starting up Store. questions

[HWY666]

I am thinking of start up store and selling textures I making. I have a few questions

what is a SKU?
is there any fee for put a item on marketplace?
is any guides for starting up something like a store?

 

[Dakota Linden]

On 4/21/2017 at 1:32 PM, HWY666 said:

I am thinking of start up store and selling textures I making. I have a few questions

what is a SKU?
is there any fee for put a item on marketplace?
is any guides for starting up something like a store?

 

Greetings HWY!

As others have said, an SKU is a Stock Keeping Unit.  When you are in a store and you look at the Barcode on an item, this is basically the same thing.  It is a way for sellers to have a personally identifying number on their items. 99.9% of Marketplace Sellers won't need, or use an SKU on their items, but it is there for those who use them.

There is no fee to list items for sale on the Marketplace.  There is a 5% Commission fee that is paid on any sales you have over 10L, and the minimum fee is 1L. If you offer Demo's of your items for Zero Lindens, then you will pay no fee on those sales, since they are Free items. 

Linden Lab has a few Knowledge Base articles on the Marketplace, with one article dedicated to the Viewer Managed Marketplace system itself, located here:

https://community.secondlife.com/knowledgebase/english/viewer-managed-marketplace-r1367/

This is an excellent place to start with learning how the system works,

[Madelaine McMasters]

4 hours ago, HWY666 said:

I am thinking of start up store and selling textures I making. I have a few questions

what is a SKU?
is there any fee for put a item on marketplace?
is any guides for starting up something like a store?

SKU = Stock Keeping Unit
The equivalent in SL would be UUID = Universally Unique IDentifier

There is no fee to list items in the Marketplace.

There's a link to some marketing ideas in the previous link. Others may have more advice to offer. I've never sold anything here.

ETA: I do like the idea of a Highway 666. There was a "Road to Hell" in SL years ago. Highway 66 is also known as "The Mother Road". I'd like to think that 666 would be "The Father Road". Mine was quite a devil.

Edited April 21, 2017 by Madelaine McMasters

[Chic Aeon]

Note that you do not NEED to put a SKU number in the marketplace listing. It is optional and presumably for big retailers to keep better track of their items via databases. DO NOT PUT THE UUID numbers as the SKUs. Anyone can then use a script to add your textures to their product (oh my) which pretty much defeats the point of selling textures.

 

Look at other texture places and read their End User Licenses. They are likely very much the same. You need that on each page of your store listings.

 

Edited April 22, 2017 by Chic Aeon

[Lindal Kidd]

As Chic implies, textures are quite a tricky thing to sell in Second Life.

They should be full permission, so the buyer can download and modify them in Photoshop if they want, and can apply them to objects they create.  However, selling anything with full permissions is almost self-defeating...because once you sell one copy to anyone, they have the ability to make copies and sell them too, or give them away free.  Soon everybody in SL has a copy of your textures, and you aren't selling anything.

The way that texture vendors deal with this is to include a license agreement with each pack of textures they sell.  This agreement allows the buyer to use the textures in their own builds, and sell those textured creations...but it specifically withholds permission to re-sell or give away the textures AS TEXTURES.  You must then be vigilant in protecting your rights; if you notice your textures being sold by anyone else, you must take action against them via a DMCA "takedown notice."  Read LL's policy about this.

As a texture creator, you must also be careful of where and how you get your textures to sell.  Stealing them from other sources on the internet is a definite no-no!!!!

The lowest-cost way to begin selling things in SL is on the Marketplace.  You don't get charged anything to list items, and only pay a small "commission" to LL when you make a sale.  Once you have enough content to justify it, you can set up an in-world store.

[HWY666]

What about uploading real world pics? and use them for texture Like tree bark or fiber from backpack or Leather. I had plans to go around with Camera and take photos and uses a editor and making textures out of them

[Lindal Kidd]

16 hours ago, HWY666 said:

What about uploading real world pics? and use them for texture Like tree bark or fiber from backpack or Leather. I had plans to go around with Camera and take photos and uses a editor and making textures out of them

That is a GREAT way to create original, realistic textures.