How To make a Marketplace more successful +inworld Store

[Roseamenelle]

Hii, um im new to marketing and started a marketplace last month, cause i still havent gotten any much selling and i dont know if selling photos in frames is a good selling category cause , its the only thing im good at right now, so i wanted to ask for some tips and advice on how to make what i am doing better and or more successful in marketing, or if theres any thing i need to do so?, i also was wantong to ask about inworld as well, like whats the best place(s) to put up a inworld store, and how to draw more traffic as well too. so thats pretty much it so far, and im open to any tips or advice you can give me 😄

[Cindy Evanier]

41 minutes ago, Roseamenelle said:

Hii, um im new to marketing and started a marketplace last month, cause i still havent gotten any much selling and i dont know if selling photos in frames is a good selling category cause , its the only thing im good at right now, so i wanted to ask for some tips and advice on how to make what i am doing better and or more successful in marketing, or if theres any thing i need to do so?, i also was wantong to ask about inworld as well, like whats the best place(s) to put up a inworld store, and how to draw more traffic as well too. so thats pretty much it so far, and im open to any tips or advice you can give me 😄

I just looked at your marketplace store.  A couple of suggestions.. 

1st nowhere does it say you are selling a picture in a frame.  You need to be more descriptive.  

You are not using enough keywords. Keywords are what will bring up your items when people search. Have a read of this

Also the price of your items seems high to me.  Have you checked how much the competition sells pictures in frames for?

As far as an inworld presence,  I wouldn't worry about that until you have a bigger inventory of items on sale.

Good luck with your venture  

 

Edited November 20, 2019 by Cindy Evanier

[Roseamenelle]

i thought i was using keywords? like, i use Art,Photos as keywords, but should i use more then those two?, i did check prices as well some were higher and some were lower like 10, also would 100L be a ok price instead of 200?, and i will do as suggested and say in frames from now on as well @Cindy Avanier

[Cindy Evanier]

9 minutes ago, Roseamenelle said:

i thought i was using keywords? like, i use Art,Photos as keywords, but should i use more then those two?, i did check prices as well some were higher and some were lower like 10, also would 100L be a ok price instead of 200?, and i will do as suggested and say in frames from now on as well @Cindy Avanier

I had another  look and yes I see the keywords now.  You can use other words such as picture and frame.  Is the frame mesh?  What is the LI? 

 As for the price I have no idea how much pictures in frames sell for.  You should  check out the marketplace and check the prices others set for similar items

[LittleMe Jewell]

I'd also suggest that since the items are No Modify, that you tell what the size of the item is in the description.  I wouldn't buy something that will hang on my wall without knowing the size - especially if I cannot resize it myself.  Also, be sure to specify what the LI is - that is very important to people.

Also, as Cindy mentioned, you do need to state that it is a Framed Picture that you are selling.  Even if I figured out you were selling pictures, I wouldn't know for certain that the frame was included just by looking at the MP listing.  On the topic of frames, I'd also advise that you learn how to add a texture script to the object so that the frame can be changed and include at least 3-4 (if not more) frame options.

Lastly, if these are your own RL or SL photos, then I'd definitely mention that.  

[So Whimsy]

The pictures you are selling are random images found on google and put into a frame. Literally everyone with even a wee bit of knowledge can do the same, it's nothing special at all and will be incredibly hard to sell, especially at that high price.

What would be more successful would be beautiful high quality pictures taken in world. Maybe even put an animated layer above them, so a dreary cemetery screen shot will have rain in front of it. Or a snowy wonderland screenshot will have falling snow.

I wish you good luck.

[Chic Aeon]

I don't want to be harsh but looking closely at your store product photos, you don't appear to ACTUALLY be selling pictures "in frames". You are selling a prim with a picture of a frame included with the picture of the painting. You didn't make the painting and hopefully it is legal to use. All that being said, it is unlikely that you will sell anything.  

Take some building classes (they are free several places in world) and learn how to make a frame. That was about the second class that I took a decade or more ago.  

Better yet -- I will give you a link to a tutorial that shows you HOW to make a frame on your own.  Then as someone said learn how to take photos.  To be honest most people making art in SL don't sell much. I give my photos and paintings away and I have been taking SL photos for twelve years and I am fairly good (not great = but fairly good :D).  So you need to be creative  -- AND HAVE FUN.    

