The Victorian Shopkeepers Association -- join us!

I've recently taken over ownership of the Victorian Shopkeepers Association, an update group for both merchants and shoppers with a fondness for all things 19th century Victorian, Steampunk and Gothic. Founder Otenth Paderborn has decided to move on to other projects, and has kindly selected me to "replace" him.

So as the new group owner (I really need to come up with an appropriate title) I'm here to extend an invitation to any and all SLU merchants and residents with similar interests to join the group.

For "discerning shoppers," you'll receive notices from a wide variety of merchants specializing in 19th century fashion, furnishings and other items, all in a single group. Shoppers will also on occasion receive special gifts from merchant members.

Shopkeepers can reach a targeted audience for their sales and special events. Merchant members don't necessarily have to have a shop on a Victorian sim, nor do you have to have exclusively 19th century Victorian/Steampunk/Gothic products (though they should be a prominent element of your business). For posting privileges, contact me to have the shopkeeper role added to your membership.

The VSA is planning a number of new incentives, among them sponsorship of a Victorian hunt, a website/blog, and a Victorian Visitor Information Centre. We're also planning to host a merchants meeting on a regular basis to discuss issues of interest to VSA merchants.

To join us, simply open chat history and paste the following link there:
secondlife:///app/group/8a1da22e-a0c3-71f0-b24a-844b7fb5a2ea/about

Click the live link in your chat, and then the "join" button on the group information box that pops up, and you are ready to enjoy the membership benefits of the VSA!

"This is no social crisis... it's just another tricky day"

I recently joined an in-world, Linden directed group called "Second Life Commerce Merchants." The purpose of the group is described as thus:

A place for merchants in second life and on XStreet SL to talk business.

There hasn't been a great deal of activity in the group since I joined a few weeks ago, partly because I don't think merchants have a clear idea as to how much we can or should utilize the group for discussing business... I'm not sure the Lindens running the group -- which includes Pink and Colossus -- are certain of its purpose either.

In the last two weeks there have been two notices sent out, both by Colossus Linden -- the first, encouraging us to put all of our Valentine's Day related merchandise into the recently expanded Valentine's Day category.

Sounds good, but I already did that a few weeks ago when I saw the notice in the blogorums.

But then there was this additional tidbit:

But, don't stop at finding what you like... share your favorite items with your friends. We've just added share links to Xstreet SL. Log in, go to the detail page of an item you like and try it out. The share link is in the box on the right side of the detail page beneath the purchase options.

Okay... I'm sure this is a good idea, but in the larger scope of things, this is what the Commerce Team has made a priority?

Today's notecard missive was more promising. The Commerce Team has launched a trial program to assist shoppers in finding merchants on XStreet, by using tags. To wit:

We presented an idea awhile back of adding some common tags to item descriptions in order to make it easier for shoppers to see the subset of items they are most interested in. We'd like to give this a shot with an initial set of tags and if things go well, we'll expand and refine our official tag set.

Okay, this is interesting, do go on...

Merchants, if you have goods that fit into the following communities, please add the respective tag(s) to the end of your item description:

* tagTiny
* tagGorean
* tagFurry
* tagEmo
* tagVampire
* tagSteampunk
* tagGoth
* tagNeko
* tagPirate
* tagFantasy
* tagCyberpunk
* tagScifi
* tagMedieval
* tagSpace
* tagBeach

*the Victorian seamstress waits*

Okay, maybe they cut off the end of the list... I'm not seeing a "tagVictorian"... or even a "tagWestern." Nope, no "tag:Historical."

*the Victorian seamstress reads on*

We're also providing a few which are a bit more purpose related than community related:

* tagEducation
* tagAdultContent
* tagGaming
* tagSports

Merchants, this system will only be useful if these tags provide shoppers items in the area of their interest, so please do not spam these tags in unrelated listings.

*the Victorian seamstress realizes she's holding her breath and is starting to turn blue*

Uh... hmm.

The immediate issue I see is that my business does not necessarily fit into any of those categories -- yes, I have a few items that might be useful to vampires, goths and possibly pirates, and even one or two that are vaguely "steampunk." (Perhaps it's time to put that steampowered corset back on the drawing table...)

Will that mean we get dinged for keyword spamming if we put my items in those categories? Because without a Victorian or Western or Historical tag, our potential customers will not be seeing work by merchants in those categories. We'll be lumped in with the whorewear and BIABs.... which makes for an interesting dichotomy.

