Input please.

I am thinking of ideas to finally give my shops a new look. I am seeking some feed back on your behaviors in SecondLife. I am hoping as many people as possible answer not just to help me, but any other shop owners who may find it useful.

With the addition of direct TP. Do you explore the areas around your destinations more or less? Do you now think that shop hot spots, malls or any other commercial area is kind of pointless?

Do you get annoyed with multifloor shops? How often do you explore and make it to other floors.

Do you like product specific shops or would you rather see more "superstores" that offer a variety of content from a variety of content creators?

Walls and "conventional" builds?

Pudding Pops or Frozen Yogurt?

I personally dislike multi-floor shopping centers that dont have a clear "path" from floor to floor (elevators are fine). In fact, when they do make floor to floor movment easy, I spend more time looking at whats on each floor. Flying is good for moving laterally, but I really hate having to "aim" for a particular floor - having something take you there automagically feels more conveniant.

With the addition of TP I think I explore more, mainly because I dont feel like Ive wasted alot of time trying to get to my initial intended destination. What *really* seems to draw me out into the surroundings are paths (walkways, &c) between various places.

Im not really sure what you mean by product-specific shops... if a huge build was dedicated to only one product, then well, Id be really turned off I like malls, but only when they have some sort of organizational scheme to them - jewelry vendors go here, clothing stores here, vehicle garages here, etc.


Can you give some examples?

EDIT: Forgot this:

Yes.
==Chris

I like ramps and stairs..call me classic.

I also love your shop Need to see about the minimizing hud though.

Im a lot more likely to explore the area around a store, if Im actually visiting a store. Im still feeling a bit claustrophobic in malls. But I really like areas that are trying to be more like a neighborhood, than a mall.

I like eclectic product mixes ... just take a look at my own market in Yamato (seriously, please take a look ) ... but I find a "superstore" overwhelming. Particularly with things like clothes. Walking into a place with a giant wall of pictures ... *shudder* .. I rarely stay.

I guess the bottom line is that I'd like more boutique shopping. And with P2P, I'd like to see more merchants focus on well done shops, that display their product line instead of having many locations all across the grid.

As for clothes ... I'd pay extra for a staffed haberdashery. Seriously, I would. If I could walk in and say, "Im looking for something like ..." and have someone say "we have something like that right over here, would you like to see it on me?"

Hope that helps

I do still enjoy places which have multiple stores, but along the lines of Celestial Studios/Canimal's/Oxygen in Threemile and Midnight City. I know this is going to make me sound snobbish, but, if I go to either of those two locations I know I will find quality.

In short, I'm not a huge fan of malls, but I am a fan of finding variety of styles and creators provided they are all high quality. Hope that makes sense.

Myself, I am not much of a browsing shopper. When I shop, I generally know exactly what I'm after, and I go get it, and go back to whatever it was I was doing. However, IF I find exceptionally well done products, I will stick around to check things out. So, if all your customers were just like me (which they won't be, lol) it would totally pay to have other creators sharing space, etc with you, a la a "mini-mall." They would just need to be quality creators! (Told you, I'm a snob! lol)

Multilevel stores or superstores are NOT a problem in my book, but, give me easy access to view what's above me, and give me easy methods of getting up to the things above me. Have an open area in the center, and either have wide stairs/escalators right in plain view and nearish the entrance, OR put clearly, concisely labled teleporters where I can find them right away. I loved the Slootsville Mall because you could stand in the center and camera-browse the whole place, at least on the "glancing" level. I didn't mind, in that case, not having teleporters or stairs, because it was pretty easy to get up to the upper floors - although, if you're going to go that kind of route, please make high ceilings so that even a hopelessly inept flyer like me can easily land.

Pudding pops. All the way.

(Hope this helps. Sorry for the novel!)

I only explore the area around a store if it invites exploration. If the store is a gigantic mega-mall thinger, then no, I probably don't explore the surrounding area -- odds are that it doesn't belong to the mall owner. On the other hand, even if a store is just a one-room structure, there is not much incentive to explore the surrounding area unless it seems worth exploring.

The problem is that the above is highly subjective.

I enjoy areas that have easy TP-based navigation if they are multi-floor. I like it when a store owner either works with the land (more "natural" gardens) or uses prims to make the land look "developed"cement or tile walkways with small ponds and gardens or planters). OF course, if you have the means, I highly reccommend going the route of the Chaos sim. I wish I could, but that's an expense I can't justify.

It seems that somewhere between the lone kiosk and gigantro mall, there is a happy medium that involves smaller, possibly multi-story structures with pleasant areas to stand or sit about and chat.

As long as it loops "Egypt, Egypt" by Egyptian Lover, I'll be there forever.

Shouldn't this be in some other forum besides general? Like, building.

I own a store so I may be biased



It depends on where I find myself, if I find myself in a commerical sim with seperate shops/buildings I tend to explore more. If I find myself at a mall, generally less.



Sometimes, I'm having trouble deciding what to do with my own store there. I want to start creating prefabs and some kitchen stuff, but don't really have enough room at my shop at the moment.. I've got to decide whether to.. A: Cram it all in - B: Have a top floor connected with a ramp or teleport right on top - Or C: Have an area HIGH up with a teleport up there. I'm stuck on B or C really, PM or IM me if you have an opinion.



Generally, I preffer product specific shops. I usually go out shopping looking for something specific, and enter keywords in find, if I resort to teleporting to some multi-product place it generally takes me a lot longer to find the right bit and see if they have what I'm looking for. If its specific to a certain type of product, I'll teleport there a LOT more often.



I don't generally have walls, but with P2P its different. IF you teleport RIGHT to a doorway or to inside, it doesn't really matter to me..



