What makes a good shopping area now?

Now that that the telehubs have been removed, there doesn't seem to be an obvious choice of location for new shopping areas to develop.

We've seen entire island dedicated to only retail, which seems to work for a few established players with established businesses on their islands. Is this a viable model for new shopping areas vs. the mainland ?

As a consumer, what do you look for? An attractive, realistic looking set up with pretty stores? Established businesses? One stop shopping with lots of stores in one small area? Mainland or island?

What do you think would make a good shopping area?

Hmm good question Ingrid!

Personally, I like places that are quite open, and not all cluttered, nothing worse than trying to walk around bumping into things, or not being able to zoom without something else getting in your way, that *really* annoys me. Its nice to have established designers/creators there, as I think it draws in more of a crowd, but then its not a necessity.

I think a good assortment of shops within an area is a good idea, but you don't want something that doesn't really mesh, I can't quite explain what I mean, its like, variety is good and a good assortment is good, but you don't want a small shopping area saying with 5-10 shops where none of the shops really match each other, you know you want some kind of link going on there.

Blah I know what I mean!

I really do think the main priority of any shopping area is space, making it look inviting and spacious but yet filling it with a shedload of goodies!

The find list.

If they have what I want, and I can get around without feeling like I am moving through marmelade, I could care less what the place looks like, or where it is.

P2P - Free to be you and me!!!!

Navigability. The store's Find entry should have keywords for each type of product that's sold there, ideally avoiding generic terms as much as possible (no-one goes looking for "prim clothing and accessories". They go looking for "a prim dress" or "prim boots" or "prim cyberwear". Then, the store itself should have a sigh right next to the arrival point listing each of those same keywords with an arrow or sitiporter for each. This would massively improve usability compared to 90% of the malls I've been in.

Spoken like a true male. Willow's thinking is more in line with mine, and navigability is also key, as Yumi pointed out.

Hey! I mentioned navigabilty in a roundabout way! I like marmelade on toast, not my Essel!



And yes, I am male, but I am not sure that is the reason I don't need flash and glitz (which can impede navigability). I am the type of person who knows what I want when I am going shopping, is that a male trait?

Quality merchandise in a spacious, pleasant-looking, lagless environment.

Quality merchandise looks professionally constructed and textures and is presented in an attractive manner. If scripted, it works properly under normal conditions.

The best environmental model seems to be a collection of a dozen or so shops around a central open square. More than that crams too many textures into the browser (sorry, I meant client) and causes interminable lag. The builder has to be careful to (re)use smaller textures, and limit their vendors to people who will well respect others' frame rates.

It seems that building with a few extra detail prims, rather than using 1024x1024 store front textures works best. It may short the vendors a few prims; but that only causes them to be a bit more selective and to rotate their stock more often.

This is more work for everyone than the traditional dozens of blank stalls with rental boxes. But it's a reasonable evolution to nicer shopping environments because vendors can spend their time maintaining one well presented shop in a very attractive atmosphere because people can find them in FIND and teleport directly there.

I am too, but I like browsing when I have time, a passtime females seem to enjoy more than males.

In my experience with women, it absolutely is.

Hehehe... If I'm looking for something, be it a vehicle, clothes, whatever, I just type it into search also. Ask around or look on forums if I can't find something that way... I don't go to malls and just shop for the sake of shopping... Not that there's anything wrong with it. If there's a mall that sells cool gadgets or things I'd be interested in, I'd love to know about it... Most clothing and animations and the sort of typical mall stuff just doesn't interest me too much.

When i go shopping for something specific, i don't mind where it is. But if the place looks nice i might look around some more, and probably remember it better.

On the odd occassion that i'm bored and go browsing i will stay much longer in a place that Khamon describes. There is only so much big boxes with a repeating texture on it that my eyes will tolerate before they start to tear. Just like websites, shops need to be relaxing to the eyes.

It doesn't really matter what the theme is, realistic, futuristic, goth, etc, quality shows itself in any setting.

Yumi makes a good point, a good layout helps alot. It helps you skip over the things you are not interrested in and spend more time looking at the things you are interrested in, instead of leaving because you think there is nothing for you there.
This also goes for vendors, vendors with more then a dozen unrelated items are very tiresome, and i never cycle completly through them. But when there are multiple vendors with each their own category of items, it is more likely that i will see something i'm interrested in, and i might even look at everything because it doesn't seem so endless.

