Opening my own SHOP

Fellow Onliners.

I have decided to open up my first shop and will open a new weapon store. I've made some weapons and also have some people who will sell with me. I was told I can easily succeed since there aren't many shops.

Can any of you more experienced shop owners give me any tips and also tell me which weapon stores are considered the best so I know who i am competing with? I don';t think there are any good stores from what i was told.

Much obliged.

Well, that's YOUR job as a business owner. Coming into to the forums to ask residents to do YOUR work for you is the wrong way to approach it. Go shopping yourself, see what's out there, talk to residents, see what they like or don't like. If your plan is to open a store and stock it with some items and sit back and count L's, you have a rude awakening. You have to actively participate in your business for it to grow and prosper. This is the same for SL or RL. Probably the best advice I can give you is to not go cheap on your advertisement. search the word 'weapons' in the classifieds (not search all, or search places... classifieds), and see what other residents are paying for their ads. Try to buy your way onto the first page if you can. Simply paying $50L a week and appearing on page 13 is pretty much a waste of $50L a week. So, main thing, advertise, advertise, advertise. Secondly, read up on ways to improve your ranking in search, it's basically a keyword game, so don't just put the words "I sell guns" in your ad, put in every conceivable relevant keyword you can think of... guns, ammo, ammunition, weapons, kill, mafia, etc.

there are TONS of weapons shops. do your homework.

also coming in here with a statement of you don't think there are any good weapon stores, is not only contradicting what you are asking for (help determining if there are good ones and stating you do not think there are any)

and weapons is not a kindly looked upon item in SL, too many griefers use weapons to grief

try doing the research yourself, or hire someone.

I personally have to disagree with this statement, Your statement might be correct to others but, I pay $50L a week for a classified and it does work, maybe not so much as those paying extreme amounts to get on the first page but it still does work, I personally don't think any advertising that brings in extra traffic is a waste.

As to the OP, My tips to you are as follows.

* Research (as many have said), fly around have a look at your "competitors" see what quality they are offering and for what prices.

I can say as a consumer I won't pay for something at one store if I can go to another store and get the same quality for a cheaper price (just like real life always shop around)

* Advertise - This doesn't nessacarily mean paying money. Yes I have an inworld classified, yes it brings in some traffic, I also advertise on all secondlife forums (that allow advertising)

I have my own website but a simple blog works just aswell, Everytime I release a new product I place it on the website.

Utilizing services such as slexchange and shop.onrez (both have advantages and disadvantages) helps boost traffic aswell because even though you may or may not get sales on these sites, people do visit your store after stumbling across your listings.

* Displays - I (like many others) like to see what I'm buying before I buy it, So if you can try to have displays of your items out on floor.

* Customer Service - This is one of the most important, You can have a great item but if your rude or don't have adequate customer service people will be less inclined to buy from you.

Always handle situations with customers as camly and collected as possible, try and fix problems within 24 hours of contact, always try to be polite, Try and include support notecards in plain english and try if you can to have another avenue for customers to contact your (ie an email address)

* Pricing - Think about the quality, the item, the time it took to make, competitors price, an important question to ask yourself when pricing an item is "would I pay for this item the price I'm asking?" if your answer is no, then you may want to reconsider what your charging.

* Listening - listen to customers request, suggestions ect, visit the wanted section on most secondlife associated forums and see what other residents are looking for that falls into your business's category, why? if you can try and create it, if your providing something a resident wants and can't find elsewhere who else are they going to go to?

This is pretty much everything I can think of business wise and I hope it helps you some what

Kind regards
Natalie

You gonna face a massive competition, who told to you there aren't so many weapons shops on SL is totally wrong, there are tons, and the fact that only tenth of them are "famous" while another hundred or more are in the shadow, tells you that to succede in this market is extremely hard.

nice name.
be warned that there are some very clever people firmly entrenched in this market. if you dont have the experience to even know who they are, i reckon you have a snowballs chance.

Am I the only one who saw this as an obvious joke????

It's easy to get us going isn't it?

i didn't take it as that. but i did notice the OP edited the initial posting very recently.

Ok, here's my serious advise.

Use search to look for weapons stores and also to look for specific items like those you will be selling. Also look at classified ads and ads here in the forums SL publications etc. Go to all of the places you can possibly find that sell merchandise like yours. Pretending to be a customer will give you lots of good ideas on how to be a merchant.

Then search for malls and retail space to rent and go to a ton of such places to get an idea about what you want and what is available. Go ahead and rent a place that seems to get a lot of visitors who might be interested in what you are selling. Get a place you can afford even if no one buys anything and don't pay too much extra for prims that you don't need yet. A small store full of merchandise attracts more buyers than a larger one that is partly empty.

Put your merchandise out and see what happens. Hang out in your shop and listen in on what people say when they come in. If no one ever does come in or buy anything try again someplace else and/or with tweaked merchandise. If you can afford it try in several places at once and stick with the ones that pay off.

Display your merchandise in a way to make it as clear as possible to customers what they will be getting for what price.

Join some groups whose members buy weapons, get to know them and be known as a participant. When you have a fairly large selection of items that you know people will buy and be satisfied with start promoting yourself tactfully with the groups.

Good luck.

This may be expensive but it does work for me. Location, location,location. Go rent maybe 15 booths over the grid. And pay for them for a month. Then at the end of the month go through your transaction history and search by SIM name. Anyone not pulling its rent, clear it out. Starting any business is expensive. This is no exception. You can put up adverts, I absolutely recommend that. But some 75% of all my sales are from random passer by types. And if you flood the grid and the malls you will get that cash. Just some advice.

I would also strongly recommend dumbing down everything you make. Don't assume people have the skills to use a weapon, they don't. Trust me, they don't know how to do anything, and always make sure you design with that in mind. Products with easy to use menus, well written notecards, will always outsell people who may have better products. But don't take the time to make instructions, or even answer questions through IM's. SL is hugely word of mouth. People are all in cliques. If one likes your product, ten will follow. Same applies. If one thinks you make crap that they can't figure out, twenty will boycot your shop. People talk, and bad products get blacklisted so fast.

That's good advice... but I personally use scripted vendors that report sales to me (who, bought, what the bought (and paid), and where the sale occurred). It's alot easier sift though a few emails of sales than to go through the transaction history looking for sales