Sales plumeting?

You just called me Mr. Prim Saver which I assume you got from my signature. The LM is in the signature too. I only sell furniture so it's no good to you anyway. But even if I sold clothes, I'm perfectly happy with my customers' ratings - which I get a lot of

Okay deal! I'll give you my full and free assessment and will spend time. Thanks Send me a landmark and I'll start over morning coffee tomorrow.

Well furniture is different! You can see the full object in 3D. Give me a break.

You do realize though that some fitting to your avatar is going to be needed in most cases, right? It's impossible for creators to make attachments fit all avatars right out of the box with such a vast range of shapes out there.

landmark sent

I noticed you mention.... free assessment...
just so you know... if you had said you were going to charge me for your assessment I would have told you not to bother visiting unless you just wanted to visit.

(I am not about to pay someone to give me their opinion of my store... )

something tells me that she thinks that things are supposed to fit the way they fit on the ad model.....

most times the item is made on the same model that the pic is taken on.. which is usually the creators avatar...

so yes... there will be necessary fitting needed... very rarely will things fit right out of the box (prim things, of course system clothes will fit... or darn well should LOL)

now things like misaligned seams that were hidden in the pic or airbrushed out are a pet peeve of mine...

I try to show my stuff from different angles, and am always willing to model in world if someone wants to see it "live"

I used to have a couple alts logged in as models... but kept forgetting to log them back in again... I might bring them back... not sure yet

I can not afford to pay a live person to stand around and model my stuff, and I do not get enough traffic to justify paying someone to do customer service and model...

with all due respect, your comment regarding 'low prim 3d dress forms' without even considering the number of prims that might be in the attachement make me think that it might be a good idea for you to spend another month or two learning about SL before you run around judging people or telling them how to best manage their shops.

As far as 'rating' clothing, jewelry or whatever you are going to rate, I really don't see a lot of credibility. I've only been in SL since last March and while I might have opinions about people's products or how they should run things, I tend not to voice them...a month or two down the road I often find (by actually attempting to do these things myself) that I would have been wrong.

What she say.

I may add that a july 2008 Resident is not nearly old enough to know their way around the specificities governing content creation in SL, hence can only give a very narrow opinion on products based on their superficial experience.
Unless you spent a good amount of time studying the inner working of the prims and textures and how they behave in different conditions you can't understand the design choices of one designer compared to another.

you feel 6 months is not enough time to know the "inner workings of the prims and textures and how they behave in different conditions"?

I beg to differ...
it depends on the individual
within 2 weeks of being in SL I was building, creating clothing, torturing prims, etc
learning the inner workings of how they work .... and that was in my first two weeks... imagine at 6 months...

some folks never learn that stuff though... so it is hard to know where the person stands, on their knowledge

the only fault I see so far with the poster is that they keep trying to use RL situations for businesses in SL, which we all know doesn't compute

I am also curious as to what they will have to say about my store

(will it make me do anything differently? nope... just curious as to what they will have to say)

Just an fyi...there are many shoe creators that offer demo shoes you can try on...I use them quite often and you can get piles of them on SLEX for free or 1L. There are also folks who display their clothing in 3D just by rezzing it in their store and then applying some scripts to make to turn or move in some way to show the movement of the skirt etc.

Also, you cant compare the prims in your hair to prims rezzed on the ground. Prims in your hair do not get counted against your prim count on the land. Only prims that are literally on the land and not on your av get counted in the land prim totals.

I agree with whoever said that it takes months and months of observation and research to really know how SL biz works, what impacts what here and what really effective in world marketing consists of. I still spend quite a bit of time checking in with folks who make the same things i do to see what is new in styles and methods and i also check SLEX pretty much daily for popularity ratings etc to see what people are actually buying. Just because someone has an item in their store, there is no way to validate its popularity and sales without speaking to the owner and getting hard data. You might see something that appears to be wonderful quality at a high price but how do you know if anyone actually buys it. And if you see these items in 2D but dont actually purchase things to truly compare them, then all you are doing is guessing about the quality.

A great way to learn about fashion in SL is to scan the fashion blogs and feeds daily and learn the various styles, then tp to the stores and really purchase things. The bloggers play a wonderful role in evaluating SL fashion because in most cases they actually have a copy of the item, can put it on, check it out and then make a decision about the 1uality. if you see someone on the blogs with rave reviews over and over and then also check out the items yourself, chances are it is a well crafted item from a skilled creator.