A low-lag shopping experience is a must for me. If all I see is grey squares and fuzzy, half-rezzed images, I certainly won't waste any time browsing from store to store and seeing what they have. Ditto if I can hardly move. If I can't look at items easily, I'll go somewhere else.

Huge merchants that have an entire sim for one large store are fantastic, if they are well-organized, and you can find what they have. I have seen some very good ones, with low lag and great products. There is no reason I can think of why a person couldn't develop a mall in that manner, subletting to other merchants. But I can't recall seeing one anywhere that does this. Probably because the overhead for owning a sim is too high, and the rents they would have to charge would be unaffordable.

I like merchants where I can look at the store front, or the open sales floor area, and get a good idea of the range of items that they sell. Seeing 20 variations of one hairstyle won't get me in the door. Seeing 20 hairstyles, on the other hand, with more detailed displays further inside that show the different hair colors and options... well! That is far more interesting!

I like merchant vendors that show good images of what they are selling, and with clear information on price and features. If you have a scripted item, it should have a notecard available that tells you about the features it offers. "This collar supports all the standard features!" tells me nothing, and I'll just go on to the next merchant.

If clothing has really nice detailing in the textures, a small sample in one corner of the product image that shows a close-up of the fabric would be nice. A full-body shot of a long dress is great, but if I can't see that it's a lovely brocade with detailed lace, it won't sell to me half as fast as the same dress with a few details shown.

Merchants ought to consider a "store catalog" in a notecard, listing, with text and short descriptions, the merchandise that they sell, sorted by type. If I am looking for a nightgown, I might not hang around to scroll through 30+ items in a single vendor to see if they have one. On the other hand, if I know an item that I want is in there, and know what it is called, I can scroll through without waiting for the other images to rez...

I like open configurations with clear lines of sight, where I can see several different vendors shops at a glance. If they have a store whose display catches my eye, I will go check out what they have.

I know it's difficult to do, but grouping vendors by type of merchandise helps a lot, too. One dress merchant sitting in the middle of a bunch of housewares and weapons stalls is easily overlooked. A row of pretty dress shops on the other hand, each offering some unique style... well, I'm there dear, checking out all of them!

A mall directory that shows a map of the mall, and where to find merchandise sorted by category, is fantastic. With P2P teleports, being able to 'port from the directory to a specific store would rock. At least being able to know what sort of wares are availlable here is a plus.

Malls that have a specific theme, such as Japanese merchandise, are fantastic in my book.

I know that most stores are going to be unattended. Merchants can't just hang around all day, waiting to talk to customers, nor can they usually afford to hire people to be 'sales clerks. But it would be really useful to have an IM link in each store, where one could ask for information. For example, if a merchant has a very wide range of offerings, I might wish to ask if they carry something in particular. Or I may see something that is close to what I want, and would want to contact them to see if they would consider custom-making a variant to my requirements. Yes, I can check their prims and track them down eventually in Find, but a simple, clear way to request product information would be more customer friendly. My most pleasant shopping experiences were ones where the merchant was there, in person, to talk to about their wares.

Some things I really don't like are transparent or metal mesh floors, or floors with lots of holes in them, where you can see through to the level above or below. Or worse, where holes in floors or balconies without handrails make it very easy to fall from one level to the next. A few holes for flying between levels, positioned out of the main walking paths, are fine. But I have been in mega-shops where I had to fly all the time, because I couldn't tell which areas had floors, and which were holes. I didn't stay there long, let me tell you.

Stores whose 'Find' information lists things which they either do not have, or which are so obscurely located that they are impossible to find, annoy me and won't get my business.

Stores whose find listings lead me to a location where a store perhaps used to be, but where there is no longer any sign of that store, are very frustrating. Stores located in areas that are 'member access only' are worse than useless. Why have a retail location, and publicly advertise it, and then lock it down so that only members of a certain Group can enter the property?

I like stores where every item has its own vendor, or board, so I don't have to cycle through a vending machine. Islands are great because it's usually one to four designers with enough space to spread out their wares, and the builds are themed or unified so texture loading is easier.

