Would you pay for simple low prim furniture?

I'm thinking of setting up a shop for people who rent apartments or houses and have strict prim requirements. For example: beds, seating, surfaces, curtains, potted plants. Nothing blocky, but nothing spectacular either (at low price, of course). Would you require poseballs or a unique and detailed textured before buying? Are you as thrifty and/or broke as I am? Any feedback would be appreciated!

Don't think about it too long or somebody might steal your idea.
Sure people pay for it but quality need not be expensive.
I suggest you make some stuff and find some free or reasonably priced space to show off. If you have land, don't waste it on a pretty house, build an amazing, wild store that people remember. (Hmm, I should do that.)
Make some interesting product shots and advertise as widely as your budget allows which includes the free websites and inworld.
Don't wait, start designing, create unique textures. (They are the difference.) Don't aim for mediocre, there is plenty of that. Try and build the poses into the furniture. For obvious reasons. Now get cracking!

There are low prim furniture stores out there, but they are rare compared to regular prim stores IMO. I do have some experience making low-prim furniture, but not for commercial reasons. I was just a very good neighbour in a first land resort last year.

My one tip would be to avoid poseballs at all costs because every prim counts to somebody on a prim budget. Ie. four two prim chairs total twelve prims instead of eight once poseballs are added. Just add the poseball _script_ directly to the chairs instead, and tweak the position co-ordinates afterwards. That won't work with a three-seater sofa of course, but there are scripts out there which allow you to add multiple sit poses to one object. (I think one such script was created by Lex Neva (one of the geniuses behind Suffugium), but don't quote me on that.)

Also, don't forget the goal posts moved recently with the advent of sculpties. A lot of people are making ultra low prim items in Maya before bringing them into SL nowadays...so if you're in the low prim furniture market for the long-haul, you might want to investigate how to make your own (assuming you don't have such experience already).

Good luck!

I do agree with some of what has been said. I would like to add a bit of IMHO

I think pose balls are better way of going then script tweaking. The main reason for this is the avg. buyer doesn't want to have to tweak scripts to get pose in a correct position for there particular avi. Avi size range is so varied that some adjustiablity to the pose is needed for a perfect fit. The avg. buyer can far easier use edit arrows to move a pose ball then having to open a script and take a guess of how many .000 meters the pose needs to go any direction. Not to mention if you say you have custom script, you then have to allow any one to view it or mod it, which potential lost linden to you if someone copies that script and sells it. There is also that fact that people who aren't script tweaking savoy could 'break' the script. Then you get landed with customer services calls or bad word of mouth p.r. There are some potential fixes to this for instants adding a notecard reader to the script so the client makes adjustments in notecard, but again your back to making them guess on .000 meters of movement to adjust. Not to mention it gets complicated. I am a firm believer in the motto of K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) I must say this to myself often, as I tend to be the stupid to often. *winks*

What I think is far more important that is often neglected is the pose animations and there priorities. There is nothing more tragic then bad pose in good piece of furniture. Or pose with the wrong priorities set on the animation upon upload. For instants the chairs, beds, lounges where you pop up or out of position when typing or go afk. And this is of coarse on case by case basis, but I over all prefer poses that the head and neck are NOT locked. If it's a otherwise static pose the movement in the head is least some illusion of movement opposed to the statue poses found in lot furniture.

Sculpted prims are great they make low prim furniture that looks a lot more complicated. Though the texture that goes on them is probably MORE important then ever. Sculpted prims are limited in complexity and good texturing can make up fo much of this simplicity. There is another limitation that you might want to bare in mind. Sculpted prims have very short draw distance. Meaning if you much more the 15 meters away the shape of the sculpted prim gets mushy meaning it losses detail.

These are just some my thoughts, as person who designs some furniture for builds, and sale at my store.

Wish you lots luck on your venture.

Linux Love Slave,

Lucinda
of
Taming the Shrew (garments and more)
Location: Caspoli 170,80,41

Low prim furniture is by no means a new concept. Have a search around, you'll find a lot of companies that do it.

What will be unique about your's?

I agree with using poseballs. I too have found that scripted furniture is much less flexible for the user than poseballs for the same reasons. Another reason being, you can choose which pose you want to sit on. A scripted piece of furniture seats avatars in a certain order and is not always the choice of the user. Besides, I have too much fun decorating them to fit with the rest of the piece!

Only if there's not already a prim per seat (e.g., cushions).

I have a LOW PRIM furniture store... My things are VERY inexpensive and yes, they are TRULY low prim... I have had condo owners and renters come to me for furniture... as well as renters and landowners who just want the benefits of efficient furniture without massive amounts of prims.

I sell furniture with and without poses... mostly all my items are modifiable, so that whether I sell them with or without, they can add or remove them.... I also sell a whole box of full perm furniture poses for $5 (sure, they're freebie poses I've found and sorted, but they're there for my customer's convenience and I feel that $5 is a fair fee for the work I put into finding them and making them available). I also provide service to remove and add them if they are unable to do so themselves (of course, when I am available).

I see several low prim furniture stores with beds that are as "low" as 30 prims... with no poses. My beds run between 6-13 prims (that includes my sex beds with the built in pose menus as well as those with just the simple couple cuddle pose).

The KEY to the furniture I personally sell is that it's not typical boxes like I see at several of the other "low prim" places... I try to use unique shapes and combinations to make them more appealing.

Like I've said in other posts... I dont make much, I dont really have much on display at the moment because I've been just SO busy over the past 2 months. Once I have time to devote to the business and building Im sure that there will be much more coming in.


There is definately a market, and if you can put forth more time than someone like me you can do very well with it.

You're welcome to come by my place and have a look anytime you'd like... and if you have any questions or want to share ideas Im game for that too.

Good luck

In response to the OP, there is certainly a market for low prim furniture and deco, for obvious reasons (low prim rentals, people starting out with 512s, etc.) I recommend the same as a previous poster recommended, start with your own 512 (no tier overhead!) and make a store out of it. Run a cheap classified, at the very least list your location in
Search Places.

In response to same previous poster saying someone might steal your idea if you wait too long, I have to assume this is a joke... If you look around a bit, do some research, you'll find there are quite a number of low prim stores out there already. (Like mine, for instance...)

I would say that to sell a piece of seating without some sort of pose/added value is not desirable. People aren't buying the furniture, in most cases. They're buying what the furniture has been enhanced with. As previously mentioned, find something that doesn't exist yet in the market and make it available at a competitive price. It wouldn't hurt to attend a few building and marketing classes, either.

One additional note: customer service is extremely important. Be willing to do custom work (at least at first) and if someone who has bought your product needs support of any kind (besides using you as a whipping post or trying to con you into a deal), be willing to help. There is nothing that kills a good SL business faster than crappy customer service. Just like RL, word of mouth is your best form of advertising.

And one last thing - don't forget about SL Exchange.

This has been done many times and at this point, the best way to get in would be low prim sculpted furniture.

iv made a one prim sitable chair out of a sculptie if your interested

Thanks for responding! Despite the sometimes conflicting views, this has been a good way to do research.