Future 'Feature' Request: Linden Shops (Commercial Addition to Linden Home Continent/Regions)

[davidventer]

Dear Lindens,

Please create Commercial Spaces in the same way that you've created the new Linden Homes, but instead of house options, provide pre-built shop/office buildings to choose from, and allow the land to be displayed in search and for classifieds to be created from the land. Theme these in the same creative way that you've themed the Linden Home regions - or even better yet; place them between Linden Home regions on the same continent to create little shopping places in the same way that real life neighborhoods would have small shopping centers nearby. Or make 1/4 of every 5th or so Linden Home region a commercial space with either a pre-built open-mall type shopping center with shops that can be claimed or a shop area with different shop/office building options, like the house building options we have through our mailboxes.

I love living a "realistic" Second Life. Currently, when I'm at my Linden Home, there's no realistic way to get to the shops. I have to teleport, or I have to drive to the edge of the continent and cross over into the messy mainland. I would love to have little dedicated and themed commercial areas nearby so that I can get into my car at my Linden Home and drive to the nearby shops. Having dedicated little commercial spaces nearby that Premium Residents can claim in the same way as Linden Homes would be really cool. Being able to visit them within the same continent, or even the same region, within walking or driving distance would be even better.

I've also created this as a Feature Request in the Second Life Jira here: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-231479 

Thank you!

[Sean Heavy]

I agree. I would sell my mainland shop and get a Linden Shop. But no wild BIG signs. No subletting or rentals. Have rules similar to Linden Homes but for real SL businesses instead.

If there was a 512 Linden Shop, I might get a small Linden Shop and a 512 Linden Home or just stick with a 1024 Linden Shop. But just like Linden Homes, only allow one per premium resident. We can keep huge mega-shops on the mainland or private islands.

[Chloe Bunny]

1 hour ago, davidventer said:

I would love to have little dedicated and themed commercial areas nearby so that I can get into my car at my Linden Home and drive to the nearby shops.

Me too!

[Chloe Bunny]

I also want deep snow but we aren't getting that

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

Go to a sim region called Luna. There you'll find a Linden mall, called "Luna Oaks".

Edited November 26, 2021 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[Sean Heavy]

3 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

Go to a sim region called Luna. There you'll find a Linden mall, called "Luna Oaks".

That's a start! Now expand it. Advertise it. Automate it. In other words, make it more like getting a Linden Home, rather than something few people know about.

[LittleMe Jewell]

I "heard" quite a while back that they were considering a small shopping area (maybe in the Millbank) region where people could ask for stalls and they'd rotate randomly through all of the people that were interested.

While I'm of mixed opinions on the request, I'm not sure how they'd retrofit commercial locations into the existing regions and themes.  Best I know, the early Themes (other than Houseboats) are not being expanded any more.

[Claireschen Hesten]

6 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

Go to a sim region called Luna. There you'll find a Linden mall, called "Luna Oaks".

That mall is kind of a waste time, i don't know what people had to do to score a booth there but they were on to a real winner, free store for life. The group is closed access. for as long as i've known about the mall there's been no change in tenants any booth that became empty has stayed that way. At best some of the people there have stuck around long enough to offer mesh/mesh body support but it's mostly now dated system/prim stuff

[animats]

Luna Oaks has active stores. I'd never seen that part of Bay City before. The trolley is kind of cute, too.

There's a nice Linden mall in Mosh. It's not doing well.

Dead mall in Mosh.

One of the big landlords bought up most of the stores and raised the rent. There are very few tenants left. Just a big, empty structure in a nice location in downtown Kama City at the port.

Downtown Kama City is an example of how not to do it. It looks like a nice downtown. There's a port on the river. There's the mall shown above. There's a nice park with dog runs and a cafe. There's a plaza with a big obelisk. There are two big bridges. There's open space along the river. There's an info hub.

Only the info hub is used, and that mostly because it's a default destination for lost 'bots. The rest sees almost no usage.

It's hard to do a mall in SL and get traffic. You can build it, but few will come. Visit Bruissac, which is a beautiful build on the Blake Sea, a port with boat slips, the headquarters of GTFO, and Drivers of SL. It doesn't get much better than that. Over half the stores are vacant.

Does SL have a successful mall developer and operator with a track record of successful multi-tenant malls?

[Polenth Yue]

My experience of malls is they don't usually earn enough to pay the rent. That's why malls end up empty. People would stay if they actually made money.

Mall-style events work better. There was one of those run on the fairgrounds, which was run by the moles and free to sign up. But the main focus seems to be the shop & hop events.

