I sold something!

You will probably get more sales if you put up a classified ad... How else will people find you?

Its the same process with RL... keep a check on your liabilities against your turnover (forget profit for the first 6 months).. network, socialising is important as word of mouth is important in SL as RL. Friends tell friends tell friends etc.. Having been in business for nearly a year, our business models allowed us to sink profits into further ventures (all planned), we now have 4 sucessful business's. We never buy or rent land unless it can turn a profit, if it doesn't within a given/projected timescale, it is sold off to recoup outlay. Take your market seriously, watch the competition and plan ahead, don't be caught out trying to play catchup when a new feature comes available (like Flexi, sculpted prims etc).

We currently employ 40+ people in SL and whats more important, we offer a full turnkey solution to our clients and do not rely on anyone that does not have a vested interest in the group of companies. We invest in people more than 'vapourware' like VR land, making the best use of prim counts, scripts to control lag. Building up as well as out.

As already stated, traffic is artificial. Sustainable flow of clients that actually do more than, come and see why you have high traffic, but stay a while and buy something they need, will always serve you best. If they like what they experience, they will become your advertising. 'Return' traffic is a good indication of how good your product is, in relation to what you charge. Try some exclusive or limited ranges mixed in with the normal wares. Use the forums and associated fansites/blogs to let people know who you are and what you are doing.

Customer Service is paramount. When you grow, never become unavailable to your customers, if you cannot do that yourself, make sure those you put in charge of customer service, are equal to your devotion to your customers and business.

Create a website, so your customers can keep an eye on what you are doing, bringing out new products, don't rely on them joinning a group and these are limited, also when SL is down, or they are away from their own system, they can always see what you are doing from an internet cafe or friends PC, via the website.

GL with your project, seems like you are on the right track

Good for you! It's so nice to get some appreciation for what you create ..... what exactly do you do?

That is awesome Annebelle!

Did you jump when it made that money sound?

Congrats and enjoy!

~Ari

Woohoooo, congrats!!!!! How exciting!!! Definitely gonna check your store out later!

and soooo hope the 'don't socialise' thing isn't true........ or i may reconsider opening a shop

j/k

btw i only make things for the fun of it right now and i find that even that can get very time-consuming. It's a bad bug, the building bug....... /1 Tinker mode on

Hi Anabelle
one thing you could do is start a group for your shop include all the ppl on friends list and anyone who buys from you and send notices of new things you make around)
has worked quite well for m
and good luck

Wow... thanks for all the support and ideas n such.



I tinker. LOL I'm still stretching my wings, trying to find out what I *can't* do, so I can find a way around the problem and do it anyway. I seem to be getting on fine with sculpted prims. I made a few armor sets with only 21-23 prims, only 1 non-sculpted in the item.

As far as what I sold... it was a goofy little blimp. LOL I figured someone somewhere would want one.

...but I'm not plugging my shop here. *grin*

Your advice, please, on effective ways to do this.

I have several classified ads and I can tell from the number of hits they are modestly effective. I've placed display ads in several SL publications but never had any evidence they do a thing.

I am presently addicted to sculpties as well. I'm at the stage of "what else can I make these things do". Also blender is fine for scultpties despite the negative info sometimes posted. It took me 12 hours to learn MORE then i needed to produce a sculpty. I'm now at the stage where I want to learn to texture them with complicated textures not just seamless homogenous once. Blender does this too and what can't be done in blender can be done with photoshop which most people end up buying.

All other creative activities have ground to a halt to quell my present sculpty addiction. ^^

@Annabelle: Your shop is basically next door to where I live (Blackmount), so I'll hop over and check it out next time!

Congrats :) I've had my place up since March or April and I've had total revenue of about maybe 800-1000 lindens. Of course, that's revenue, not profit, as it cost more to upload everything. :)

Oh and "How long does it usually take to start making content sales?" - Most of the revenue came in the first month or so, then had a really long time when I didn't sell anything, and then sold three items in a row over the Labor Day weekend. So, don't ask me :)

Funny.. but he's so right. I rarely if ever leave my sky platform. And it has to be something special.. like a creators block that I need to go do something silly. Heck... the most socializing Ive had in awhile was reading the forum cartel group chat about penis colours...

I blame them for me shooting a prim across sim!

Actually, Lee, I think he meant when you advertise, you should be modest. (At least that is how I read it, forgive me if I got it wrong Desmond) Saying things like "the BEST ____ in SL! You will not find another ____ that is better than what I make!" not only invites comparison, but it insults others who worked hard on their items too. SL is a community of artists and their patrons, we all have worth.

As for how to advertise, I'm really not the person to ask! I have one 100L classified, and yanno, it works just fine! I probably should stop being cheap and increase those a bit... My favorite spot to advertise is the New Products section right here in these forums. I check them everyday and I or my alts go get whatever suits us. Or I tell my friends I saw something they'd like.

Sorry if I hijacked! Congrats to the original poster! I remember my first sale and I was ecstatic! Hell, I'm still ecstatic whenever I get a sale!

Classifieds, yes. $L 50. Carefully chosen keywords.

Land parcel in Search for $L 30 a week, yes. Keywords again.

Tiny ad in the Metaverse Messenger (yeah I'm biased, but shoot me)

Blog (free).

Forum signature (free).

Do some events, do some charities. Offer items as a prizes. (free)

* * * * *

If you aren't connecting, do something more niche-market.

The days of free money lying on the ground for generic furniture/clothes/prefab-houses/land are pretty much over.

There are some BIG untapped opportunities still unmet, that I see:

- sculptie items

- voice feature add-ons / translation / text<-->voice

- bots/npc's (greymarket, might be service terms issues)

- realistic textures (say goodbye to cartoony and hello to Windlight)


Just one man's opinion...

And all the above, too - in fact, Wynx's stuff is a bigger phenomenon than I'll ever be (I'm a tiny wabbit often myself!) - tinies are a classic, classic case of a so-called 'fad' that keeps proving it's no fad, and here to stay.

With much trepidation at offending several FIC (lol), one piece of feedback on siggies. The big graphic ones act as negative advertisement to me. I leave viewing signatures on, because some forum participants actually have real info in them, and/or change them often. But the large bright graphics, particularly the ones that don't fit in a 512 width, have about as much appeal to me as an ad farm. Sorry!

*waits for lightning bolt to strike*

I'll stand under this tree. I'm in agreement with you. Sorry folks. I keep images off.

They dont work anymore though.

All just looks like text jumbles to me

hmm no i see images. and i like to keep images on, there are gallery threads and new product threads where they are essential.

If you turn on images in your forum CP, you can see the ad banners.

Congratulations Annabelle!

I've had a clothing business since about 2 months after I started SL. The original Victorian business did well, paid my tier and for a very healthy shopping habit, but there wasn't enough money to bother taking any out. At this point I still did quite a bit of socializing, new releases were rather random. Then I moved cross country and had the opportunity to make a go at making the SL business my full time job. I started the retro line in June. It's doing wonderfully, better than I ever imagined it would so quickly, BUT it is a lot of work. I rarely leave my skybox anymore. Most shopping I do is for accessories to use in display photos. My average work day is about 12 hours.... at least, but I love it. It's 2am here, and I've just stopped working for the night and popped over to read the forums before going to bed!

As for the advertising, I really think it's all about the keywords. Mine are really easy and obvious because of the retro and Victorian looks I do, but figuring out what people that will want to buy your product might be searching under is probably more helpful than spending a fortune on an ad.