Advice on Sales!!

waves to all

thankyou everyone for all your kind comments here and inworld, am doing a lot better, still a little stiff and sore but nothing like I was previously

Hope you get a decent answer from xstreet Amar, I find it a nightmare when listing my skins and linking demos with full skins, I end up with so many screens open to copy and paste links it is very confusing and one small interruption like the phone or something and I have to start over from the beginning lol
Other than that when I list new items I first open an old one and hi-lite and copy the text to the new item to save typing it all again, have to admit I never tried the templates even when they were available

That's what I have been doing Rhia- also, open a Word doc and paste it in bit by bit- but u still have to go back and edit the items- argh! Add to that the adverts, here, slu, my own blog! argh! again I say!!

Rhi- one comment on your advert in the sig- take a look, but it seems the guy has a horn sprouting from his head

And cool- go tthis:

Greetings,

This is to notify you that we have received your support request. You don't need to reply to this email; we'll be responding to your issue shortly.

Thank you,
XstreetSL

Yes I never used the templates either, but then I was only usually doing one item at a time. Now that I have been updating and expanding my store I have been re doing every ad and adding loads more templates would be sooo good but I couldnt find the link either

Must admit I've always done the copy and paste thing. I didn't even know there were templates to use. I'm sure your not imagining it though Am, I just never stumbled across them before.

item templates are still there on xstreetsl

click on my items, then at the top of your list, it says create new item, and right beside that, is the item template link

Problem solved- Answer is - I am blind!

In Edit My Items - next to Add Item- is Create New Template and Modify Existing Template. These are the directions for that.

"Instructions:

Create Template will create a new template.
Create Template from Item will copy the current item's values into a new template.
Work with Existing Templates lets you view, modify, and delete existing templates or create a new item from a template.

Item Templates can be used to create many similar item listings more quickly and to make it easier to create more uniform listings under your brands.

Save time and energy by using Item Templates. Follow the tutorial below to see how it's done!

Tutorial: Listing a dress in 5 different colors

Create a new template
From the My Items page, click Item Templates, then Create Template
Name the template "Dress in 5 colors"
Enter values that will the same or similar for every field:
Category: Apparel->Women's->Women's Dresses->Women's Casual Dresses
Marketplace Item Name: Sun Dress
Description: Type the extended description you want all the dresses to have
Permissions: Modify, Transfer
L$ Price: 250
Click Save Template, then go back to the main menu.
Create new items from the template
Click Work with Existing Templates, choose the template you just created, and click Create New Item from Template
Choose the SL Object Name, which should be different for each dress
Add the color to the Marketplace Item Name and make any other changes that are specific to that color
Choose a Listing Enhancement if desired
Choose the main product image.
Click Add Item
Repeat step 2 for each item.
Item Templates are not only good for product variations, but they can also be a quick and easy way to store references to your other products or in-world locations. Forget about having to copy descriptions from previous listings or a notecard. Once you create an Item Template you're never more than a click away from popping preset data into a new listing."

And Rha beat me to it

/me looks up then looks at amar... you got me on ignore?
(or was it a long time in the typing stage?) hehe

(by the way, I am just teasing)

Took awhile between copying and pasting - new template set-up -Woohoo Now wish I could link to similar from within an item!

Question for those of you on XLstreet. How are your sales lately? I recently pulled some of my older items and left the ones that have sold well, but my sales on XLstreet have been very bad lately. I used to have several sales a week, now I have not had one in over a month. The weird thing is, it is basically with the same items.

Im not really that into the whole XLstreet thing...im terrible at graphics so my pics are not great, etc. But i was just curious...i mainly use the money i make there to fund my addiction to buying textures...LOL

Thanks!
jojo

Until LL took over Xstreets was a total waste of my time in uploading anything. Freebies got taken but seldom if ever anything bought. Lately, I actually have sales! Amazed and happy .

And, btw - sales in general- in world too- have been improving. Not enough to quit my day job! But at least a nice pat on the back

SL sales have remained about the same
in world sales about the same or less than they were 6 months ago
(but can only blame myself, as I have not put out anything new in awhile)

My sales from SLX and now XStreet SL have continued to remain steady. I tend to sell on average one item per day and usually several. (Keep in mind my products are priced very low.) I have tiered down my property to owning just a 512 parcel atm, so with no overhead, I'm pleased to have all my sales, regardless of price, go to straight profit. Regrouping to decide if I want to purchase property elsewhere for a store...leave things as they are...or go strictly to XStreet.