Personally I stand in my store and ask my customers daily what they like, what they need etc. and that feedback is much more valuable to me than any third party reviewer. My customers make awesome suggestions, tell me what they have seen and wish i made, etc. Tonight someone came into my store and asked me if i had any prim menorahs. I didnt and asked why...he said the ones he had seen were so high in prims and he wanted a low prim version. He asked if i could try to make one for him. I agreed...he left...i made it and he loved it...it is now for sale in my store. I am hearing a need and filling the need which is the first rule in sales and entreprenuership. i can also tell if my stuff is good and desired if people buy it...if they dont i have in some way missed the mark.

The beauty of SL is that people who are experts and people who are new at things all get to jump into the marketplace with little or no cost. They get to try their ideas in an active commercial endeavor without risk and then can learn as they go. There is no better way to learn how to run a biz in SL than to start with how to set an item for sale and set permissions and progress from there....i love it! So all those people with what is perceived to be inferior product may in fact be the next amazing designer in a few months. in RL you cant try your hand at being a clothing designer and open a store on less than a dollar...LOL

Maybe I missed this somewhere, but as I understand it, this person is conducting her own research, but is not associated (at this time) with any fashion magazine, blog, etc.

Except for forum banter, I don't understand her sense of self-importance. So ya...I wouldn't be paying for an assessment either...lol.

Give you a break? Did you miss something along the way? YOU asked ME for a landmark to my store. I said my stuff isn't what you want. You need to give yourself a break and learn how *not* to try morphing your posts when what you write turns out to be a mistake.

I noticed that too and I wondered if she is setting herself up to be an SL business consultant. She says it's research, but she could be researching SL business with a consultancy in mind. If that's the case, she should have learned things from this thread.

The idea of a business consultancy isn't a bad one as long as the consultant has thoroughly learned about SL business and is actually worth paying. Avawyn isn't there yet, but you gotta start somewhere.

When you have something that's worth applying for, come back and let us know.

I didn't receive the landmark. Also, I am doing the research as I have considered starting a second life magazine on the excellence of SL fashion, with five star awards being awarded.

However, I'm not spending all my money to try objects from 2D pictures that have no refund policy to do a free assessments! Right now only, this is coming out of my own pocket.

And too many opinions muddy the waters, but yes everyone has their own opinion. However, for a magazine, the product research team's level of expertise/resume/experience is what makes a magazine. Their background would have to be extensive to make it to the magazine.

And yes, I do adjust prims. Some work great, others no, i.e., not enough prims in the skirt to begin with, so enlarging or shrinking does no good to improve the look whatsoever. Some with many boots I've mentioned in other posts (the calf will shrink but then the ankle shows flesh because that part becomes too small).

How would the five star awards work to benefit both designer and my magazine?

Five Star designers would get more business because they'd have more trust from consumers in that it's met a certain level of standards and even more, tested product with a live fashion show and awards given seasonally.

Level of standards include QUALITY (no holes in finished product when avatar moves, appropriate socks for boots, color and fit very close to photo presented or better), VALUE (excellent price in comparison to similiar designers whether haute coutoure, bridal, evening wear), and CREATIVITY (meaning not just another prim mini skirt again in black or plaid again! awk!!!!!!!!) I've found a lot of way cool designers by purchasing some SL fashion magazines! And the magazines saved me a lot of time! That's a big plus! Also, it's highly unlikely I ever would have found those stores without the magazines.

How would a magazine on the excellence of SL fashion designers benefit me and my team? First off, it's a lot of work! A LOT! So, of course we'd need to be paid for our time plus our time to put the magazines together, as well as planning the fashion and award events. How would we be paid? First, send me and my product research team five products of a variety of your store; variety meaning, casual dress, evening dress, exotic dress, shoes or whatever you chose and as a variety and what you think presents you best. Since once the item is created, it's no expense to you to send out your best five or six items for judging. The team then would get some free clothes and you'd get (some) free advertising, i.e. a tag over their head for insistence stating what they do and this team becomes walking pr for you. A fee would also be charged to enter the contest to pay for any salaries, fashion show needs, et al, but the fee would include advertisement in the magazine featuring the winners. Now some SL magazines charge as much as 15,000 linden for advertising. I would charge far, far less, FAR, FAR LESS as part of our pay would come in the form of free clothing items and shoes which is of no expense to the designer to give out free items for evaluation, so advertising costs for the designers would be cut way down.

