The velvet fabric (from Lauren Fox’s Lauren’s Tiling Textures) that I’ve used gives me sharp seam lines which look out of place. One way of getting rid of or reducing the sharpness of the seam lines is to smudge the fabric texture along the seams. I used the AvPainter programme and it’s inbuilt smudge tool to soften the seam lines on the clothes for the ballgown top, glitch pants and gloves. (You will need to buy the full AvPainter programme if you wish to be able to save any changes you make to your clothes.)

Although smudging hasn’t completely removed the seam, it has certainly removed the sharp edge and made the seam a lot less noticeable. It can be fiddly and take some time but it does improve the overall look of the outfit.

Here’s what my images files look like that created the top, glitch pants and gloves for the velvet ballgown (minus the red cut out shapes and clothing templates):

Sales Posters

What is the most important information that you want to get across to your potential customers when they are looking at the sales posters for your products?

Information that you might like to include could be:

• Name of item.
• Name of creator.
• Price (although this could be left as a mouseover hover).
• Images of your item from different angles depending upon the design.
• Whether the item has mod/copy/transfer capabilities.
• What’s included with the item. (When just selling clothes it is a good idea to make it clear that any hair, shape, shoes etc that the model may also be wearing in the picture is not included in the outfit.)

If you are selling clothes, you might like to invest some money in your avatar so that they have nice hair, shoes, shape, skin and model poses to show off your creations to their best advantage.

Tip #9: Create any images (width and height) in multiples or subdivisions of 512px, as SL will otherwise resize them, and stretch them if they’re not in a 512px multiple.

I prefer not to put the cost of the outfit on the poster, and have it as a mouseover hover as I tend to change the prices depending upon how well an item sells. So if I had the price on the poster, each time I changed the price of an item, I would have to redo the sales poster and upload it again at a price of L$10, which obviously costs me time and money to do.

Delivery Boxes

Delivery boxes are the objects that contain your items that are given to a customer when they make a purchase. A delivery box can be as simple as a box with the name or logo of the shop, or have an image of the contents on the box. The delivery box can be made to look more like a shopping bag, or in it’s most sophisticated form, be an elegant and beautiful item in it’s own right e.g. like the dragon eggs that contain Daryth Kennedy’s dragons which are sold in Cathedral (which is part of the Isle of Wyrms).

There are two things to be aware of if you make a complicated looking delivery box:

• If it is made out of quite a few prims, your customers might have difficulty in opening your delivery box to obtain the contents that they have purchased. In Daryth Kennedy’s case, she provides a sandpit which allows any customers to be able to rez their egg to open the contents.
• If you don’t have a touch-open script on your delivery box that immediately opens the contents when a customer clicks on it they may not realise that it is actually a delivery box. If the customer speaks the same language as you, then you can explain that it is a delivery box and what they need to do in order to obtain the item they purchased from it. However, in SL there are people who may purchase your items who don’t speak a common language with you and trying to explain that what they have rezzed is a delivery box and the item they brought is inside it, is not so easy to do.

By Box:

To create a simple box to sell your items, click Ctrl-1 which will bring up the edit/creation tools. Click on the wand icon and then the box icon, followed by clicking on the ground near you. Hopefully a wooden box has just appeared near you, if not then you might not be in an area in SL where you can rez objects, so you might like to try and visit a sandbox to rez your box.

To set up your box to sell your items, do the following:

1. Under the General tab enter a suitable name for your box (usually related to the items that you wish to sell from it) with a description if you so wish. Tick beside For Sale and then enter the price which you wish to sell your items for next to Price: L$. Don’t forget to tick whether you wish the next owner to be able to modify, copy or resell your items (otherwise known as Mod, Copy, Trans). Also select the Buy object from the drop down list under When Left-Clicked.
2. Under the Object tab you can resize the box to a suitable size.
3. Under the Texture tab you can change the texture and colour applied to the outside of your box. Quite often, you will wish to change the texture for an image that you have created to show what the items are that your box contains. Assuming you have already uploaded an image into SL, click on the Texture box and then locate your image from your inventory and click the select button.
4. You may have noticed that the image is applied to all sides of your box, which might not necessarily be what you want. To place an image on one side of your box only, click to the left of Select Texture and then click on the side of the box that you wish to apply the texture to and then follow the steps in stage 3 to apply the texture.
5. Under the Content tab is where you need to place the contents you wish to sell. Simply drag the items you have created from where they are stored in your inventory and drop them on to the Contents folder.

