Magic box help - where do i put it?

Hi there,

I am a relative newb but already have a small art gallery in SL and items advertised on xstreet. To help with promotions I got a magic box free from xstreet and have it set up. I textured it with my gallery logo and it works well, meaning it immediately links ppl to my xstreet ads as soon as the box is clicked ... so it's all ready to go ... so far, so good ...

My problem is where can i put it? I had naively assumed I could place these boxes in various (preferably high traffic) locations for free. Duh! Seems no such places exist. Or, if they do, i'd love to know of them!! Do I have to rent space for each box i want in world and, if so, I only need a tiny spots. Are these obtainable? Perhaps I should just rent poster space?

I've also come across magic box hosting / storage facilities with lots of boxes stored in little safe-like things. What's with that? What is the advantage of hiding your magic boxes in safe?

Maybe I have the whole concept wrong. If anyone can shed some light on the 'box issue' or offer alternative, interesting, cost-effective marketing strategies I'd be most appreciative.

Many thanks,
Carmsie Melodie (da confused newb)

PS To take a peek at my art (all originals) search for my name under merchants in xstreet.... welllll gotta take every promotional opportunity i come across ... LOL

Hi Carmsie,

Yes, you will need some land/prim space to put your magic box down. Usually people will keep them in their shops or even homes as all the box does is deliver the items for you. There is an option these days for people to click the box and be taken to your XStreet listings but I doubt many do it that way.

All you need is one prim to place it somewhere, if you don't have land yourself maybe a friend would let you put it on their land? If not, the box hosting places would probably be a good bet if you are not intending paying for land and opening a shop where the items can be viewed and purchased in world also.

Carmsie, you have to put your Xstreet dropbox in a stable place where it won't need to be moved, and this means land that is under your control. Put it in your shop, on land you either own, or plan to rent longer-term.

No, you can't plonk them anywhere, as landowners will return the prim to you.

You only need to have one inworld. This is enough to link your XStreet customers to your products, as you will load this one box with its inventory, and it will deliver the product to the buyer. It is not intended to be seen by your customers, not is it designed to be displayed or to promote your product. You do that part with your XStreet ads, or with your shop display.

What I do, (and maybe others too) is keep my dropbox in my shop, in an unobtrusive spot as its not really that gorgeous to look at, and my customers don't know its there. They are busy shoppping in the shop, which is how I'd prefer it. If anyone wants to look at XStreet, they can by clicking a sign to take them to my page (say if they want to send a gift to another avvie).
Otherwise, they will already be shopping on the XStreet site, and will find me via the search there.

It sounds like you don't yet have a shop, and are wanting the XStreet box to act as a shopfront for you inworld? You may want to look at renting a shop in a busy place then, and creating a display there?

it would be very very rare for anyone to actually use the box to shop. You only need to have one rezzed in world so that it can deliver for you, should someone purchase a product from you on the XSSL website. Later, if your business grows, it might be a good idea to put a copy of the box on a different sim (so that you can still deliver if your sim goes down) but it is not necessary.

IIRC the slx sim has spaces for you to put a box if you have no land. some do it on a free membership in order to sell on slx

Xstreet SL will let you keep your box there free for 60 days, until you find a permanent home. More:

https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=21

I have 3 hidden on my land and textured clear alpha.I also use the free link sign for people to click on,

As a magic box doesn't take up much space these sort of hosting spaces offer you (in theory) a cheaper rental option.

However if you're selling art, you might want a little inworld gallery too and a 512M plot might be worth looking into, you can keep your magic box there too.

One thing about the boxes...

Don't change the contents (except to add items to sell) and you can edit the texture and shape as you need to. My SLX box at one point was actually a boulder integrated into my land, and another time it was a picture on the wall.

Hi Carmsie,

As everyone else has said, the magic box isn't really something people use as a vendor or part of their product display. Think of it more as a tool to facilitate your sales on xstreet. It is your shipping warehouse. The xstreet site makes the sale, calls the warehouse for the product and then sends that product to the customer. The warehouse always needs to be stocked and ready to ship things out if an order comes in, so it needs to be in a stable and secure location. That's why it is good to rez it on your own land, or rent a small hosting space for it.

Xstreet does have another (free) item that you can use to link people to your xstreet listings. It's a sign that says "Xstreet Merchant" and gives the URL. When touched it opens a browser window to your listings. You can retexture it if you want to, so you can customize it, but I would include a written instruction on your texture that says to touch this sign to see more of your products.

Here is the sign: https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=155286

As far as where to put these, you could look for rental carts at malls. Many malls have these little stands that offer only a few prims, so the cost is less then renting actual shop space there. You could put your xstreet sign in the cart, and a landmark giver for your gallery.