My other favorite for shopping is themed sims/islands where the stores are natural or even secondary to the build (Midnight City, Chaos, Amsterdam, Venice Beach, Relic, Grignano, Sistiana, L'Utopie, etc.), so shopping is just part of a whole experience of exploring the build.

I avoid shopping where there are casinos or camping chairs or where large clubs are located.

What Sansarya said.

I would like to see a hierarchy "tree" based vendor with everything in it.
You know, like a family tree.
But with a usable menu system.
I know some exist with this ability but there is a lot of room for improvment on these.

HTML on a prim will be better once it's here.
But until then, a good vendor used at full potential seems hard to come by for me personally.

Of course some people like the idea of having a realistic store layout too.
And some like walking around for hours looking for that perfect somethin or another.

But for me personally, when I need something, I want it right then and asap. And I don't feel like waiting until I'm in some "shopping mood" to look for it.
I'm not one for shopping.

But there are some who like that. So it's a matter of targeting the market and finding what your particular customers like.

That requires getting direct feedback from people who shop there.
I would like to see an indirect, confidential, way to leave comments.
If there is one then I never heard of it. And it isn't spreading around for some reason.

Since everything is time stamped and taged with creator names then it probably isn't possible have one.
Unless someone made a suggestion box market similar to the trusted ATM's.
Everyone would have to know that this particular suggestion box does not tell the owner who or when a comment was given by.
I have not seen such a market for that but then again I don't pay attention to stores much.

Why hasn't anyone just made the HUD based store yet?
So people could just wear the HUD vendor and buy from the place when and wherever they want.
And for those low end sales stores just form a collective group of stores within one trusted HUD service.
And have it update. Or at least send a signal (a red LED light turns on?) to the customers when there is a HUD update with more products.
Something like that shouldn't cause spam either since we can take it off.
People would only use it when they want to buy something anyway.

If it doesn't exist already then I would have my own team build it. But we got other things going on right now.

Something like that could also be used for clubs and members of the club. To send data to the Huds about events, times, or whatever is needed.

If people really like the club or store then they will put the Hud on to check whats going on.
It sure would be a lot easier than IMing and bothering people. Or TPing all the way over just to see. Or asking for TP's.

Just my suggestions.

* Make it easy to land. Yes, some of us still fly. If there's a roof, or multiple floors, at least make the landing area big and obvious. If there's a roof, put obvious sit-teleporters within click distance of any point on the roof.

* Make it easy to teleport. If you have a landing point, put that landing point somewhere that's useful to be. halfway across the sim on the opposite side of the mall from the front door doesn't count.

* Make it easy to walk into. Front door, back door, and side doors. Gaps between stalls you can just walk through... they also keep llSetText() messages from leaking through the walls.

* Make it easy to walk around in. If you have stairs, make them wide and straight, not miserly spiral staircases. If you have railings or decorative objects, phantom them. Phantom any walls that aren't used for displaying merchandise.

* Make it load quickly. Use vendors instead of rows of boxes with unique hi-res textures. Use a single texture for multiple products, with transparent for-sale boxes in front of them to capture the clicks. Use lower-resolution textures for advertising, high res textures for actual product. If you DO have lots of boxes, let me click on the box to get a texture dropped on me instead of having me sit for five minutes when I walk in while all the hi-res textures on the boxes load.

* Make camera movement easy. Keep vegetation low and out of the sight-line, so when I focus on a stall across the way I don't find myself pinned to a tree in the middle of the mall. Give me cues as to where my camera is without my having to look at the mini-map all the time to tell whether I've gone around the mall yet.

* Keep vendors from interfering with each other. Space them out, don't have vendors on the opposite side of a thin wall, don't let them run particles or detectors that spam the neighbors.

* give me a way of finding related vendors easily. You don't need to put them next to each other... vendors don't like that... but give me cues. Color codes, or style, or a good directory with beacons or sit-teleports. Make a "directory HUD" with maps and indexes and boxes and circles and arrows in seven colors... and keep it updated.

The ideal mall would have no roof, or a phantom roof, separate stalls around a central area with gaps between the stalls, a name or logo visible from the air (or even the World Map if it's big enough), themed areas, fit within camera distance, and if it needed to go multi-level it'd stagger the malls around a big easily-navigated squared-off spiral ramp with frequent sit-teleporters to the level above and the opposite side, and a well-designed directory that was easily updated by the vendors and mirrored on every side and level.

