"Business in a box" / resell boxes

I've been seeing a lot of these lately, and it makes me sad because the business model is based on taking advantage of the inexperienced.

"Wholesalers" in the real world make sense. They do not in SL, but people (even those several months in game) who are getting used to SL don't realize that. The "business in a box" thing looks like a good way to set up a business fast and start making money... but retail in SL is very different from retail in RL.

If you are buying items full permissions, then so are other people. It's just a matter of time before these items are available as freebies. I 've seen malls in quite a number of sims now all selling the same stuff, stuff which is available at many of the freebie places. I'm sad for the newbies who spend their money on this stuff.

At best, the "business in a box" sellers are inadvertently taking advantage of the inexperienced by selling them in inviable business model, selling them resell goods that perhaps will be valuable for resell for a short period of time, but which may in fact require passing on the screwage to other newbies.

At worst, they are out-and-out scams. Too many of these places sell well-known freebies. Too many of these places are selling the gowns by Agent Case and Bianca Barbee-- two designers who are no longer in game, and who released their stuff to the community to be freely distributed long ago. (Since those two are no longer in game, I don't think I'm violating forum rules.)

I've gotten into arguments with a few people over this recently. They say it's "my opinion" that this isn't a viable business model. But if it is a viable business model, it's based on taking advantage of newbies-- and so I'd say that if it's a viable business model, it's an ethically dubious business model. Indeed, it takes advantage of the creators whose stuff they sell. Either it's stuff the creators wanted free (in the case of Agent Case and Bianca Barbee), or the creators don't realize that after the first sale, they are effectively giving away all of their stuff. If that's what they want, that's fine. (Heck, I do that with scripts I'm hired to write. If somebody wants it written, I write it, but I preserve the right to release it GPL.) But if they think that they're at the top of a business chain similar to creators in the real life, they're sorely mistaken.

The main problem with Businesses in Boxes is the fact that somebody else can buy your entire inventory just like you did, so there's no real reason to pay you for it.

I have two such creatures, which I bought so I could start my own store, but not QUITE in the way one would expect.

The first was a box of dresses for something like L$250. I wasn't planning on reselling them, but on examining them to See How It Was Done, for when I start my own clothing line. The problem was, most of the dresses were catastrophically hideous, and not worth learning from (except maybe as lessons on what NOT to do!) There were a few dresses that I quite liked, though, and I even wear them myself, which makes them worth the L$250 I paid.

The other was a furniture store in a box that came with an e-book that I've ranted at length about elsewhere. I didn't even want it--but since I paid the money for the useless e-book, I figured I should at least get the store that went with it. Furniture was equally hiddy and I haven't used any of it.

The problem is that most new people are essentially the equivalent of grade schoolers being given all the privelages of an adult and left unchecked. Some of these people start out willing to put down sizeable sums of real money before they really know what's going on! I know I did when I started!!

These types of situations are why there is a BBB in RL as well as a Chamber of Commerce and different required business licenses. The problem with that happening in SL is that it's practically un-doable since there are no real repercussions if you do it since we're all essentially as anonymous as we want to be for the most part.

I think a "streetwisdom of SL" notecard full of info about things like this would do wonders for new people. I know I'd be willing to put that up at my shop to help people! I'd write it myself but there are still a lot of aspects of SL that I've never delved into to the extent where I'd be qualified to comment on them.

It's a shame that new people are in general looked on as retarded stepchildren that have to be tolerated before they figure stuff out...otherwise this wouldn't happen in the first place!

On the other hand, they are great for people who continually ask the same question:

How do I make money in SL without taking a lot of time to learn or doing a lot of work myself?

hehe, yes, I'm always telling people that wholesaling makes little sense in SL, but invariably the wholesalers come to the thread and dogpile on, saying how they're not in fact taking advantage of people. I'm glad there are at least some who see the truth of the situation.

/me looks around warily for a crush of flying wholesalers...

