Hard work ain't enough anymore...

Thanks and yw

Have you thought of using vendors?

Yes, I have JEVN, but I don't really like to use it, cause most people don't really buy from vendors according to a poll/thread I saw here a few months ago. I usually only use vendors if I really have to. I will use it in my small shops rented in malls, but I don't think I'll use it at my HQ.

Store is really laggy, might be just SL today.

Your products are confusing, I sent my GF in and after five minutes she left and went to RAC. What goes with what? 30 make-up options, on everything or just one skin?

That was just one of the questions she had. Dont make your Customers work so hard.

Make it all alot clearer

30 pictures are on the wall in a 6*5 set.

At the end of every row there's a sign saying: "Buy every make up in this row." If you click that sign, it will offer you to buy all make-ups in that row.

At the bottom of every column there's a sign saying: "Buy every make up in this column."
If you click that sign, it will offer you to buy all make-ups in that column.

Finally, there's a huge picture to the right saying: "Buy all 30 make ups" If you click that sign, it will offer you to buy all 30 make-ups I have.

No offense, but you tell me - what is confusing about that?

On the other hand, you're right (really). People don't come to my store to think, they go there to shop.

So I totally redesigned my store today:

- I made the pictures 3 times as big.
- I put out a huge board saying: "Click here for demoskins"
- I placed arrows to different places to make it even more clear.
- I changed my texts, for example: "Buy all 30 make ups" became "Click here to buy all 30 make ups".

Plus I also redecorated the whole store, it looks totally different now. bigger, better, more friendly.

So in the end, I have to say thanks for the inspiration your girlfriend gave me. Thank you.

A lot of skin sellers use that system. I think it's logical and well thought out. I imagine a lot of shoppers probably really like it. It just bothers me aesthetically. I kinda hate the "giant wall of faces" thing.

You're probably right Chip, it looks kinda weird, but, as a matter of fact, we're selling human skins, that's weird enough on its own, isn't it?

Hmm, I've been to your shop a few times, and I know you don't have giant walls with a lot of faces, but I can't remember how you solved it. I'll have to check it again. (If SL lets me to do that, cause I keep crashing lately...)

First off I want to say that just looking at the images on this forum so far, the improvement has just been amazing... in skin, photography and ad. My real reason for commenting though was to second Stephanie Misfit's suggestions about Fashion Planet and the Fashion Consolidated group. These two things are what really made my business take off. Fashion Consolidated alone just hit 2000 members recently. That's 2000 people just waiting to see your new product. New designers and new products is what Fashcon is all about. Both are wonderful resources that are completely free to designers and an opportunity that should not be passed up. OK...that said.... another compulsive skin demo-er off to take a look at what you've got.

You might want to use the term "Fatpack" for the "buy all 30" option. Or have a fatpack per column or row (not both, since it's soooo confusing) and a super fatpack for all 30. People understand what a fatpack is and might help people figure out what it is they are buying.

Much better and alot clearer.

The shapes on the first floor, are they all wearing the Natalie skin?
GF loves the Eva look.

Maybe I'm the minority, but I only have one skin. Well, I have one style of skin ... but it came with different make-up colors.

When I skinned, I knew exactly what I wanted my digital self to look like. I searched long and hard and finally found the perfect skin for me. (It's one of Chip's by the way ... and I absolutely LOVE it)

So, all I'm saying is that some people don't want dozens of skins. Some people have a certain look. I want to be able to walk into a place and be recognized by my appearance. I want people to see *me* ... not my name tag ... and say "Hey Lita ... welcome back."

And $6,500L for a skin? Maybe skin prices have gone up since I bought mine. I thought I only paid $3,000L for mine with at least a dozen different make ups. I paid another $50L for my eyes, and did my own shape.

Lolita, the price is not and never was 6500L$, someone didn't read my post carefully and came up with this ridiculous 6500L$... It was 1000 back then, and I reduced it to 600 lately, even my most expensive fatpack with all 30 make-ups is less than 6500L$.

About the certain look - everyone wants that, but it's pretty much impossible. I was offered 100 USD for an exclusive custom skin lately, and I didn't take it, cause I know it would take about 2 weeks at least (50 bucks/week is simply not worth it), and satisfaction can't be guaranteed, because personal preference has a huge role.

Thank you very much Betty. I won't forget it.

Hmm, that might worth a try, thanks for the tip.

I have one large box for each skin (or skin set if there's one for that skin), and then a vendor next to that with all the various makeup versions. I don't do a lot of different sets in favor of having a reasonable single skin price and letting people buy as many or as few versions as they want. I've never tried having them all out and visible in individual boxes so I can't say how it compares from a sales standpoint, but from an aesthetic standpoint, with about 19 different skins, each with 20-35 versions, I'd have to build my entire store out of skin boxes and add a few more floors to fit them all. Just the thought of being in a room with 600 faces looking at me from all directions kinda creeps me out.

