Advice on Sales!!

I was the one who posted that originally. I love mine. It is so useful. For instance, I can tell you that I had 37 people show up from my FabFree freebie offer that I made Friday and Saturday.

So you are welcome.

Great Czari! That promotion of your store is sooo crucial and its good to know that it works! I need to do some more with my store...I have slacked off because of working so hard on Etopia and my sales are showing it. The promotion stuff is a daily constant thing for me and when I do it, it works.

I forget...can someone tell me where to get the visitor thing that Rha is talking about. Thanks!

You might want to consider taking some of Fleche Xeno's classes on Marketing. He teaches various classes on how to get people in your store, how to convert that traffic to sales, and how to retain those customers in the future. I have taken most of his classes, and learned a whole lot.

They are fairly expensive, in SL terms, at 999 each, but well worth it. Each one of those classes helped me make changes that improved my sales.

Just search for Marketing under the Education category on the Events Search page.

This is the SLX link:
http://uncensored.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=805503

In-World at Kerhop's Innovations
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Uzume/40/206/35

OK I redid all the descriptions, hopefully that will help with search, will hafta check that later as I'm just heading out the door. I also added close up pix of each piece. I've yet to get them in a set per color. Apparently separately is ok for guys since many of them buy only the bottoms!? Anyway, I should redo the pix again with a guy & gal in each pix, since they are modifiable they could make changes but would be changing their only copy. My next pairs, coming up soon will be modify/copy. Here's the link again if anyone cares to comment on revisions. If not, thanks again for all your help! Hugzzz

http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&MerchantID=143470

I really do not imagine many guys buying these. I would sell them as a set. Also, I would love to see bigger pictures so I could see the detail before I purchased. You can have bigger pictures in SLX than in SL, and uploading more pictures costs nothing.

not sure what is wrong with mine
it is not reporting the numbers correct

some it is even showing as none but I get the msg saying so and so arrived from such and such place

weird

Thank you Cheree ;o}

I've taken MANY classes on marketing over the past 6 months. An extremely good series was taught at TUi by Tiana Writer but she had to take a break from SL for a time. I've also taken some at NCI and one by Lily (she holds them sporadically, but learned a lot about making vendors from her).

I've seen the classes Fleche offers in search but since I am only aiming for a small, niche store, and the business part of SL will never be my "entire" SL, I refuse to pay the money he charges. (Plus from an educator's point of view, I am not impressed with the school he is affiliated with.)

Good point to mention though. Someone else may be interested in his classes, especially those with larger stores.

I will check out these other offerings. I knew the cost would be a concern to some. That is why I went ahead and mentioned it.

Does anyone else know of any other marketing classes out there?

That sounds like a great idea so any Marketing tips classes would be great for me too. Sales are not so great at the moment and would love a few more tips and advice.

Oh i was also talking to Cheree today about my store and having a niche in the market and she suggested gowns or silks. As i much better at prim skirts i thought gowns might be a great idea, i could do al different types from sleek, poofy, shorter, fantasy (fairy type gowns etc).

What does everyone think?

P.S. Great to talk to you today Cheree, it was lovely to finally meet you

On Marketing classes - One of the things I liked from both Tiana's classes at TUi (and I so hope she comes back to continue them...they were a series of 6 and I missed the first 2) as well as NCI is they both stressed running a SL business as a RL business would and included topics such as developing a marketing plan, figuring up how much money will be needed in various categories (startup costs, land purchase/rental, advertising, etc.) and developing a budget, going to check out the competition and get a feel for their quality of products/pricing, etc.

The NCI classes are held regularly so would be on their schedule. Lily's classes are something like "Classes by Lily" (not in world atm so forget the specific name - but will have something about Business in the title).

Re: niche market for clothes, many posts ago there was some commentary that almost everything out there is either the poofy type of gowns or "hooker chic" and only a very few designers make well done couture type gowns.

You mentioned fantasy - that is becoming saturated as well, but I have seen some interesting shops that specialize in Elven clothing. Other niche stores I have seen are those that offer clothes from other cultures (ie. sari's, the Pakistani type of clothing with the wider-legged pants and tunic tops, clothing from different eras of history and one I ran across from a freebie offer is a wonderful store that designs clothes based on Hollywood stars from the '40's - and each outfit is designed around one on a specific star in a specific movie.

But then it all comes back down to doing what one loves to do most and has a passion for.

WEll i got my first sale from the Ethiopa Store so that is exciting and I am going to try and get a space in that dog market thingy which is free tomorrow cos tomorrow is they day they empty it and start again.

As to a niche market there are a few things in SL that are lacking. One of the biggest things I found is in wedding dresses there is a distinct lack of gowns which are sleek and simple and elegant. If yu can pull off dresses liek that you would do well. Soooo many of the wedding gowns look like poofy princess dresses. But to get into that I would say work seriously on the photoshop skills, when it came to my wedding dress it had to be perfect, I wanted the seams perfect I wanted those stunning little details that make a good dress amazing.

