mall traffic

I'm considering constructing a retail store. How can I determine the typical number of avatars present for a particular site. Many locations -Egremont, the Dell Bookstore, etc.- completely or almost completely uninhabited. No sense building something where no one visits.

If you're so new to SL that you're still working out how to use Search and figuring out how to teleport around (as your other post just now suggests), then it's *way* too early to consider setting up a business in SL! I strongly suggest you spend some time getting to know how the SL world works, what things are and aren't possible in SL, and what sorts of things you enjoy doing there. If your business is to have any chance of success you'll need to have a sense of what other business folk are already doing, and what niches in the market might as yet be not fully flooded with other folk's work. What can you offer an SL resident that isn't already offered by twenty thousand folk with more SL experience than you?

What's missing in SL that you can offer? Until you can make a good stab at answering that question usefully, it's too soon to set yourself up as a business person.

(And if your answer looks anything like "I wanna set up a shopping mall and rent stores out to other folk", please consider the fact that SL is knee-deep in shopping malls already, few of which are fully occupied and many of which are almost empty. It's *really* not a good line of business for a newbie to get into right now.)

easy to determine how many actual people are there, just sit there for awhile and count the avs that actually move. much more reliable than traffic numbers.

then give people a reason to go there. unique stuff, interesting things to see (not over crowed with junk) and maybe some free amusments. ask your friends to check it out (don't spam, just ask people to look and give you there thoughts) never underestimate word of mouth advertising.

Thanks for your prompt reply.

Of course, everything you say is true. It's just that every step of my way here will be guided by practical commercial goals. And goals by their nature precede all initial steps.

Derek

Thanks for your prompt reply.

"Counting" the avs being more reliable than statistics I wouldn't have guessed. Good advice.
However, I don't know where to begin the search. There's a "mainland" but the search utility won't identify it. Don't know where it is. Also, don't know how to jump easily to a "search" identified place.

A right mouse click utility would be a perfect solution to above stated problem, but no right mouse click in SL.

Derek

Mainland is the name for all the continents owned and run by Linden Lab, as opposed to owned and run by private residents (which are referred to as Estates). A search for 'mainland' won't return a result for a place, as it's a *lot* of places, all in one.

Click the search button at the bottom of your viewer. Navigate to the 'All' tab. Type in anything you like. Try typing 'NCI'. Click the first link that comes up (NCI Kuula - New Citizens Incorporated - Help/Classes/Freebies). Wait for the page to load. Under the description, top left, is a 'Teleport' button. Click that button and you will teleport ('jump easily') to that exact location.

To be able to return to that location at any time you want, use your viewer's menu: World >> Set Landmark Here. Then the next time you want to return, look in the Landmarks folder of your inventory (the 'Inventory' section, not the 'Library' section), find the NCI Kuula landmark, and double-click it. You'll teleport back there.

While you're at NCI, I suggest taking a look around at some of the newbie help boards, and possibly taking some classes. If you want to start a business in SL you really do need to know the basics of SL first :-/

My first suggestion would be to read the Advice on Sales thread

/327/ac/274749/1.html

In SL, "Location, Location, Location" means how well you do in the Search engine.

I have a successful niche store. It sits on top of a cliff all by its lonesome. But I work the Search engine and XStreet SL to the best of my ability. I use satellite stores in malls occasionally but mainly for advertising.

My traffic numbers run between 75 and 200 on any given day. And yet, I pay all my SL bills and actually make a small profit each month.

My second suggestion would be to hold off investing any real money into a business until you are more comfortable with SL. It will pay off in the long run.

Start small on a 512 sqm or 1024 sqm plot. Small plot means a small store to start with. Less initial set up. Get your business running, get a visitor counter to monitor traffic, try renting small spaces in malls, experiment with low cost advertising etc. Give yourself 3 or 4 months trading. Focus on creating quality items rather than qty. Dont copy people. After a 3 - 4 months, if you have worked hard and aquired some skills then you should hopefuly be making at least enough to cover tier on your land. If not then change your direction. Re-evaluate your business or quit. If you are fortunate enough to be covering tier then plan your expansion. I see so many people come in, buy/rent a qtr sim or more, fill it with 99% crap and maybe a few good items and then go out of business a few months later because their overheads are too high, they never even break even. Competion here is fierce so unless you are some sort of super special guru content creator it is going to take hard work and commitment to become a success. Plan your busienss step by step and those steps should be tiny steps, dont expand until you have the income and customer base to support expansion. Check out the 'Advise on Sales' thread, search other threads on the forums, do research in world and talk to business owners. They will either talk to you or tell you to bugger off. No harm in trying.

Some of the best advice I have ever been given in SL is to know your competiton. Study everyone who has a successfull business in your chosen field. Talk to their customers covertly, familiarise yourself with all of their products then go away and build something different, ideally create a niche and fill it. Ive followed this advice for 4 years and am still doing it. Everything i create nowadays is unique and distinctive. Unfortunately unique doesnt stay unique for long so you have got to keep pushing the limit of your abilities to stay on top.

I'm using todays forum responses re: copying&pasting to save your comments for future reference.

While I have your attention, do you know of any SL utilities that would speed construction of a simple retail operation without requiring mastering of 3D-modeling from forms to textures to animation; and so forth. Something to enable a non-professional, non-game programmer to hit the ground running so to speak?

Well, there's the option of renting a store that was built, textured and is owned by someone else. That also has the advantage of being a low financial commitment up front, and doesn't require you to purchase land or a premium membership (needed in order to own land) first. But your question does make me wonder - if you have no SL building, texturing or scripting skills, what on *earth* are you intending to sell in your store?

What's your store's address? I will use recent forum copy&paste advice to save your comments for future reference.

Thanks for taking the time to offer your userful ideas. I'm using recent forum advice on how to copy&paste external to SL to save your ideas for future reference.