Advice on Sales!!

HI Jon

Great blog post about Rha's DSN sample, if she's still reading this thread (I think I saw sometime back that she wasn't going to be reading any more?) -

http://chicatphilsplace.blogspot.com/2009/06/rha-rha-rha.html

Awesome! Congrats to Rha.

So- i got this notice for consideration from one fashion group i had asked to join as a designer-
Not planning on joining this one because one thing in particular sticks - one of their rules is that every 8 weeks you MUST send a gift with the noitce. I guess i just dont do well with orders and that smacks of an order- i am stubburn that way. Anyhoo, their group, their rules - and i dont agree so i wont join- but just felt like gripping about it - feel better now- carry on

I'm just making up drafts of my product box now, I've also included a rating check box.

Wow yeah I wouldnt be too happy with that either.

The thing is hadit been you must offer a gift to the group i could have seen it being ok cos you can send them along to the store to check it out, but the idea of sending it with a notice defeats the purpose. The only people who get gifts dropped on them from mystore are those already in my update group

I'm a customer and not a designer, but much as I do appreciate getting a nicely made gift from a group, that instruction sounds more like an intention to 'squeeze more freebies for the gang' rather than helping out the store owners to increase sales.

--
Aes

This - seems self defeating- it clearl states the gift must come with it not be at store to pick up. I send people stuff randomly actually and if i am there when folks buy stuff they sometimes find themselves 'gifted'
And at Aesyn- yeah that's what it sounded like to me too- Matter a fact, and I make no secret of it- I am against the enormous glut of freebies out there because while it is nice for the Residents that somethings are free- its' shooting our economy in the foot if you get so damn many freebies you never need to shop again. I try to do my part in the shopping department actually and do go visit the places i accept a gift from assuming I like the thing and dont zap it. The DSN thing has been particularly fun for me as consumer having discvoered some great places- i hope some have found my offerings there enjoyable as well.

I can vouch that that has happened

Since I am making a habit of giving updates once in a while, here we go.

Finally decided to update my products, and created some new stuff. Not reflected in sales, they are pretty stable lately. More products were up my sleeve, but something came in between.

About 10 days ago I purchased an entire animation store that sold full perm erotic animation packs for builders like me. After a meeting with the lady owning the place, and me paying her, we did the transfer of the land and the content. So since then I am the owner of a brand new business.

Since then I have been re-branding, put up a brand new building, and released the first 6 packs I totally rebuilt. Including the MLPv2 engine. And already made enough sales to know that the purchase was worth it So for the time being, my energy is put in this new business, there are new packs to release, and after that I want to create vendors that sell the animations as pairs. That as a result of a small survey I did on here and XStreet.

So far the updates: nothing happened regarding advertising and marketing, still only focus on Search All to get my publicity. Plus an interview I did months ago finally might get published, but if that happens I will come back with news

Greetings, Marcel

Yay thanks Czari

~~~~

Marcel- congrats on the new business - hope it totall rox for u!

~~~

Me, I have been making some pretty cool eyelase of all things! They are selling real well and I am having a blast doing them!
Here is one if u want to take a peek -

I love, love, LOVE your new eyelashes, Amar, especially the decorated ones. As I've given people your lm to find the DNS kiosk, I know they've been checking them out as well!

~ ~ ~

Here been working hard on my Spanish course - this week is finals. Have sent out a few notices and continue with a steady business on XStreet as well as now getting some purchases from my new Main Store, so considering I haven't built anything new lately (which will change once this Spanish course is completed) that will change.

Seriously debating leaving FabFree. The chat spam drives me nuts, then I heard something on a radio show I was listening to (re: politics, etc.) and a comment that perked up my ears was: if you start giving people things for free, they start developing a sense of entitlement and want anything free, even if they don't need it. I ran that through the discussion we've had on offering freebies and looking at the profiles of designers I admire.

Still waffling on this issue as I still believe it is one way to get people in the store...but...now I'm thinking there are other ways as well so....we'll see on that one. Any ideas or input appreciated.