Pudding Pops

The biggest thing I would like to see when Im shopping is a map or directory where everything is, especially if its a large store. If I am there specifically looking for skins, or clothes, or shoes and I have to wait for the entire place to load to find them .... I leave and go on to the next store.

My store is basically my land - I put my crap down on it and said 'PLAY WITH IT!'

no floor, no roof, a few rocks here and there and a lil fence...

thats about it.

So far it seems to be doing ok.. not getting complaints

I might shuffle my crap around a lil over the next week to make room for more crap

Being a freebie account n00b, I don't really do any shopping except for the "window" variety, but because my ego is big enough to think y'all actually care what I think, here's my 2 bits.



If the area looks interesting, I walk around a little, particularly if the shop isn't part of a mall, where the mall is the only or obviously primary reason for the land being occupied.



Like others have commented, as long as there's an easy way of getting between levels without having to fly and aim for just the right height, I don't mind multi-level shops. My personal preference is the teleporters I've seen around in my wanderings, but stairs or elevators will do in a pinch, too.

Oh, and like Ashley, I would like to see maps for the larger places. On my currently craptacular 256kbit DSL connection, it can take a significant time for a large room to finish drawing, if it's not already cached.



Personally I prefer shop areas with a relatively limited product focus, without trying to stash everything under the sun in the area. If nothing else, given the speed issue, above, with focused product selections I don't have to wait for, say, an avatar section to draw while looking around at scripts.



Not sure what you mean by this.



Trivially easy. Pudding pops, who the heck wants to eat half-rotted milk?

There should be an SL plugin for web browsers, just go to slboutique.com, slexchange.com, or secondserver.net, and get a 3D view of the product, or see the clothes, animations, etc. on your avatar in the browser.

This would enable one to shop and see how things look without having to see gray loading textures or Impeach Bush signs.

Beau, I would suggest a clear floor plan -- maybe a cross shape (with as many "intersections" as you need), with signs clearly denoting the type of items that are in that section. Which means also that you should have sections -- the last time I went to your store, you did have items divided nicely.

If you need to have more than one floor, I would dispense with a ramp, and just make the building taller. People can fly or camera up (There's really no need for a second floor if it's just one store). Put your newest products in the front (near the landing point) so people can easily access them, and have a sign above that says "Newest" or "New" or something like that.

As for color, I would stick to one color theme, like, red and white, or red and black, or blue and orange, or whatever. "Mr P's" has a nice kind of retro feel to it, so red and white may serve you well.

I would keep everything in one room, possibly with partitions to show different sections.

Hope that helps

I'm not your typical shopper, so I'm not sure how much value my comments will have - but here goes:

I have an *extremely* short shopping attention span. If I'm after something specific, I need to be able to find it in under 5 minutes of searching, or I'll end up moving on to the next store.

If its a large store - its helpful to have a clear directory, and make getting from point a to point b as easy as walking. If you're a smaller store, having your vendors organized so its crystal clear which one I need to go to find what I'm looking for increases the likelyhood of a sale from me.

I never impulse-buy - so forcing me to sift thru a bunch of stuff I didn't come for only raises the chances that I might give up & continue my search at the next store.

As far as roaming around the location of a store post-P2P - honestly, I really dont. There'd have to be something cool to catch my attention to get me wandering, else I'll just P2P to the next stop.

If your build is really cool in and of itself, or there's some nifty gadget to draw in my attention - that tends to override my attention span issues, and I'll wander around aimlessly hypnotized

Pudding Pops all the way!

I love both.
Multi floor's and content specific.
When I feel like exploring stuff that people have made I find one the super stores.
So long as the contect is somewhat organized. There are some real messes out there.

Also I like content spesific shops when I look for something in particular.

Basically this is what I do:
If am looking for anything to see whats cool out there to buy. Then I search multi content super stores. Or I ask friends or others where a good super store is.
(if it's not organized well into catagories then I tend to get bored there thou.)

On the other hand,
If I want something in particular then I use the Find button.
I look for content specific stores that way.

Generally I spent more time around the super stores. Because I don't know what's all out there and I'm curious. Even thou I may not buy anything unless it really has something cool and different.

And strangly, I BUY more from content specific stores. But that is only because I know what I am looking for when I go to them. And they tend to be texture shops, animation stores, etc.
Stuff I can use for builds I do.
So if your market is more toward targeting builders then I would stick to content specific.

Just my thoughts.

Like others here, when I shop, I'm looking for something specific, and I'll TP to place in hopes of finding it quicky and with little wandering required.

I generally don't visit malls, and get ticked off when I'm plopped down in a courtyard or some other telehub-substitute, where I'm then expected to search out which building I need to actually be in for what I want. However, if I'm presented with an easy and quick navigational tool (teleporters) right off the bat, it assuages me enough to get me to stick around for more than a second.

Sometimes, rarely, will I actually stand in a place that sells many different things and take my time to closely look at everything available, just out of curiosity. Oddly enough, in a really great place with loads of great merchandise, where I see lots of stuff that I feel I absolutely MUST have, I end up feeling overwhelmed, unable to decide between them all, and end up leaving, buying nothing.

That, or all the camera-ing around I do (which I do more than walking or flying around when I'm shopping), zooming in on bazillion different pieces of merchandise, fatigues me and I move on to do something else!

Multi-level stores which don't have a TP or elevator method of getting around (like Curious Kitties, for instance; fun merchandise, but such a chore browsing there because it's a pain to fly through the holes to get to the different floors!) drive me crazy. x_x

I don't shop at all in mish-mash square-box malls; I see one of those, and I TP away instantly. I like nice architecture and organized merchandise.

So, yeah, direct TP to a small shop where I can quickly find exactly what I want is much more likely to part me with my Lindens than anything else.