Where to sell - advice please.

OK. So I'm a noobie. But I'm trying to get into SL as efficiently as poss. So far I love it - what a great concept and some really neat environments. Not since I was involved in immersive VR at university have I had so much fun. All I need now are some data gloves and a visual headset!

I'd like to start selling stuff. Not to make money, just to get involved in SL in a positive and a community sense. And I'm taking lessons in building stuff from Anna, but where do I sell my creations? Only small scale objects that I'm putting together with my own textures (i'm a graphic designer/photographer) and I just require a little space at the mo to display them - but I'd like the place to be as permanent as poss.

So do I invest in a rented outlet, or are there places in SL where small-scale creators such as myself can display their wares without too much difficulty and on a fairly regular basis.

Any advice welcome. And hi to you all - see you in SL!

I have the same question except I'm just looking for a small stall or something in a relatively lagless environment (IE, not a skyscraper mall) to sell my own creations.

You can pick up some First Land if you have a premium account, get it near the middle of the sim. You can hang out on the lot, building or otherwise playing. You'll likely want more land so you can put up a sign saying you'd like to to buy people's first land from anyone just out to 'flip' their first land allotment. If they agree just get them to but an adjacent lot and sell it to you for whatever price you agree on.

The typical going rate amongst the land hawks is L$2000, so offer over that, but under what the hawks are trying to resell it for afterwards, and you should be fine. L$2500 - L$3000 per 512sq/m lot?

A 1024 to 2048 lot should be a good starter. Just make sure all the land is in the same sim.

You'll probably suffer a wave of crappy, laggy casinos and clubs for a few months before they fail. If they don't, you can sell the lot later to the not crappy but still laggy casino or club.

There are also some very well administrated island rental sims. I recommend looking up Alliez Mysterio. She's an absolute doll.

~Kami

Addendum, important note about land tier fees: http://secondlife.com/whatis/landpricing.php

i have a friend with a mall..good prices nice area look in my ingame profile for my shop to teleport to the location

Check out New Paris

*Rolls eyes at the 'advice' on how to profit from First Land buy/sell scams.*

Look around at some of the small to medium sized shopping areas. Some, like Serenity Woods, offer an area where free merchant space can be obtained, if you're a member of the community. Use those where you can. Free areas are usually set up in a courtyard near the mall entrance, but this varies by site. When in doubt, ask the mall owners if they have an area for free merchant space for new merchants.

It costs nothing to sell through SL Exchange and SL Boutique. Both taks a small commission from each sale, but charge nothing per week to have a presence there. Great when you are getting started!

Most malls charge L$50 per week (and up) for a small space and about 20 prim allottment to set up shop with. If you make sure you have at least 10 or so items that sell for something more than the price of a t-shirt (L$30 or more), you should, at most locations, make more than enough in a given week, on average, to cover your space rental.

Ground floor space in a major mall tends to go for higher prices. You're paying for visibility. If you have enough variety and are making enough sales to cover the higher rent, the higher-priced spots likely will increase your revenue beyond that. If you're barely breaking even or can't yet cover L$50 over week in sales, don't move to more expensive spots yet.

Spread out. Set up kiosks in several malls. It costs more per week, but sales traffic varies a lot by location from week to week. Having several stores helps if one or more of the sims that you have stores in gets sold or reformatted, or just has slow sales that week.

If you own your own land, or if you have a friend that will allow you to set up on their land, set up a small vendor there and advertise. You'll get some sales, at least.

Every so often I run across a place that leases for pretty cheap prices. Usually there are limitations like you have to be less than two months old or you can only use 20 prims in your store. Personally I have only tried selling my stuff through slexchange. I think it works pretty well as far as visibility goes. I think more people will bump into my stuff there than if the merchandise were on my own little plot of land.

Yes! I forgot that.

Classifieds are set in your Profile. Wherever you set up the vendor, if the land parcel is listed in Search (This is something only a land owner or group officer or the group owned land can do.) stand at the location of your vendor and go into your profile, select the Classifieds tab and work your way through that. It's fairly straight-forward.

~Kami

Another thought. If you have something unique and reasonably high quality to offer, try to get space at Dewllget in the Taco sim. They select merchants based on a review of your wares, and offer space for free, as I recall. Not easy to get in there though, unless you offer something they lack.

I co-own a small shopping area, 4 LARGE, shop-sizes spaces, 100 prims for 200 a week. Yes, you can share the space and rent with a friend or two if you want. It's in a pretty low lag sim, next door to a sim housing one of the most popular clubs. Since they are about 700m in the air, they dont' cause lag for us.

You can find the pick in my profile, or search for The Marble Strip

Joshua
Kamilah
Tyci
MadamG
Ceera
Bree
Kira

And others that might have replied since I pen this reply to my questions...


...folks, I'm really grateful for all your advice. I'm going to mull over the suggestions and make a decision in the next week or so. By then I should have a small range of Bauhaus-style furniture for sale - that's if I get enough on-line time after RL. The Bauhaus is one of my favourite periods - it follows on from the Art & Crafts movement which ran from around 1890-1920 - and I'm hoping it's relatively unique for SL. I'm also hoping to provide a range of oriental rugs to complement the furniture. And look out for my Eileen Gray sidetable and chairs:

http://www.designmuseum.org/design/eileen-gray

Once again, thanks to you all. I hope the thread is useful to others and if you see me in SL, say hello would you

Hmmm. Visited Taco, but have to say that it was not a friendly place. I reckon that unless you have the right appearance the regulars don't/won't like it. Maybe I just visited at the wrong time? What I don't like is being harrassed though.

Finding a mall spot.

First of all, look in the classifieds for mall owners looking and I'd pursue the leads the others gave you here. Rates of around 50 per 25 prims and 100 per 50 prims are about normal for small mainland malls. If you try really hard you can get deals especially if you are starting out-2 weeks free, etc. Before you rent from a spot look around and im other vendors there to check on sales and whether they are pleased with the landlord. Check to see if a group is required to place your items-its a pain but offers some protection against griefers and people leaving trash behind.

Finally, when you do rent somewhere, try to make your store as attractive as possible. While you will of course run a classified, remember in a mall you benefit from other stores around you, and you want shoppers to come look at your store-nice presentation leads to sales. A plain JVN vendor without anything catchy is just camoflage to passers by.

Good luck and success to you

1. Mall spots
2. http://www.slboutique.com/
3. http://www.slexchange.com/

Hiya
I'm not sure where exacrlt you can sell stuff but I do have a suggestion to help your sales, There are several unofficial secondlife forums with new product forums where you can place all your new products and also adevertise anything you sell.

If you wanna check them out I have some listed on my website Spend-Less

They are under the links section

Nat

Starting out on first land, as someone suggested, is a good idea. It's a pretty cheap way to start out, plus you get a stipend as part of the deal. You can use vendors to cut down on prim usage, maybe with one piece out so people can see the quality of your work. Holo-vendors are also a good idea, for displaying lots of pieces whilst not using up all your prims. There's free vendor kits, which include holo-vendors. I'll drop one on you when I log on.

search for "eden mall" we have stalls there for 30 prims for only 70L per week!

big 10x10 floor plan for your shop!

check it out

I was in the same situation as you just over three weeks ago. I bought my first land for 512 and sold it for L$3000 a week later. Then I bought a 1024 parcel roadside in a well-developed area for just under L$10000. I've built my first gallery on it having spent time learning building at the Ivory Tower. Now it's open.

Of course, this is where the hard work starts. Getting people to come to your shop and making things they want to buy!

Albion

I think you will find many people will not buy advice because so many others give it for free.