What I am most surprised with is that I am taking a bit of a break from SL in general and have not released a new item or done any updating, advertising (besides my profile picks) etc. and I still get a few sales a week from my in world satellite at Rhia's. So I guess I got a bit of momentum going that keeps up.

It is generally about 5 particular items that sell very well both in world and on XStreet SL.

Amar, thanks for mentioning the templates. I didn't know about them either so that will be great to use.

My SLX sales have been doing really well. But i suspect that is more becuase I am regularly updating things, which means I ofte have new items (which with how SLX works means I have items up the top of the search words even without sales).

Like anything if youwant sales on SL regularly adding new things is one of the biggest keys on there I have noticed. In addition to that having well designed ads is a huge plus. Since I changed my SLX ads over from the ugly old ones to the new ones I am having made my sales have jumped HUGELY. I am making on average 10 sales a daynow, where before it was like 1 or 2.

Freebies on SLX have very little affect too I have noticed. I guess becuase they dont have to browse things like they would in your store. They canclick on the freebie, have it sent to them and nver have to even see your other items that might entice them

Xstreet doing well .. and inworld sales also up, I suspect because of that.
Thing to do is to add new things often. Also do research about what is or isnt selling.
I started making full perm sculpties.. something new for me. And they are doing very very well. and i have noticed that traffic on my other items are up now as well.

The furniture i listed on Xstreet is selling more inworld since i listed them.. so even if Xstreet isnt showing sales but only traffic, and inworld sales go up on the items, Xstreet is doing its job.

I would say my xstreet sales are up too, but if I take into account the loss of Onrez sales, I'm not sure that overall online sales have grown by all that much.

Either way, the bulk of my sales still come from inworld, though I consider xstreet listings to be great free advertising.

Why didnt someone warn me that making clothes is addictive??

My god I cant seem to stop creating. It doesnt help that my partner is away fro work so we havent seen much of each other this last week or so. But I am reallllly enjoying creating clothes, way more than I ever did accessories, although I have been making them too to match the clothes I have been doing.

In world, I am still experiencing growth. Growth has been very consistent working out to an average of about 20% each month and that makes me smile

XStreetSL accounts for about 10% of my monthly sales, which means that growth there is going about at the same rate.

I keep expecting things to plateau at any time, but for now, I grow

I don't have that many items yet, but can already see how inventory can quickly get out of control.

How do you all organize your inventory; particularly in pricing? Do you keep a spreadsheet, database, pencil & paper list? How do you keep track of changing prices?

I tend to be extremely detailed-oriented and can drive myself crazy when I probably don't need to, but on the other hand, some form of organization is needed.

Particularly interested in how those of you with huge inventories manage this.

As a corollary question: I recently did a bit of renaming of some of my items. There is a rule on XStreet SL that an item cannot be deleted then relisted. If I put the newly named items in my Magic Box, they will likely show up as new items. Anyone ever deal with this? (I also sent an email to the Help area of XStreet to ask this as well.)

Thanks everyone!

Inventory control :

I have a few seperate folders for business stuff:

One for stuff which has been built
One for clothing
One for textures
One for Boxed up items

Within those folders are a load of subfolders.

I dont keep a list of the prices my items are as all my boxes use a script, I take copies of the boxe up invidudal items as well as the vendor boxes hich have all the colour options in them with the priced script.


The other thing is I dont change the prices of my items. Once they ae priced tht is it. I tend to price on the ow side of course so i wouldnt want to reduce my items at all. And well I dont believe in raising prices.


I have recently just changed all the names of just about everythign in store and put in new boxes. SLX leaves your items there and just sets them to unavaliable if you delete the old box ith the old names, so you just go in and edit the listing to add the new box to the listing

Inventory control... none, my inventory is a mess.
I do keep my own creations in there own sub category though

as for prices I redid mine to all 100L each, makes it a lot easier when putting out new stuff (which I so need to do) however still working out the new ads and new permissions set.

bleh never enough time.

Thanks E and Rha!

I realized after writing my post that my main question was in keeping track of pricing. My items have been all around the same price (low) from the beginning, but I'll occasionally have a sale, etc. Also, I tend to price my items on XStreet about 5L more to make up for the commission. I realized when I was redoing all my products this weekend that I was confusing myself...lol.

Keeping everything at the same price would definitely simplify things.

Thank you for your input and anyone else I would love to hear your systems as well.

LOL I have almast 200 items listed,I do it all in my head .Why on earth do you need a list?