Advice on Sales!!

I have shops available. IM me inworld or email me.

sales are just about nil for dec and now the start of jan

today no sale at all so far (or my transactions log is not showing properly)

If this keeps up I will have to close, something I do not want to do but will have to if the store can not support it's self.

Update...my sales have continued their steady increase..Dec was an amazing sales month. Im now making as much or more from SL in USD as i am from a part time RL job i have. Good thing since my hours are being reduced. LOL

The only thing that has been impacting me is grid performance which is as it always has been. My groups have grown by leaps and bounds...i added the subscribomatic and it really had been great. I think I have almost 300 total in the two groups and considering not long ago i had 44 im happy.

Keep pluggin guys!

I know this has been addressed before but I'm going to ask about it again since JoJo brought it up.

For those of you who use Subscribomatic or HippoGroups....how do you do it? Do you have a sign/kiosk at your store where people can indicate they want to be added? Do you send out invites to those who have bought from you or visited your store? Do you add (as opposed to invite) anyone who has bought/visited your store (as a consumer I am personally opposed to this one)?

I'd love the input as I have considered both of these systems but am hoping to have this info before making my decision.

Many thanks!

~ Desi

I changed over to Hippo in November -- before that I had Subscribe-o-Matic. I have a sign by the entrance of the flagship store for people to click on. I'll only manually add someone if they IM me and request it. I don't even like the blue popups some stores have inviting you to a group as soon as you tp in. It is nice that you can add someone if they request it with Hippo. I couldn't do that with Subscribe-o-Matic. You can also do a lot more management through the website with Hippo. Plus, with over 1400 members since the change over, Hippo saves me a lot of Linden. I have about 300 fewer members since changing, but I figure those 300 probably weren't very interested anyway or have just left SL.

December's sales exceeded my wildest dreams of part-time SL income. The vast majority of the increase was because of holiday-related items.

Hi Betty,

Thanks so much for your input. In your post you mentioned Hippo saving you Linden. Can you explain how? Not sure what you meant by that. Thanks!

~Desi

You're welcome. Just that with Hippo it's L$1000/mo for up to 2000 members, and with Subscribe-o-Matic with 1700 members, I was in the unlimited tier and it was over L$5000/mo.

Aha! Now I get it. Thanks!

My in-world shop is in progressed which should be completed this week. I share it with 3 of my friends. I also creating new clothes to be added in my clothing line. So stay tune, I'll post the SLURL once the shop is open to public.

Im using the free subscribomatic at this point. I added it since many customers told me they would love to be in my group but had no room in their 25 groups. I have two signs in my store for each type of group. I have a welcome mat type greeter that says something like "be sure to join my group to get the free weekly gifts only for group members."

Since ive been doing the free weekly gifts my group membership has exploded and my sales have increased as well. I only offer the free weekly gifts in my store. I dont send them out. For the subscribo group i put the gifts into the machine and group members come into the store and take them from the sibscribo thingy.

Hope that helps.

You shouldn't close, Rha, unless you are planning on leaving SL altogether. Your stuff is really nice, we are just in a business where there is a huge amount of competition. Not only do we have a lot of competition, but we have a lot of freebies given out, and who wants to pay for something you can get for free? Just create because you enjoy it. Unless you are planning on not owning land at all, there is always room for a shop! I am lucky, my tier is minimal, I don't know how much land you have but even if you had to tier down to a free 512 you could still keep new stuff up with older stuff on a vendor, if you wanted. Just cut back enough so that you can afford it, don't worry about making tier and make things for the love of it!

I think December was the month for anyone with Christmas items, and specialty items (like Miles with cards etc), and I'm so happy to hear that you guys all had a great month

I used to use subscribe o matic, now I use hippo

with both I put out the kiosk/sign that they can click to join

I never add people without them knowing (when I switched groups I sent out a notice I would be adding folks from the subscribe to the hippo, so basically just moving, not adding per se)

I feel it is wrong to add people without their permission, which is why I have myself blocked on the hippo groups (as far as I know you can not add people on the subscribe o matic)

do not send out invites either, if folks want to join, they will join

(I like hippo as it lets me do multiple groups, which I will be adding 2 more, one for the kids stuff and one for the furniture/prefabs section, for those who want updates for those only)


At this time I have over 500 in my group for the store (hippo group) but there is no way to know how many are active players... (not that it matters at this point) that would only come into play when the group exceeds the plan limit, either up the limit, or no more can join.

