Parceling for malls

Awwwww.......I remember when I wanted to own a mall.

........then I went and owned a mall. Cured me of that quick.

I went to take a look at the mall, and noticed what to me seems like a big problem: You've parceled away all your prims!

The 20x20 stores are on 400m2 parcels, giving 91 prims of which 39 are used in the building.
The 20x10 stores are on 240m2 parcels, giving 54 prims of which 23 are used in the building.

These shops are simply too big for the number of prims available.

So where are the prims? On the 10976 'leftover' parcel, with 2512 prims you can't rent out (as easily)!

Obviously whether or not this is a problem depends on how your numbers are set up, but that seems really tight to me.

Update: Turns out she's undoing the parceling, but it's still something to consider if you plan on doing that!

here is my take for what it is worth

do not parcel it out, leave it as one, use the name of the mall as the name of the land and a generic description covering as much as possible of what the tenants sell

either allow direct teleporting, or if you can't, then have the stores clearly marked, and a teleporting signboard is possible

IF you must have music (I never turn mine one) then use something soothing but not too soft so as to put the shoppers to sleep, think department store type music I guess

now here is the biggie (in my opinion) have each tennant put the mall in their picks, and of course advise them to have their customers put the mall in their pics.

(that will help with search I am told)

For a mall to do well in search it *has* to be parcelled. With a single-parcel mall, this is what would happen in the search systems.

All Search
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Imagine the 32-shop mall with many different product types in it, and the shop owners setting their products to show in search. There would or could be four figures of items - maybe thousands - and the different product types will dilute the impact of the various types in the parcel's html page, which will harm the rankings for all the products. There's another reason why it would be bad for the All search, but I'll tell you that privately.

There is only one Name and Description for the parcel, and the Name is *THE* most important part. It's just no good for multiple shops with different product types. It would be ok for promoting the mall - to get more shop renters - but not for promoting anything in it. You may be able to squeeze a few keywords and phrases in the Name and Description, but very few, and you won't have space for variations of phrases.

Places Tab Search
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All the mall's traffic would be attributed to just one parcel, and that's fine, but what rankings would it get with all that traffic? The only text you have to work with is the Name and Description, and it is only ranked if an *exact* match of the searchterm is found in either of those. Again, it would be ok for promoting the mall - to get more renters - but not for promoting anything in it.


Parcelled Mall
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If each shop is on its own parcel, then each renter can promote his/her shop individually in both search systems. The mall parcel will get additional traffic because people are likely to walk around a bit - just to see what's there. Renters can set their parcels to show in search if they want to, and set their items to show in search without any detrimental effects on the mall's html page. They will be able to promote their shops exactly as they choose, without affecting other shops or the mall itself.

If you really want to squeeze every bit of traffic out of it, you could think it terms of creating a 16m parcel in front of each store and tell the renters that that's the parcel to promote, but it could be awkward because they'd want to put products or prims on it for the html page.

Sorry I didn't get with you last night, Phil. All I can say is....beat to death and it wasn't even enjoyable

Hmmm cant say i have ever thought of this stuff before. Phil's thing sounds lik sound advice, but then i guess overall it simplydepends which search you intend on going forthe highest ranking in. The ALL search or the places search. Seems to be in this case it is about choosing one or the other.

I have to say im glad most malls and rental spots dont insist on adding their place to a creators picks. I sometimes will sure, but my picks are pretty full as it is (ok i admit mostly taken up by mush about my wife but hey thats important to me!). But really a creator should be able to pick what goes in their picks

Oh, did I forget to mention that? *laughs*

kidding

It just occurred to me that it would be easier to control prims in each shop if each shop were a separate parcel...

Another good point.

OK, at least I see that I've been doing all this wrestling for precisely the right reasons...

*sighs*

I'm currently using three mall locations, that bring in enough business to justify. However, they weren't parceled out, so that I could maximize exposure to these locations, which would also benefit mall owner....and would love to have some locations with that feature to experiment with how much sales would increase.

I debated when setting up my own store...one parcel, get all the traffic count high on that one parcel....or parcel out....and use the benefits of separate parcels....but lower one shot traffic count for places search.

I stick with the separate parcels, because I think the benefits in All Search outweigh the benefits of a high traffic count in Places Search. It was a losing battle to try to rank high in a Furniture Places Search, anyway, because of traffic bots....didn't stand a chance. I would suspect the same would be true with a general Mall or Shopping Center Places Search, when typing in "Mall" or "Shopping."

By using separate parcels, I am able to use a ton of different keywords on each parcel, as opposed to being limited by one parcel.

If they have their own landing point, own parcel, they automatically get their own keywords to tweak, which will bring them traffic for free, as well as bring traffic into your mall. Imagine 20 shop owners using 20 different sets of keywords at no cost to them (unless you built in the 30L per week, which should be painless).....that 20 different sets of keywords might possibly bring you more overall traffic than one set of keywords with a high Places traffic count.