[Nika Talaj]

19 minutes ago, Polenth Yue said:

Mall-style events work better.

Agreed!  I could easily see a single region in each theme area being used for a similarly-themed market with mole-created small booths a couple times a year. Those might actually attract traffic.  Some random thoughts on one way this could work:

> Vendors would apply, they would not have to be LH residents (altho LH residents might get a different booth lease rate?)

> Each 'event' would be live for only 1-2 months at a time, maybe twice a year.  During an 'event', all theme market regions (i.e. the Fantasseria market, the Chalet market, etc..) would simultaneously be active. Creators could apply to be at one or more theme markets.  They would be encouraged to offer in-theme items at each.  These events should be advertised in Seraphim etc. just like any other shopping event.

> Since all existing themes are fully developed and Millbank is the only region that is currently available for special events, perhaps it might have to be the only region used, in which case the themed markets would have to be up sequentially.  I think the only other alternative would be to take over a 'park' region in each theme for this purpose, and return it to its original park build between market times.  Hard to see the moles being happy about that.

I think there are two big reasons why even such a limited foray into commercial activity might be nixed. 

1.  Administering this would take time.  Moles might manage the commercial build-outs and swapping region builds in and out as needed; but someone would also have to manage choosing creators to exhibit, making and enforcing agreements as to content, advertising etc.  Would LL take a cut of all sales from such an event?  There are a lot of questions to be resolved ... who would spend time making this all happen?  The most efficient way to get this done would be for LL to outsource the event planning to a group of residents; no clue whether that could happen.  It only makes sense to go to this effort if it would actually increase LH retention or uptake. 

2.  "No commercial activity in LH regions" is a very simple rule, pretty unambiguous to apply.  Once you create LH markets, would residents get confused and think they could put up a cute lemonade stand at their house that sells *****-shaped lemon popsicles?  If so, it might increase the already huge pile of LH governance ARs with which support currently grapples.

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

Marketplace without the "Magic Boxes" of old (which needed to be rezzed and maintained inworld by the merchant) has made the need for inworld stores redundant, which saves the shop owner land tier costs and prims, but leaves the terrain of Second Life looking so sad, barren, neglected and dead as it does now. :(

If you've never heard of Magic Boxes, here's one of Torley's old videos of how to sell on Marketplace with Magic Boxes, back when Marketplace was called XstreetSL instead:

 

Edited November 26, 2021 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[davidventer]

7 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

I "heard" quite a while back that they were considering a small shopping area (maybe in the Millbank) region where people could ask for stalls and they'd rotate randomly through all of the people that were interested.

While I'm of mixed opinions on the request, I'm not sure how they'd retrofit commercial locations into the existing regions and themes.  Best I know, the early Themes (other than Houseboats) are not being expanded any more.

Retrofitting existing regions is not impossible, just timely. They could prevent abandoned homes from from claimed again and turn those into commercial spots instead. Or if there's someone not abandoning a home in a place where many around them have abandoned, and the Lindens are holding off on retrofitting that location due to one or two home owners not abandoning, they could contact that particular home owner with some pre-written email about the new commercial project, and maybe offer them a different home, or reimburse the home-owner in some way for reclaiming such homes - Kind of like how it works in the real world when property developers want to put up a new project somewhere but there are old homes and residents in the way. There is definitely a way to do this. Not an ideal solution but it's possible.

Or an even more time consuming method would be moving the regions on the grid: create one region space right down the center of the continent, fill in those opened spaces with more Linden Homes but make every 5th or so region in that line a commercial zone.

Alternatively, maybe in the future we'll have Linden Homes 3 (We're now Living in Linden Homes 2). Version 3 could perhaps blend residential and commercial as suggested in my OP and Jira entry - This is also why I titled it as a "Future" feature request. 

[davidventer]

1 hour ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

Marketplace without the "Magic Boxes" of old (which needed to be rezzed and maintained inworld by the merchant) has made the need for inworld stores redundant, which saves the shop owner land tier costs and prims, but leaves the terrain of Second Life looking so sad, barren, neglected and dead as it does now. :(

If you've never heard of Magic Boxes, here's one of Torley's old videos of how to sell on Marketplace with Magic Boxes, back when Marketplace was called XstreetSL instead:

 

I do love browsing the Marketplace but 99% of the time, I go look at an item in-world before buying it. I don't always buy it in world. Sometimes I would view my Marketplace wishlist items in-world, go around looking at different options, and then buy the desired one off the Marketplace. Other times I'm so happy with what I see in-world that I end up buying it in-World instead. I very rarely buy anything that I cannot see in-world first, when it comes to furniture, building components, general decor items at least. The only things I buy straight off marketplace without an in-world visit are clothes with demos, Everything else; Furniture, vehicles, interior and outdoor decor, prefabs, you name it, I like to see in-world first. If there is no in-world preview of such items, or if the in-world store only has display vendors, I tend to not buy from them and find alternatives instead that do have in-world previews available.

