As you know, I have been playing with making furniture with some full perm textures and sculpties that I bought and I often toy with the idea of having my own store. I have also been taking some classes, etc. While I ponder these deep thoughts, I have some questions that I was hoping you could answer for me as SL consumers or builders or business women/men:
Is it better to start small but in a high traffic area with possibly lower prims but higher rent? This would prevent me from putting out a lot except for maybe pictures of the furniture. I think it would be better to have it out but I’m not sure.
I am thinking of making the furniture modify, no copy, no transfer and then put a note card saying if they royally f-up the furniture, I would be more than happy to help them get it back in order. Or do you prefer copy in your furniture?
How important are a lot of animations in your furniture to you? Do you prefer the animation menus or is just not having pose balls but the animations in the furniture enough? I have one to three poses in the furniture. It depends on the piece.
I don’t expect to compete with The Loft or other big furniture designers. It is just something that I am enjoying doing. I’m not trying to get rich in SL or RL. I would just like to make enough to cover my rent and have some shopping money to buy things for myself and gadgets and textures to create new furniture.
It is funny how my RL thought patterns are the same that hold me back in SL. Thoughts like “It will be too hard and complicated; I’m not good enough; I don’t understand this or that; I’ll fail at it.
Anyway, enough Emo talk! Anything else that you can think of that you have as advice or that you wish you knew when you started out or that you learned the hard way, would be much appreciated!
Thanks so much!
3 comments:
Don't worry about traffic. You could be stuck in some craphole of a mall, and STILL do ok if you really put yourself out there. You're a blogger, you have blogger friends. We're instant publicity! :)
I am in the minority in that I kind of don't mind poseballs, if they're able to be hidden when I'm not going to use them. But I also know the benefits of not having poseballs [less prims!]. If you do what YOU personally like, there's a good chance others will like it just as much. :)
Congrats Terri! It's so exciting that you're thinking about opening a store!
I think classifieds, a blog, word of mouth and notices to specific groups (there is a group for prefabs and furniture, like Fashcon is for fashion, but I can't remember what it's called now) work better than being in a high traffic area. It is definitely better to have the furniture out coz I'd never buy furniture that I couldn't try out.
I like copy in my furniture, also because SL sometimes eats no-copy stuff. This depends on price... if it is not too expensive I don't mind if it's no-copy coz I can afford to buy another one.
I hate pose balls. They're ugly and they take up extra prims. There are scripts you can use that will let you use Page Up/Down to scroll through poses in the furniture, there are also other scripts to position & embed a single pose in the furniture. I like furniture with anims but I do not buy furniture with poseballs unless the item is modify, in which case I remove the poseballs and put the poses into the item. But it's a lot of work so I'd rather just buy furniture without poseballs.
I think having the furniture out is pretty important. I would focus more on setting up a nice store with more prims than being squashed into a high rent low prim mall somewhere.
I hate pose balls as well, it's a wasted prim and ugly and useless when it can easily be embedded into the furniture. animations: menus vs pose balls/embedded pose depends on the item, in my opinion and from a user experience standpoint which is easier to use, but not overdoing it for basic stuff. for instance, a bed that has multiple people and mulitple animations would require menus. but perhaps a couch that only has a few animations perhaps they could be just embedded, especially if they are on different areas of the couch, if that makes sense.
Copy/no copy I think depends on the item. Of course I love copy but I know that furniture makers don't always like to sell copy items. also this can affect your pricing strategy: make them copy and charge more. OR you can offer both, where no copy would be cheaper, and copy more expensive. I know I appreciate these options when I'm shopping: sometimes I'm on a budget, or only really need 1, but many times I'd rather avoid the hassle of having it no copy and splurge on the more expensive copy version.
Oh, and I can help with scripted stuff if you need, just holler. :D
Post a Comment