Also, the variety and number of items needed is not set in stone, but I am thinking 5 to 6 at most, but the linden amount needs to be set to make an adequate comparison in regards to quality and value, such as a 2000 linden cap. And yes, I know of some haute coutoure designers where I can spend 2000 lindens and get five awesome items! Others, no way! They charge way too much for nothing more exciting nor better quality than the others.

Creativity would depend on the team and the judges at the awards.

My background: Power/comparison shopper. Been involved in arts since the age of 13 when I started painting and making jewelry. Have made and sold jewelry off and on in rl. Have had a very successful Ebay business selling vintage clothing. I bought one dress for $2 dollars in rl and sold it for $122 on eBay! I bought another dress in rl for $7 dollars and it sold for $108 dollars on eBay! And these types of sales I've had are a long VERY PROFITABLE LIST! My profit on average about 900% per piece of used clothing. I know how to make a good title on eBay to get people to find my product. My description titles on Ebay alone ARE advertising so people could find my items and also doing research on eBay as to what is currently selling and what is not and what key words are used in search to find that item via the title of the item. Antiques dealer for many years, average profit 400% per item, except in slow times when I'd offer sales. Still always made profit with sales!

Oh and Rhaorth, I was prepared to spend 900 lindens of my own money on several different items in your store to give you my rating, plus spending time pricing items, looking for unique and unusual designs, and using my quality, value, creativity protocols in comparison to all the other shopping I have been doing lately. Even if 900 lindens bought only three items, it's still a fairly equal amount to what my current research limit is. If you had found I didn't spend the 900 lindens, your store might not have had the newer styles I'm looking for and/or I might have written down a list and been deciding on what to buy. I might have taken as long as three days to decide what I was going to buy for 900 lins before actually making the purchases and testing them for quality of fit, accuracy of color presentation, etc. I spend a long time looking at the photos.

If there WERE an excellence of SL magazine with five star awards -- I'd be reading it and I'd enjoy the fashion shows as well as you get a 3D view. Do I really want to take on this project? Not too sure because the research takes a lot and I mean a lot of time! However, what my magazine idea would provide is linking customer with what they are looking for without endless searching and coming up empty handed, and/or disappointment in their purchase along with the probability of never even finding you or your store.

Furniture does not apply as it is already shown in 3D view. Not interested in gadgets either. This would be a fashion magazine. Neko exclusive or other types of exclusive costuming to rp would not be included, but if I were looking for say great Gothic clothing, I'd love a magazine to reference through, but I'd like that magazine to focus on Gothic and accessories as time is money. Saving me time and money -- I'm all for it! And as SL as no product control department, I'm glad to have found the magazines which I've only been using for about two weeks but it's made my SL shopping go from searching for a needle in a haystack to wonderful! Couldn't be happier to have found the magazines.

Right. And I think you start with a fashion blog. People will read and credibility will follow *if* you have interesting observations and suggestions. (Nobody gives a damn about "ratings"--wtf could a store owner do with a number between 0 and 5? Try to hype it along side all the other fake metrics on the grid?)

If a prospective consulting customer were reading this thread, they might be intensely interested in what the consultant has to say about Rhaorth's store. But it would be very (*very*) wrong for that review to be posted here (certainly if posted by the consultant, but even if Rhaorth were to post it, it would be... "on the edge" of the rules, I should think). But no such constraints on a blog (except libel).

As a particularly pointed example, I would love to see different would-be and proven business consultants take a stab at reviewing the shops at Hotel Dare. (But not on the Forums.)

People read things that aren't there. I never said I was going to post my ratings here. I was going to send a private IM and discuss with her in private. Some things I assume too much that other people already know are no-nos.

Libel?

/me shakes my head, huh?

Libel and slander is usually to hurt someone's reputation by telling lies about them, invading their privacy, among other things that hurt one's job reputation. An example of slander would be "So and so is stealing items from the work place" said in the work place to everyone and the boss without any evidence. If there are holes in a SL product when worn or is misrepresented from the photograph (incorrect color representation for one), yes it gets stars knocked off, or worse, no repeat business from me.

I was thinking more of a private consultancy, with suggestions for improving business given to the business owner rather than a review that is posted publically.

Avawyn's purpose turns out to be an SL magazine, which I'm not keen on because, according to the decription of how it will work (if I've understood it correctly), it will only include stuff from stores that have paid in one way or another. As such, it's can't be a source of the sort of unbiased information that people generally want - the bias being in the form of payment by stores. Advertisements in a magazine are paid for but product reviews should be solely for the readers' benefit and should include interesting stuff regardless of any sort of payment.