Congratulations, Marcel! It sounds like a smart decision and I wish you all the best.

@Ama and @Miles: Thanks for your kind words! Though it will be hard to find a balance between the three businesses, I am sure it will be a success! Trying my luck with the animation packs on XStreet as well, as many builders (including me) use that to browse when not in-world. Even made two of them Homepage Featured, in order to get some exposure One of the most important task when starting a new store, is brand recognition, still thinking of a strategy for that.

Seems like Ama found her niche eventually! Always admired her for the broad range of products she created, but having such a diversity makes marketing very hard. These lashes look fabulous, and I am sure sooner of later every girl in SL will wear them! Very nice to see a good friend succeed.

Thanks so much Czari for the high praise and the referals- I dropped one of the freebie groups entirely- kept one but use once in a blue moon for the same reason u cite above and OMG don't get me going on the political thing - i am thinking we have the radio tuned to the same stations - holding my breath for the next few years-

If you want Spanish practice just holler- i can voice if u like. It won't be fancy Castillian Spanish but i get my point across.

Anyhoo- I have also joined a couple of new groups u guys might want a peek at- Sexy Shoppers and 100% Shoppers- I like them becuase i have new things almost daily and these folks let u do one notice PER DAY!

Marcel, dear friend - thank you- you have been an incredible source of hands on help and just plain inspiration and just damn great to know u r there - /me hugs you you are just awesome- Signed- The Pest

I just might take you up on that, Amar! Thank you!! I need all the practice I can get. I was fluent when I was in high school, then lost most of my Spanish speaking ability due to non-use. (I can still read/understand quite a bit.) We are not learning Castillian Spanish, although my lead instructor is from Venezuela but now lives in Spain (smart move) and apparently in Spain they use different words for certain items that the rest of the Spanish-speaking world does not. Kind of like some of the confusion I ran into when I went to Ireland....lol.

The Spanish dialect I am used to (and would most use myself for everyday) is Cuban or Puerto Rican.

I am Cuban so that works - Still manage to understand Puerto Ricans and visa versa

Grats Marcel, and hey all been seriously busy trying to get store rebuild done for this weekend (since I've already posted in events lol) as well as dealing with some comp issues (new comp on the way!) that make me basically lag to a standstill all the time.

I am in sexy shoppers, hadn't heard of 100% shoppers but I will check them out There is a little bit of chat in Fabfree is true but unless it has been a lot worse recently (while I've been mostly off SL due to lag) it really wasn't enough to bother me.

Totally with you guys on the freebies entitlement thing. I don't give out freebies anymore. Now I offer 'samples' of some of my outfits

I'll admit that a great deal of the chat that I heard from FabFree in the time my alt was a member consisted of:

"Lucky chairs at [store] are on T, Q, Z"
"Thanks!"
"TP pls?"
"OMG! SPAMMER!"
"They don't like lucky chairs being called here. There's another group for that."
"That doesn't belong here. Don't call lucky chairs in this group again. You must join the Fab Lucky group for lucky chair calling."

Usually, the lucky chair-calling avatars never posted to group chat again. Can't think why...

Y'know, there are rules for groups, sure. People should read them before they join (I believe the FabFree group charter points you to a long page on their blog that's packed full of group rules) but I am *not* a fan of shutting someone up in public group chat like that. A private IM from one of the group moderators would be a far nicer way to go about things.

Wow Marcel, sounds like a very good business move on your part....right place at the right
time kind of thing ?

Amar have been seeing those eyelashes a lot and they do look great, may well work with
the new line of skins I want to release if I ever have the time. So fingers crossed for
time to create.

Czari, good luck with your finals, will keep everything crossed for you.Like you, I really
cannot make up my mind where I stand on the freebie issue. I tend to give more in the line of gift certificates at events and let customers choose what they want, 9 times out of 10 they buy something more expensive than the 50L$ certificate they have so I still make a little money and often gain a new customer.