Addressing consumers, LL has this to say:

Shoppers, we don't yet have a true tagging system, but we're making use of the search system. You can click on the tags above to search on that tag, or you can type a tag in with your search query when searching on Xstreet SL. Remember that if you're using multiple words in a search query, adding a '+' before a keyword makes it required within all results.

So, once again we have an example of Linden Lab's reverse engineering strategy. They claim they presented this idea awhile back. If they did, I never heard of it, and I try to skim the blogorums on a regular basis, to keep up with announcements.

Nor is it likely many of my fellow Victorian merchants did either. LL has implemented yet another program in a half-assed manner before it's been properly researched. If you've been following the Avatars United debacle, or the XStreet revamping, you know exactly what I mean.

We will look to expose these tags/communities from the homepage and if this system increases sales and shopper satisfaction, then we will look to expand on the tags we are promoting.

That's all nice and well, but historically, LL's movement on fixing any of their hastily thought out plans is like watching moss grow. So we have a few months to wait. Wonderful.

Good luck.
--The Commerce Team

Good luck, indeed... *sighs*

Remodeled Caledon & Antiquity shops now open!

Renovations are finally complete on MNC's Caledon and Antiquity shops.

After a lot of research, I came back to my original choice for a new building, "The 1875 Shoppe" by Four Winds.

Four Winds makes some exceptional buildings, from many different eras, both residential and commercial. As I went around SL, I really didn't see anything quite as nice. That likely has to do with SL's Search function, which is frankly a rather frustrating and often futile experience. But that's a topic for another post...

The shops now feature a third floor devoted to our complete line of low prim Victorian & Old West furnishings, in addition to our regular selection of men's, women's and girl's Victorian clothing and accessories.

If you haven't seen MNC's furnishings before, the line has grown considerably, and includes everything from Victorian sofas & armchairs to a Chinese tea table & seat cushions. Oriental rugs, bookcases, English & Chinese tea sets, Edgar Allen Poe cigars, fireplaces, wine & liquor cabinets, shop counters, stained glass lamps, armoires, kitchen furniture are just some of what the line now offers.

All this I've designed over the last two years with Victorian & Old West role play sims in mind, where every prim counts. As I said in a previous post, they are simple, yet functional.

I'm very excited about the new buildings, as they give MNC more room to grow. They also have a more open feeling to them as you walk in -- large plate glass windows in front give visitors a picturesque view of Caledonian and Antiquity waters.

Please be my guest and stop by some time to say hello! I'm often at one or the other location, tinkering. :)

What's "quality" content?

An XStreet customer left a review for my one prim buffet table over the weekend. I had to use a translator, as the comment was in German, but the fellow apparently felt that 60L was way too much for a single textured cube.

Of course, he never bothered to contact me before he left his one star rating -- even though there's a link right under the "purchase" button on the listing page to contact the seller.

If he'd simply IMed me or sent a notecard, I would have been more than happy to refund his money.

It's an example of of an issue that I think will come to a head this year in SL: just what exactly is "quality content"?

Yes, the buffet table is one prim. It was designed purposely that way, for people who have limited prim allocations, such as in role play sims. It and the round tea table version served me very well when I owned a hotel/restaurant/theater in Deadwood.

Originally, I'd made both tables with legs -- the buffet table was five prims, the tea table three prims (on a pedestal) legs. This was pretty early on in my building career.

One day it occurred to me -- why do these tables even need legs? No one can lift up the tablecloth to see whether the table is standing on its own. This is SL, after all, where people can fly. So I removed the legs, and voila! A fairly realistic looking table with a white linen tablecloth. And only one prim. For 60L.

I've probably sold a hundred or more of those tables since I made them about a year ago. The only other negative comment I've had was also on XStreet, but that had to do with the table's permissions mysteriously reverting to no mod. That customer didn't contact me either.

I was originally encouraged to sell them by people I'd given them to, who'd seen them in my RP business. These are people, like many SL residents, who don't have the time or patience to make their own furniture.

Coincidentally, these tables are what started me on designing low prim Victorian furnishings. There are some amazing furniture designers in SL, who make beautiful, complex, realistic furniture. However, many of these items are heavy on prim count. That's what makes them beautiful, complex and realistic.

But you easily can blow half of your prim allotment in a RP sim on a single desk and chair set from one of these designers. So, seeing the need for attractive, realistic, affordable low prim furniture, my furniture making career began.

I'm not sure if this table would be considered a "quality" item on the new Linden Lab content creation roadmap. It's the epitome of simple -- it's a prim cube with textures applied to it. But there are some people out there who don't know how to, or don't have time to learn, or simply have no interest in knowing how to put textures on prims. So we're back to the concept of seeing a need and fulfilling it.