Another idea for promotion would be to contact other gallery owners and see if they would be willing to exchange landmark givers. Maybe if you get a ring of at least 3 or 4 you could have a single notecard giver that all of you set out, with landmarks and a short description of each of your galleries/work in the notecard. Just an idea.

The "Magic Box" is just an in-world server communication link for the website transactions. You only need one, somewhere on the grid. The scripted system needs an object in-world, owned by the merchant, from which to send the in-world inventory item.

The customer NEVER has a reason to see or touch it directly. The merchant drops content in them to make it available for sale, then goes to the website to configure that end to be able to sell that item.

I keep my Magic Box in my "office", in a non-public private island sim that my customers can't even visit. It works just fine, and delivers items to anyone who buys from the website, no matter what sim the customer is in on the grid. When I didn't own land of my own, I hid the Magic Box in a rented mall booth space where I had a non-xstreet in-world vendor for my stuff, with the box re-textured to serve as my store sign.

The only reason for setting up more than one Magic Box is redundancy, in case of a sim being down. If you have them in multiple sims, you'll still deliver as long as one of those sims is up.

I put my magic box in the wall of my shop, where people can see it. It lets people know I have a presence in SLX without burning another prim.

Just don't forget where you rezd it (voice of experience here).

I never thought of that before...might see if anybody wants to do a backup exchange..

Carmsie,

I can offer you space to place your box if you like. No charge. I have mine in a skybox on a 512 lot. It's only 1 of 3 skyboxes I use and they really don't take up much room.

IM me if you're interested.

Bradley

I morphed mine into a nightstand.

This raises a question for me -- which is probably best asked in the XStreet forums but WTH.

They came out with a new version of the box. If I transfer my items to the new box, will I have to redo my listings and will I lose my rankings or does XStreet just go off the item itself? I really don't know how this works. I know if you changed a box at Onrez, you lost your listing.

You shouldn't have to re-do your listings if you transfer your items to a new box. Just don't rename them. Any rankings and comments remain on the web site.

Xstreet will send you an email if you put the same item on the web site more than once, asking you to delete the duplicate listing. (Voice of experience again!)

The last time they changed the box, mine automatically updated itself. I didn't have to do anything at all. No content transfers were necessary.

If you do somehow forgot where you rezzed your box you could log into your XStreetSL account, click on My Account and then My Inventory. In there you will see a list of your magic boxes including the region name and coordinates.

Thanks so much to everyone! Very helpful and clear replies from all.

And to think i spent all that time texturing the stoopid box with my logo and stuff! ROFL. Worse, i put it back in Inventory cos i didn't understand how it worked so no one could have bought anything from xstreet anyway. too funny. Oh well, you live and learn.

I do have a gallery, btw ... in fact 2 now .... and have not been to work on time a single day since discovering SL!!! better sell some art b4 i get fired ... teehee.

thanks again for all your help and advice. also thanks for the offer of a free home for my magic box but i think i'll turn it into a painting ... may as well put it to good use.

keep smiling one and all,
Carmsie

Does xstreet still allow you to rent a spot on the mainland? I did that for about a year. It was 50L a week or month. For a while my goal was to sell enough to cover that rent price.

My Magic Box is still version 3.0.10. I have had it since March, and it does not seem to have updated itself in April. I do see there's a "force update" box on my XStreet info page. Will that upgrade the box? I'm scared to try it, lol. But I'm also scared to move all the contents to an upgraded box.

Also, for those who make redundant boxes: can you do this just by right-clicking the box, click more, choose 'Take copy'? I'm reluctant even to try this.

I ask all this because I had an undeliverable sale today.

"Force update" from the web site only makes the site re-check the connections and existence of the boxes.

You can copy them freely, take them, drag them around and whatnot. Only "issue" with that is that they register themselves with the XStreet site immediately, and take a little while to de-register automatically (or even if forcing update, as above), though even that is essentially harmless. XStreet figures out which box(es) are actually live in case of problems. (As when you have redundant boxes in case of sim crashes).

As for updating, the easy way is to rip the scripts out of the old box and copy them over from a newer version. That way you keep all the objects and any possible custom work you've done on the box. (Mine is one barrel stacked amidst others in a mill).

Least, that's my experience with them, and I have done all of the above The scripts seem really robust.

Hmm...this won't disrupt the working of my box? Do you do this after every version update -- e.g., did you do it after the April 2009 update?

EDIT: It worked fine. Your instructions were similar to the "official" instructions I found on the XStreet forums. See https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=103052

I guess I need to watch those forums a bit more closely to ensure that I don't miss future updates.