The keywords you would use on your one Mall parcel, might be extremely generic. Keywords used by individual stores will be more specific, and more likely to catch people in All Search. I get a ton of people popping in from very obscure words...how do I know? I ask them where they came from to find the store, and they tell me what words they plugged into search.

Your tenants also might be more likely to invest in Classified Ads, if they had their own parcel....a handful of 100L Classified Ads will get you on front page of All Search over and over again, in different categories, with the right words....and you are able to compete with the bot users who do not run Classifieds. You will be right next to them in a highlighted box....which I have found to be extremely effective.

When shopping - I will leave a Mall in 30 seconds if I did not drop in front of the store. As a store owner searching for mall space...same thing applies.....your chore is to appeal to both shoppers and store owners.

Perhaps you could try two ways and experiment. One side of Mall is parceled out...charge a higher rent price for separate parcels and their benefits to shop owner....other side of Mall is general, with one landing point....watch traffic counts on separate parcels....take traffic count on General Side (divide it up among the number of stores)....and see how it compares to the separate parcels. As a mall space renter, I would be willing to pay almost double normal rent for my own parcel in a mall...I believe it would be value.

Your overall traffic will benefit from traffic of individual stores. If I land right in front of a small store, and can shop right away...I am not pissy about walking around the rest of the Mall....and often do...so you would be getting that additional traffic from me.

Separate Parcels give your tenants a huge amount of benefits....if they benefit, they will stay. Since some of them will be new businesses...it helps to point out all those benefits. Many people do not have a clue how the searches work, and don't have a clue how to use keywords and label products for the titles to show up in search....would be a huge benefit, if you gave them some kind of training in that. Even store owners who have been here a long time...I've found they didn't know how to use keywords and labeling of products.

Using keywords and ads and product labeling effectively can make or break a business, but everyone doesn't pop in here with that knowledge....they need to be taught.

Thanks for the very well-thought out post, Mickey.

Wonder how badly my builder would kill me if I told him to put the parcels back in *laughs*

They will kill you.

I tried to help a mall owner do this once....but the dividing got real tricky for prim counts. Took some real concentration and effort on getting the parcels the right size for the right number of prims for each store and the right size for the physical store...as Michelle mentioned above. It's a tad tricky.

I had separated some of my parcels once for store renters. The physical size they needed for the store and it's parcel prim count was well above what they would be paying for in prims. Let's say the parcel size gave them 400 prims....but they were only paying for 100.

I didn't need the physical space....but I needed those leftover 300 prims for my other parcels. I was fine letting them have the physical space and paying X amount per prims they used. Then I got to use the leftovers. I was able to verify their prim counts each week, by simply clicking on that parcel and seeing "objects owned by others"....but I didn't use fancy rental boxes...maybe those solve the need to do that.

If they wanted to add more prims...they simply added them, and they paid me extra each week per additional prims used. I think it was a convenience for them to be able to expand a little. But I only had a few tenants at a time, and plenty of prims....so was able to do it this way, without it getting complicated.

Well, I already use the Hippo system for the residences, and have in the past for the Mall, so I'll continue to use that.

It's the borrowing of prims from the common areas that will be tricky - for me, not the builder. He's become that part of my brain that actually works...lol

Ummm sorry maybe im missing something but as long as all the land has the same owner (ie Honey's group) then what does it matter what the prim count says on the plots? All the prims are shared between land owned by the same person or group on the same sim regardless of whether the percels are joined or not.

Ok so the prim count wont say the right thing on the land options, but when I am looking at rentals i look atthe rental box not the land options?

I don't know exactly how the SL Search engine works. I do know that it's supposed to be something like Google, and I do know a bit about how Google works. If the SL Search engine treats parcels like Google treats web pages, then Phil's analysis is on point.

I had thought that, just as long as I could have a direct teleport to my store, then there was no extra advantage to having a separate parcel (as a merchant). I've changed my mind now. I can't think of any advantage for the merchant of not having a separate parcel.

I know it's a burden on the mall owner to convert a single piece into separate pieces. As the renting merchant, I'm not concerned with my landlord's sunk costs.

Other aspects of the "community" space can be enforced over parcels. By using groups, you can have mall resources on individual merchants' parcels. If you're worried about "music change," you can just make it a rule of your lease that all parcels use the same audio media url.

And though it might be a burden to initially parcel things out, in the long run, the more that the merchants can do themselves without your intervention takes some of the maintenance burden off of you.

Exactly why parceling causes you to lose a bit of store capacity, I'm not really sure (though I'll take your work for it that it's not avoidable). Assuming that mall space rental is competitive, you should be able to make up the money on the value of the remaining parcels. (If I value an individual parcel, I'll pay a premium for it.)

It's also possible though that 99% of your propsective renters haven't put the thought into it that Phil has, and thus don't understand the true value of what you are offering. They won't understand the value of paying a premium for an individual parcel. If they are not skilled at Search Engine Optimization, they may not be able to make use of the individual parcel effectively.

On the other hand, knowing what you know, you can educate potential renters, and make the individual parcels a selling point.

And over the long term, if the Search rankings do affect your traffic, everyone in the mall benefits from better Search results, whether they realize it or not.