And a free mod good-looking low-lag vendor pre-themed in a dozen styles to encourage stall owners to use it.

I thnk from reading everones post that everyone has their own idea on what makes a good shopping experience.

And therefore its hard for a store to meet everyones needs.

What could possibly be a good idea would be a location where anyone with a sotre can location a single prim advertisement with a TP. and then everyone could goto this location browsed the banenrs and then choose from the info if they want a TP!

now theres an idea for a SIM!

Heh, the YellowPages sim I think I'd just get confused though, too much information all in one spot, fifty other avatars wondering around in a sea of signs...bleh.

Porn ... lots and lots of porn.

Hmm a wearable Yellow Pages Hud.? Maybe

Excellent suggestions, Argent.

I find the huge shopping areas are usually confusing because there is just too much there and I cant find things. Whole island shopping sims still require you to tp to one spot and then have to walk around to find the store you want which which can be a pain when you have to look and look.

With P2P I think the indivual business is in a great position because p2p can take you right to the store. I love P2p for that reason, and I think having a larger business on one spot with several good vendors works better than whole sim shopping areas.

An example would be one of my favorite shopping areas, Curious Kitties. It is large enough to have a great varirty of some the cutest trendiest clothes in SL and yet its not too large and sprawling to be overwhelming.

For me it's a lag issue. If there is too much going on and I end up lagging horribly, I will leave. I will point out that when I use the find feature a lot of times I go to a store and what they claim to have they do not. I will also choose a specific store over a mall because it is a pain to find what it is in the mall that I am looking for. This is one of the reasons why I look at the forums for new products, although not all desingers use it which is a shame. If I see something I want I go get it. My one complaint about certain merchants is that they don't have store locations in their picks on their profiles in SL and then I have to come back to the forum to find out where their stuff is at. If you are a merchant, please please please put your store locations in your picks on your profile.

I couldn't count how many times I've TPed into a store only to find myself sloggin through lag and walking up to only a few vendors with 30+ items apiece. Unless I know exactly what I want and really need it, I am NOT staying around to shop!

DEMOS! I know it's not feasible to have demos of certain things but if it's between something offered by two different stores, I go for the one that has offered a demo every time!

I pretty much agree with what Argent said.

Easy to navigate, easy to see what you're looking for, and fast loading.

I'm now running a minimall on a 512sqm plot. I've got a mix of products (from mature toys to clothes and plants) but because it's small you can them all easily, even if they're not right next to each other.

I made the vendors that people use myself, with several tricks to make them friendly and accessible. Not the least of these tricks is preloading the preview textures. It means when you click on a button you load two new textures which does slow the client down a little, but the textures are small and the area is small so you rarely notice this as you don't get 50 people all doing it at once. It does mean when you press the next or back button the textures appear very quickly so hopefully once the sim has rezzed you click the buttons and the next item 'leaps' into view, it certainly seems to work that way.

Another trick someone else has mentioned - I've used I think it's 6 textures in the construction of the building. The largest is 128 X 128. The building loads fast because of this and at the risk of blowing my own trumpet various people have also said it looks good.

Final trick not quite Argent's - it's small enough not to need tp balls everywhere after all - the tp arrival point is in a fly space. You arrive on the ground floor, but there's no ceiling above you, so you can easily fly up to the first floor and up again to the roof. Although no-one is currently using the roof they can, the space in the floor at first floor level is *smaller* than at roof level so you can walk off to go down one floor and look around and then take a step or two forward to go back to the ground floor.

It's not rocket science it's about thinking about what to do to make it easy for the shoppers to get to the vendors. At the end of the day if Jo Avatar can find something they like quickly and easily and move around quickly and easily they're more likely to spend their money. That makes everyone happy because the sellers get more money, are happy to pay their rent/commission so I get more money, and Jo gets what she/he wants in a smooth and happily working way. A win-win-win scenario.

There are also some excellent whole sim shops and shops in between. The characteristic features of the excellent ones for my mind - low lag, easy to find what I want and to find my way around. People who make good products but don't sell them in good places - internet shopping is the only answer!