Renting Shop Space

Hello,

I have a shop on my own land that seems to be doing pretty well from my classified and word-of-mouth. I've been wondering how I could expand, however, and am thinking about renting space in a mall or shop.

My question is how do I determine the best place to rent? I know lots of malls have high traffic counts because of camping chairs, dance pads or casino games, but I think this gives a false impression of the true shopping traffic.

How can I determine a location that has a genuinely high number of shoppers, and even better, shoppers looking for the kind of goods I have for sale?

Any advice would be appreciated

Thanks,

Biz

What kinds of goods are you selling?

We have a few money chairs, they dont pay alot, its our way of giving a bit out to the newbies, but it doesnt draw alot. What id do is see how much these things pay, and visit the places, is everyone there in chairs or dance pads, then you know the traffic is from that. But, and this is a big but, maybe some of those ppls shop there too, its a way for mall owners to bring ppl in that mite shop somewhere else. I find i have the same sitters usually, and i do see them shop, so its hard to say what came first the chicken or the egg.

Id find a reasonable rent you can afford, like we charge $50wk/15 prims..and most of my vendors re-up so i think its a choice of whats out there thats affordable and has traffic too...good luck, feel free to IM me in game, if you have any questions, maybe i can help.

Just try one or two. The prices ussualy aren't that high, and often are quickly earned with only a few sales.

When I rent vendor space I look for reasonable prices, fair traffic that doesn't rely on camping items, other well known merchants vendors and occasionally I'll just take a chance and give a brand new mall my business.

Then I name all my boxes (or automated vendors where I happen to use them) with the name of the mall in parenthesis. For example a dress sold in a prim box would read: "Blue satin halter gown (Sala)". If I use a vendor in that space I would name it "Hottie Vendor @ Sala". This way I can keep track of my sales for that place. If my sales surpass my rent I consider it a win and keep renting the space. If my sales about equal my rent I think of it as advertising, just having my name out there, and keep renting the space. If my rent is more than I'm making in sales, I take it down and find a new space.

At my own mall I try to keep traffic good by occasionally throwing out a money ball for a couple of days, plus I have some traffic from the club nearby, and I keep the rental prices fair in comparison with what others are charging, all because those are the things I look for as a renter.

My biggest problem is attracting traffic. I have a mall, well, two actually. They are tied together with teleporters as they are in the same sim. I go with 50 prim limits, give or take {I'm pretty loose as long as everyone has their fair share} and will reward help in upkeep as it's a pretty big task.

I will be charging L$125 per week for those fifty prims, when I get the rent full up. It's not really a lot, but with no traffic, there are no sales.

I have seen a boost in traffic recently, but that was due largely to a shift in my advertising techniques. Only time will tell if it's profitable for people or not.

I include a lot more than just a space and prims in my rent, as well. I include the store name in one classified ad, and a list of all the assorted content in another. I also include a directory listing for each of the malls in each of my teleporters, so if people are looking for a specific store, they find it easier.

There appears to be a consequence for all this usability, though. Often, people come by looking for a specific store or product, look at the directory, and go directly to the store{s} selling them. Then they make their purchase{s} and leave. In other words, more findability = less traffic.

Maybe I should just copy those giant malls with lots of traffic. I've pretty much stopped shopping at those stores because of lack of directories and other aids in finding stuff. But I must admit, while I was trying, I would sometimes spend hours just trying to find the store that took me there.

I hate those malls. I give directions to my stall in my ad. Yes, it cuts down on traffic if you don't have an ad for your mall. However, even if people just arrive for one stall, they may still buy from another. And having stalls that do business encourages people to stay and keep renting.

I try to encourage my renters to go ahead and make a classified ad directing customers straight to their vendors in my mall. (Friendly reminder to those renting from me, you can you know ) And I set up the mall so that there are two entrances top and bottom and from either one you can see all the way around with no obstructed views. I realize that probably cuts down on the wandering around searching kind of traffic but I feel it's better for the shoppers, plus with being able to see all the other vendors clearly too, something they weren't looking for necessarily might catch their interest.

