Is there much demand for kid's shoes?

I have a shoes, bags and hats store, and I was thinking about making shoes for kid avatars. I was talking to one kid at my store today, and she thought it would be a good plan, so I decided to canvas for opinions here too. My plan was to make simple mary janes and ballet flats in kid friendly colours and finishes, maybe with some simple lunch box or 'dolly' type purses to match. I'd very much appreciate any feedback from posters to this forum.
Thanks.

Not a kid avatar myself, but I've sure had my (too often reported) struggles finding shoes. I should think this would be a good market, but probably most easily penetrated with links (at least) from kid-avatar-frequented areas. But from a scripting gig I once had at an ill-fated adoption agency, I observed that kid avatars vary widely in size, so the shoes would have to be modifiable (or, I suppose, have a script that does the not-so-trivial task of modifying all the prims' scales and locations, or more desperately, come boxed with a gazillion different sizes pre-made).

(For those concerned about my much chronicled shoe search : finally happily shod, thanks to modifiable shoes from Renegade. Not everybody's style, but at least no longer forced to always wear my own sad attempts at cobbling.)

I would poke around the kids malls and see what's available. It honestly isn't much. I wear the stuff from Vertically Challenged, which is the best I've found. It might take a while to get established because, there's a lot of mediocre stuff done for kids and you tend to stick with what you know. I think everything I own is from only 3 or 4 designers.

What Katie said. There's not a great amount out there, though there are a lot of mary janes to be had. I tend to Vertically Challenged and Jill Caldera's Wheelies. That said, there are still a lot of shoes that I'd love to have, but don't. Thers aren't any real ballet flats i can think of, not a lot of boots, not really any good kid-sized jellies, etc.

Some really good light-up sneaks would be cool, too.

Mari

Thanks for the feedback so far. I'm pretty well established as an adult shoe store - last time I checked my update group had well over 200 members - and I have sold quite a few pairs of ballet flats to kid avatars. It was mainly from talking to a few of them that started me thinking it would be a plan to have perhaps one vendor exclusively aimed at simple shoes for little girls. It's not really an option to make them mod unless they are also copy in case of accidents. I have included copy and mod ribbons with some designs, but copy and mod wouldn't be good business sense for the whole thing. One thing I have been able to do is to get the size down to a tiny zero, which i think would suit the majority of little girl avs. I will put out a small range and see how they do. I am always willing to make adjustments to help a customer get the right fit.

I'm having trouble reconciling these two statements:

"It's not really an option to make them mod unless they are also copy in case of accidents."

and

"I am always willing to make adjustments to help a customer get the right fit."

Seems to me it would be a *lot* easier to just replace an accidentally messed-up pair of transferable shoes than to actually customize a pair for a specific customer--and quite a bit more convenient for the average customer, too.

I realize that prim-based content creators--seemingly especially shoemakers--are nervous about supplying mod-able product because it might be copied manually or by script, but given how easy it is to copy no-mod content by other means (that we don't need to explore here), manual copying should be the very least of anybody's worries. So I really believe that the currently popular practice of no-mod shoes is completely superstitious. (And forced me into itinerant shoemaking against my will. )

(Not that anybody here said anything about content theft as part of the reason. I've just heard it a lot before.)

Basically, most female avatars set their feet to size zero as that tends to be the default size used by shoe makers. I do use re-size scripts in some of my hats, but all my shoes are size zero as standard. What I meant was that I would supply shoes in different sizes if asked. All my shoes are copy, so that my customers can make up outfit folders if they want to, and can keep their shoes boxed as a back up in case of inventory problems. I have also, on occasion, made shoes transfer but no copy at no extra charge.

I think it is unlikely that any shoe makers will make their shoes copy and modify.

You should try finding shoes for a boy avatar. 'Bout impossible. I've settled on wearing over-sized motorcycle boots. I like them and the big size actually kind of adds to my avatar persona. Just one of those goofy things that kids do on occassion.

