Selling Products from a shop

Hi

Can anyone help me with the following about selling products from a shop. I want to put a vendor machine into a shop and hopefully sell products from it. The products will not be made by me but bought off other people.

1. How do I buy a Vendor machine?
2. Can I sell other peoples products from a machine?
3. Do the products have to be transferable for me to sell them?

If you can give me any info about the above it would be a great help.

Thanks

Flowerdew Zagoskin

PS You can also IM in SL reference the above.

You will only be able to sell products that have transfer rights and unless it's a freebie with full perms, you will only be able to sell one of each item, the original.

1. Either use search (term: vendor) and browse, or use a prim and set it to sell contents (or the original if there's only one copy)

2. You could, but if you haven't specifically discussed setting up shop to sell their products where you receive a percentage for the space used, and them for their creative contribution, be prepared for a shitstorm.

3. Yes, unless you created them yourself; or, as stated above, they're a full-perms freebie. If they're full perms from another source -- i.e. textures with full perms and a clause of no resale attached-- it would be possible, but highly unethical.

The problem is that yes, items do have to be transferable for you to re-sell them. However:

1. Most quality items that are transfer will also be no-copy (as the creators do not want somene else re-selling their work in quantity) so you'll only be able to sell one and then it will be gone.

2. Unless you somehow manage to buy it at a discount rate, you'll have to sell it for more than the creator does in order to make a profit, which I think is unethical ... you're basically ripping off your customers because they could get the same thing cheaper from the creator. Also, once you factor in the cost of renting a shop (unless you own land where you can provide it to yourself for no more money than you already pay in tier), you're almost certainly going to be losing money.

(My business loses money too, but I keep at it because I like building and scripting and I do have some sales, even though so far they've not been enough to recover costs ... but I would see no point in it if all I were doing was re-selling things other people made.)

3. The only way to sel multiple copies would be what Denise mentioned, full-perm freebies. But then you're asking money for something people could get for free and that opens the same ethical issue. You're trying to profit from other people's work and take advanatge of customers in the bargain.

My advice, if you really don't feel that you can create your own things but want to have a shop, would be to look around for sellers who might be open to an affiliate type of relationship. Maybe someone would provide you full perm copies of their items to sell, and you would handle the shopkeeping side of it, and the two of you could work out a profit split that both consider fair.

I'm not saying that would be easy, but I think it's the only way to resell others' work in a way that's both potentially profitable and not ethically dodgy.

Thanks for all your advice. I was thinking of buying off a creator and then selling it myself at a small profit, but giving the creator a good price for the item. I dont thinki will break any rules at it happens in real life with wholesaler.

If you think that this is not a right way to do things in sl, please let me know. I think the idea of getting a creator to make items for me to resell will be the way to go.

Thanks again for your help.

I`ve heard some people who do this type of thing here in SL.

I don`t see the logic in it personally. I would assume in RL it works good to have other companies buy and sell your products as we can not TP.

In SL I think it is more beneficial to the creator to sell their own products. Especially due to the ease of being able to set up multiple locations across the grid.

I guess to some people it makes perfect sense and is similar to setting up vendor shop somewhere, but in my circumstances, as a designer, this is something I would never even consider. I would much rather take care of setting up different outlets and branching out myself.

One thing I strongly warn against is this- Many shops sell no copy/yes transfer items, DO NOT buy these in bulk for the purpose of reselling for a profit without permission. Make sure you get an OK from the creator to resell their clothing as a business for yourself.

Also stay away from the "Business in a box" things, majority of them seem to house stolen items. If youre caught selling stolen items it`s a fast way to get banned from some folks` shops as they will assume you to be a theif.

A common practice is to work a percentage deal with the creator; a popular rate is 50/50, where you both receive 50% of the sales. One easy way to do this is with a vendor and its program. Two that I can think of are iVend and JEVN. You'll probably be able to find websites for both of these, and they both have sites in SL as well. Rule of thumb is that the reselller can't sell the product for more than 10% over the creator's original price; buyers generally get upset when they find that they could have bought direct from the creator for cheaper.

The permissions are something to work out between the vendor program, the creator and yourself, but keep in mind that whatever YOU sell should NEVER NEVER NEVER be both transfer and copy to the ultimate buyer. You will destroy your creators' livelihoods, reputations, and most likely, good will.

The main key here is to respect your creators and their creativity. It's them that did all the hard work. Many creators appreciate resellers, as it helps get their names and products out to more people. Quite a few creators don't trust resellers.

I have one reseller and I trust her very much. I get petitioned at least once a week with someone saying "I want to resell your stuff." If you petition a creator and they say no, don't get upset. They have their reasons for saying no. Just go find another creator who might need a leg up in the industry, and work out an equitable partnership.

Good luck and have fun!

Designing stuff is one thing, selling is another.

Boxing up the stuff you want to sell or configuring a vendor, making good textures for the box or vendor, setting all the protections and pricing just right, making the shop look inviting, advertizing etc...

Selling can be more work than creating items in the first place.

So it is really not such a bad idea if one person does the creative stuff and another does the commerial part of it. You just need to find the right person to co-operate with.