A question for the shoppers

I enjoy shopping - its a form of recreation for me. I needed a new desk and chair for my study so I searched for "desk." I made SURE that mature was checked. I started at the bottom of the list to make sure that I wasn't hitting any camping sites. I checked EVERY place on the list and found a few places I liked. Out of, maybe 10 0r 12 places, [I don't recall how many exactly] about 3 of them had lag so bad I got impatient and Tped to thenext place up the list. I did find EXACTly what I wanted about mid way up the list. I finished my shopping, working my way to the top of the list. I then went back to where I found the one desk I REALLY liked and purchased it. I had no problems with the purchase or with rezxing it and the desk chair I bought, once I got home.

I enjoyed the shopping trip and I am pleased with what I bought. Later that evening I went shopping for a table at a store I have bought furniture from before. Same thing - no problems whatsoever.

I hope this helps!

Um... once you mentioned the phone weasel t-shirt (which I did grab--LOVE it), I knew which store you're talking about. I'll be in-world later today (after I grab some lunch), and I'll swing by and take a look at it. I'll IM you my thoughts--but honestly, I remember nothing about the store itself.

Kam

On second thought, I'll do it here.

There are a couple of things you might want to consider. (And don't forget what's been mentioned before, either. Spring Break and Weather probably do account for a substantial percentage of your sales fall-off over the past week.) These are meant as constructive criticisms, btw, nothing else:

1) Your store LOOKS empty. This doesn't send the best of all possible messages to your customers. Either downsize your building, or throw out some furniture that looks warm and inviting. Either way, fill up the place while leaving clearly delineated and easily navigable traffic areas. In other words, make the place look like business is being done there. I have found that people will wait longer for things to rezz if the place looks full--but if it looks empty, the rhetorical message sent to the customer is "Nothing happening here, move on." As a result, customers don't wait as long for things to rezz.

2) Your store is bounded on all four sides, making teleportation into the store the only viable route to it. If I hadn't TPed in, I never would have found it. Now, given number one, you might downsize the store a bit and add outside landing space... but honestly, Trent Farm is kind of crowded right now. Find a place on a road if you can. If you can't afford the move, then I definately would consider buying or creating some space around the outside of your store. From the outside, your store is just another face in the crowd, if for no other reason that it's crowded out there. (The boxy nature of the store doesn't help here either--but more on that later.)

3) Your store doesn't do justice to your clothing line. Your colors are bright and cheerful, and the graphics really indicate that you have a quality product line. But the pictures have a black background and are placed against black walls. Try (just try) switching one of your walls to a white texture and watch how those pictures jump out. Not only will the vendors be more obvious, but the almost jewel-like quality of the clothing textures will be enhanced as well.

4) The black and red color scheme of your shop certainly appeals to ME, but it is also more than fairly suggestive of vampires. If you're not catering to that clientele exclusively, you might want to reconsider going for a brighter, more urbane look. You might also consider making your store more architecturally interesting. Your store isn't particularly distinguishable from the other buildings in the sim, (as I suggested earlier) so I'd consider doing something more stand-outish here. Though I'm not sure that would improve your sales, it certainly wouldn't hurt them.

5) Your product line is still small and needs to be expanded. While you do have loads of items out for sale, there are only 8 actual pieces for sale, with everything else being a variation of color and texture on the basic design. That's fine, but you'll sell out quickly. For example, a person looking for a red top will probably find a couple of things to buy in your store, but they won't find more than 8 things. Once they've bought those 8 things, they may come back to your store eventually, but if you haven't increased the size of your product line, there's really no incentive to come back more than once. Building a repeat business is key to the success of any store. Keep adding products and you'll keep people coming back.

6) If you wish to focus on women's clothing, I'm not going to argue. The simple fact is that women's clothing has always sold better, both in SL and outside of it. But also bear in mind that the SL community is growing, and that US customers constitute only fifty percent (probably less) of the total. Growing numbers of European and Asian men are entering the game, and they want clothing that goes beyond the T-Shirt/Jeans/Boy-Next-Door look that has dominated the male clothing lines in SL. I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record on this one, but men's fashion is NOT found in the Sears and J.C. Penny catalogs. And while the whole Abercrombie and Fitch thing is popular in SL, I swear to God that the first person to open true men's fashion house (think Dolce and Gabanna, Max Mara, Missoni, 0044, Vier5 Fashion Department of Germany, Francois Hadaya, Ungaro, Balenciaga, Lagerfeld and Veronique Branquinho) is going to CLEAN UP in SL. [/rant] (Sorry, it's a sore point for us SLetrosexuals.)

