How to get noticed

I've started selling prefab houses, but my shop has yet to even have someone pass by it (other than the owner of the sim). My XStreetSL indicates that only 5 people have looked at my 3 houses combined. I'd like tips on how to get my stuff noticed without paying out the rear.

Get in a hunt and give away a quality gift you made.

FYI it took me an entire year to build a brand. Nothing happens overnight in SL unless at the behest of Linden Lab.

Choose your keywords wisely in land description. I'm sure you have "prefabs" already but if you add "prefbs" people who make the typo will find you...

The typonese community is an important part of SL and shouldn't be ignored.

I couldn't find any keywords? Aren't they listed in the bottom of the ads? I often search on XStreetsl.

I will not sound rude, but your pictures don't catch my intrest. They are a bit dark. If I have a page of residential structures up, I doubt that I would open just your ads and look at them.

You don't state if you have any security, lockable doors, blinds or tinted windows. Your houses look a bit overpriced, especially when it's so much competition. For 300-750 L other merchants pump out promo houses that are fully furnished and comes with fireplaces, radio, teleports to second floor, lights that can be turned on and off, and all the other neat stuff that people like to play with. It is really hard to offer a basic house in such a market.

forget all that... just be different. niche market economy in SL is a way faster method of getting up to speed...

look at those damn scion chickens... who'd have thought anyone would buy those?

but sure enough, they got a small niche market, and became a unique frenzy of "ooo I want one too".... that's when you've got people coming in word of mouth, and then you can push the less unique wares too...

Okay, I knocked the prices down a bit, but I'm not willing to go any lower than this... and I don't own any land, just a shop.

Are you renting anywhere? If so, you can be able to negociate a few keywords with the mall owner (at least "prefabs".

Now if you are not visible in search place no wonder why you don't get noticed at all.

And people will want to actually see your prefabs before buying them... Best for you would be to rent a land, even a small one where you could show your builds and add it to Search Places.

Be prepared to never be noticed. Don't spend any more time or cash that your real life can afford. Earning money in SL is far from a certainty. Take all vague success stories with a grain of salt. Most of them are talking about very small amounts of RL money.

Ok, I looked at your stuff. I look at a lot of stuff all the time because I too want to learn how to build. Chances are I looked at most builders stuff already and also looked at the stuff that is popular and also the stuff that never sells. Plus people send me pics of what they made all the time.. even more stuff to look at and try to learn from.

Bottom line is for you to get noticed you have to declare that your product is better or more unique or more functional than the other product in that same category.

From looking at your 3 listings, the very first impression I got was "Unfinished" so even if I were looking to buy a house in that size range I would not consider them.

I am not going to pick apart the builds but you should try to reduce the amount of prims that you used for these. Most quality houses in that size range have a much lower prim count. You should also build knowing what the prim count and actual dimensions of typical parcels are. ( list the foot print size of the houses in your listings btw)

Remember that a 512 is usually only 16 x 32 with 117 prims.. a 80 Prim house that looks empty does not leave many prims for furniture or stuff that people use.


The only thing you can do is keep building and learning. Learn about prim saving building techniques like cuts and hollows and definetly learn about texturing. But the most important thing is to look at houses in that price range that appear to be selling and see what makes them special enough to where people buy them.

Remember there are no set rules about what it takes to generate sales but it always helps if you compare what you are doing with what others are doing and learn from it.


Good luck

You can also supplement your XStreetSL listings on other commerce sites.
http://www.metaverseexchange.com/

http://www.slapt.me

is also worth listing on but then I am bias but come and look and judge for yourself I will let our growth figures and metrics speak for themselves

From my experience as a small trader, getting noticed is not easy and can be down to luck.

I used to sell more stuff than I do now, despite my more recent products being better quality and better value for money.

You have to remember too that your main competition is from freebies. I have a few items available as freebies and loads of those go, but very few priced items.

For a lot of people in SL, the difference between L$ 0 and L$ 1 is the difference between a bargain and a rip-off.

Personally, I enjoy learning new things and building. Each time I build I learn something new, but I build it for ME not with someone else in mind. I don't build things thinking I am going to make a bunch of Ls off of it if I chose to sell it. If I did that, I would be so frustrated I would of give up building a long time ago. I spend more money on tier, textures, animations, scripts each month than I will ever make back from selling items. Yet, I do all this because it gives me personal satisfaction. If I sell something, fine...if not, oh well I had fun doing it and move on to another project.

It takes time to establish a brand. I know I am still trying to establish mine after almost two years. Something you like when you build it is not necessarily something that someone else will like. There are some items I have created I have never had viewed nor a sale. It is just the nature of the selling game.