I take great pride in listing the shop names and what they sale in the classifieds as well as the directory functions of my teleporters. But like I said, it didn't seem to draw much traffic until the changed the find system. Now it appears to draw a little more traffic, but I do not know if it will help my merchants or not. Only time will tell.

Also, I wonder if these features and services are even truly desired? It seems most malls I've seen don't offer anything remotely close to this. I thought the purpose of a mall was to get stores seen, and make them easily found to attract business to them.

I guess this is not the case, however. Even so, I will continue to operate with these services and hopefully one day someone will see my mall as a "Pioneering Mall Ahead Of It's Time."

I have had the promenade mall in Clarksburg now for more then a year and a half and for that entire time we have averaged a traffic number around 1200 with out ever having anything but the mall and merchants as a draw. at the Promenade you get a fairly low rent with a fairly high prim count.

as for malls in general best advice i can give you is take a chance if it looks like a nice mall the owner is friendly and the price is right then go for it. The average mall rents space on average for 100 -400 L$ a week for 25 -100 prims. Like others mentioned above I name all my items with the the mall name or some kind of code at the end of the Item name. That way you can keep track of what you sold where.


good luck
Crucial

Just thought I would add that I, like many of my friends, no longer shop in malls that use camping chairs etc to draw the traffic figures up. Quite simply, a decent place doesn't need to do this.

I admit though, that I but things from actual shops far more than from malls. So many malls are just so messy looking. You can never find what it is you are looking for. If I want shoes, for example, so much easier to just go to either a dedicated shoe seller or a big shop with a clearly marked shoe section. Seeing that shoes are sold in a mall is interesting, but in practice it means flying/walking around for ages to find the possibly tiny shoe seller amongst the many stalls. Also, many malls have search words for items that are, in fact, not actually represented in their stalls anymore - and that is SOOOO annoying!

Just my five pennyworth, lol

Here was my take on building a mall many months ago and I still believe in it today.

1) It had to be pretty, an attractive place to walk through.
2) It had to have real shops with a doorway and not just a 10x10 box.
3) Each and every store would have its only bit for a Search-places listing (it was Find-Places then, and now additionally gives them all their own landing point).

Things I do for my renters:

a) list them in my own classified ads.
b) Customize the interior textures to their liking. I do not make them waste their prims covering over whatever my default wall/floor happens to be.
c) I do not require a group. This wastes precious group space and/or necessitates needless adding/deleting/readding group membership. It doesn't take that long to play janitor every day. Its a bit more of a pain when we're bombed, but no big deal.
d) I provide the primage for their signs.

The mall is host to a number of gorgeous ice sculptures, testimony to the build contest held early in its existence, though they will be removed at the end of this weekend to make way for a new contest, and, in turn, a new crop of sculptures for display.

I do not use camping chairs, dance pads, or the like to stimulate traffic. I had slingo solo machines out, but they cost more than they were worth to run (yes, they are for sale if anyone wants them). There are no casinos or clubs on the premises.

In all, I could have a lot more renters and bring in a lot more money if my shops weren't quite so big and my mall wasn't as pretty, but an empty shop is pretty rare and I've been known to have a waiting list to get in. Yes, I've had shop owners that just didn't make rent there, for whatever reason, but the rest do great and stay. I have many of my original renters still with me and I think that dates back to October or November of last year. In SL years, that's a long time.

As for advice on how to find a good mall, ask the other renters. Ask them what they think of the proprietor of the mall, how their sales are, what the benefits and drawbacks are for the location. They'll know better than anyone if its a good mall or not.


Char

There's a great post on the Caveat Empor blog about that subject.

I took the time to create a report script for my stores. Basically, once a week I get a report from each store telling me not only what my sales were but also who took note cards curious about my products (no need for sensor script in such circumstances).

This way I can quickly tell if a mall is worth the money or not. I'll try about any mall for a week or two to test them.

And it's real strange which malls actually pay off and which ones don't. Typically, the most expensive ones never pay off (I have one exception to this). Interestingly, almost all of the free malls I'm in do good business.

Thanks, Jackal, that was a great link.

Thank all of you for your responses. I am very pleased to have gotten so many ideas so quickly!

Viva la SL Forums!