I have a couple of wholesale agreements, both work well for me. I can't sell items for full perms, the items won't be appearing as freebies.

Send me L$100 and I will tell you the answer!

Never buy one!

I bought one business in a box. I did not buy it to set up a prefab business though. I already design and sell dresses, and the box I bought included some accesories I sell at low price as a service to my customers: they can walk out of my store with a complete look if they want, complete with a hand bag and hair.

Now before putting those items up in my store I did a background check on them. The creator of the items was a former business owner who decided to pack up and leave SL. She specifically decided to pack up her business full perms for resale.

I think there is nothing wrong with using a business in a box this way.

i think that business in box could work but not as full perms.

If you sold say 10 no copy items inside a box then the buyer would have ten items to sell and then you would also get repeat business if they manage to sell them all and come back for more.

funny how your all so protective of the newbee. i think you are all simply annoyed as this is taking business out of your pockets as designers...

but hang on... why are creative poeple the only ones alowed to make money on SL? why cant the rest of us who may have other skills such as business or property make a living aswell to pay for our love of second life??

the answer is... WE CAN! and if it means we are selling less quality goods cheaply to noobs so be it. thats part of the fun. even noobs sell to noobs its a free market and everyone can find there place in it. thats what is so geat about SL.

another silly thread

I've actually done this a couple times, had people approach me to buy a bunch of copies of one of my products to use in furniture to sell, and I give them a steep volume discount. This works great for small scale selling, like one at a time through yard sales, but I would be hesitant to actually suggest this up-front in my store because I imagine too many people would be confused and think they were getting full-perms animations.

For every single legitimate BIAB available, there are two dozen or more freebie rip-off BIABs. Tho I must admit Ive never actually seen a legitimate BIAB.

Is a BIAB a good business model? Sure, if you're in the business of scamming people, since scamming people has always been a really good business model for the unscrupulous. It has definately become a surefire way to make money in SL without even trying, because it preys on the ignorance of people.

Is a BIAB a good business model for someone leaving SL to cash out a little extra linden before they go? Not with full perms. You'd be better off finding a competitor willing to buy out your product. Of course, you'd have to have a decent product to sell.

But then, it comes down to the same thing its always come down to: Buyer Beware.

My only suggestion for anyone thinking of buying a BIAB would be to do your reaseach FIRST and make sure you arent just buying a bunch of freebies. But then, that process would probably not sit well with people just trying to "get rich quick", since it involves effort.

hear, hear, why should people who made the effort to spend hours, days and months to make a thing be the only ones to make money?

What about the people who cant be bothered to make an effort, dont they deserve to make as much money out of selling freebies other people made or stolen textures etc?

Perhaps the funniest thing about these "business in a box" items is the fact a lot who buy them cant be bothered to make a business anyway, they just sell the thing they just bought as a "business in a box", violating the agreement of the person who sold them it, who was themselves violating the agreement of the person who was themselves vio.........

You can sell what you want to whoever is gullable enough to buy it, however I would not say that that is what is so great about SL. Someone who is selling items that are free elsewhere or are of very poor design isnt going to last long. Just like allot of the best ideas in SL have been copied, so have the scams and its already becoming apparent that the grid is full of crappy little businesses that are all selling the same rubbish that can be picked up for free elsewhere. If this is your idea of what makes SL great then you need to raise you expectations.

I think the concept of the business in a box is a good one. In fact I once sold full designs rights to 3 of my prefabs to a player who wanted to start a business of their own. I charged them a lot of money and obviously commited to never sell or distribute the objects again. I would like to see more of these, a completely unique business sold with full perms to another player via ebay or something so the highest bidder gets it. As soon as you sell more than one copy of a full perm business it becomes useless or at the least, highly de-valued and ultimately worthless as more and more people pick up copies.

an enterprising person will rebrand the items and promote them in a way unique to the others. just because a freebie market buys a biab and gives it away people are not obligated to adhere to some unwritten moral of not selling something simply because it is also present as a freebie.
even then, just because its presented as a 'business in a box' that doesnt necessarily mean that is its end use by everyone that buys it. for example, biab items are great for stocking lucky chairs.

