A few questions please

HI I am New here and wondered if I could ask a few questions please.

I have a Premium account so I gether from what i have read that I have 512sq m of land I can use please correct me if I am wrong.

I am looking to put a business on here so what I was wanting to know is can I have my piece of land anywhere I want as I would want a high traffic area obviously.

If I can how do I build my store. And go about putting items in there that are for sale.

Also what sort of time scale am I looking at if I was too put in about two hours a day.

If I need some-one to build a store for me what sort of price would I be looking at please.

Sorry for all the questions but I need some clarity.

1: No, you do not have 512 M2 of free land. What you have is free monthly maintenance fees on the first 512 M2 of land in a Mainland sim that you purchase, and you must pay the market rate for that land, like anyone else. They discontinued a "First Land" program many months ago, where new Premium members could buy their first 512 M2 of land for just $L 512, but it was never completely free.

2: You can have a business anywhere that the local covenants allow running a business. That is anywhere on a Linden-owned Mainland sim, and most locations in private island sims. Your free 512 M2 of land maintenance payments does not apply to land on private islands. So you would want mainland to do that.

3: Traffic is an indicator, but not the only factor to consider. A sim with huge traffic numbers that gets those numbers because a club or casino full of camping chairs has the sim constantly full and inaccessable for other land owners would be worthless to you. No one could get into your store to shop. Look instead for places with moderately high traffic, where people who are likely to use the products you wish to sell are frequently around. For example, if you are selling boating stuff, you wouldn't want to be far away from any water. If you are selling Furry avatars, you'd want to at least be in a furry-friendly sim, and preferably one they like to hang out in. If you are selling adult content, you can't do that in a PG-rated sim.

4: It sounds like you have not done any homework yet on how SL works. Do that first. Go to stores that already sell stuff like you plan to sell, and see what sort of merchandise they sell, and at whet prices. Can you do better than they do, for the time you plan to invest? 2 hours a day is not enough to get any legitimate business off the ground, in my opinion. Most successful SL business owners are putting in 20 to 40 hours or more hours a week.

People like me can build a store, set up your vendors, and show you how to get started. But if you don't have a viable business plan, you are just throwing money away.

Understand this. No matter what hype you have read, less than 2% of active SL residents make more money in SL than they pay to play it. Less than 1% make more than a few hundred dollars a month actual profit from their efforts in SL. A fraction of one percent, maybe 200 out of the millions that have SL access, make enough to consider it a "real job" - and even then, a decent real world job likely pays better, for far less effort. I know what I am talking about here. I am one of the 2% that has a positive monthly L$ flow, every month. I work hard, and make less than a part-time second job in the RL world would earn for me. I do it because I like to do it, not because it makes me lots of money for little effort.

This is NOT a place to make money doing almost nothing. Like anywhere else, your ability to make money here is directly related to the intensity of your effort, the scale of your initial capital investment, and most importantly your ability to have the right product, of decent quality, at a price people are willing to pay, at the right place and right time. You'll never do that by buying a "Business in a box" that some schlep is selling, promising great profits selling stuff someone else designed. You'll never do it without doing the hard work and research you need to understand your market and what is possible in SL.

I can only answer the first part of your question definitively.........the rest is a little more complicated so I can only give generalizations.

" from what i have read that I have 512sq m of land I can use please correct me if I am wrong."

Evidently the wording on SL's web page is a little misleading (at least confusing). Your premium account status lets you have the first 512 sq meters of land tier free. Tier free means you do not have to pay an additional amount each month for "land use". You still have to buy that land at the market price. You need to buy that land on "mainland"..........islands are private sims and are subject to "tier" set by the private owner of the sim. The amount is set by the owner but usually comparable to LL's tier rate. However I think most sim owner do charge tier for any land (even land at 512 sq meters). Where ever you buy your land you have to pay what the seller sets the price at.......it's not free (only the "tier" is free for the first 512 sq meters on Mainland.....Linden Labs owned land).

I won't get into other options for land........you'll get a lot of advice on renting vs buying by others here.


"I am looking to put a business on here so what I was wanting to know is can I have my piece of land anywhere I want as I would want a high traffic area obviously."

You choose where you buy you land........and pay accordingly. High traffic areas go for a premium amount. Expect to pay more for that land. However high traffic is sort of a can of worms all it's own. Some places have "camping chairs" (and other forms for loitering for pay) to get those traffic numbers up...........it can, and often is, misleading. You cannot "move" your land to another location once you buy. You will have to sell it and get another place in order to move.