It did take time for me to make it. I had to visualize it, find a white tablecloth, photograph it, manipulate the image in Photoshop, and play with the texture settings on the cube to get the proportions right.

For that, I charge 60L. I chose that price because I'd shopped around to find something equivalent before I made the table myself. There are a lot of high profile merchants who do the same exact thing, but charge at least twice what I do. I've seen one prim furniture pieces for 125L or more. I don't know if they sell at that price, but since they are made by some of SL's most successful furniture makers, I assume they do.

I don't know why this kind of thing gets to me, but it did. So here I am, venting. Thanks for reading... :)

More on promoting your business in SL

Responding to my post about SL business marketing and profile picks two weeks ago, fellow Victorian designer Marrant Vita asked how I keep track of who puts my shop in their profile picks.

I thought it was worth a separate blog entry unto itself, because the program has proved so successful for me thanks to a product I found on XStreet.

The Profile Picks Gift Vendor, which I put out in my shop in Caledon, does all the work for me. I have two signs up -- the first is for the dress, and contains a notecard about how to participate in the profile picks incentive program.

The second sign, located underneath the first, contains the script. The customer puts my shop in their picks, then returns a day later (24-48 hours is supposedly how long it can take for results to appear in Search). When they touch the second sign, the script contained within then searches Search for that person's profile. If it finds my shop in their picks, it delivers the dress.

There's even a website where I can view who has participated in the program.

I should add the caveat that only account-verified avis can participate, which means that they have payment information on file with Linden Labs that verifies their identity. The SL search engine itself is currently set up so that only the profiles of account-verified users are indexed.

It's worked wonderfully and I can definitely recommend it -- it's very much worth the price. I have seen a marked improvement in my Search returns, in addition to
some keyword tweaking I've been doing to both my land descriptions and my classified ads.

Marrant's business by the way is called Marrant Vita's Victorian Needs, and she makes wonderful scripted products such as an antique sewing machine, a bread baking set and cleaning supplies.

She also makes amazing children's clothing -- you can get an entire set of clothes and a wood wardrobe for 500L -- and scripted toys, like her dollhouse and a wooden train set.

The sky is falling! (again)

After reading dozens of posts across the web regarding Linden Labs' announcement of major changes to the XStreet shopping portal, I couldn't decide whether I wanted to broach the subject here.

Initially I was gobstopped; the idea of being charge 10L per month, per listing, on top of the commission LL collects on sales, seemed heavy handed. Charging 99L a month for listing freebie items was even more stunning.

The outcry has been considerable, and in protest many merchants have been removing their entire inventories from XStreet, even though the policy is not set to go into effect until 30-90 from now (leave it to LL to offer a vague time line for implementation... though they "promise" they'll give 2 weeks notice before they begin charging merchants).

Already this policy is having an effect on the shopping experience, both good and bad. As a shopper, I certainly would like to be able to wade through the junk and find quality items more easily. But of much greater priority to me would be having a search function that actually worked -- both in XStreet AND SL itself.

As a merchant, I have more than 200 items on XStreet at the moment, and I don't relish the idea of slicing an additional 2000L a month from my profit margin at a time when my RL household budget needs every penny of the supplemental income I make on SL. I am in the process of examining my inventory to determine which items have become "stale" and need to go... but this is actually something I have already been doing in world.

So far I've managed to deactivate about 1/3 of the more than 200 items I have in inventory. I haven't outright deleted them -- I'm still trying to decide what kind of sales record actually qualifies an item as "stale," considering I am a merchant in a "niche" market.

I guess I took for granted the idea that XStreet could serve a complete catalogue of my merchandise -- my philosophy was that if everything gets a sale sooner or later, slower selling items could be parked there indefinitely. Every sale counts, right, even if some items only sell about every other month?

I'm not sure if that was an unreasonable expectation, since LL was getting commission on every sale... my expectation now is that I should regard XStreet as a marketing tool, and fine tune my listings and descriptions to drive customers to the in world store.

When I made my first freebie about a year and a half ago, the SL marketplace was a much different place, At that time I could track that the majority of people who took my freebie clothing item also purchased clothing from me.

That has changed dramatically in the last several months.

Most of the shoppers who "buy" my freebies now? Never buy anything else from me.

There is a sense of entitlement that has become prevalent among newer residents that they shouldn't have to "pay to play" -- which is why I think we've also seen a sharp rise in content theft. This entitlement attitude baffles me, because there are few other places, both in online worlds and in RL, where you can "live" without spending a dime.