Close the edit/creation tools menu and left-click on the box it should now pop up a little window allowing you to buy the contents of the box.

Tip #6: It is useful to buy any items you sell from boxes or vendors to check what permissions you have set for the next owner (whether that be any or all of Mod, Copy, Trans) and to also make sure that you are giving out the correct items.

By Vendor:

As I’ve only used the hippoVEND vendor, this section is related to how the hippoVEND vendor works.

So having visited Hippo Technologies Main Store in SL and brought the hippoVEND vendor (which currently retails for L$1,750) and followed the hippoVEND Getting Started Guide to set up a user account you’re all set to go playing with a vendor.

Unfortunately, you can’t start with the vendor as you need to do some setting up first, before you can actually configure a vendor to sell the items you want to sell. So to start you need to be in SL:

1. Rez a server (i.e. find your hippo server in your inventory and take it out of your inventory).
2. Right click and select edit.
3. Under the General tab give the object server a unique name, I tend to include the name of the sim in the name to make it easier to spot on the Hippo website which server I’m looking at (but more about that later).
4. Under the Content tab you should find a config note card. Open the config note card and change the name and password and save.
5. Still under the Content tab place the items you wish to sell (drag from your inventory into the content tab window). (Note: Items that are to be sold are already normally packaged up in a box before being placed in the server.) Add any note cards that you wish the vendor to hand out, plus images that are to be used on the vendor to show off your items.
6. Reset the server, either by right click and choose Touch or come out of the edit mode and simply touch the server to bring up the blue menu system, and choose Reset.
7. In the blue menu system, select Go Online and then select Load Inv which will load your server inventory items to the Hippo website.

Tip #7: It is important to give every item being placed in the hippoVEND server a unique name whether that be the item to sell, a note card or image, as it will otherwise confuse the server.

Next you need to open a web browser:

1. Log in to the Hippo website and click on hippoVEND. (This will take you to your servers and inventory page, showing what servers you have and what inventory is in them.)
2. Click on Servors & Inventory and scroll down to the name of the box that contains the items you want to sell and click on the blue plus to the right of it.
3. You change the name, add a description, allocate an image for the vendor texture and any note cards associated with your creation.
4. The most important part is to assign a price. The categories section, simply makes it easier for you to search for items on the Hippo web site.
5. Once you’re happy everything is okay, hit okay for your item to be created on the web site.

For the complete guide to how to use the hippoVEND system click on The Complete Guide To hippoVEND.

Back in SL:

1. Rez a Hippo vendor in SL. (I tend to use the single panel vendors - single panel vendors are quite common amongst clothes stores).
2. You will need to grant debit permissions twice when the yellow pop-ups appear, this is to deal with setting up the vendor to pay you money when somebody buys an item.
3. Right click the vendor and edit, and position the vendor appropriately, it’s also a good time to give your vendor object a unique name (I tend to use the name of the outfit and the price to make it easier to spot on the Hippo website).
4. Download the items to the vendor, either by right click and chose Touch or come out of the edit mode and simply touch the vendor to bring up the blue menu system, and choose Download. (Note: If you are using a single vendor go back to the website and modify what the vendor object sells by clicking on the wrench (edit) image and entering the product name under Product Name Contains. Then back in SL touch the vendor and select Reset and Download again (this time it should have only one item)).

So now you should have a fully operating vendor that will sell your item(s).

Tip #8: If you have shops in more than one sim, it is useful to have a server positioned in each sim with all the inventory items that you need to sell all of your creations. If SL is having problems and one of your servers is “inactive” for a time the vendors can still use a server in a different sim to deliver the items a customer buys.

• What type of items are people selling in the market you wish to enter?
• What type of extras do they have? (Be that freebies, menu systems, script enhancements that make it easier to modify the item…)
• What permissions do others typically set on their items? (Modify, copy or transfer.)
• What prices to they charge for items?