7) Expand your market. You've only got one store, buried on a small plot in a crowded sim (at least that part of it is). Consider opening a second, CHEAP mall shop as advertising, and if you haven't done it already, get listed on the SLExchange AND SLBoutique. (I'm still clearing thousands a week in sales, and I'm ONLY listed on the Exchange--I don't even have an in-world store.)

ANYWAY, your women's stuff is really excellent. Make more of it at the very least. Overall, I think you've got a good store. But I honestly do think your skills as a clothing maker are not being shown off to their best advantage. Of course, as others have pointed out, there are several factors over which you have no control that are at work here. But these you DO have control over and making some adaptations will, I think, boost your sales somewhat.

Kam

Great critique -- I've read and re-read for any points that may apply to my own store (some definitely do).

The biggest challenge for me in starting up a business is that every minute I take for marketing and display improvements is a minute I can't spend on creating more products.

I'm also at that really awkward stage where I have a small inventory to offer for sale, but I still need to take time for making store signs and policy signs, and decorating. I need to make gift certificates, info cards, freebies, and smaller ticket items, not to mention build a main store that will pull together the stuff I have spread out at various little kiosks that are too cramped to offer room for the extras.

I want to do ALL those things, but I also absolutely must expand my inventory. The only thing that doesn't expand is my time.

Sigh.

Thanks Kam, this stuff really is gold for a new business owner

I'm continuing to work on my new shop, I've given in and put store bought wallpaper up, so it's looking a little more presentable and neutral.

I'm also completly redoing everything, almost none of what's on sale now will make it into the new shop. I'm really pushing hard to raise my game, I'm adding more detail to what I make, moving away from standard SL skirts in favour of felxi skirts....most of what I'm making nore doesn't make it to the wall.

I'm also trying to vary the backdrops for my posters, I had origionaly decided that everything had to be uniform, same size and colour, everything lined up neatly. right now I'm trying to add variety where I can, themed backdrops for each outfit.

I'm also toying with the idea of using swatches instead of a different pic for each colour. that would save space and certianly speed things up

I'm already on SLB and sell vitualy nothing there. I do, however, give away freebies there, which I'm hoping will go towards promotion. I have set up loads of satalite stores around SL, I had over 20 at one point, some small some large, but most didn't sell enough to even cover their rent, so I pulled back to just a handful.

Cloving designer who chase two wabbit catch neiver. My plan is to get women's clothes sorted then move onto somthing else. I've been asked about mens clothing in the past, so if I can come up with a cool look I'll set up Vale Male

I'm not sure if you've seen my new shop, but it's on a nice big plot on a private island. Right now it's even more empty than my mainland shop, I'm going to hang on until it's more full before relaunching.

If you want to take a look, here's the SLURL, but keep in mind that it's still a work in progress:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tornado/95/225/24

Let me know what you think

Vale

Good gravy! I just logged in and I've sold loads today

Yay me!

Could be that things are starting to pick up again, onwards and upwards!
Vale

Oh, did we forget to mention the obvious? POST IN THE FORUMS AND PUT YOUR BUSINESS IN YOUR SIGNITURE! (It helps a LOT.) LOL

I didn't know you had other stores. I only looked at your profile, rather than searching for places. You might want to check to make sure your Classifieds haven't lapsed and that all of your locations are listed in your Picks.

Kam

I am still. But I noticed pretty much right away that the Mature box was unchecked, because I was trying to find a place in search that I'd just been to a few days before, and it wasn't showing up.
Since the viewer update I've bought: a fireplace, 2 different hoodies, a silly avatar, AVpack, and some prim eyes.
Like a lot of people, I'm wary of buying anything expensive or nocopy shortly after an update and when I'm hearing about/seeing a lot of rezzing issues.
Also, I'm starting to look for stuff on SLexchange more and more. Though I've yet to make an actual purchase on it, usually I'll visit the ingame store if there is a location provided. It's simply a lot easier to find specific things on there.