I'm not sure which came first, but the SL marketplace has experienced a drastic drop in prices in the time I've been a merchant. The economic recession has also added to this downward spiral. But many merchants are pricing quality items for ridiculously low prices both in SL and on XStreet, when many, many of them could charge more for their work.

It distresses me when I hear people say they don't care about making money on their work. I wish they would understand that if you make a quality item, you are selling yourself short by not selling it for market value. You are essentially devaluing the work you do. A consequence of that is that you also devalue the work of other community members. If we are all here in SL to live in a community, that means supporting each other and valuing the contributions of other members.

The distressing part of this new policy is that it puts "niche" merchants such as myself in a difficult position. My items serve a specific (Victorian/Steampunk/Western/historical) audience, even if that audience is not a large one. Because of that I'll likely never be a high volume seller, unless I consider diversifying my business.

So as I review my sale inventory in XStreet, how exactly do I gauge if an item is "stale"? An item that I would regard as "popular" in my niche might likely be viewed as a slow mover in a mainstream market. At some point will LL decide that niche items like mine don't meet their criteria for inclusion in the SL economy anymore?

This also raises another issue: How will niche communities maintain a presence in SL if the content creators for them can't afford to, or are no longer allowed to, sell their items? Or are specialized, thematic sims also on the endangered list too?

Finally, however, the biggest lesson in these changes is that, as in RL, the SL marketplace is also in a state of constant flux. You cannot rest on your laurels. You have to be constantly reinventing your "brand" -- even if you are just a "hobbyist" merchant.

That doesn't mean that all the joy is going to be sucked out of your experience, it merely means you need to think on your feet and adapt when market conditions change. While I'm not thrilled about the direction LL has decided to take XStreet, and where SL itself looks like it's going, I see it as a chance to challenge myself both as a content creator and a business person.

If indeed the landscape of SL is changing, and an influx of new corporate residents (presumably) with deeper pockets is on the horizon, perhaps this is the opportunity for many of us smaller merchants to start thinking bigger.

As they say, life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Genteel thoughts on guerilla marketing in SL

There are probably about as many opinions on how to market one's business in SL as there are SL residents. Despite this, or in spite of, I try to carve out a certain amount of time each week to read up on the current issues of interest to merchants in SL via both LL sanctioned and independent forums. I've culled a lot of very good advice from other merchants, both large and small.

There are some very helpful, experienced businesspeople out there who are happy to share their tips for marketing their content. Scorpion Agency offers 140 Second Life Marketing Tips & Ideas, which are relevant for both SL and RL businesses; a recent post at the New Babbage ning site demystifies how to use SL's search to boost your business.

I would not call myself a "cutthroat" SL businessperson. In RL, I abhor certain types of marketing, like telemarketers who call during dinner (even when you're on the Do Not Call list). Other methods I respond to very generously with my hard earned cash. I love coupons, discounts, free shipping, etc. The businesses who politely offer these kinds of marketing campaigns generally have a repeat customer because they are willing to reward me for my loyalty.

So thinking along those lines, I wondered if there was a way to harness the loyalty of both new and longtime Montagne Noire customers, without being the dreaded dinner interrupting telemarketer.

Since Linden Labs effectively crushed the community that was the XStreet merchant forums with their new and confusing blog format, I've been visiting other independent forums to see where all the merchants have gravitated. I decided to ask about the issue of "gaming" traffic and search results at SLUniverse, which is emerging as the merchant go-to site. You can see the discussion my question generated here.

The response was an interesting mix. I asked if it was unethical to offer an incentive reward to customers who put Montagne Noire in their Profile Picks. Some said yes, some said no. Some said it depended on whether you gave it only to people in your update group and people who already had your shop in their picks. Some thought it was gaming search results to offer an incentive to anyone walking in off the street.

What almost everyone agreed on is that it can be a real challenge to publicize an SL business -- even more so as the business landscape in SL has changed dramatically in the last year or so. It takes a lot of creativity to effectively get the word out, especially when you are working with a modest budget.

Probably the most powerful tool for promotion -- and least understood -- is the SL search engine. It turns out one of the methods of improving search ranking is having people add your business to their profile picks.

The SL search engine counts each pick from an "Account Verified Resident" (an SL resident with credit card or Paypal payment information on file with Linden Labs) as a vote for that location when determining its rank in search.

After a good deal of thought, I decided to try an experiment.

I sent a notice to members of the Montagne Noire Fashion Society update group, and to a select group of friends.

