Vendor Boards - I'm Confused!

Im looking to buy a vendor board for a new business in SL.

Having read the threads from search I went and had a look round and am opting to go with, what seems to be a popular choice - and that is the Hippovend Boards.

I did want some boards that I could customise shape or colour, which I don't think I can do with these, but I think these suit my purpose best.

I still have a lot of questions. Vendor boards are confusing things for a techno-dummy. I tried doing my reseach - even went to Help Island and talked to some vendor sellers, about what the boards are and how it all works and things, but it seemed no-one could help.

One of my questions is that I keep reading of commission rates ? Is this on all boards, like if someone buys something I have to pay a commission?, or are boards a one off purchase and thats it ?

If anyone can offer any hints and tips on vendor boards, please can you post.
I'm so confused.

Likewise if anyone can point me in the direction of a dummies guide to Vendor boards - I'd be ever so grateful.

Thanks in advance.

i'm sorry that i can't help you, but i didn't want this thread to get lost.

re: boards, please please please, i beg of you. when you get it set up, DO NOT put it on shout. thank you for your consideration to everyone not within hearing range who chose that distance on purpose.

rez a cube
edit it

hit the 'for sale' button, set price, set 'contents' , put items in prim

ppl pay the prim they get the contents.

customize it anyway you want.

It really depends upon what you want to do. You don't need someone else's vendor if all you want to do is sell one object that you've made yourself.

I can heartily endorse HippoTech. They do fantastic work and I've been happy with their vendor system. This link will take you to their online documentation
which should be able to answer your questions.

http://www.hippo-technologies.co.uk/resources/index.php

If your needs are simple, you may not even need a vendor as objects can be set for sale on their own. In the edit box of the object, just click the 'For sale' box, set the price and select whether you want to sell the original of the item, a copy or the contents of the prim.




Different vendor systems use different systems. Quite a few take a percentage of your sales. The basic hippotech vendors are just pay once and use without a commission. Their catalog vendors do charge a commission.

Here is another recent thread that discusses vendor systems:

/327/d9/239400/1.html

Thanks for your responses, really appreciate the help.

With the hippovend board, I picked up the demo to see what it was like - it keeps asking to take Lindens. Is it necessary to say yes everytime, even if you are not using the catalogue vendors? on the real versions, so far i have denied this - even if its a one off payment for the board ? sorry if its a dumb question...just can't find the answers on the cards or the website - or if they are there, I haven't spotted them.

Thanks again.

if it shows YOU as the owner, it should be safe. i hate that orange box, but that's who they work.

This is absolutely not true.

All items that take money from you will be owned by you - they can't be owned by other people. However an object that's owned by you can PAY your money to ANYONE!

The usual reason why vendors ask for debit permissions is so that they can give change and refund bad or failed purchases.

Yes, you can. Fully modifiable. Res one that is close to what you want, re name it and edit as you like. You can strip a few prims off to to get a lower prim board with only a small reduction on looks. Move, resize, chang the texture or shape any of the parts you need. If you make a mistake, delete it and start again. Once you have it looking like you want, pick it up. This will be the one you place at your stores.


Commission rates are basically a cut of your sales. You may, for instance, give the property owner a 25% share of sales instead of rent. You may want to sale a few things for your friends in your store and keep 15% of the sales. Whatever the reason or ammount, that is basically what commission. I Know HippoVend has a "free" version where you pay like 5% commision on any sales 10L$ or more. Or, you can just buy the full version and not worry about their cut. What gerts really confusing is when you start sharing out sales with ddifferent groups for one thing, someone else on another and someone gets a cut on everything. This is easily done with vending system and is a rightious pain to try and do with pen and paper.

If you are going to share sales with someone, you must say yes every time you res one.

Even if you do not share, it is usually better to say yes so that the vendor system can handle refunds in case of a failed delivery. It will also return money if they paid too much (needs permission for this). It just saves you some headache later on.

so, does it always tell the truth is who you are agreeing to pay? when i have the orange box with a vendor set up, it shows me paying myself.

Nothing in the orange permissions box specifies who you are paying.

Thank you thank you thank you! for your help.

So, If I only want me to be paid, then I still have to say yes to the 'take Lindens from me' box ?

Also, this may be a really dumb question, so sorry about that, but - If I have a vendor board and one server, say showing chairs, and I want another board showing just tables, for example - do I have to buy 2 kits and servers and boards ? or one kit, and one server with the vendor board ?

Thanks so much for all your help - I just couldn't find these answers 'in world' from someone - lol - should have posted ages ago!

when i am allowing my vendor rights, it names me as the payee.

The message in the orange box should read:

"<Object Name>, an object owned by 3Ring Binder, would like to: take Linden dollars from your account."

It says only that you own the object, not that you are the payee. What message do you see?

LOL I wish mine would set up so easy, I did all that and it lists the contents but says no inventory lol

Juts repeating my final question as there was no response to it...sorry but I seem to be getting the hard sell thing from the few sellers.

"...this may be a really dumb question, so sorry about that, but - If I have a vendor board and one server, say showing chairs, and I want another board showing just tables, for example - do I have to buy 2 kits and servers and boards ? or one kit, and one server with the vendor board ?"

Thanks for your answers.

with HippoVEND and I imagine, JEVN, and Apez, everything is copiable. So you need only buy one kit, and you can produce as many servers or vendors as you need.

with HippoVEND, you can specify in the configuration on the web the terms to filter by. Example: you have a number of chairs that are birch. you put birch in as the filter, and it will show only the birch chairs. Rez a new vendor, configure it differently. You can also copy configurations of existing vendors for ease.

Most vendors will want permission to take your money. First, they need the ability to refund the buyer's money if they pay the wrong amount. Second, networked vendors should refund money if they are unable to deliver the goods for some reason, such as the network server being down. Finally, there are commission vendors where the vendor maker gets a percentage of sales.

Yes, you will have to give the vendor permission to take money from you every time you rez it. Once it is rezzed, you won't get asked again unless you pick it up and re-rez for some reason. Being asked that question with the bright orange box so you won't confuse it with the more routine ones like being asked to animate your avatar is a Good Thing. (It used to be that it was a plain blue dialog like all the other plain blue dialogs, and people didn't pay attention.)

The lesson: buy your vendors from a trusted source or write your own. The reputable ones only use their ability to take your money for good reasons, and don't take money that they are not supposed to take. Some that I know about include HippoVend (where this thread started), JEVN, Apez, Moopf, and OnRez.