes, I'm curious enough to take a look at a second and even a third or fourth floor. 

[Eidolon Aeon]

Thanks for your input, I've got a very different idea of what I want to do, now.

[Porky Gorky]

There was a good thread going on the old forum before it closed. Not specifically related to store layout, but contains lots of good advice. 

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Commerce-Forums-General/New-to-retail-This-is-what-your-customers-hate/td-p/512637

[Ruby Vandyke]

I've found that it's very difficult to get shoppers to go up to a second level. I've tried stairs, ramps with big arrows, teleporters, gimmicky things like ladders & ropes to climb, etc. But people just do not like to go up! So I'd recommend staying on one level, if at all possible. I sell horses and animals so like a wide open space. When I'm out shopping myself, I prefer a big one room shop rather than one with small rooms branching off everywhere and I especially dislike low ceilings. Good luck with your shop!

[Maryanne Solo]

 

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Madeliefste Oh wrote:

For a big shop it's important to group your products together by category and it must be quickly clear for the customer where to look for what. It must be an overviewable system that brings order.

Then the atmosphere of the shop is important. What is the character of your brand? When you want to market your brand as a luxury brand, you need another atmosphere in the store then when you want to affiche yourself as a pricefighter, for example.

First floor or second floor, depends much on what you put on what floor. I have seen a lot of shops that bring the lower quality items to the second floor. This gives you as a customer the general idea that second floor is less interesting then first floor. But when I visit a shop it depends on what I find there if I will cheque out a second floor or not. When I'm a bit disappointed about what I see in the shop as soon as I enter, I won't cheque out the second floor as well. But when I really like what a merchant makes, I'm curious enough to take a look at a second and even a third or fourth floor. 

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And it helps if *SOME people, (coughs) don't game the search terms doesn't it?

 

[Amiryu Hosoi]

 

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Madeliefste Oh wrote:

For a big shop it's important to group your products together by category and it must be quickly clear for the customer where to look for what. It must be an overviewable system that brings order.

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Hey Madeliefste.

This is still a point I need to investigate, I know it can be convenient for the customer to have all related items grouped together but on the other hand it could also be smart to group items that go together well. Example: I could group all lighting or I could group a nice sofa, some lighting, a table and warm carpet. I think that especially in furniture it could be good to show the customers what items combine best. Help them a bit. A store lineup with "sets" also does look and feel less like a shop and more like a "home". Maybe best would be a combination.

Ami 

 

[Madeliefste Oh]

 

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Amiryu Hosoi wrote:

Hey Madeliefste.

This is still a point I need to investigate, I know it can be convenient for the customer to have all related items grouped together but on the other hand it could also be smart to group items that go together well. Example: I could group all lighting or I could group a nice sofa, some lighting, a table and warm carpet. I think that especially in furniture it could be good to show the customers what items combine best. Help them a bit. A store lineup with "sets" also does look and feel less like a shop and more like a "home". Maybe best would be a combination.

Ami 

 

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There are different type of customers, who do all have their own needs. Grouping furniture as sets might attrack some customers, for example you have a group that loves to hang around in inworld shops for hours, to buy things or to get ideas or just to see what is out there. Setting up sets gives you much more the possibility to seduce the potential buyer, because you can make appealing lay-outs.

On the other hand my idea is that the group of people who are looking for a specific objects like 'a lamp' or 'a blue-white carpet' is a bigger group. Not only creators like to be creative in SL, but also shoppers. The creativity is in combining the items of your taste to create your own atmosphere.
Inworld shopping asks a lot of patience of customers, you have to do with lag, you have to do with finding you way around in very large shops. Nowadays with LL attracking customers to the marketplace where shopping is lagfree and items are searchable by keywords like 'lamp' or 'carpet blue white' people have less patience with walking through large stores that don't have grouped the objects together they are looking for. That is at least my experience.

 

[Pamela Galli]

Thanks, this has me thinking. I already have room groupings in the model homes. So...should I redo the furniture section and get rid of all the room groupings and put all the sofas, etc. together? And save some prims??

I do have all the accessories grouped as well as in room settings, just not the furniture pieces.  Oooh this is going to be a hard decision.

 

Btw, I do have both types of customers. Most want to buy things and put them together themselves -- that is their creative occupation in SL.

Some want to buy a whole house full of furniture however I have it set up, which I do not have packaged (just kitchens, baths, some dining rooms). But I am slowly working on getting rooms packaged so they can buy those.