My thinking is that a high traffic area is not necessary for a successful business in SL. People can fly, teleport and walk anywhere in Second Life. It's not like real life where you have heavy freeway traffic and parking problems to worry about. However you will have to find a way to advertise your products. Linden Labs does have a classified section in their search.........but it seems to be broken more often than not. Many people have their main stores in low traffic areas and vendor machines they rent from mall owners to let people purchase there.......and provide notecards with "landmarks" to their main store. That's actually how I find some of the best shops in SL (get the notecards for the main store).


"If I can how do I build my store. And go about putting items in there that are for sale."

Check out the building section of the forums for building tips and how to's. Right now it seems the building forum is mostly about a new feature called "sculpties" but if you read some of the stickies and do a search you will find lots of information there. Also do a search in game for "The Ivory Towers of Prims" for some real good interactive tutorials. "New Citizens" (in game, also) is also a great place to get building information and help. You can also go to a public "sandbox" and stand around and watch people build stuff. That's what I did. If you are polite, ask them questions...........most don't mind telling you. But if they are very intent on their project......don't bother them. Some people get really involved in their work. I learned loads that way.


"Also what sort of time scale am I looking at if I was too put in about two hours a day."

That is a really hard question to answer. If you get interested in building the two hours a day could turn into 4, 6 or even 8!! LOL The compexity of your build or business will dictate how long of a time to get your business off and running. If you are determined I would say a few days is not out of the question. If you are starting without any building or content creation experience I would say a couple months is not out the question.


"If I need some-one to build a store for me what sort of price would I be looking at please."

You will have to negotiate that with a builder. The price will depend on the complexity of the build. A simple build is probably very reasonable. But, you can buy a "prefab" store for not much!! And if you learn the basics for building you can build your own for free. Look for "low prim" stores or buildings. On a 512 lot you only have a total of 117 prims that can be put on the lot. That is not a lot of prims..........it's very easy to eat up half of them with a complex building and no furniture. I've seen some real nice prefabs building that are under 10 prims (even a few in the 4 prim range).

Hope I've helped a little.

You should REALLY slow down. SL isn't something you can just jump into. There's a very high learning curve. Most people spend a month just figuring out the basics.

You have a premium membership, which means you CAN own land, not that you DO own land. Buying Linden land gives you the ability to do pretty much anything you damn well please, but it also gives your neighbors the ability to do the same thing. A lot of people end up getting pushed out of their land by bad neighbors who grief you into selling your parcel and moving.

You can also buy (or rent) land from private land owners. Private island land resellers generally have covenants that list what you can and can't do on the land. But you don't exactly own the land, as the island owner technically still owns it from Linden Labs, so there's a middle man. People argue both sides of the situation, but I personally prefer to rent from a private estate until I move on to my own island (which is $1,675 for the island and $295 a month for tier). No matter what route you take though, you will be paying a monthly fee (beyond the premium membership) for "land tier". For 512sqm, it's $5 a month (if you go beyond the 512 your premium account covers).

There are tons of pre-fab stores that are freebies you could use for a 512 plot. But it's not as simple as just saying "I'm going to open a shop and sell things". You have to have a product to sell. And no one is going to just give you a product to sell. Avoid "Business in a Box" rip offs. 99% of them are just freebies put together in hopes of sucker noobs buying them. You have to have something to offer for people to buy it. Which means you'll need to either build, script, animate, provide some type of service, and in the case of most successful stores you'll need to do all of those.

You should probably have read through the faq's on Linden's website before jumping into a premium membership.

Thankyou for all your advise I have taken it all onboard. I have a Business in the real world of which I am wanting to put on here but at the moment I am not wanting to reveal exactly what it is as a multi million pound company are wanting to do the same so I am playing things close to my chest for the time being. So finding items to sell will not be a problem.

I am still looking around and will be for some time I think but at least now I have some idea as to what I need to do thanks to you all. I will probably be back again soon to ask more questions if you don't mind.

Thanks Again

If you're really wanting to get a fast start, you'd probably be best off partnering with someone who has an established business or two looking for a new project. Possibly with the understanding of buying them out once you're "big enough to leave the nest". Otherwise, there's no real way to rush things.

If you're not willing to put in enough hours and work for a full time job, you will probably NEVER see results. The good news is, it only takes a few months of that if you do it properly and a lot of things start to run themselves after that.