How do you search for Stores Inworld?

Let's say that you don't have Xstreet pulled up, and you don't have a dozen blogs pulled up, and you don't have your friends around to help you, and the forum is not pulled up.

So, you're inworld, and are relying on the All search or Places search only.

How do you find the store you want to go to? and the specific product you need? And if you generally do it this way....are you successful?

And if you are successful....do you think it is because you are super smart and super hip and an old timer that knows everything? what if you are new to SL? does it work?

Thank you

Do I already know the store or specific item for which I am looking, or have I just decided I want to buy some boots or hair or whatever? And, more to the point, I think, how come I'm in world but can't access xstreet, the forum and various blogs, and am in so much of a hurry that I can't wait till I can, or until one of my friends comes on line?

I guess what I'm saying is that I'd hardly ever use search like that unless I just wanted it to confirm a name or get the map up so I can tp there.

Yeah...I'm probably messing up the whole question by putting in limits.....just trying to isolate what goes on when you use All search and Places search. Maybe it's important to know that people don't use those much.

Just trying to get a wee bit of a grip on how people use the search, for some enlightenment on theories being tossed about in another thread.

I will try to think if there is a shop I know that might have what I want first and go to my LMs or search by the shop or creators name.

I actually use all search a great deal. I try to be as specific as possible to start. I get more general if I don't find what I want. I will give an example: say I am looking for a birthday cake... I will try to picture the perfect cake for the occasion. In this case I will say I have a friend who is really girly, loves pink and polka dots. So I will start out with something like girly pink polka-dot birthday cake. There will generally be several listings with all or some of these words, starting with the ones that have the most words. Sometimes it will be the product I am looking for.. and sometimes it might not be cake at all. If nothing shows up I will start dropping or changing words. I might drop the word polka-dot in this case or girly. I will just play with words until I have maybe four of five shops I want to explore. I always give prefernce to places I have shopped before and been happy with. I also won't go to any shop that has the same word listed over and over in description. If for some reason a shop appears with cake cake cake cake being the sole description, I skip them. Then off I will go on a shopping adventure.

I am successful about 80% of the time. I don't usually have the patience to try more then four or five shops before I rethink how much I want something.

i search in places

i type in a word or phrase and tp to the first store on the list, then work my way down. if it's laggy from bot traffic, i TP to the next store immediately. etc etc etc

if after 5-6 stores it's always laggy or "all the same" crap, i go to page 2 and start at the top there.

sometimes, if i am not in a hurry, i skip to a place in search that has 200 or less traffic. those seem to have the most unique items, and often better quality items. just depends though, of course.

It will depend on what I need:
- furniture: I'll just go on a non-furniture related shopping spree and while I'm shopping for other things I'll right-click / Edit the furniture I like that's in the stores I'm in which gets me furniture stores that sell at least one item I like (more chance of finding what I want there), or tp to social places that are themed along the type of furniture I'm looking for and get stores that way
- clothing/appearance related: you mentioned no blogs or friends so close to the above and I'll "Inspect" what other people are wearing if I happen to like the look (not necessarily have to want what they're wearing but if I like it then it's likely they'll sell something I do want)

Always works and in far less time than it would take me to visit the less than spectacular store results search would give me.

Probably 9 times out of 10 when I use search it's to find a store I already know (easier than finding the landmark which may be out of date) and in that case I'll use Places because it's faster and far less clicking.

If I'm really desperate or don't have anything better to do I might give search a try (or if I'm looking for a very specific item). It almost never ends well and usually results in 2-3 hours of wasted frustration until I throw in the towel and give up (and eventually I'll find what I want some other time using the methods above).

I rarely use All Search, mostly because I forget about it. If I don't already know where I am going to get, or look for an item, after first checking my LM's (I have them organized by category) then I go to Search/Places (using Whimsy's example) use all the words til I get it narrowed down to a few that look like they may carry what I want. I rarely go below the first page, and have often noticed that once it gets past the first few, that it has nothing to do with my item anymore. If I don't find it then I get on the Forum Cartel chat and ask Lil.

i do this a LOT! i sometimes have 5-6 creator's profiles open so i can TP to each one after whatever event i had just been attending. this is usually with clothes, not furniture, however. i HATE when i crash and lose all those windows, although i am money ahead on such occasions. LOL

If I can't think of a place I already have a LM for, I'll try a Places search first.

If that doesn't look promising, I'll try Search All. I can usually find a place that way by stumbling across an avatar with a Picks link in their profile.

But on the whole, SL search stinks. It stank before the "reform" a year or so ago, and it still does.