 

You need to have a product someone wants before you worry about marketing. So one step at at time. We ALL started somewhere. 

 

Here is the frame tutorial. Made for Opensim, the instructions are the same for SL.

 

Here is the frames tutorial : https://www.slartist.com/pifb-lesson-2-frames-part-1_9e4223a17.html

But before you do that --- you probably need to watch this one that comes before:  https://www.slartist.com/pifb-lesson-1-crates_9bd81f5f3.html

 

Good luck.

 

[Roseamenelle]

these photos were taken by me, by hand, by my own camera, i will mention that in description, i never use googled photos, and i am learning to take ones in sl right now, i will try classes too as well and the tutorial as well thank you, i will do my best and thank youfor the land impact thing, i might make them modifiable instead then

 

besides idk how to do any type of mesh or clothes or anything for avatars at all, i mainly know how to do photography right now, its been my long lived hobby of mine  for as long as i remembered

 

Edited November 20, 2019 by Roseamenelle

[Alyona Su]

1 hour ago, Roseamenelle said:

Hii, um im new to marketing and started a marketplace last month, cause i still havent gotten any much selling and i dont know if selling photos in frames is a good selling category cause , its the only thing im good at right now, so i wanted to ask for some tips and advice on how to make what i am doing better and or more successful in marketing, or if theres any thing i need to do so?, i also was wantong to ask about inworld as well, like whats the best place(s) to put up a inworld store, and how to draw more traffic as well too. so thats pretty much it so far, and im open to any tips or advice you can give me 😄

As someone who would buy pictures-in-frames: no-modify is an absolute dealbreaker for me, even if it were free. There is no reason to make it no-modify, not one. If I wanted to copy it I could angle my viewer camera onto it and just take a snapshot. So don't bother with the no-modify nonsense.

Most importantly I want to be able to revise it if needed and especially fix the aspect ratio if I feel it's off - and PRIM is better than mesh, you can do a framed picture with a single morphed cube. Zero LOD issues that way. As for pricing: L$10 to L$50 is a good range. L$100 only if it is an exceptional image, one that is very difficult to find on the Internet.

If they are custom images created by you then L$150 to L$300 is acceptable, but be sure to explain that in your description.

As for keywords, you need to flood your listing with keywords. Note: there is a definitive difference between "spamming" and "flooding" - stick with relevant keywords, but use all that you can think of. So for pictures in frames I can think of these:

Picture, Art, Wall, Frame, Pictureframe, Wall-Art, Image, Artform, Imagery, Gallery, Galleria, Illustration, Photo, Photographic, Portrait, Landscape, Scenic, Majestic, Decoration, Decor, Display

These are just what comes to mind immediately and capital letters don't matter.

I hope this helps!

Edited November 20, 2019 by Alyona Su

[Roseamenelle]

thank you very much @Alyona Su and i will mention that these are taken by me and were very hard to take and  that i worked hard for them, thats why i priced them at 200, i will mention that also in the decription, thank you for the wondrous help ^-^, makes my day here, cause im trying so hard to sell them and share my love for art and photography with others like this, and to make a living as well to help in rl as well for my family too

 

i also take them based on mood, or the time or day or when i feel that day is perfect for it, i love nature and i love doing them with all my heart as a artist :3

and thank you @Chic Aeon for the tutorials , been meaning to try to learn to make my own frames as well!!, cause i didnt want to just sell my photography in frames , but make my own frames to sell as well too, i dont know how to make meshes or any type of avatar items at all sadly,  and i will learn scripting too if possible as well :3, and they are in frames, just that i take the snapshot inworld and crop it afterwords 

 

Edited November 20, 2019 by Roseamenelle

[So Whimsy]

34 minutes ago, Roseamenelle said:

these photos were taken by me, by hand, by my own camera, i will mention that in description, i never use googled photos, and i am learning to take ones in sl right now, i will try classes too as well and the tutorial as well thank you, i will do my best and thank youfor the land impact thing, i might make them modifiable instead then

 

besides idk how to do any type of mesh or clothes or anything for avatars at all, i mainly know how to do photography right now, its been my long lived hobby of mine  for as long as i remembered

 

My apologies then for assuming.