Totally reasonable. As a matter of fact, my store is full of plants and huge decoration posters and the wall with the small faces is definitely the most ugly section. I'll be thinking about changing it.

This is how it looks now:

Oddly enough, I only go to classifieds if I fail to find what I'm looking for in search places, so I wouldn't bet on that entirely. Of course, I also search from the bottom of the listings up to avoid the folks who are buying traffic that are a) generally laggy as heck and b) often have crap product to go with it (definitely exceptions, such as Naughty Designs and others...). I'm probably just old and set in my ways, tho <G>

Char

Hey, Pelthar, thanks for the skin, etc. It's still not really my 'style,' but I do see some definite improvements.

I think the skin business is changing. There are two high-end skin creators selling their skins for L$500 now. One, sin skins, may go back up when a new line comes out, but TaP is $500 each for their newest line, and honestly they are darn sharp skins. Had I not bought a bunch of the $500 sin skins I'd be buying those.

I have never understood how the L$3k skin designers stay in business. I've bought their demos repeatedly, trying to convince myself there's something really good about them, but every time I am disappointed. They stretch badly ecause of my shape, or they are so photo sourced I look like I am wearing a mask of someone else's face.

To be fair, I don't see how a new designer can sell for as much or more as TaP or Sin Skins and really draw a base at this point. The work would have to be really, really good, and designing skins is a skill that, unless you are some sort of Godlike artist outside of SL, will take time and effort to achieve.

Vye, no offense, but you're not fair at all, cause you probably haven't even seen a picture or a demo of that new designer's work, and you already have a biased, negative opinion about it. In my book that's a totally wrong way of thinking and once again, not fair at all.

The demos are there for a reason, if you don't like what you see, don't buy it, but building your opinion upon the lack of information about something doesn't make much sense to me. (Once again, I don't want to offend you, I just don't understand you, that's all.)

Your shape isn't optimal to you with those skins. That's all.

My shape is downright fantastic with my choice of skin. The skin made me feel 12x hotter. And getting a total of 8 skins (4 makeups, 2 different pubic hair selections) for something that makes me look and feel like that is well worth the cash.

Yup ... that's why you try on the demos. I'm 5' 4" with 34C boobs. It's not hard to imagine that a lot of skins are designed around a 6' model with 50 GG boobs *grin* and those skins would look horrible on me, no matter how good the quality. You have to find a skin that fits you.



I agree 100%. I wanted specifics with my skin. First, it had to fit my petite shape. Second, it needed *very* subtle tan lines. It needed to have red eyebrows to match my hair. It needed to be a seamless and excellent looking skin with the freckles that all us redheads have. And it needed to be *ahem* shaved. When I finally found it ... it was worth every Linden.

One really important thing that I think has been kinda neglected throughout this thread (although Vye touched on it) is the difference between a 'skin' and a 'character skin'. A character skin which is what you have created Pelthar is usually heavily photo based and when worn imposes a lot of character onto the wearer irrespective of shape. That is why Vye feels like she is wearing a mask of someone elses face.
A skin however is MUCH more sympathetic to the underlying shape, relying on that for shadow and highlight detailing and is almost always exclusively hand painted. This is much harder to create but will look good on a much wider range of people and they will still look like they wanted to when they created their shape.
The other thing I noticed about your skins Pelthar (I just got some of the demos and tried them on). They really lack that final step of detail. I kept waiting for them to finish rezzing, but they were already finished. I dont mean to be harsh, just trying to help out a fellow artist. I have just created a range of skins myself that I am about to start selling and I had some REALLY harsh criticism from some friends along the way. Glad to say that with their help I have now got something quite special. Dont want to HiJack your thread here, but if you want to IM me in-world and come take a look I would be happy to show you. Plus maybe give you a couple of pointers as to where I made some great leaps from mediocre skins to 'As good as X2'. That is a HUGE boast and time will tell how far off the mark I am but my very harsh critics are all converted to wearing my skins instead of their old X2, Naughty or RAC. (Maybe cause they got them free for helping me. )

We've talked a lot in-world since that post, and although we "had to get past the artistic egos" Doofus turned out to be a nice guy, so I forgive him that he hijacked my thread

I also think that his skin is worth a look, it's really nice, not my style, but X2 lovers will certainly like it and I'm sure he'll reach his goals with it.

By the way, now I know that one of my best moves was to start this thread - sales are growing steadily, I'm getting more attention, my shop looks so much better now (I even made a changeroom today) - you kept me going with your criticism (although a little more encouragement would've been nice...). The point is, thanks everyone.

One problem may be that you are selling shapes combined with a skin. I guess that people buy shapes, though I have no idea why, as anyone with a little patience, can create a nice shape. Skins are a different matter. My advice is to get rid of your shape selling and concentrate on skin.

Well he did say makes 15-30K a month selling shapes .. so telling him to get rid of a known product making that kind of money doesnt sound like such a good idea to me.

I agree unbundiling them seems like a potential good idea, people might be put off "Having to buy the shape to get the skin".