Market saturation: What would most likely sell today?

Actually making shirts loose in the SL sense doesn't work well; the effect is ugly. You can give the illusion of a looser fit by baking in wrinkles appropriately; many of the quality fashion designers have clothing like that.

For the higher-waisted jeans, try the mens' section. Many of those will look just fine on a female avatar, and give you the higher waist you want. Casual pants are a bit more of a problem, though men's chinos might look OK.

Like Wildefire says... RestrainedLife is what you need. What you are asking for is not implementable without client support, so it will never happen in an LL viewer unless they were to decide to incorporate RestrainedLife (which I consider highly improbable); otherwise the slave can always escape by simply removing the collar or teleporting away from you.

That one is scary....
http://realrestraint.blogspot.com/2007/11/so-what-is-that-restrainedlife-thing.html
(tried to put the [img]thing around it, couldnt get it to work)

The problem with any suggestion that's "something like (an existing product) but without (function that's irritating to people other than the buyer)" is that it won't sell because, unless the irritating function is AR-able, there's little benefit to the buyer in not doing it. People, sadly, are selfish.

There are three that I know of. Bits and Bobs, Nyte(something), and my favorite, Pillow Talk. Unfortunately, the way the permission system is now, the animators have to trust that the people buying full perm animations will honor their EULAs and change the perms to no copy OR no mod before reselling the animation in an item.

There are probably others, and there is probably room for more people in this space. From what I've seen, Bits and Bobs has the greatest variety, and if I need something unusual I'd probably look there, but Pillow Talk has the nicest basic sit animations, and her couple poses are wonderfully romantic and non-sleazy.

The solution to this is simple, and I give it here because an unimplemented idea is worth precisely what you invested in it...

You dont put the animations in the furniture.. you :

come to a financial agreement with an animator for unlimited resale (or potentially limited volume resale but thats harder for everyone to track)
The animator runs a something like Hippo's Update server
The furniture creator puts a script modified to llDie after successful execution in to each prim needing the animation, along with a dummy version of the animation
On Rez, the new owner of the furniture gets the animations in his inventory, with the correct permissions.. then he can place them in the correct places.
If the item's nocopy, the script dying prevents multiple copies..
and for safety's sake, the animator can own the client script so there's no funny business

I'm not sure if its possible for an object to get the item directly, but this way, although its "IKEA" (assembly required) noone gives away a precious full mod of anything

So if I understand well, cheap full-perm avi animations are what have the highest demand at the moment, right?

Nice stances are easy to make, animations are, on the other hand, obviously much harder to render. However, I'm not surprised to see that B&B's animations are over 6 times more expensive in their full-perm versions. Is there any particular types of animations or stances that sell more than others?

if you are asking this particular crowd, yeah we all would like to see some new and interesting animations.

most people that aren't posting here seem to prefer clothes to much else. most 2L members aren't landowners or creators. they are clothes hounds who spend most of their time doing social things, and less time worrying about builds and sales. even the clothes are just a different version of the same ol same ol. we need some new and exciting ideas in the clothing market!

that's just MY perspective on it.

I tried that for an evening... then went back to the regular client. I'm not knocking it for those that want to immerse themselves into the complete lifestyle. But for one that only wants to insure that their collar doesn't accidently come off when putting on other attachments that don't indicate what their default attachment point is, I found Restrained Life to have too many inconveniences... ie. having to manually designate the attachment point of every single attachment that you want to wear, not having the option to "add to outfit", only being able to log in to "last location", etc. I understand why they set up the client this way, but it was just too much of a hassle for me personally.

It may not be possible to create such an item as a truly lockable collar, but it would be nice if all clothing designers would add a (word) at the end of the item name that tells what its default attachment point is. Taking the guess work out of it would be truly helpful to everyone, even non-slaves. Then you would know in advance if you needed to choose a different attachment point to prevent your collar or whatever accessory from being displaced.

Full-perm couples showering & bathing poseballs would be nice, I didn't notice any of those at B&B the last time I checked. In fact, his full-perm couples sets are poses, if i recall correctly, not animations.

I sell my 3 way, 4 way, BDSM, couples relaxing/sitting, singles interesting ones like fishing, playing violin...pretty much everything. I AM THE CREATOR! I protect my animations with a full perm license and I have gone after every single person who I caught selling inappropriately with 100% success so far (knock on wood).

Designer please come and look for yourself the full perm area is in the back left corner marked by huge red sign saying STOP FULL PERM AREA

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Animate%20Me%20Poseballs/128/128

/me follows link and sees this:

Able Edition
Description
This is a Windows viewer is an unofficial build which adds a Mute Visibility feature, which allows objects in-world to be rendered partially or entirely invisible.

I am so going to check this out!

What would sell - anything well made will sell with the right marketing.

Speaking in very general terms, I think there is a strong market for things that are unique, and are fun to use, not just a fashion accessory (although fashion is, well, always in fashion). If it allows multiple people to interact and have fun, so much the better.

I think a terrific example is the success of the En Garde game (it's a card game style fencing game with animations). It seemed to become an overnight success. And why? Its game style allows for different computer speeds to play it, it had a fair amount of depth of play, AND it was fun for non-players to watch and heckle. Put simply--broad appeal, coupled with a participatory nature.