I search Places, type in my keyword and alphabetize the list. Then I start at the top. I love going to an unknown store and finding a gem.

I do this too. This is how I found out that Shiny Things had garden things for sale, too, not just shoes. Some unrelated clothing store had flowers from there that I liked and clicked on to see where they came from.

That sounds very familiar .

Depending on my mood I'll either copy/paste the names to my own "My Notes" profile tab, or just IM the names of the creator to my alt. Then if I crash I can just peek at my "My Notes" tab or open an IM to my alt and get the names again .

Thanks for the feedback. Those are the types of explanations that I think my buds in the other thread need to read. I'll butt out, so as not to "influence."

I have a file with a link to every "best of" and "what to do" thread that has ever been posted here since about the time I joined SL, and a bunch on SLU, and a bunch of blogs and other sources. Occasionally I post a request here to see if there is anything more recent than I already have.

To find stuff I type the name of a store that's been recommended into "all" or "places", depending on the name. If I can't tell fairly quickly whether they still exist I go to the next recommendation.

I've tried typing search terms into "all" and "places" but I don't have the patience for visiting the whos-who of crapola.

Mostly, though, I no longer search for things, and I no longer buy things.

I search in places-->shopping, using what I think the most common word or two is. Then I filter through past any shop with unrealistic traffic numbers, or ones that claim to sell everything including the kitchen sink. I look for a medium to low traffic shop that specialises in what I want and go

I use All Search and read what is marked to show and then decide from there- the biggest waste of space in my opinion is Classifeds - but I guess some one must use them - hell I wdnt read them in RL so dont see the use in SL

I have never searched Places (never occurred to me since when I shop I want to avoid high traffic areas) Usually, I'll divide my efforts between Classifieds and All. I will experiment with keywords to refine the search if the initial results seem poor.

I usually just drop outta the sky and troll around for a bit. You'd be surprised what you can find.

If I am seeking a specific type of commercial location, I may use the Places tab in-world. Otherwise I tend to use the All search tab, with all ratings checked. When I look at the listings for a place, if their ad is full of unrelated or dubious keywords, I don't even bother to teleport to their store and check them out. If I see an indication that camping or other traffic gaming is encouraged there, I also do not even bother to TP and take a look.

More often that not, of late, I go to a handful of merchants and malls that I am already familiar with, and if it isn't available there, I don't look much farther.

It's been a moot point lately. My SL income is down so much from previous years that almost all of what I earn goes to pay for my land, and I have almost nothing left to buy anything in-world. So I only buy what I feel I really need.

I can mostly only wear hats and a scarf or bandanna so I have a collection of those. I use ALL search to find them.

I can key in "Bowler" for instance to get a specific type of hat. Then I go looking for it in the list of items visible in search. This gives me the exact coordinates of the item I'm looking for -- I'm in and out like a super stealth Ninja shopper.

That or I just use Jig's method ^.




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I do NOT search for shops in world. I do NOT use Xstreet -except- to look at something someone links me to and I specifically want. I do NOT shop often and I only give people links to freebie places.

The ONLY time I will search for an shop in world is in the Places tab I will put the item that I am looking for and that is ONLY if one of the shops that was recommended to me by word of mouth doesn't have it or I can't make it myself.

In that case, I don't buy anything. I don't have enough time anymore to read through a list of irrelevant search results, to wade through poorly designed stores, and to wait forever to wait for every store to rez.

If I can't use either XStreet or a friend's recommendation to narrow things down to a store or two to visit, I just won't shop. Nothing is a necessity anyway.

I hate the in world search, because it usually pulls up 3,527 results that have little or nothing to do with what I'm looking for. I'm most likely to use search to pull up the name of a person or place with which I am already acquainted.

The way I usually find a shop in world, if not using the web, is by checking to see who created an object, then looking at the creator's profile. A creator's stuff is their best advertisement, as far as I'm concerned.

PS. Of course I am super smart, super hip and know everything! Need you ask?

I pretty much only use search to find a store that I only know part of the name of

I'd say 90% of the time I search through XStreet first because teleporting all over the grid "in search of" is an astronomical waste of my time. I don't like to shop randomly. I usually have a pretty good idea what I want or a direction I want to go in, so I what I want is to see a couple pages of options and narrow down. I just about never search for anything via the normal SL search, beyond calling up store that I already know the name of.

I also use Google searches sometimes and am rewarded a fair number of times. Interesting stuff gets written about -- on blogs, SL related web sites, etc -- I find a lot of things by happy accident that way.

I area search when I am out shopping, I look at everything around me. I also use the same technique mentioned above - see something interesting, find creator name, open up profile for a visit later.