Advice on Sales!!

I didn't have time to actually read the notecard about the trunk sale last night (bit of RL dental trauma [ACK!], then managed to distract myself by going to the Forum Cartel Halloween party and forgot all about the notecard!) but I'll have a read when I get inworld, Ralektra. I do like the idea of this, from what you're saying, although it would be great it we could make it either at a weekend (Saturday, maybe?) or have two scheduled timeslots for trunk shows, to allow those of us in Europe and further east to participate.

Again, I'm interested (but not inworld to check out notices!) so I'll ask here: how cheap is 'cheap'? (OMG, it's Sunday and I have a headache; too early for me to put my silly humour hat on...). What I'm getting at is, would a 50L$ or 75L$ skybox count as 'cheap' or are the prices they're looking at there closer to dollarbies and 5L$ etc?

Sounds like a good idea, Amar...thanks for sharing this.

Question - do we need to ask the owner for a designer tag or can anyone post?

Thanks for all the input re: web sites and blogs....you confirmed what I already have experienced....Thanks!

Congrats on a speedy recovery from LL's surprise. I love the building, Marcel. It's spacious, very easy to move around in, attractive, and the layout is logical. You've done an amazing job in a short amount of time.

(The table and chairs close to the center are floating about 1/2 meter above the floor.)

Hi Miles,
Thanks for checking! Will check on the floating tables and chairs, too much a speed job apparently
The building I got from one of the Estate Managers, an amazing builder. Love what he did with the shiny reflecting floor. Only thing I did, is making the building 20 meters wider, needed the space.

The worst part is that I lost my search ranking, since I lost all picks of course. That does cost me business at the moment, but in time I will recover from that. And I do miss the full sim of course, but no use in letting my head hang over that one.

Still working on the Grid Wide Halloween Hunt here...

What I am enjoying most about it is seeing stores/businesses I've never heard of before and making notes of ones I wish to return to later with more time to look.

As a budding designer, great fun in the hunt is looking at items and wondering "How did they do that" or "get that effect." And I'm STILL amazed at all the different ways people set up their shop on a physical basis. It was great encouragement for me, the perfectionist, who thinks I have to do thinks "perfectly" and "just right" before doing anything.

Another fun aspect to the hunt was revisiting shops I haven't been to in awhile and seeing such positive growth. Danni's is one I recall being a larger shop now and great new designs. Rha, I almost didn't recognize your shop at first. Love the little village of rental shops. I was mesmerized by the tiny bear avatars. I mentioned Amar's shop in another post...very lovely and elegant.

It will take me DAYS to go through all the great hunt freebies I picked up, but the experience was priceless! Thanks again to Rha and all the organizers and merchants who participated.

Hi Marcel,

I stopped by your store this morning and I do indeed like the new location. I think the building works very well for a furny store as it is wide open and easy to cam around--including to the upstairs portions. It's not uncommon for me to walk into a store and plant myself in one place and cam around to see where I want to go....so this is important.

Congrats on being able to do the quick move! It's looking great.

~ Desi

RE the hunt- it has been a HUGE success as far as traffic and new folks coming in- I thnk a very worthwhile investment.

As for the cheap- not Free and Dollarbies- I think anything 100 and down is "cheap" plus, if u have that available it certainly won't hurt to say, "and my already reasonable prices". The idea is to get folks to come see our stuff- once there, the product sells it self. I have no interest in being a bargain basement and for folks to expect nothing but low prices. Yes I am in this for the fun of it but damn I am working hard on this stuff so I might as well get a couple Lindens out of it. Like I said before, it's a way to keep score - if the y like, the are willing to pay. The low prices and freebies is an attractant- same reason it HAS to be top-notch- who will pay real Lindens if you freebies are crap?

As for who can post- I am not sure- we sort of hacked it together over wine so it proply needs some fine tuning. I think it is a good idea to keep a tag id for who can post especially if it gets real big- which we hope it will. So - those of u that joined, tell all your friends and group members- and how we will all be putting up some especially priced items with this in mind so they can keep an eye out- and to tell their friends as well. I am sure with everyone pitching in it will snowball. The goal of course being TRAFFIC - the more people that know the more folks that will visit. I know every time I send a notice in Freestyle et al I get immediate hits. This is one more venue.

Monday I will have more time to devote for this- so we can make more plans and of course have to get together with Cham again, the group owner- I want her to tell her peeps in SLProfile to get them to sign up in world too.

has anyone thought about making a website for their in world business?

I think I asked this before, can't remember

however with the mention of blogs and such it got me to thinking again

I saw a website somewhere, just wish I had bookmarked it... anywho
it was a website set up like any RL business website, but, when you viewed the products for sale... they had a link to onrez and xstreet listings (and in world too of course)

this is something I would like to do too, but I dunno if ti would be worth the effort

I just found it nice and had a professional feel to it, to be able to browse their items in a well laid out website

DANG just wish I could remember the name of the site LOL

I have http://www.tinteddy.com

One of the factors in choosing my SL business name was having one that I could also have the dot-com for.