Now such level of scripting might be beyond the average creator, but we all should think about how our products will be *used*. On off novelty items, if clever, will sell of course, but after the initial laugh is over, they will be put on the virtual shelf not to be seen again (mind you, I do like my spinning musical leek...but)

I think pets are always big. Dogs, cats, I have a turkey you can ride on lolol. Also have a goat, pig, several horses, chickens, rooster, raccoon, squirrels, bunnies, owls, doves, eagles, hummingbirds, several ducks, koi, my beloved deer....omg I can't remember them all, I would have to walk over our land and take inventory. If there are animals, I am there

Specialized props for specific Second Life roles. Find out what hobbies, jobs and professions people have in real life and bring to Second Life, and supply props for those people.

Sorry about the plug, but it fits: in my own business, I sell film, photography, and studio gear. It just so happens that machinima and photography are very popular in Second Life. Giving these people high quality props to 'work' with or use for fleshing out their sets or studios is a good idea.

Basically, think of items that would 'compliment' another job, profession, or hobby in Second Life. Think about what things people bring from RL to SL...and supply them with complimentary props or gear.

Oh and...do it better than your competition.

Some of the vendors in Gorean Markets have basket of fruits...depends on if you want prim baskets of fruit or textured fruit.

I have to agree the "prop" industry could use more entrants. The little details are just the thing to finish off a build to make it look realistic.

Yes, it plays that song

/me happily dances to Finnish Polka

Oh, good idea! Here is one to compliment it.

Check out the various role play sims. Oftentimes it is difficult to find props to add to the ambiance of themed RP. Sometimes it is everyday items that are needed to give that extra feel or touch of the theme you are trying to portray.

Like right now I am looking for a hall tree for my victorian house. The thing may be called something else in other parts of the country, but this item is something that has a mirror at the top and has hooks for hats and coats but also has a seat that you sit upon to say take off boots or dirty shoes. They were usually seen in entryways of a house.

Also themed clothes for men and women for themed RP sims. While there are some good historical costumers in SL, be nice to have more accessories and more clothes from different time periods.

I'd tell you what I'd make but you might steal it... ^^"

I skimmed the thread so hope this hasn't been said.

I have been trying to find makeup, I want to be able to change my makeup to suit my outfit or my hair when I change colour.

I have not found any make up I can change without having to change skin.....it's annoying

Hi,

Designers could have demo versions of their wares and have an in store "greeter" provide the personal shopping service that you get in high end RL retailers. Not every woman in SL has friends to shop with and sometimes you find yourself staring at the pictures wishing for an outside opinion BEFORE you buy that 1K dress...at least I would and I'd pay extra to get that level of service.

I'd rather pay 800-1K on an outfit I know fits and looks awesome than 500L for a lousy one that will only end up in the trash. For avatars like myself who are not wearing the starving Barbie model shape it would be a dream to be able to "try before buy" because there is no "one size fits all" in SL or RL and editing only goes so far before that prim/flexi skirt looks like shite.

Then there's the personal touch that only comes from a live avatar greeting you by name and welcoming you to a store that no automated message machine can replicate. You can't ask a auto-greeter where the shoes are or if that dress comes in other colors or the all important question "Does this skirt make my a$$ look fat??".

As a Greeter I make anywhere from 50 to 100L per hr which is cheap if you think about the potential revenue having a live person in store could generate and the repeat sales from satisified customers who bring friends...

StarCat

Hi Osprey,

I agree this is a problem area. But I'm not sure it's easily serviced.

My company used to offer marketing services for pure SL based businesses, but we stopped. We still do work with real world businesses who want to extend into SL, but it was really difficult with pure SL businesses. There were a variety of issues that I won't belabor here, but I suspect part of the reason there is such a void in this area is that other providers had experiences similar to ours and decided to scale back and focus on other areas.

Hi Kilguy

Let me explain you something about marketing in SL.

First of all, one needs to understand that there are only three real products in Second Life for sale. Everything else are variations of these products and do not exist actually. There is no such thing as shoes, dress or houses in Second Life - not really. We all know that. So lets look at the real products

1. Serverspace
Also referred to as virtual land. What is a SIM really? Its a dedicated server with the SL software installed, that's all.

2. Content
All the pretty things you can "use" in Second Life like the above mentioned "items" . In SL we refer to them as shoes, houses, dress and so on, but all they are is user generated content - and that's what the game is actually all about.

3. Advertising

Now lets look at the market situation for the first and the second of these products.

1. Serverspace

Anyone can buy that. It cost about 1200 USD to set up and 250 USD per month to maintain. Depending on what you do with your space (what content you provide to the user) you will have more or less users (residents) come to your server to see and use your content.

Income possibilities are:

A. Shared hosting (rent out land)
B. Sell Advertising (to real life companies or SIM owners)
C. Both

The more SIMS there are the harder it will be to attract the users. Hence you depend on providing good quality content to add value to your server space. This content like beaches, plam trees, houses, whatever....you will provide free of charge with the aim that users buy their parcels (shared hosting for their own content) from you and not from somebody else.

Which gets me to the second product

2. Content

As you can see above , content is used to sell server space. Therefore there is free content available in abundance. There are SIMS like Vienna for example who use free take away content (freebees) as a way to attract first time visitors to their SIM.

In another words: content is either free or very cheap. If you think of making good money by selling new content, I have to disappoint you.

1.Sooner or later somebody will replicate that content and give it away for free.

2. Content is so cheap its not worth the time it takes to create unless, you use it as a means to sell something else (server space and advertising)

Conclusion: Buy a dedicated server (SIM), fill with unique, attractive content and sell either shared hosting or advertising...there is no other REAL product. That is the market situation and that is what sells.

I dont explain the advertising bit as i dont want to create competitors....I am into online marketing and will soon open an advertising agency in Second Life.


Regards

Maggie