Advice on Sales!!

From a club owners perspective and also thinking with a business head i would think that gift vouchers are by far the best option. This gives the winners a reason to come into your store and also gets them checking out your stuff and maybe bringing friends. It also gives you advertisement for your store when they mention the prizes etc.

Rhia does a great idea too which i think works well (she just joined up as a sponser with our club YAY) where she offers lindens for a prize and the winner also gets to pick out a tatt from her store. But everyone who comes can also grab a 50L gift voucher to use too (so essentially a nice little discount for coming and dancing with us). This is a great idea. But to be honest i felt kind of bad accepting so much so i offered Rhia a space in our mall free of charge.

If i was thinking soley as a club owner though i would say lindens all the way but thats only cos thatis better for me, it gets more people in etc. Generally at FAB though the girls will use the smaller gift vouchers and combine them with some lindens of their own on the board. This benefits them as they get more people who come from the prizes and they get more tips.

I do retire things on occasion but thus far (since space is not an issue yet) only stuff that I made that I have since decided don't represent me well. I'm sure we all, during our learning process, made a few things that while we thought they were awesome at the time, don't really cut it. Or maybe just me Anyway, those things have been relegated to a CD somewhere, I don't really want them up even as freebies. A few things that I made early on that for some unknown reason (luck?) came out really well (in my opinion) are still up and still sell.

A few of the things that I have retired will be remade someday, but they will be completely remade from ground zero.

I don't really do dollarbies, I don't even know why. Welsh/Irish and stubborn I guess would be the only explanation

Edit: I have provided Linden prizes on a few occasions but I'm pretty sure that the people who won them couldn't care less where the money came from.

I have sponsored events and given both monetary and Gift Certs as prizes- the money they took off the board but the gift certs went unclaimed- even when offered guys certs to store of their choice!

I retire things pretty regularly. If it isnt selling, I just remove it. I dont announce it etc. I am always putting out new stuff and need the prims, so that works best for me. My long term customers have gotten used to the idea that if they come into my store once a week, there will be new items out and also new free items just for the group members. I see lots of repeat customers who make a large amount of purchases.

I had not thought of giving those items away tho. Not a bad idea. Maybe I can rotate those things in and out as special giveaways.

Personally, I wouldn't provide financial rewards. I would provide a free item from my store instead. I want people to see and use my creations, not to go spending their monetary value in someone else's store!

That's my concern as well.

I think for me this would be my preferred method. The person could still dump it, but I make my furniture mod/trans so if they gave it away/sold it, at least my name would still be out there somewhere.

Speaking of which, in yesterday's promo, I noticed one person purchased several of one of my items. I checked her profile and, sure enough, she runs an ongoing yard sale. This doesn't bother me as I still made the sales and my name is on the item as the creator if she resells it.

I give out Gift Certificates (or vouchers as we say in Blighty ) with all purchases over 30L$. They vary in value depending on how much has been spent on the individual purchase. The lowest amount being 10L$ the highest 100L$. The idea is that folks can collect them and then use them to get either free stuff or use them as part payment towards something.

I don't get many redeeming them, but on occasion some people do.

OK- you guys- go take a peek at my newest thing- its in the New Products - Tell me what you think

that is pretty amara, but I tend to like things to be straight and even, that one ring off to the side would bug me LOL

does it also go under the hand or is it supposed to connect to a finger ring?

(it is funny, I see these kind of things and I had ideas long ago to make them but just never bothered. If I decided to try making them now, it would look like I am copying, scary SL world we live in isn't it?)

(and no I am not gonna make one, at least not at this time, I am working on other things as outlined in my blog LOL)

I purposefully made it non-lineal so that it looked more realistic- in RL the links wd not lay straight as your hand moves. It goes around the wrist lays on the top of your hand a connects to a ring on your finger.

I have a similar one done in silver and turquoise and carnelian in RL

Oh feel free to make or not dear- plenty of room for all - besides, we each bring our own twist to things-

ah can't see the ring on the finger

I thought that might be the reason it is off to the side hehe

oh I got too much on my plate at this time...

working on hair, boots, custom order clothing, some jewelry, skin, shapes, decorations, textures, the list goes on LOL

Oooo, this has me intrigued now as it sounds a bit like what is called a "hand flower" in medieval terms or a "slave bracelet" that may attach to a dress...or not.

