So if you look at my picks in my profile you'll see a few links and landmarks to my mainstore, but you'll notice I don't have mall locations. The reason for this is pretty simple. As a business owner, if the mall isn't profitable within 4 weeks, I dump it. I haven't yet been able to find a location that is consistently paying it's own rent and my main store is not able to support external locations at this point.
I think part of this may be the product line that we as a group focus on. Housing in SL dosen't quite fit into impulse purchases in the same way that clothing or skins do. You have to have virtual land to put up a house, or do it in a sandbox and be willing to pack it all in. You have to want something new, and generally the people that go looking are looking for a reason, not just seeing something cute and grabbing it. Now IDG as a concept is not just about houses, we're slowly working on furniture, some of our designers are quite good at clothing, and we've even dabbled in skins. As a group we do our best to know quite a bit about how Second Life works so we can do the custom installs and low lag sims such as Natalis and Endless Nights that we're attempting to stake our reputation on. However, putting our name in a mall is more likely to be a 'advertisement' then a purchasing vehicle. If someone sees us then they may remember us when they are ready to buy. In all honesty, I don't money left over after expenses to pay for advertising that dosen't give me a return on investment.
The longer I run IDG the more lessons I learn. When I started it was really about me and my friends maybe being able to afford our playground. Now it's more and more about what the return is and actual business planning and development of a theme and talent. I have been needing a marketing director for months, but that person is going to have to be someone who can create their own salary out of what he or she does for instance because I can't pay someone out of the hat. (Unless they want to be paid in moth's and dust bunnies.) Am I trying to say, o poor me and get you to feel pity? Of course not, although it'd be great if you buy, I'm in this for the long haul and I see no reason I won't be around. The reason I'm talking about this is so that you can learn from some of my lessons. The people who really truly succeed at running a business here take the lessons from the Real World, and apply them. Business plans, marketing, all of this stuff has merit here and though the mistakes don't 'cost' as much in financial terms they do still happen. I'll talk about those later....
Back to malls, I don't consider them a great investment for my business, dealing with a landlord and a location that dosen't pay for itself are the two problems I personally try and avoid. Now, having said that I'm opening a couple of mall stores with some sentimentality attached.
The first is on Winterfell and should be open soon. Serra Anasasi is one of the people who encouraged me very early on, a wonderful designer and a fair but firm landlord who watched me build the DarkRayne and even gave me my first gothic texture. (So you all can blame her for the monster I am now. *grin*) I've not been a resident of Winterfell for a very long time because I needed the sandbox and retail location of my own place, however, it's always been my 'home' in my heart. In fact I have a sign on Natalis that points across the ocean to Winterfell, and.... the Winterfell pirates flag has been sunk just off my fishing dock. So I'm extremely glad that I have a small sidewalk cart in the new Winterfell Village to sell my wares from.
If you know of any places to put my second and third 'outlet' stores please let me know in the comments. O, and if you have a store and are interested in selling IDG products you can get our catalogue vendor and it'll pay you 10% commission on each sale.
