How Do I Open a Store on SL?

I am very new to this site and I want to set up a store that sells adult novelties. Can someone show me or tell me how to do this? Thanks

1. Buy land or rent stall space or rent vendor space.
2. Set up vendors or individual prims to sell to the public
3. a)If you want to use your land for a store, buy or build a storefront, place vendors or
prims in your store
b)If you rented space, place vendors or prims in that space
4. Advertise.
5. Let the vendors/prims do their thing. Go create some more goodies.

That's the short answer. The long answer, I'm sure, will come with someone with a lot more experience than I have, and will include more and better information that I have. But your post looked lonely.......

Come by my store and I'll show you what I've done, if you'd like.

A

You forgot "Classified Advertising" ... L$50 is enough, you don't need to spend thousands just to get "top listing" because people will still find what they're looking for at the bottom - in fact, because of the silly prices some people are paying, some search from bottom upwards as a matter of principle.

Unless you own the land, you won't appear in 'search' under places, but a selection of well chosen search keywords would help there too if you have land.

One thing to remember is that although Second Life is generally advertised as an opportunity to make money, out of the whole population very few people actually cover their monthly costs let alone make a profit. So if you're expecting to retire early, buy a yacht and a private carribean island ... Second Life probably isn't the place!

Broccoli

"Adult Novelties" are popular items in SL. That means you'll have a large market, but also a LOT of stiff competition. (Pun intended)

I will highly advise that before you try to start that business, you want to learn as much as you can about building things with prims, making detailed and realistic custom textures, making your own animations, and making scripts. You'll need all of those skills to make a dent in the existing market in SL for "Adult Novelties".

I think the number 1 step before the other steps listed above is:

You need to have a product to sell.

Having an idea of what you want to sell is nothing in SL.

Personally, I recommend making a product to sell before buying land.

thanks everyone. I have no clue what a prim is but I get the big picture here. To be totally honest, what i would love to be able to do is actually use SL as an avenue to draw individuals to my actual website where I have over 3300 product/movies. I no expectations to make millions or even thousands of dollars of a store on SL. Just want to have some fun with it and maybe make enougth to cover the monthly fees. Who do i go to if i want to find some space to rent???? A - what is the name of your store. I would love to see it.

This is a little bit different than opening a SL store to sell virtual goods.

You want to gear your virtual store more towards marketing and promotion.

Here's some things to consider:
Firstly, many SLers have a bit of resentment to RL companies using SL to advertise their RL businesses....in my opinion, it's a little narrow-minded.. but it still exists. Many residents will take counter measures to not be subjected to your advertisements. My advice on this is to tread lightly, especially at first. Get a sense of the world and the community before you begin blasting people with spam and ads they didnt ask for. There is an article (i think it's on reuters.com or cnet.com) that talks about the steps RL businesses should take to work their way into the SL world.

Secondly, no one wants spammage... you can have a creative approach by utilizing the capabilities of SL instead of just using SL as a marketing tool because there are a lot of people. Consider creating a interactive virtual store which your underlying goal is to get people to your website but it's not that aparent thats what your doing.

Some options might be that you create the objects you sell in SL, and when someone buys your SL object, they get offered a discount to also buy the RL object. Another option is to become partners with a content creator.. and you and that person split the virtual world proceeds.

In my opinion, just try to be creative and use SL to add to your business rather than using SL. For example, if you're in SL and you post a classified ad that says 'go to my website' no one will bother (because it's 100% RL related).

You have a LM waiting on you ingame. Dunno if I can name names in this forum.

A

I in no way want to spam or anything like that. I was hoping to do exactly what you said about someone buying a virtual product and then also offered the option to go to my real webstore if they would also like to purchase the real thing. Thats all. I hate spam myself and in fact, my webstore has absolutely no links, no spam, no pop up no pop unders no nothing. You get only a thank you and your tracking number from me when you purchase because i do not like those salespeople who chase you down as soon as you step foot in a store myself and would never do that to anyone on the web either. I think it is unprofessional myself. Maybe that is why i dont have as many sales......