Once you have a feeling for what others are charging it is easier to come up with prices for your own items. If they aren’t as sophisticated or as detailed as other competitors then it makes sense to make your prices lower. If your items are similar then it makes sense to sell at similar prices, and if they are more sophisticated/more complex then charging more is reasonable. Although, if you are trying to break in to an established market, you might like to consider offering your items at lower prices initially to attract customers to buy your products.

Like RL some items will sell well and others won’t. I like to keep track of what items are selling and which ones aren’t to help me know when creating future items whether there are certain things I should avoid. In a clothing items sense:

• That might mean a certain colour typically doesn’t sell well, so it might be best to try out some different colours instead when creating new items.
• Or a certain style of clothing might not be popular etc.

Information like this, can help you plan what items to make next and help increase your sales by making what your customers are interested in buying. For items that aren’t selling well, you might like to put in a sale at reduced prices, to see whether you have priced yourself too high.

Don’t be expecting to make lots of money through SL, if you break even after all of your costs then you are doing well, which can be:

• Start Up Costs:
  • Owning land (if you end up buying a plot of land).
  • Vendor system.
  • Other set up costs (for me these included putting together a nice looking avatar - skin, shape, hair etc and model poses to show off my items of clothing etc).
• Running Costs:
  • Renting land (if you end up renting a plot of land).
  • Buying textures from other people to use in your own creations.
  • Image upload costs.
  • Advertisement costs.

As the old adage goes:

Tip #5: It takes money to make money.

• In world i.e within Second Life itself.
• Via the SL Exchange website.
• Via the Onrez website.

SL Exchange charges anywhere between 3% - 5% for each item sold through it’s website and charges for featured listings, where as Onrez charges for featured listings but doesn’t charge any fees for selling the items. If you wish to find out more about these websites click on the links above.

For the remainder of this post, I will discuss selling items in world.

As in RL (real life), finding a location to sell your items within SL is important, and that greatly depends upon what market you are trying to target. For instance if you’re making medieval clothing there isn’t much point in setting up a shop on a sim that’s futuristic and vice versa etc. If you figure out what type of items you are likely to make and who might be interested in them, that’s a good starting point in which to look for a location to sell your items. If you’re in a niche market that’s fairly unique or limited as to who would buy your items, it’s even more important to pick the right location.

It is possible to find a small space for free from which you can sell your items. Some sims have citizen groups and markets where citizens can sell items, either free of charge or at reduced rates. Or you can go to the expense of renting a plot of land or owning land in your own right. Obviously the costs vary as to which solution you choose, potentially from free to quite a few thousand L$ (Linden Dollars).

If you rent a plot of land, or buy your own land then it’s advisable to set keywords for the plot of land, and allow it to be searchable within SL who charge a fee of L$30 per week for advertising it in this manner.

Tip #3: If you rent/own a plot of land set the keywords appropriately to help people find you in a search under places in SL.

Again, it’s good to know your market in order to figure out what keywords are best to use, in order that you get listed higher up in SL’s search facility. For instance using a keyword of clothing or shoes are popular keywords as there are plenty of people in SL that create clothing and shoes, so you need to think of more unique keywords that people may use, that will still be able to find you in a search.

To enter keywords for your plot of land, right-click on the land and select About Land which will bring up an information box, then select the Options tab. Under Land Options tick the box beside Show Place In Search (L$30/week) under and select from the drop down list the most suitable option, in my case Shopping.

Also, you can select a picture for your plot of land, this image will be shown as part of your landmark for your plot.

Tip #4: If you rent/own a plot of land set an image for your landmark, to make it easier for visitors to recognise they have arrived at the right place. This is very useful, if you are in an area where a teleport hub is active, as your landmark will not take people directly to your shop, but to the teleport hub instead.

Under the same Options tab (as above) there is a snapshot picture area, click on it to select a picture you wish to use for your landmark. It is also possible to set where people land as well (like at your front door) by clicking on the set button to set the location of the landmark, and under Teleport Routing selecting Landing Point. (As I’ve already mentioned, this can be overridden by a teleport hub.)