Good asking price?

I am starting my SL career making shoes, but my question to all you designers/business people is how much should you charge for a product with full rights so the buyer can reproduce them and sell them? I know it is hard to say because it depends on how good the shoes are and/or how long they took to make, but what is the average asking price? Never thought about this part of the job! lol Well thanks for your help and please feel free to contact me in world! Any advice is not only needed but welcomed!

Jeni

DISCLAIMER: I was extremely tired when I wrote this post, and my tone was not what it should have been. In the interest of preserving thread continuity, I'm not deleting it, but I have edited out a comment or two, I've posted an apology in a reply below.

-Chosen



Forgive my bluntness, but I'm not sure what this has to do with texturing, so I don't really get why it's in this particular forum. And I kind of hate "contact me in-world" requests. Answering your question in-world helps you and only you, which pretty much makes your asking the question on the forums a waste of everyone's time. Answering it here helps hundreds if not thousands of people all at once, which is what the forums are for. If you can come here t ask the question, you can certainly come back to read the answer.

Anyway, to get to your actual question, if you want to know what shoes cost, how about looking around and seeing for yourself what others are charging? That's usually the best way to go about deciding what to charge for anything. What I would suggest is you visit a few malls, check out other shoes, and see what they cost. If you feel yours are superior, charge more than your competitors. If not, charge less. In other words, run your SL business just like a RL business.

I'm a little confused as to your intent though. You say you want to sell your stuff with full perms so that others can resell them. I'd suggest that that's a really bad idea. The minute full perm copies of your stuff start floating around, you'll have people giving them to all your friends for free. Then they'll give it to their friends, and their friends, and their friends... By the time it's gone down a generation or two, you lose all possible control, and all ability to sell. Most of the people distributing free, copyable copies won't even know that the item was ever on sale for money in the first place.

It's a little different if you're talking about textures, maybe, since there's not really much choice there with the permissions if you want people to be able to use them on salable products, but for finished products of your own, never sell them with full permissions.

Chosen, I believe Jeni is asking for advice.

Jeni..as Chosen pointed out your career may well be short lived if you allow others to duplicate then sell your items. What benefit will this have for you?

Prices will depend upon many, many variables including how detailed they are, their popularity, how well built....etc. You'll have to do some leg work and see what others sell for.

Best wishes on your new venture!


~Ari

Well Chosen I thought this was a good place to discuss designing which is what I did with shoes and I said "Any advice is not only needed but welcomed". And having someone get back to me in world I figured would be a quick and easy way if need be.

But the question was to see what other people did when they sold their items they have made. I have been around to check prices but that is to sell the one pair over and over. I have been asked to make shoes that could be bought out right but I dont know how much you charge for that considering another person will make money off of a product I made.

Anyway thank you Ari for the advice, I am a little nervous about selling out right , but that is why I can here for input So I thank you!

You're welcome Jeni.

If someone is going to make money from your creation, and if you are going to basically sell them the item PLUS the rights to it, then you need to consider how much you may be losing in order to determine your asking price.

For example: one pair of shoes they may sell for L$200. Sell it 10 times $L2000.
That's how I would calculate it.

As for selling them as your own creation....if you're insecure, then give a pair to friends that you trust. Ask them for HONEST feedback compared to other shoes they have purchased. Constructive criticism is one of the best ways to improve AND you can learn what prospective customers like or do not like about your items.

I still do this when I create a new item...and it's so helpful to have another person look at your work with some new insight...seeing it from a different viewpoint if you will or even from a non-builder/designer's perspective.

Let us know how it goes.

~Ari

I wouldn't sell anything of any quality with full perms. You'll never know how much money you just handed someone. If you did go that route though I'd ask an obscene amount of money. Unless of course it was something like a quick and easy set of prims for somene to add to their own shoe texture, even then I'd make it quite expensive as you are once again, handing them a portion of their product. Now, if you trust someone that is doing this and they want to sell your shoes with an outfit you could always ask for a percentage of sales as well.

But in a nutshell, I'd make it a rule of thumb not to sell anything to anyone w/full perms.

Whoops looks like I misread the "advice needed" line. Sorry about that. I guess that's what happens when you're up at 5:30 in the morning for no good reason, and you decide to go forum-ing. I really thought it said "not needed". Oops.

I've edited my post to remove that part. Again, I apologize.

I also realize the tone of my post was a bit harsh, so I'm sorry for that too. I'll try to think twice next time before posting on such little sleep.

Hi Jeni!

If I'm reading this right, you have one person asking you to make shoes for them to sell. Right? As opposed to considering putting shoes with full perms into a vendor or something? (Which would, IMHO, be a really, really bad idea. Might as well just put them out for free, as a promo, if you're going to do that.)

If this is just for a single person to resell, though, I would agree with Auryn; ask for a percentage, not for any flat amount. Most vendor scripts are set up to automatically allow the vendor to send part of the proceeds of any sale to two or more Avatars, so this is very easy and doesn't require any book-keeping.

How large a percentage depends on how much work each of you are doing. Are you doing the prims, texturing and scripting, and they are just plunking them in a vendor? Are you doing the prims, and they are doing the texturing, scripting and marketing? How vigorously are they intending to market the shoes? (There's a huge difference in sales between just putting them out in one small shop, and putting them in a series of booths all over the grid, buying full page ads in various fashion magazines, buying a classified ad, posting them on the New Products forum, or otherwise actively promoting them.)

So the two of you will have to work something out that you are both happy with. But yeah, percentage is the way to go with this, IMHO.

Hope this helps!

I just wanted to thank everyone who gave me some input and insight! I am trying to get the hang of the business aspect of the game so thank you!!

[left]couldn't you just sell the items wholesale...i know it might be kind of a pain in the butt...but you could send them a set amount of copies of the shoes (no copy of course) and then when they run out you send them more and they pay you. that could work, right? i can see that having it's problems too but it would be a way to ensure that you would get paid.

Also aren't there vending machines that let you set a percentage to sell your goods so that the seller and the creator get whatever percentages they set them to?
[/left]

I have been thinking about it and came to the conclusion to do a wholesale price. Funny thing is haven't heard back on that suggestion Again thank you all for your help and advice! Without this forum I would probably be crying somewhere in a corner rocking myself to sleep! lol ok maybe not but you guys have been loads of help!!

Jeni

yeah i just put up some blank baseball caps on sl boutique...i normally sell one for $15-$20L...i put 10 hats in a box for $100L....they are all mod and transfer, no copy, so that people can change them up and resell them at any price if they like...we'll see if anyone actually buys them though.

it's kind of a pain if someone wanted to use the hats to promote their business...they will have to retexture each hat one by one. But I put a note in there that if they want multiple hats with the same texture they can have me texture it for them. then i can send them however many copies that they want.