You are on the right track asking for the opinion of others. We all do things differently, have different reasons for building/selling, all have our own style and opinions on the subject. See how others do things. Search the forums and blogs from the past for advice as well. Look at listings on XStreetSL from other merchants (mine tend to be extremely wordy) to see how they create their ads and display their products. Visit in-world shops and note how they do things as well. Most of all just keep plugging away at it if you are truly interested in building and selling.

Good advice on improving your product quality.

A good house will pay attention to several factors.
1. Prim count. Keep it low, keep it within the limits of the parcel size the house is designed to fit.
2. Texturing. Original textures are best. But whatever you use, they must be high quality, seamless, and perfectly matched.
3. Design. The house should have high enough ceilings for camera clearance, good flow, doors and stairways that are easy to navigate. The design should be appealing, no matter the style.
4. Footprint. Make sure it will fit on the standard 512/1024/2048 or whatever.
5. Features. At a minimum, the windows should tint or there should be blinds, the doors should lock, have open/close sounds, have a configurable access menu. In-house teleporters are very handy. Switchable lighting is a desirable feature. Scripted furniture with multiple sit poses is good, but only use it in places "unique" to your house. People will want to place their own furniture in the "usual" places.

Make sure your advertising clearly states the prim count, footprint (both dimensions and the size plot that's best), and permissions.

Pricing. You'll have to sell for less than you probably think they are worth. The market's very competitive. High priced houses have a LOT of unique features and take a LONG time to design and perfect.

Getting Noticed. See the thread "Advice on Sales". Put your store in your Picks. Get your friends to put it in THEIR Picks. Run a classified ad. Be sure your parcel can be found in Search. Run promotions. Have a store group and send out notices. Join a merchants' collective group like "Cheap Peeps" to reach a wider audience. If you have friends with popular stores, rent a little space from them to put up an ad board and landmark giver. The key to marketing is to do it ALL the time, EVERYWHERE you can think of. Talk up your creations with your friends. Never miss an opportunity to tell someone about your product.

Reaching people is hard. Getting them to come look is harder. Getting them to buy is hardest of all. It takes work, at least as much work as creating the thing in the first place.

I would recommend looking at some of your better competitors to see how they do it.

I can think of Vivienne Schell and Fatima Ur off the top of my head. They both sell high quality houses, each in their own market niche, at higher, but not exorbitant prices.

Get a Blog! Make yourself googable - seriously - it's important to be known all over or as much all as you can.

Good luck!

And yes, search this forum for "Advice on Sales" then sit down for a nice long read

When I started my new business I knew the hardest part would be getting exposure so I went out there and advertised.

I posted to the new products section of every SL forum I belong to. I publicized my shop on plurk. I bought ads on a SL forum. I made announcements on Plurk. I made a store blog and got it onto a couple of feeds. I gave away review copies to bloggers whose blogs suggested they were willing to accept submissions. I gave away copies to friends and encouraged them to use them and tell their friends about our new business. I got a subscribe-o-matic and put a nice gift in it to encourage people to sign up for my mailing list. I joined the Designer Showcase Network and sent out a nice gift through that medium.

If you want your business to get noticed, you have to go out there and do the legwork for it. Prefabs are a crowded market, so think about what makes your products different from other prefabs out there and push those qualities in every medium you can think of - blogs, social networks, forums, your own personal networks, paid advertising, everything. It's a lot of work, but with the mature state of the SL economy, it's no longer enough (if it ever was!) to just put your product out on a plot and wait for people to come buy it. You have to build your brand.

I'll add that prefabs are a very crowded and sophisticated market. You should go have a look at what some of the top prefab builders are offering, just to get a sense of what you are up against. There is some really remarkable stuff out there.

Hi Sircorn!

First of all....get your business name under your SirCorn name on your forum post, and add Prefab....so it is descriptive. I don't see a business name in your Xstreet listings. Didn't check your inworld profile....did you pimp yourself out to the max on your profile?

On your cabin....138 prims is a lot of prims for that.

I've got a bunch of landlords/land developers in the store this week, decorating rentals. Business is alive and well in SL and people are developing sims! I would send your prefabs out to some developers at no charge....they might put them in one of their new sims, and decorate them, for rent.....free display. I was out shopping for a rental, and I copied down a bunch of builders names, while doing so. But in order to do that....I think you're going to have to tweak on those prim counts.

You need to know whether or not your prefabs are functioning. Hard to do, without getting yourself a plot of land, and decorating. On that cabin....you're not going to have enough prims left to decorate, once you slap that down on an average lot. You need to know that.

Find yourself a furniture maker to go in and decorate one of those for you. Use that in your pics....just make sure you keep the undecorated pics, and specify that furniture is not included. But it would really spice those up. Make sure it's not ugly furniture. You might need a woman to do this. Add some trees and landscaping, too.