Will be checking that out when I go in world later!

yes reminds me of the slave bracelets we used...I mean my mother used to wear in high school

Slave bracelet is what i have alwas heard it called too

OK- who has kind of Arabian Nights looking furniture amongst us? Anyone? Am furnishing a new castle and it def has an Arabic - Sultan- aladdin sort of flair... throw me LM''s guys am shopping
I love Safira's- that sort of thing but want to bu from us and aslo her stuff is gorgeous but too primmy -

Amar...you might like my Aphrodite collection.

The bedroom and living room are located right off the landing point.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lux%20Prometheus/87/133/23

If you like it and need lower prim let me know. I've done a lower prim version for customers before.

I have a Moroccan daybed in my store, but if you want a store filled with nothing but that style of thing, you have to visit Melino Style. I'm not inworld right now to give you an LM, but it's definitely searchable.

(Also, re: your offline IM to me, Amara, there's an LM to my mainstore in the brown box on the floor of my store at Primal Art )

Any of the Gorean markets have that style furnishings - many low prim. Sardar Fair has a lot of merchants in one spot with lm's to their main stores.

When I was writing the note card for ~Cheap Peeps~ Damien was twirling me about at the Cartel party if I don't multi task I can't get anything done , But I asked in the Bldr Group and some one tp'ed over and brought me back an LM. I am writing up a note card to send to all member s right now and to update as more come in so it will be easier for the non-Creator/Designers to get a list of places to go if the want it. Also a nice mentor is handing it out to noobs so the have a concept of affordable places to go.

Everyone - make sure I have current LM to your shops- Since I am not dancing now I am free to tp about and collect them if I am short. At last count we had gotten 58 members, 15 or 18 Designer/Creators. Guys to get this to work you need to drop a note on ur group members asking them to join. Otherwise it will implode- point is to access wider numbers- I have invited m group members- currently over 250. Obviously don't go over board- we don't want to annoy peeps so do give it time but actively campaign so we can all benefit.

~~~


Heading back now to look at the stuff mentioned- thanks u guys

Well- I didn't need a day bed- but who could resist the armillary sphere? And-- ooh! Nice gentleman's clock!

And I picked up a gorgeous settee at Aphrodite!

OOh!! The settee is menu driven- i thought it was just pretty but it turns out it come loaded with cuddles and changes colors and different sits and everything! Good job

Yay! Glad you like the settee!

I think you are refering to the cheep peeps group

not to be a downer, but wouldn't asking one's group members to join another group so they can be solicited by other creators and designers be non benefical to the store owner? After all, don't people create their own group in hopes that they can entice folks to come back to them, by having a direct contact.

Asking them to join another group, where you will be passing out info as well as other people, kinda makes the use of one's own group rather moot.

just my 2 cents...
(I am sure people see the benefit of doing that, others may not)

If it were me I would hang out in the welcome areas to entice the new players to join the group

most designers join those groups to reach new people, not add to it with their existing members/customers

Well I checked a few of the groups mentioned, but they all were pretty small. StuffLink I still have to check though, did not have time for that one yet.

Furthermore, I already told you that after my move I lost my ranking. This shows me that Picks are more important then I anticipated, so I decided to make an effort to get my former number of Picks for my store back. Of course I noticed a big drop in sales, so I wanted to address that as well. So the first I did, was buying hippogroups. What a great solution is that! With Hippogroups I did the following:

Make a group and manually added everybody with a pick to my store. Of which 90% had an invalid link to the old parcel. Sent out a message to these people with the question to change their Pick, and I did put an incentive out to do so. Next week the active Picks to the right parcel will get that incentive (gift certificates).

Make a second group, and added everyone that purchased from my store through one of my vendors. Works like a charm, since that process is totally automated on the hippo website. Those people all got a notecard with information, and a gift certificate to thank them for their purchases in the past.

Whether the first action helped, I will see within a few days. It does cost some time (checking the profiles to see if the pick is valid or not), but I think it will help me.

The second does work for sure! For the first time since my move I had a day where sales were on the old level. From now on, all buyers from a vendor are automatically added to the hippogroup, so they can get product updates and gifts once in a while. In my opinion, customers like to see they are valued.

And finally: Yesterday I rented out my first skypod Last week I did put up 4 furnished skypods, together with a cinema, holodeck and pool. Since I had plenty of prims, I thought it can only help me a bit with traffic, and it does bring in some cash as well

My addnode at NCI does not seem to get many hits, so I doubt that one is very useful for me. But I will give it some time, payed for a month.

So far the updates.