Or perhaps I assume too little. Sorry 'bout that; possibly a side-effect of having just spent hours trying unsuccessfully to find a workaround for an obscure Mono bug, after which I've come to assume nothing.
As above, I was just being cautious. Blogs don't have the constraints of the Forums, but some folks post things in blogs that very well could get them sued (accusing a major business of selling stolen IP, for example), and very many bloggers still don't have liability insurance, so they're putting a lot on the line without necessarily realizing it.

All SL magazines involve payment period. People aren't going to work their butts to advertise your stuff for free. And even if a designer pays someone via giving them free clothing to walk around in that still doesn't have any standards of a product control department team (as well as secret spy shoppers secretly testing your other products

Oh, another thing, members of my family has been involved in the fashion industry since the 1940's, fashion designers, models and buyers for huge well know department stores, and now I have one cousin who is Vice President of the largest fashion designing school in Los Angeles which has much prestige all over the world. I've kind of grown up in fashion and art worlds with my Dad being in show biz. I also have a passion for creative design and know a lot about many fashion eras from the Victorian to the 20's to the present, and all others in between.

Again, furniture is not a problem. It is so easy to buy in that IT IS presented in 3D form already and the only thing one needs to check is the prim amount and if they like the seated poses for example. Some seating poses are awful, while others are very nice.

But how to establish credibility such that anyone would actually pay for your advice? I was suggesting something public, so prospective customers could see that the consultant really knew their stuff.

Then I riffed on that a bit, because it occurs to me that it would be pretty informative to get a bunch of different reviewers' comments on the same set of shops, just to see who has useful insights and who dashes off a quick blurb and a rating in exchange for free clothes. I suggested a particular location because it's particularly off-beat, with much of the content requiring exposure to specific SL or RL culture referents to "get it" at all.

This.

There are many many many fashion bloggers out there. And several good fashion magazines. It is quite expensive to advertise in good magazines, advertisments are not free. But bloggers ordinarily don't get paid for their opinions. In fact, I recall a very recent broohaha over a blogger who dared suggest she should be paid.

Hope you feel better. And no, it wouldn't be libel if someone blogs. It would be an opinion. Magazines have stricter parameters and the reputation lies upon the team I would hire.

Again, not sure about this adventure, but I would definitely be spending more money on the designers who won the FIVE STAR AWARDS if there were such a magazine. Hey, SL is a LOT about contests and votes. Why not designers also? However, a magazines reputation is on the team and that teams level of expertise. Everyone's opinion muddies the waters. This would be a panel of experienced judges not based on who you know to get votes as most contests on SL run. I guess American Idol or Dancing with Stars don't need judging, nor do the Olympics.

Question:

How would a marketing consult help me the consumer save time, money and connect me to what I'm looking for?

A SL magazine does. How would a marketing consultant help me, the consumer?

Didn't we establish with your "holey boot" issue in another recent thread that your computer was the issue and not the creator doing shoddy work? I seem to remember when you tried to turn up your mesh detail slider for objects SL went haywire. I'd expect that if your graphics card was just a little low on the memory side, it might slow you down, but that doing what you described, you may be running on a card that isn't even up to the minimum requirements. Before you mention your new monitor and playing with it's settings, it has nothing at all to do with it. Did you ever get these issues straightened out? I just don't think you should set yourself up as a reviewer when you can't even see things as they were meant to be in SL due to hardware limitations.

By helping us to understand search, and how different advertising methods work in SL. JoJogirl Bailey teaches a great class (free of charge) which goes into this in detail, if you IM her I'm sure she can let you know when there is a class that fits your schedule. She has been a great help to me, and to others as well.

I believe there is also a fashion agency out there which helps fashion designers market their products, I am not sure if that is still in existence or not (as yet I cannot afford such a venture so I read about it and then forgot it).

I don't think anyone is trying to dun your ideas, they are great ideas and with the level of experience and expertise you yourself stated is necessary for such a venture, might infact be of great use. You seem quite motivated and that is a good thing. But at this point, you do not seem to have that level of experience, and it is something that it will take time to aquire. That affects your credibility. So IMO you will either need to gain that experience/expertise before embarking on this venture, or you will need to put together a team of people who are already there.

Success in business outside SL is a good thing, and it reflects in SL as far as promotion, recordkeeping, and customer service go. But there is more experience needed than that.

~edit: I apologize, upon reading your post again I see you asked how a marketing consultant could help the CONSUMER, that is not their job.