I would but then without my own land my heart would not be in it

I enjoy having my land, and the freedom to be able to change it around and use it to build and/or just hang out on

I think I am in a slump, which is normal for me this time of year...

(thankfully after posting about no sales, I got some sales... whew)

I don't want to close, and I only need to sell 500L approx a day to make tier... but when one goes 2 or 3 or a week with only 500 from the stipend, it starts to get scary

I am going to try some classifieds and see if they help (for the kids stuff, for the furniture and for my new stuff at the store)

I already tried the other stuff from I think it was, jojo's notecard... did not see any change... I know the market I am in is a very full market, and yes, freebies do make a difference, I noticed when hunts were on, hardly anyone visited the store....

I am trying to think of something unique.. something different... I thought I had it with the piercings, but was wrong it seems....


meanwhile I think I will wrap up the ton of stuff that is half done LOL

(oh and tomorrow I start the classes at avatar island if anyone is interested in attending... very very basic beginner classes as it is one of the entry points into SL and we want it to be very newb friendly)

Jojo, where did you get the free subscribomatic thing and is that what it is called? I like the idea of people being able to join my group without using a group space, but can't justify *any* funds for a paid service.

P.S. Met a woman who is opening a shop this week and was wondering how to market it. Did I know the person for her *grins*. I sent her a text of your classes and wouldn't be surprised if she shows up at your next series.

Try lookingat this... the lay out is only a few thousand linden then pay nothing else EVER. The only draw back is you have to manually add people to the group.

i have been considering this for a while, but to be honest I just havent gotten around to it


http://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=678446

czari the subscribe o matic now has the ability to have a group with up to 500 members with no fee (that is the free one she speaks of)

http://www.subscribeomatic.com/

http://www.subscribeomatic.com/pages/pricing

Czari, Subscribe-O-Matic is free if you have fewer than 500 members. I think Hippogroups is probably better once you have more members than that. I switched from my inworld group to Subscribe-O-Matic and am glad I did so.

You can get the free kit inworld at Subscribe-O-Matic's location. I'm not inworld now--let me know if you need an LM. You can also get it free from Xstreet SL:
http://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=323598

There's also a website for more info:
http://www.subscribeomatic.com/

Edit: "Fast-fingers" Rha beat me to most of that info.

Malls Are A Mess Most Of Them They Give You Limited Space And Design Where You Have To Fit Your Things To A Box With No Eye Pleasing Space To Look At Im Me In World And I Will Put You In A Shop Of Your Own 300 A Week With 200 Prims You Will Not Bet That

go to slex...i think that is where i got it...and it is the actual one called subscribomatic. I guess there used to be a fee but now it is free up to like 500 members or something.

rha i get very little from classifieds at all...if you do them dont spend a ton of money on them. i cut back from 3 to one with no noticable difference. what really does it for me is the all search optimization and really catering to my group.

One other thing ive been doing is in every group notice to the freebie groups, etc, i always mention "be sure to wear your jojo's folly group tag to take the weekly free items in the red box next to the group join sign." that has really been the key to growing my groups. Now when i send out group notices it is fun to see them all come in for the free stuff and stay and buy! yayyy!

Wow, I am only on page 11 (yes I plan to read the whole lot ) and this thread is brilliant! I have all these ideas in my head for logos, store layouts, I even have a name. But I have nothing to sell

Maybe I should start making clothes just to make it come together haha.

ROFL

amazing that I am actually awake this early LOL

I do not use an inworld group (I do have one but do not promote it or use it for freebies)

I planned to use the minimum for the classified, 50L

I found for awhile sending out freebie notices were generating some sales, but lately it seems that all they do is pop in get the freebie and leave... not buying...

I am rethinking the whole freebie thing, I have a feeling that SL is getting overloaded with quality freebies which hurts the market to a degree... but nothing we can do about it...

Wow...thanks for the great replies, E, Rha, Miles and Jojo!

This.

Advertising, advertising, advertising. Do it cheaply and effectively. Something I tried was finding cheap ad boards and so far it is doing pretty well. Sarah Nerd's Freebie Paradise is pretty good. I also started looking for clubs with decent traffic that had ad boards. I tried a few malls but I don't feel that the return was good for my money. Make a good, eye-catching ad and get your name out all over SL.

It doesn't matter how brilliant your stuff is if no one knows you exist.