Now my sincere hope in all of this is that my friends and group members won't regard this promotion as the equivalent of the obnoxious junk mail the postman brings everyday. I'm hoping that my friends know me well enough now to know I am not a scheming, money-grubbing capitalist who just has them on my friends list so I can flood them with marketing campaigns.

Would you like to earn an exclusive hat and dress set FREE while helping spread the word about Montagne Noire Clothiers?

If you are an Account Verified Resident (an SL resident with credit card or Paypal on file with Linden Labs) all it takes is putting MNC in your "picks" tab in your profile. Picks are a great way to show off your favorite people, places and merchants in SL.

It's a quick and painless process: Simply place Montagne Noire's Main store in your "picks."

If you don't know how to add your favorite locations and business in SL, it's super simple:

1) go to the "Edit" pull down menu in the upper left corner of your SL browser.

2) select "Profile" then click on the "picks" tab.

3) Click on the "New" button at the top of the picks page, and the location will be added (be sure to actually be standing in Montagne Noire's parcel location before you add it to your picks!).

If you already have MNC in your picks (thank you!), update the tab by pressing the "delete" button at the top of the picks page, then click on "New".

Once Montagne Noire has been in your profile picks for 24 hours (enough time for SL search to read your updated profile), return to the shop to claim your prize! Touch the sign below the one you received this notecard from and vendor will process your reward and deliver it!

To encourage users to actually keep MNC in their picks, I'll be changing out the special gift every so often.

To build subscriptions to the "Montagne Noire Fashion Society" update group, I'm now also working on a way to offer special discounts & sales for group members, where if you wear the group tag while you shop, you'll receive a discount on certain item(s).

So what do people get if they add MNC to their picks? This special limited edition onyx version of my "Fleur d'Automne" set.

A last thought on being a business owner in SL. I don't really think of myself as being in competition with other Victorian designers -- we all have unique styles, and our clientele all have unique tastes. I'm here to have fun, and if that also means I might be able to grow my business into something that pays a few RL bills, I'd be thrilled. But I am also thrilled when I see other designers succeed at something they love to do, too.

Content theft -- the deck is stacked against us

Some disturbing news today... Stroker Serpentine has reported over at SLUniverse that a massive content theft has taken place, using what were probably some of the known exploits of the permission system, notecards, etc.

As far as I know, my work is not involved. I feel fortunate that after all this time I have not been a victim of this, but I'm sure time will only tell when someone thinks its time to start ripping small time merchants like me.

I feel terribly for everyone whose work has been stolen, and I feel incredibly helpless. It seems that SL has no real interest in preventing what has clearly become large scale content theft. I'm simply at a loss as to what to do -- so many voices much more influential than mine have risen up in the past to protest this, and nothing has been done.

I'm not sure what this all means, what the future holds for content creation in SL. Like so many other virtual and real world places I've invested myself in, everything from Facebook to my health care insurer, it feels like Corporate America has no accountability for their actions.

It's the new corporate profit model -- well, perhaps not new, but big business seems less concerned with keeping their real motivations a secret anymore.

What it is, is risk assessment gone horribly wrong. Businesses no longer seem to be interested in what the customer wants -- they are interested in knowing how long they can keep making money while they knowingly rip off customers, or allow them to be ripped off? When the litigation finally comes, will the payout we have to make be substantially less than the profits we earned while ripping off people?

In Second Life, the folks at Linden Labs happily take the money content creators spend on uploading textures, sounds, animations. They happily take the tier payments my landlords pay for virtual real estate, that I in turn rent from them for my shops.

They don't seem to see that content theft is problem -- because it really costs them nothing. It's not really "their" content that's being stolen. Linden Labs is in the real estate business and the asset storage business, not in the content creation business. They provide servers, and sit back while Second Life residents do all the heavy lifting.

Not to diminish the service that LL provides -- obviously that takes a tremendous amount of resources. Someone has to pay the electricity bill.

It seems to be the nature of community building that it always reaches a critical mass, where it simply becomes too large to effectively administer or police. This happens simultaneously with larger interests entering the picture, who see a new opportunity for investment... and profit.

You hit a threshold where a community of individuals is much harder to stabilize than a community of larger interests.

And this is what is happening with Second Life. Administering to a handful of corporate entities, who already have their own management infrastructures, is much more profitable and efficient than trying to keep thousands of "mom and pop" content creators and landowners happy.

For now, we wait. I personally am waiting for when LL finally announces exactly what "a minimum threshold for content transactions" is as part of qualifying for their content seller program... while my business is just beginning to grow, my content creating days very well could be over before I ever get a chance to prove myself in the market.