Selling lindens

[ronaldo Ivanovic]

Hello.Can someone explain to me how "Selling lindens" work?When can i start selling lindens?Do i have to buy lindens in order to be able to sell?Is it worth playing secondlife just for making linden dollars and sell them?And what's up with the selling limit?Thanks.

[Lindal Kidd]

That's a lot of questions!  Read this: https://community.secondlife.com/knowledgebase/english/buying-and-selling-linden-dollars-r46/  There is a link at the bottom of that page that takes you to information about the billing and trading limits, too.

In short:

1. Sell your $L.  The proceeds go into your $USD balance.
2. Do a "process credit" transaction.  Money from your $USD balance will be transferred to your PayPal or Skrill account.  NOTE:  You cannot use a credit card for this type of transaction.)

Yes, you must buy $L at least once in order to be able to sell $L.

No, in my opinion it is NOT worth playing SL only to make money.  Most "simple" ways of making money pay very little...far less than Real Life minimum wage.  You're better off delivering pizza.  There are a number of people who do make a full time living from Second Life.  But the only ways to make a significant amount of money in SL are 1) content creation...learn to make some sort of product, and then sell it to others...or 2) buying virtual land and renting it out to others.  The first requires a great deal of effort to acquire the necessary skills.  The second requires quite a large capital investment, and an even larger monthly cost in land fees.  Both require a huge amount of hard work and not a little luck.  Just as in Real Life, most Second Life businesses fail.

However, if you can find something to do in SL that you enjoy for its own sake, rather than its potential for a profit, you may find that doing it can ALSO make some money for you.  

[Rolig Loon]

The answers to most of your questions, plus many that you did not ask, are in the Knowledge Base (which you can reach by clicking the tab at the top of this page):

Specifically, though, you must have an active account to sell L$.  That means not only having an approved payment method (a credit card or verified PayPal or Skrill account -- no debit cards or prepaid cards) but also having used it successfully at least once.  That means making at least one purchase of L$ to prove that your payment method is not only valid but actually works.  So, yes, you must buy a few hundred L$ to start. 

After you have bought them. your account becomes active, and you have a short waiting period before you can sell much.  That's partly to encourage you to bring money into SL before you start worrying about the comparatively more complicated process of taking it out. More importantly, it's meant to deter people from using SL as a way to launder money by flipping large sums in and right back out again.  The Feds always have their eyes on Internet businesses, and Linden Lab wants to stay on their good side. So, no L$ sales for the first 8 days, and a limited amount until a month or so.

Now, is it worth "playing" SL just to buy and sell L$? No, absolutely not. First of all, you lose money on trading fees whenever you use the LindeX, just as you do in any RL currency exchange. You can speculate on the spread between the BUY rate and the SELL rate, but that's a risky business and one that you are very likely to lose money on. Most importantly, however, that's not what SL is for. You can operate a business in SL -- a huge number of people do -- but very few people make more than pocket change.  We are here to build, to make friends, to explore, ... and maybe earn enough cash to offset a few expenses if we are lucky.  If you are here because you expect to make your fortune, go get a job at MacDonald's.  It will pay better.

[ronaldo Ivanovic]

Thanks for the answers.