[davidventer]

1 hour ago, Nika Talaj said:

Agreed!  I could easily see a single region in each theme area being used for a similarly-themed market with mole-created small booths a couple times a year. Those might actually attract traffic.  Some random thoughts on one way this could work:

> Vendors would apply, they would not have to be LH residents (altho LH residents might get a different booth lease rate?)

> Each 'event' would be live for only 1-2 months at a time, maybe twice a year.  During an 'event', all theme market regions (i.e. the Fantasseria market, the Chalet market, etc..) would simultaneously be active. Creators could apply to be at one or more theme markets.  They would be encouraged to offer in-theme items at each.  These events should be advertised in Seraphim etc. just like any other shopping event.

> Since all existing themes are fully developed and Millbank is the only region that is currently available for special events, perhaps it might have to be the only region used, in which case the themed markets would have to be up sequentially.  I think the only other alternative would be to take over a 'park' region in each theme for this purpose, and return it to its original park build between market times.  Hard to see the moles being happy about that.

I think there are two big reasons why even such a limited foray into commercial activity might be nixed. 

1.  Administering this would take time.  Moles might manage the commercial build-outs and swapping region builds in and out as needed; but someone would also have to manage choosing creators to exhibit, making and enforcing agreements as to content, advertising etc.  Would LL take a cut of all sales from such an event?  There are a lot of questions to be resolved ... who would spend time making this all happen?  The most efficient way to get this done would be for LL to outsource the event planning to a group of residents; no clue whether that could happen.  It only makes sense to go to this effort if it would actually increase LH retention or uptake. 

2.  "No commercial activity in LH regions" is a very simple rule, pretty unambiguous to apply.  Once you create LH markets, would residents get confused and think they could put up a cute lemonade stand at their house that sells *****-shaped lemon popsicles?  If so, it might increase the already huge pile of LH governance ARs with which support currently grapples.

That all sounds like a nightmare for the Moles. I wouldn't want to be the one in charge of managing all that. A simpler solution would be s system similar to how Linden Homes operate, with a similar covenant, but one that allows commercial use, land in search, and classifieds for the parcels in the commercial-zone areas. As for your last point - I don't think that this would be an issue, as the land restrictions and covenant rules would still be in place, they would apply then as they do now. I don't anticipate any confusion. If a "Linden Shop" parcel happens to be on the same region as a "Linden Home" parcel, the covenant could clearly state that if a parcel doesn't enable you to set it to search or create classifieds on it, then no commercial activity is allowed on it. If it's not possible to block those features from some parcels but not from others - If it's a region-wide system setting, then the only option would be to create some commercial regions in between the residential regions and drop the idea of putting both residential and commercial in the same region - but they could still be connected and part of the same continent. 

[Nika Talaj]

31 minutes ago, davidventer said:

 A simpler solution would be s system similar to how Linden Homes operate, with a similar covenant, but one that allows commercial use, land in search, and classifieds for the parcels in the commercial-zone areas.

Let me see if I understand you.  You are proposing that there simply be commercial LH parcels, where a shop owner must use a commercial mole build, but otherwise run their store just like they might on mainland?  Use whatever vendors they want, oblige LL support to endlessly monitor the commercial signage to be sure it's not too blatant, sell merchandise that is completely unrelated to the theme of the region the store is in?  Perhaps you're envisioning that really cool little stores, like art galleries and Hextraordinary, would populate LH commercial parcels?  That would be neat, but I fear I don't think that would be the case.  I think we would quickly see a lot of rather trashy little stores.   What's to prevent that?

The nice thing about events is that, because the merchandise on offer is generally limited to newer items in the theme of the event (if there is one, and in this case there should be), and because the event is limited in time, there tends to be traffic and actual sales.  I've rented residences in 5 private estates that rented small commercial spots as you are suggesting , and the commercial builds tended to be stagnant and unprofitable, eventually becoming mere decor, and a liability for the store owner, whose main store was generally elsewhere, in a place with more available LI.

31 minutes ago, davidventer said:

 If a "Linden Shop" parcel happens to be on the same region as a "Linden Home" parcel, the covenant could clearly state that if a parcel doesn't enable you to set it to search or create classifieds on it, then no commercial activity is allowed on it.