Join the in world group Blender Benders. They just started a new class to learn mesh. There's a class each weak for a total of I believe it's 54. The classes are free, tipping optional.

Then there's the Builder's Brewery group, who also has a sim and classes.

 

[ChinRey]

17 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

Take some building classes (they are free several places in world) and learn how to make a frame. That was about the second class that I took a decade or more ago.

Now you're giving me ideas, Chic. I'm about to start a series of building classes for beginners at HHBS and a picture frame would be a really good project for that.

All the old picture frame classes I've seen teach the tapered cube trick. That's really cool but now that we have the modern land impact system it's actually possible to make real 3D prim frames at 1 LI. I don't think anybody is teaching how to do that yet. Come to think of it, I don't think anybody's teaching how to make rectangular tapered frames with equal frame width either...

Anyway, the the OP. I do actually sell similar pictures with painted on frames on a prim at my furntiure/interior store. They are quite popular and they should be because they can be amazingly efficient props, looking great with very little lag and LI. The price is all wrong though. I sell single pcitures for a symbolic 1 L$ and a set of 45 for 9 L$. I don't think you can expect more.

Edited November 21, 2019 by ChinRey

[Roseamenelle]

@ChinRey i priced them as such cause of how hard i work to take the pictures, they arent always easy to take, it depends on the day, the weather and ect too. i take all my photos by my own camera and work really hard to take very good and well done photography, i priced them as such due to the work i put into taking the photo. and i would love to take building classes too

[Chic Aeon]

Very good that you are taking your own photos. And it would be good to say so on your listing.   Most creators make very little on their work in comparison to how long it takes them to make something. So a house that took a week might sell for 500 to 800 lindens.   Second Life sales can't really be measured in time spent. If it was, many of us would be quite rich :D.   So just keep that in mind.  Also learning about Windlight settings (for now anyway until they change to EEP) and doing inworld photography is a good step. Again, lots of people do this and so there is much competition as well as low sales prices.  

 

Good luck. 

[ChinRey]

4 hours ago, Roseamenelle said:

@ChinRey i priced them as such cause of how hard i work to take the pictures, they arent always easy to take, it depends on the day, the weather and ect too. i take all my photos by my own camera and work really hard to take very good and well done photography, i priced them as such due to the work i put into taking the photo. and i would love to take building classes too

Oh, you should have mentioned they are original photos, I assumed Syn was right when she said they were public domain ones. That makes a huge difference of course but as Chic said, you'll still struggle to sell at 200 L$. Second Life is very, very much a buyer's market and unless you have managed to build a reputation and a name you can not expect to make anything resembling a decent RL pay for the hours of work you spend creating content for it.

There are a few simple things you can do to increase the chances of a sale or two though.

First, state that it's an original photo in the title of the listing. Instead of "Sunny Autumn View In Frame", say "Original photo: Sunny Autumn View".

Second, don't use a square format. Yes, the texture will be uploaded with height and width equal but you can always stretch the prim (or mesh) it is mounted on to get better proportions. 3:2 and 4:3 are good ones.

Third, use a copy of the texture itself as the main picture on SL - watermarked or with some promo text added to keep people from ripping it. Something like this perhaps:

(Tess JL is one of my alts btw, in case somebody wonder - actually she's my main).

Fourth, consider including a no transfer copy of the texture in the package. People may want to add your picture to a multi image mesh to save prims.

Fifth, yes you do want a 3D frame for it. I'm sure there are several full perm mesh frames on MP you can use if you're not up to making one yourself (and if there aren't I'll make a few).

Edited November 24, 2019 by ChinRey

[Roseamenelle]

@ChinRey mind adding me on secondlife so i can further talk and maybe you can give me some advice too?, also would 100L be better price for it, for a beginning price? or stay as is? or maybe 99L?. also thank you for the advice too, ill keep it in mind x3

[Lexbot Sinister]

I think the others are very politely telling you that a single random image won't sell in SL for more than the upload cost.

So i'll say it bluntly.  Unless the art image is something very spectacular or very unique (trees and landscapes are pretty abundant), it's going to be worth the upload cost, at most.

Consider also your competition, there are hundreds of framed photos and other art for under 100 L$.