Hi everyone this is my first post here on the [SL] Blogger Support blog, and this is a simple piece I´ve been thinking about doing for a long time now.
As you all might have realized by now, Bloggers shop a lot, I wouldn´t say that we are the best authority on it of course, but this is we pretty close to the ultimate experienced shopper you will ever find out there in the grid.
And thru all my shopping experiences I noticed a few small details that sometimes seem to be missing, that could make my whole shopping experience easier, better, faster and with smoother running in general, so this is a kind of oh hai there help me buy your stuff kind of post.
There have been several issues I came across whilst shopping that I think are good to address, I think most of them arise from the fact that probably the creator just either forgot it or never really thought about it, so I´m gonna address those points.
- Profile: I open a creator profile, what info should I expect? Well sometimes none, some creators keep their profiles hidden, that makes it hard for me to contact you later if I need costumer support, as a shopper I usually avoid shops where contact info is not on the merchants profile. I´m pretty sure a lot of merchants who do this do it without knowing they might have consequences for it, but as a shopper, I need some basic info.
Now basic info, or things that should always be on your profile front page: Shop name, link to your marketplace shop, and main store location, who and how to contact if I have an issue, these are so simple but are sometimes missing. There is also of course additional info i love more as a blogger then an actual shopper: Your shop blog link, your Flickr account link as well as your Flickr group link, and all other links to platforms you belong to or are active on, with a single link i can follow all your official announcements.
- Marketplace: So many creators do this, they don´t link their inworld store in their marketplace, I never understood why, especially if you sell furniture or buildings having that link there takes a few seconds to add and saves me the trouble to fight LL´s flawed search to find your shop. And don´t forget to keep it updated.
-Blog: Do you have one for your shop? Anyone can get one for free either from WordPress or Blogger, is easy to use and an amazing way to talk and show your work, announce your new releases, with just the ad pic and a slurl, that´s all i need, copy paste from your inworld notecard for new releases, just show me what and where I can get it. Announce your participation in events, and tell me where to go to get your stuff.
-Social Media: Now this is a tricky one, not everyone is cut out for social media, interested in it or even good at it, but you can use some of it without compromising your privacy or being too personal and using only a shop account, the truth is Facebook, Flickr, Google+, Twitter, Plurk and evenPinterest can be amazing tools to expand your business awareness and reach out to a bigger audience, many of these platforms have a huge SL community hungry for news.
-Timing and consistency: You´re releasing a new product, open your profile, where all your links are, and update them all at once, you´re moving your shop open your profile and change all the Slurls, then send out that group notice. Make sure your links are updated as well in all your forms of communication, at the same time and as often as possible.
Paying attention to all these things allows me as a shopper to quickly find out with one click what where your new releases, WIPs, changes of location and preferences in forms of communication, making my shopping experience way easier, and making your business, look polished and professional.
Again is not my place to tell people how to run their business or how they should handle their comfort zones when it comes to sharing info, but if you look around at the most successful stores, and not really just in SL but mostly in RL you will notice how some of these steps are useful, not just for me as a shopper but for your own shop. See you all again soon with hopefully another helpful post.