Yes, that makes sense, and there are other scripted ways it makes sense.

By and large, though, the "resell boxes" and "business in a box" things are full perm items.

If you don't have or can't point to a copyright waiver or license, or some other kind of proof that you have permission to redistribute someone else's copyrighted work then you're violating copyright law. Absence of a copyright claim doesn't mean the item is in the public domain and "free".

It's the fact that noone is going to take you to court over it that shifts it from a legal matter to an ethical/moral debate on SL.

..so I was at this store the other day. I noticed a box full of purses (purses I had bought free as a newb) marked for $400L. It was marked as a reseller box as well, making me wonder if my eyes were just being silly about it being the purse I had bought for free, so I clicked buy on the box. I didn't intend to BUY the overpriced mess inside. I just wanted to see what the bags were called. Sure enough when I ran a search through my inventory on the name, it came up about 10 times (I'm pretty bad with the whole rez new copy, take new copy, don't delete anything thing lol). I went to hit cancell on the buy, quite disgusted (this box of freebies is being sold for more money than almost anything in my store, and I actually do create my own things), and instead of cancelling the buy, I bought the box.

**Go me!

I have. The one I sell a few items from is. I checked the creator's profile to make sure she intended for her products to be sold this way. She did.

i take the permissions system at face value and in good conscience.
to me the idea of securing real world copyright documents and so on is 'out there'.

I've im'd the creators of items, rather than the creator of the box. One explained to me that she'd been ripped off, that the items were never designed to be resold in that fashion and named the person who had ripped her off, who was the creator of the box.

However she had no objection to me selling the items, she just pointed out that people could probably get them free by now, I didn't put them up for sale but I have been offered by the original creator the chance to resell new items that aren't in the ripped off range.

Doh, it would be silly to contact the creator of the box, anybody can box a bunch of freebies or items that mysteriously changed perms. I didn't IM the creator of the items though because her profile clearly stated she was not available for questions about the boxed business, referring instead to the reseller.

And so then Suzy, I applaude you for having morals, I guess.

But does that mean that the items you are reselling from the creator aren't also available for free somewhere? I'm not saying it doesn't mean you can't sell them, I'm just suggesting that someone interested enough might be able to get what you sell for free, if they would do a little poking around the freebie places before making any purchases.

Most likely the original creator of the items you purchased in the BIAB changed her profile and left SL or alt-ed out simply because she was sick of a ton of IM's from people who purchased her creations from resellers without realizing it. Bugs and exploits and human error have made many things that were never supposed to be resold, resaleable. Perhaps the original creator of the items you resell fell victim to that injustice, said 'screw this' and left SL, hoping to squeek the last little linden out as she went.

Who does it benefit most if you sell things you didn't create to someone who doesn't realize the same object is available for free? And what name do you call that business strategy?

So, yes Suzy, you are a legitmate BIAB reseller. Congratulations. That means that behind you there are two dozen scumbags, preying on peoples ignorance.

I took quite some time looking around to see at what price those items were being sold elsewhere, and I set them at a very reasonable price. I know not everybody does that, I've seen the same items priced as much as ten times as high. Then again I bought the box in question for 700 lindens, and have also seen the same box for sale for 3000 lindens. Yeah, there are less than ethical people around, or people who are greedy, people who hope they will get away with charging ridiculous sums of money for items that can be gotten much cheaper elsewhere.

So what? There are greedy and unethical land barons, is that a reason never to buy land? There are content creators who overprice their goods, is that a reason not to make a business out of content creation? There are escorts who take your money and run, is that a reason not to be an escort? The fact that there are people out there who sell hacked businesses in boxes is no reason not to use a legit business in a box in a legit way.



Wow, that is a whole lot of assumption. What are you saying, that I should assume the creator is *lying* when she clearly states in her profile that she *intends* her items to be sold this way???