I still have a lot to do on the site though - oh, if only I had more time (bet you have never heard THAT plea before, hehe)

I also have www.virtualprefabs.com - just never got around to using that one, heh

I like how you did the pics of the prefabs, very professional

and yes this is the kind of idea I was thinking about, except they would have hotlinks to inworld and any sites you sell on

I don't think this is the exact site, as this one only links to the item location inworld and not to XStreet and OnRez, but the Textures R Us website is a godsend to anyone buying from them:

http://www.texturesrus.net/cms/front_content.php?idcatart=1

The TRU store is so massive, as anyone who's ever been there knows, and takes forever to load. It's hard to find what you're looking for there, so being able to browse every texture set in full while not inworld, then being teleported to its exact location in the store is a huge bonus.

As a side note, I wanted to say thanks for giving me an idea I hadn't even thought of before. On my blog I simply have a link to my inworld store and to my XStreet store in the sidebar; I never even gave a thought to putting a "buy at XStreet" link for each individual item on its relevant blog post, as well as a link to the store. Just one more thing I overlooked and need to get done!

doh I never thought of doing that either (on the blog)

no it was not tru, I shopped there once, in world, got a couple things, then saw some stuff that I had seen on the web previous to going there, so figured if that was there, more probably was taken from the web and I just never went back

It was a clothing store that I saw, just can not remember the name, was ages ago, I loved how they did their site

Argh! Another TTD! But awesome idea- link posts to inworld and Streets and OnRez!

A neat gadget you guys might like: http://bloghud.com/

And -- tada! Got blogged again http://bloghud.com/id/26798/

grats!

I am having a grand opening of my new place this weekend, after that I will start working seriously on the trunk show thing, in the meantime keep posting ideas/suggestions. I have been thinkin about in in general, I think Amar's idea for a DJ is a good one or maybe even a live music thing, because there wouldn't be a dance floor or anything that involved I don't think? Ideas appreciated And yes definitely would have to have some freebies out and announce in freebie/cheep peep groups. As for when? Well, is early December a good idea? We could theme it sort of Yuletidey...

After my opening maybe we can make a group and hash it out One thing I am thinking is that the designers need to be there when they are set up, or did I misunderstand the premise behind a 'trunk show'?

I think yes - we all need to be there- if not constantly then in and out. It will help build rapport with prospective customers and add to the party atmosphere.

BTW- I roped F.D. into displaying in Talon Faire

Woot!!!!! WTG Amar!

Trying to figure out the "Baking Cupcakes" thing. I have a friend in SL who actually owns a shop where she sells hats and clothing and such themed as baked goods that give out cupcakes, etc. when touched. Talk about a niche market

Oh, that's so cool!!

I completed the 10-week Gimp course I was taking. I would just like to say...ANYONE who makes clothing of ANY type has my sincere admiration. Now granted I've just played around with it for my class assignment but....GAH!!! Think I'll stick to furniture and jewelry...lol.

I'm actually retaking the course since most of my classmates either (a) used Photoshop and wanted to see how Gimp compared, (b) already made things with Gimp but wanted to learn more or (c) were naturally artistic. Me, being none of the above kinda struggled through, so I'm using the one no-additional-fee retake permitted. Now that I have my feet wet in Gimp so to speak, I can concentrate better and have more fun this time.

Which means that hopefully I'll be able to get my shop going finally.

For some strange reason, lately I'm getting like one sale a day via XStreet SL. That encourages me.

I have also been favorably surprised that I have had a couple sales at XStreet! I should take that Gimp course- there is soooo much I don't know that I don't even know I don't know - what I do not have is TIME!!!

And- here is the Xmas season... I hear we need to really gear up for this peeps.. first season for me here

Yep - which is why I didn't have time for other things during that 10 weeks. For me, however, as soon as I start feeling a bit of stress, it greatly aggravates a chronic illness I live with, so I'm going to just relax til after Christmas.

...right now doing some nail biting about the elections

OK- I got the group permissions thing handled in the ~Cheep Peeps~ group. I went ahead and handed out Designer Tags to those I knew off the top of my head to have stores - anyone I missed please tell me- and those of you that haven't joined and mean to please feel free- and don't forget to add this info to your blogs too so we can get the word out.

The group's not coming up as open enrollment, Amara. Could I have an invite, please?

Argh!! thanks- I will take care of-

Also- I posted this : /119/4a/290930/1.html

But somehow I don't think anyone will notice it there-

Question... I bit the bullet and bought a Featured ad in Xstreets- where shd it be showing up?

This is the item - http://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=996673
I looked on the homepage where is where I thought it wd end up... but several scroll thru's and I did not see it help

is it the featured on the home page option? There are different enhancements one can buy

if it is the specific homepage one, then you may never see it there, however if you check your traffic reports on xstreet, you can see how many homepage views it had

I have done the homepage featured option and never see my own ad there