Noobish wanna-be retailer needs your help!

I have been accumulating a heap of random stuff I have made, and am interested in trying to sell my wares. However, I am very poor and will be starting very small, probably just renting a spot somewhere. I spent a great deal of time today looking at spaces, fiddling with different types of vending machines, and now...my brain has melted.
Do any established retailers out there have any suggestions for someone just starting out?
What types of vending machines do you reccomend?
What kind of locations do you favor?
How the heck do you get listed under 'places' in the find menu?
If I put my items in a vending machine will they keep self replicating, or do I have to mark them a certain way? (yes, I'm just THAT cluless)

Basically, I'd love any advice you've got and are willing to share!
Thank You

Vending:
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Make sure items are marked with appropriate permissions - which can be tricky. Generally there's two accepted standards: copy/no-trans and trans/no-copy. Realize permissions of an object does not alter contents of the object - so if you sell something with a script in it, you have to consider what permissions you want on the scirpt as well as the object.

one thing to remember - you can mark an object however you like, but it will be restricted by its contents. In other words, if you have a copyable object with a no-copy item inside it, then you won't be able to copy it unless you remove the no-copy item. It's tricky, yeah... best thing to do is no matter what the project, have a second av receive the items and check your permissions

I have store and boardwalk spaces available for rent, walls and stalls for $25-$50 near telehubs, precisely with the new person in mind trying to get visibility and break into the business.

The listing in FIND PLACES is directly attached to land descriptions, so you must either own or rent land to get access to this feature.

Many malls cannot enable you to be in FIND PLACES because you have to be the sole person or business on that patch of property, i.e. the property cannot have multiple floors/users, etc.

This requires a separate, marked parcel so that your name and description can be written on the parcel. The officer of the land group is the only one who can do this marking. They click of the option that enables the listing, and it costs $30/week.

You have to make sure that your business description then becomes the name of the land parcel's name, and the description contains your businesss description and has the right key words to enable people to find your store.

Some other tips --

After you have bought or rented such a lot, stand on it and make a landmark by going to the top of your game menu and pulling down "world" and "make landmark here". Or even if you are just renting space not marked, you can make a landmark and rewrite it yourself once it is in your inventory. That becomes your calling card. You can put that into a landmark giver or notecard giver -- sometimes you can find free or very inexpensive space just big enough for the landmark giver. Notecard giver scripts are available free right on this website in the script library. You paste the landmark on to a notecard, and then drag the notecard into a prim's contents then put some kind of texture on that prim.

Be sure also to stand near your store and press "PICKS" on your own profile to have the location go into your own PICKS. You can also rewrite that description with you own description and name.

Place ads in "new products" or "shopping" periodically.

Advertising can be difficult in this game, where there are regulations against spamming, and some people dislike it if you sell your own wares at yard sales, etc. Just look for informal opportunities to spread the word about your items.

Lots of good advice already given here, and I'll add a couple of things:

- Renting is certainly a great way to go when you are first starting out. Especially if you prefer not to be a land owner. You can of course do a FIND in places and type in Rent or Rental. Also check out the classifieds area here on the forums. This may help you find other options (if for some reason you choose not to go with the rental places already given). If you already have a premium account, and want to go with your own land, this of course gives you the most options. First Land is also the cheapest you will find. However, due to prim limits being tied to the amount of land you own, you may find that you can put out more items if you rent from a larger land holder than you could if you just had your own small plot.

- You also may want to have your items in more than one place at first. This can help you with marketing. If you name your boxes or vendor something slightly different for each place, you can see where you are getting more traffic. This can help you decide if the location is good for your items (and your money) or not.

- Not sure if you are selling clothing, but here is a tip if you do: Vendors help save on prims, but many people still prefer to buy directly from boxes and take advantage of the "buy contents" option. This saves them having to buy a box from a vendor and then manually take items out. I do have a script in world (couldn't find it on the forums again just now) that you can put into each of your boxes that are inside your vendor, and it will allow someone to auto-rez the items from the box when they take it out of their inventory. IM me in world and I'll be happy to drop you a copy of the script (this goes for anyone actually). It is really simple and just gets put into each individual clothing box. The other disadvantage to vendors is having to scroll through a ton of items. But, some people don't mind. I use a mix of vendors and boxes. My items seem to sell just as well using either one.

- Again if you sell clothing; make sure any pictures you take of yourself (or someone else) to put on the box cover are done with a light color background. I rez up a simple platform and put the same size on one end top to bottom. Makes a little staging area where I can then take photos. I just use a white background, but you can of course choose any you like. I suggest checking out some of the shops that are high up on the list, and see how they display their items. There are some really creative ways to display things rather than just plopping them out onto the ground or wall.

- Rather than put all your items out at once, put them out in rotation. And continue to make new items. Give customers a reason to come back and visit on a regular basis!

- Listen to feedback from your customers. Different styles and needs for different markets.

Those are my thoughts! And best of luck to you!

Moonson,
Please contact me in world. I own the TiJuana sim, and if you would like a spot its your for free untill you get yourself established.
Have a good one
Stacy Maracas

What a timely thread. Great advice from the veterans, thank you!

Yesterday I rented my first shop and I'm now frantically working up the advertising, signs, and scripting I need to actually open. I got a good deal on a couple of vending machines (Big Blues). I located in an outdoor mall close to a busy Tringo area, which helps with traffic but also makes it laggy. I'll have to live with the lag.

Pendari, I'd love to have a copy of that script. I'm still taking notes on how some of the other shops set up their displays, and I'm taking a new viewpoint from my old one as a consumer. I have new admiration for the "Art of the Display" -- some of the merchants in SL have raised it to a new level.

Trying very hard not to be daunted by the immensity of the task here, but folks like you give me hope Thanks!

Cindy

You can also list your items on SL Exchange. It is free and quite easy to get set up. For shoppers, it works similarly to vendors except they don't have to hunt your items down in-world.

on the same hand slboutique is very good too

for the vending machines you can find several free scripts for them in the script section , or if i remember Hiro Pendragon made a very cheap script pack for this

Sure thing, Cindy! Next time I'm in world (either tonight or tomorrow), I'll drop you a copy. Instructions are written directly into the script, but if you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to IM or PM!

Wow, a lot of great tips from everyone, I really appreciate all the advice! One more question that I'm still a little fuzzy on: when I place an item in a vending machine, does it automatically make a copy of the item and sell that copy? I assume I wouldn't have to keep refilling it with new copies, but I don't really know.

Hi Monsoon

Most vendors will do that automatically - give the buyer a copy of the item(s) placed inside it. So you wont have to keep refilling it once you have all the items placed inside.

If you are setting up a prim to sell the items inside you can choose from the radio buttons on the bottom of the General tab in edit mode when you check for sale field:

Copy - Sells each person that buys from that prim a copy of what's inside.

Original - Sells the whole kit and kaboodle ONCE to whoever buys it first (Not recommended unless you are doing a on-time only special item type deal).

Contents - Sells each person who buys from that prim a copy of what's inside, and all nice and neat in a folder to their inventory. (Unlike with Copy - where it gives them the prim itself with the items inside to unpack)

Hope that helps!

Hi Monsoon. Sounds like you already got some good advice but if you need free or reduced price vendor space please IM me in world. We are always looking to help out new people trying to start a business.