If you really want to get inspired....get yourself a lot to play with. Hard to get inspired by the lay of the land, and the atmosphere of the neighborhood.....when you're building on a platform. Fix it up real cute - decorate it - take your photos - then sell it at a loss and dump it and move to another lot in a different type atmosphere, and do a new style. You should make your profits to cover the dumping of the lot, by selling the prefab over and over again.....that is, if it came out incredible and stunning.

You're off to a good start on your product description....just take it further....if I were looking for that, I would type in Alpine Chalet, Snow Cabin, Tahoe Retreat, Snow Village, Mountain Cabin, A-Frame, Winter Resort, Weekender in the Mountains, Winter Hide-Away......stuff like that.

Also....if you had Bear Skin Rug and Stone Fireplace in your description.....when I went to look for a Bear Skin Rug, for the cabin that I just purchased (but don't really like much)....I would see your listing, because in your description....you said...."Bring your bear skin rug, and snuggle up next to the cozy stone fireplace, for a romantic evening in the mountains." I end up at your listing, and decide to ditch the prefab that I don't like.....and purchase yours.

If you're having fun building houses....don't pay attention to people who tell you that the market is saturated, and that you will never make it.....just keep tweaking and practicing and improving. It may or may not pay off - but if you have fun.....that's what counts. Often times....the more fun you have.....the more stuff you sell.....funny how that works....it all kind of pulls together.

I've been looking at prefabs for months. Can't find what I need in a variety of categories. Not everything has been done, by any means.....and not everything has been done right.....to function for our needs. Market is wide open!

You know, if you just read the thread title and not the content, this thread has real possibilites...

Gentle advisement... after seeing thousands of residents face the same issue you face, on my estate.

Forget all about selling houses right now. Focus on making the best possible house. Just one or two, not a whole bunch right now. You'll need nearly every skill, from texturing to sculpting to scripting, to do it.

Then sell it for top dollar.

Value perception and price go hand in hand, once you have something worthwhile.

* * * * *

You won't even need to advertise. When was the last time you saw an ad for a Rolls Royce or a Lamborghini? You don't see those. You don't need to.

Say you put 120 hours of your life into that house, and you sell each one for $L 10,000 (about 37.25 USD after cashout).

Sell one, you made 37.25/120 or 31 cents an hour.
Sell ten, you made 372.50/120 or 3.10 an hour.
Sell 100, you made 3,725.0/120 or 31 USD an hour.
Sell 1000, you made 37,250/120 or 310 USD an hour.

It's entirely possible to sell 1000 of them over the course of a year; that's about 3 a day. And yes, that's with just ONE house. The next ones will be easier.

Welcome to the super~premium market.

* * * * *

This is how a lot of people who really make money in SL, actually make it. I know of content creators quietly pulling down over 100,000 USD annually, but you'd almost never believe it, to look at their shops. Seemingly low traffic... maybe one or two people there, tops... but the difference is, the customers are actually buying. Ten or 15 things a day.

~ Pull your stuff until you are the best out there
~ Don't cut prices, raise them stratospherically
~ Don't advertise much, if at all
~ Let everyone else be awed, when they discover you

The alternative is to be just another struggling content creator.

Good luck.

which may or may not work... I'd never heard of pocket gardens until I ran across an actual shop location (in nomine if you're curious where your exposure came from) just this last week.

which brings up another point...

ride someone's coat tails... this can be as simple (and expensive) as opening shops at popular locations (where your target audience wanders around) or as complex (but cheaper) as giving away your product to certain locations to use, in return for them sending traffic your way (a bit of low cost advertising there)

Void, we've only been in business 4 months - I'd wager there are a lot of people who haven't heard of us. But the fact that most residents in SL have not yet heard of our little shop isn't really the right measure of how effective our advertising is. The right measure is, are we better known than we would have been without that legwork? And the answer to that is unquestionably and emphatically yes.

Every sale that I have made in those four months is traceable, either directly or indirectly, to a notice I posted somewhere or an ad I bought or a freebie I sent out.

Without the advertising and promotion I've done, I wouldn't have those sales. You're right, I've not saturated the market 100% in four months. But that doesn't mean my legwork isn't getting the word out, or that it's been a waste of energy for me to do it.




Independently of the above, this is a valid point.

Back to prefabs, I've bought quite a few and never ever I did buy one without actually seeing a demo. So I wouldn't rely on XStreet and other marketplaces exclusively if I was OP.

This is what you need to do. Make your houses sleek black and silver with lots of glass. Then dress up in a black sweater and blue jeans and make an announcement that you have something to reveal in a few weeks. Let the rumors build up about what you are making. Then you show it off! It will be like the previous house you made only bigger.