Ralektra, was great to see you the other day and have to say a huge thankyou for the
shoutout about the midnight mania board, hope you got your copy of the tattoo ok. I know
you mentioned our boards group is possibly defunct now and am considering upgrading it,
do you or anyone else know if there is a version that can give you a list of all the
entrants ? We definitely had a lot of avs in the store because of it but it would be
great to know how many of them actually shopped whilst there as well. Our sales did seem
to be up on that day but it would be lovely to work out exactly what the correlation is.
Still need to join the groups you gave me as well.

Skell, did you get your mouse problem sorted in the end ? sorry, I could not help more
with that issue.

As for me, a few of you know the rl issues I have been dealing with lately, not something
I am going to openly discuss here though, but as a result I've not been inworld as much as
I should or like to be, so when inworld most of my time has been dedicated to custom orders which are off the wall again for some reason. Did manage to release some new eyes and tattoos over the last month and some new slogan t-shirts (definitely not PG rated though lol)
A few more days and I am away to Scotland for a week of much needed R & R, not sure if I will have internet wifi access or not, in some ways I hope not as I will then have to take
a break from sl, which sometimes is no bad thing. Hoping to come back fully refreshed and
ready to dive in again and get things moving a lot more at the main store.
The only other new thing for me was beta testing on slapt.me and am still slowly getting
all my items uploaded and listed there, I believe that is one of the places I saw Amars' eyelashes

It is great to hear everyone is doing so well.
huggsss with love
Rhia xx

Well the funny thing was that by the time I saw the place advertised, the ad was already a few days old. Since I purchased animation packs there before, I knew the quality, so decided to send her an email and guess what? No one had reacted yet!
Never gave it a second thought and immediately offered the asking price since I thought that was a good deal, did not feel like bargaining. Took a few days to get our schedules to match up, but then the transfer was made, including the land the store was on. Great for old landmarks

Thanks for the nice comments on the lashes- about slapt- i guess i shoul dask Lord Sullivan but- is it actually open for business i mean is anyone selling and buying? I put m one or to sets out but have not done more than test it that way. I gotta reeber to request a terminal so more peopel do see it.

waves to Marcel and Amar

Yes slapt is open Amar, I know a few people who are gettng fairly regular sales already, not bad when you think how small it still is. I REALLY need to get my butt in gear and list more stuff too

awwww Rhia im so sad to hear you are still having serious RL issues I realy hope your holiday makes things a little better

Ama i have been seeing your eyelashes too. I got some in the DSN but i coudnt get the to fit... but since i have never been able to get eyelashes to fit oh well.

As for me i have been rolling out new items every week and several a week. My store is till slowly but steadily growing. My partner and i just got some more alnd and have plans to bid on an auction soon for even more land for our house which we ae moving to a new sim so i can have extra prims for the store.

I am really happy with the way things are going for me. I am still enjoying creating and am really happy wih how my store is going. Mind you his week i have been a little lazy and grumpy with it all cos my partner is away nd i havent seen much of her or spokent ot her as much as i normally would so i havent been in the mood

Rhiannon, I just installed a new mouse (a laser one; damn cursor is so sensitive now I'm scared I'll be clicking all over the place instead of where I want to!) and I treated myself to a new keyboard, too. So not only do I have to get used to a whizzy mouse, I also have keyboard keys in the 'wrong' positions ('delete' is now above 'backspace', whereas it was to the right of 'enter', and 'page up' and 'page down' are to the right of the spacebar).

Just typing this out, I can tell what my initial cock-ups will be with this new keyboard: I'll be doing allcaps a lot, since the capslock key is TINY and it's a laptop-style keyboard with no spaces between keysets, so my finger keeps hitting that instead of the shift key.

Old keyboard:
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i82/AnimeFanChris/358810.jpg

New keyboard:
http://rasmusbroennum.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/ultra-flat-keyboard.jpg

Man, I must be getting too old for all these changes