Another idea for those making clothes is to include two skirt versions for me. Make one skirt for a smaller avie, but take the timd to hape another to fit a mor realistic shaped avie. I hate having to spend an hour editing a skirt with like 50 prim parts that is so bloody small i cant just stretch it without it becoming a clown skirt. If i buyone like that from someone I never go back. Ohh and dont use those damn resizing script please. They just stretch everything and make me look like an idiot.

Oh oh and more places need to make cute PJ's!! I love my jammies and i wear jammies about 50% of the time in SL... btu I dont have many pair cos i rarely find ones i like

Well - I haven't had much sales- but today I did manage to have several - I ran m Dollarbie announcement mostly to be able to advert with the big groups. So far my group has 80 members - not many in the grand scheme of things but I am just starting out. Last Friday I was so in the dumps over the lack of sales I was ready to give it all up. Thankfully I have great support and love and my spirit was buoyed.

Today I released another one of the Vine type body tattoos- take a look- I put it in the New Products section.

I put the shoes out at the Etopia store also, I need to devote sometime to that one tomorrow- EXPOSURE!!!

Ama that tatt looks cool... but might i suggest you show a close up of the details of the tattoo... at the moment i know it is black with cme purple and kind of viney but i cant see the details. I love tatts and i only ever buy full bodytatts but i like to see the details of the work up close. Maybe you could take a section of the tattoo and use it as a layer on the background just above the pick layer at abou 50% opacity?? then i can see a close up of the details withut taking away from the overall look on the body?

E- it isn't black- it's purple wisteria flowers with some leaves- it has a drape sort of thing going around the waist area. I'm afraid I am not conversant with the PS lingo too well to really understand what u r asking me to do- sorry. I am unclear if u want picture of the wisteria separately or if u want me to add something to the actual tat.

Yeah i want a picture of the wisteria seperately on the board alongwith it on the body.

The idea i had to show it was to have it as a layer and part of the background. So add another layer above your pink backkground layer but below the cutouts of the bodies and paste the flowrs as part of the background. If it is too dark as i think it might be turn down the opacity on that layer to that the flowers become part of the background, btu at the same time show the detail.

Either way it is a pretty tatt... i just have a preferance with tatts to see the deatil up close as i have purchased many put once put on have found up close the deatil isnt what i thought

OK- Gotcha- I will add it tomorrow Hubby said get off comp for tonight

I had to reread this whole thread again, there was so much good information there. I have recently been working with some wonderful people to help me get my shop going in the right direction. In that vein I just started a NING group for precisely this sort of discussion and feedback. So, in case anyone is interested ! http://slcontentcreators.ning.com/

Thank Czari, i have a notecard i took from a class by NCI about business marketing but it was not by a Lily, i think the person's name was Devon.

I know what you mean about poofy/princessery gowns and i really don't like them styles i have to agree i love sleeker styles. I could keep away from fantasy then and just stick to fancy gowns then.

I like your idea Eclectic and your right there is not many sleek style wedding gowns, they are all poofy. In a old avatar i used to be a model and we often modelled wedding gowns and they really did seem to be poofy/princessey. I'd sure have to up my skills in photoshop first, i'm getting better but not at that standard yet.

PJ's sounds a interesting idea if people would buy them.

I was quite impressed when i logged on this morn *grin* made 3 sales last night so i'm pretty happy, i hope it continues like this.

I would buy them!!!!

Im getting to the point of actually attempting my own jammies cos the ones out there at the moment suck.

I dont just want a t shirt that anyone would make.

I want wintr jammies hat look like flannelette and i want summer nighties

Jacqueline- let me direct you also to Skell Daggers Google Doc: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dfz3dk33_0d2dvsbgx - he is keeping the relevant things updated there as a quick reference of the things we discuss in the thread.

Very nice page you set up though- I went and joined, and when it asked for my name I thought it was the private view area, put it in now I can't get it to display m name as Amaranthim - so I left the group, but I will try and rejoin later. Maybe it needs time to reset itself.

mmmm i love my flannelette jammies and summer silk nighties and my silk jammies hehe in rl of course, maybe i could make a pair. ooooo i gots the greatest idea hehe.

Silk jammies in either long or short length and a nightie for those hot night hehe

Welcome I was talking about two separate classes, though.

*The class I took at NCI was called "How to Start a Business in Second Life" and taught by Nancy Villota. (There may be other business classes at NCI as well, I'll have to investigate that.)

*The "Lily" I mentioned was listed under "Class by Lily". I took "Business Basics 2" (so there must be a "Business Basics 1 - I need to check that out too...lol).

*Also took a couple of classes at Insight Virtual College (IVC) - "Starting a SL Business" taught by ReverendMathias Merit (actually, that was a demo class held during SL5B) and another called "Selling With a Simple Vendor" that was one of the most practical and helpful classes for me as someone with a small shop that does not wish to invest in the more complex/expensive vendors. That one was taught by Lara Shepherd.