I will be surprised if LL creates a new type of 'commercial' Linden Home region.  They certainly would not displace or rework existing residential regions to incorporate commercial builds.  But I would be ASTONISHED if LL allowed commercial and residential parcels to share the same region, going forward.  One person's opinion, of course.

LL's and the moles' plans for the next couple of themes are already set in stone, if they are following the same process they have in the past.  If they are not already planning for commercial parcels, it's unlikely that they would undertake to rework their plans to incorporate such a departure.  That's why I was trying to find a way to sandwich it in to the existing continents without changing the existing residential parcels.

[animats]

A nice project would be to make some sales barges and sail them up to various Bellessaria docks on a regular schedule. You only get 32 LI per vehicle, and someone, or a bot, needs to stay with it. You can still have vendors and a few samples and pictures, plus teleports to mainstores. That would be a way to try out stores near Belli.

[Chris Corvinus]

Malls are dead. Have been dead for a long time. Shopping events took over. It would be a pretty stupid decision, even for LL, to go for this idea. Its a waste of mole resources and time. Just because you love living a "realistic" life, doesn't mean its a great idea and should be implemented. 

Suck it up and teleport like the rest of us.

[Evangeline Ling]

I gotta agree with some of the other sentiment here.  I think this would turn into an endless sea of resellers.  It would have no appeal to customers at all.  Chris is onto something in the above post though.  EVENTS are the thing that drives business in SL so maybe have a once a month Bellisseria shopping event where content creators can get a stall.... it could even become a "super premium" perk if the Lab ever goes back to that idea again.  Would also encourage our content creators to upgrade their accounts to super premium to be included in a once a month Linden sponsored shopping event.  I think if they do this though there needs to be a rule against reseller vendors.  Needs to be content directly from content creators.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Evangeline Ling

[Chris Corvinus]

19 minutes ago, Evangeline Ling said:

I gotta agree with some of the other sentiment here.  I think this would turn into an endless sea of resellers.  It would have no appeal to customers at all.  Chris is onto something in the above post though.  EVENTS are the thing that drives business in SL so maybe have a once a month Bellisseria shopping event where content creators can get a stall.... it could even become a "super premium" perk if the Lab ever goes back to that idea again.  Would also encourage our content creators to upgrade their accounts to super premium to be included in a once a month Linden sponsored shopping event.  I think if they do this though there needs to be a rule against reseller vendors.  Needs to be content directly from content creators.

While I think theres already an oversaturation of shopping events, I do like the idea of a super-premium Bellisseria shopping event. But I won't hold my breathe they will make a rule against resellers.

[Alwin Alcott]

2 hours ago, Chris Nova said:

While I think theres already an oversaturation of shopping events, I do like the idea of a super-premium Bellisseria shopping event. But I won't hold my breathe they will make a rule against resellers.

and... if there comes a belliseria sales  event... please not as the usual ..."friends first" and others can stay in their own shops.

[Anna Nova]

Keep commerce out of Belli.

[Sean Heavy]

This does not have to be anything like "malls". A real easy start would be to duplicate Blumfield, West Haven, Shermerville NW, and Shermerville Central. Locate them away from Bellie by at least a region of ocean. Then set them up just like Linden Homes, but as Linden Shops. It should be fairly easy to create a few shop buildings similar to the way Linden Homes are made; they could even re-use some of the Linden gift buildings already available like the diner building I have on Blumfield. They could just start with four regions to see if there is any interest. Depending on how that works out they can decide if they want to expand it. I would definitely grab a Linden Shop.

[Alwin Alcott]

50 minutes ago, Sean Heavy said:

This does not have to be anything like "malls". A real easy start would be to duplicate Blumfield, West Haven, Shermerville NW, and Shermerville Central. Locate them away from Bellie by at least a region of ocean. Then set them up just like Linden Homes, but as Linden Shops. It should be fairly easy to create a few shop buildings similar to the way Linden Homes are made; they could even re-use some of the Linden gift buildings already available like the diner building I have on Blumfield. They could just start with four regions to see if there is any interest. Depending on how that works out they can decide if they want to expand it. I would definitely grab a Linden Shop.

so shoot another fully armed canon at private landlords? ... also shopping in control by LL?...

[Sean Heavy]

27 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

so shoot another fully armed canon at private landlords? ... also shopping in control by LL?...

I don't pay a private landlord for my Blumfield lot; it's mainland. How is 'shopping in control by LL' different than shopping in control of a private landlord? If you don't like it, don't get one; mainland and private regions will always be available.