Hey, I just got an idea for my big motorcycle boots. Add an anim of tripping on occassion. Doesn't exactly have to be in the boots as any AO attachment will do. Fire at random every 10-15 minutes or so. That would be too funny. I wonder if I could hack one of those drinking scripts found in some liquor drinks? Nothing says "I'm having fun" like playing tag and tripping on your own laces. That would be awesome.

In my travels, lots of kid markets are rather sparce. For example, furniture that isn't bright pink, baby blue, or slathered with various 'toons. If a furniture maker out there down-sized some 'regular' furniture for kids...

Oh. Huh. Well, it's clear I'm not cut-out to be a shoemaker, since I don't seem able to think like one. See, I would have thought the problematic combination would be *transfer*+mod; with copy, it would be like hair, where you make a copy first and then edit the copy, so if you mess-up you still have the original... but with transfer you don't have that ability. (But I don't sell hair, either, so maybe that's a big hassle that I just don't know about.)

All kinda tangential to the original question about whether there's a market, except that I'm still not confident there's a market for fixed-size shoes for kid avatars (in contrast to adult female avatars where size 0 apparently fits all).

I'll just add that, having at long last found modifiable shoes at a store, I spent a *lot* on other stuff at that store. I even let my usually shabbily attired alts go on a little shopping spree there. I really don't think makers of shoes for men (at least) realize how much business they lose by selling only no-mod stuff.

I think you are entirely right. Sadly, I can't make shoes for guys! The problem for female child avs is that an avatar cannot have smaller than size zero feet, so the challenge is making the shoes as small as possible, so that the foot doesn't show through.

I think people making shoes for boys and men should definitely consider using resize scripts.

Pretty much all the kid avatars I have seen allowed you to have a foot size of zero. But remember that shoe styles designed as "Kids shoes" also appeal to bigger folk. Like grown up girls who like dressing in schoolgirl outfits. So if I were getting into this market, I would make them in several sizes, like zero, 15 and 30.

Mary Janes, Platform Mary Janes, Ballet shoes and Sneakers are all needed in smaller sizes.

You might also want to see if you can make even smaller shoes, using invisiprims to hide the avatar toes. Because for a 3' 11" child, even size zero feet look like you have feet that are too big.

On a somewhat side note, I have found very little in the way of casual shoes for women. A few stores, but most everything is spike heels of one sort or another. With the occasional Mary Janes. I am talking about things like wedges, low heel pumps and mules, Jellies, loafers, that sort of thing.. Just seeing myself walk around in 6" heels all the time makes my feet hurt.

So if you make some nice low heel shoes for the child AVI's think about making something like them for women in size 0.

I noticed Rha Designs had a Kid's section - just thought I mention it in case people here were looking around.

Fallingwater Cellardoor (Shiny Things) has most of that, and Aphrodite Outlander also has some non-stiletto height heels in her shop.

Edit: Maitreya has wedges, although they're fairly high.

Check out this thread from December,
/327/df/227929/1.html

Yup, and her kids shoes are very nice, with subtle use of invisiprims to make the feet appear a more sensible size of a kid. Nice work, Rhaorth!

Thank you both
I make them no mod because of the placement of the invisi prims, they just barely cover the exposed parts of the feet hehe

I have shoes, maryjanes, open toe (with prim toes hehe that match the 3 skins I have for sale) and some boots (including wellingtons)

I plan to make some more, just time consuming on the laptop

I got so tired of the oversized size 0 on kids feet that I tried something different...
I like it, and hopefully as other kids learn about it they will like it too

(I will be setting up a subscribe o matic for the kids section so kids can be kept up to date on new releases without having to join the adult list)

anywho if anyone has any questions just give me a shout (also you can try the demo in store, it is one shoe kid size and one normal size 0 size)

because they are no mod, if someone needed a slightly larger version, or adult version, all they got to do is just ask me, and I will be happy to assist