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  • Selling in the Marketplace

    Jeremy Linden

    By Jeremy Linden (edited)

     

    This article explains the basics of how to get started as a merchant on the Second Life Marketplace. Once you are familiar with these steps, check out How to market your products for tips on how to make your business stand out, or learn about Managing your Marketplace store.

    Creating a store

    The first step to becoming a merchant is to create your store on the Second Life Marketplace.  Your store is where customers can browse and purchase items you have listed for sale.  Once a purchase is made, the items are delivered directly to the buyer's inventory in Second Life and the proceeds are added to your Linden dollar (L$) balance.

    To create your store:

    1. Make sure your Second Life account is at least five days old and has payment information on file.
    2. On any Marketplace page, click My Marketplace in the upper-right and click Create a Store.
    3. Read the Marketplace Terms of Service carefully, check I agree to the Second Life Marketplace Fee and Listing Policies, then scroll down to the bottom and click Continue.
    4. (Optional) Customize your store profile to make it more attractive and easier to find.
    5. Restart your Second Life Viewer before attempting to upload items to the Marketplace website.

    Listing items for sale

    Once you have set up your Marketplace store and restarted the Second Life Viewer, you can begin using the Marketplace Listings window to manage your store's inventory.  Make sure you understand Second Life's next owner object permissions before listing your items for sale; these permissions allow you to control how your object may be copied or redistributed after you've sold it.

    The Marketplace Listings window

    Video Tutorial: Learning Listing, Version, & Stock Folders

    The Marketplace Listings window is an extension of your Second Life inventory that allows you to manage all inventory in your Second Life Marketplace store.  By dragging and dropping items from your inventory window into the Marketplace Listings window, you can immediately begin setting up new listings, add updated versions of your existing products, and even list or unlist items on the Marketplace Store.  You can access the Marketplace Listings window by choosing Me > Marketplace listings from the top menu bar of the Second Life Viewer.

    Version folders

    Each Marketplace Listing folder contains one or more version folders that allow you to easily manage updated versions of a product without creating a new listing.  Version folders look like normal inventory folders with three lines drawn on them, like this: Inv_VersionFolderClosed.png.  Only one version folder may be active at a time for each listing; when a customer buys your product, they receive a copy of the active version folder and its contents.

    To activate a version folder for a Marketplace Listing, right-click the appropriate version folder and choose Activate.  If a listing folder contains only one version folder, it is activated automatically.  Currently active version folders are marked by the word "(active)".

    Note: When you drag objects from your regular inventory to a version folder, they are moved, not copied.  This means that they no longer appear in your main inventory and will be lost permanently if deleted from their respective version folder.  

     

    You may instead copy an item from your inventory to the Marketplace Listings window by right-clicking the item in your inventory and choosing Copy to Marketplace Listings.

    Stock folders

    You can use the Marketplace Listings window to sell a limited stock of no-copy items.  No-copy items that you drag into the Marketplace Listings window are automatically placed into a stock folder.  Stock folders look like normal inventory folders with a grid of squares on them, like this: Inv_StockFolderClosed.png.  Stock folders also show the number of items they contain next to their names.  For example, "Example Crate (stock=7)".

    Each stock folder must be inside a version folder, and represents the sale of a single item in the listing, even though there may be many items inside the stock folder.  For example, if your active version folder consists of a copiable notecard and a stock folder containing 25 no-copy objects, each customer will receive a copy of the notecard and one randomly selected object from the stock folder until no items remain in the stock folder.

    The no-copy items within a stock folder must be of the same inventory type, but may have different names.  For example, some identical limited-run items may have serial numbers written into their object names, but they can still be sold from the same stock folder.

    Note that while it is still possible to sell a limited quantity of copiable items using the appropriate listing field, the quantity of items available from a stock folder is determined by the number of items in the folder and cannot be changed using the Available quantity listing field.

    When a stock folder runs out of no-copy items, the Marketplace de-lists your listing and sends an email alert reminding you to add more units.

    Creating a new listing

    Video Tutorial: Creating a New Listing

    Follow these steps to create a listing for a new product on the Second Life Marketplace:

    1. Open the Marketplace Listings window in the Second Life Viewer by choosing Me > Marketplace listings from the top menu bar.
    2. Open your Inventory window by choosing Me > Inventory from the top menu bar.
    3. Drag your product from the Inventory window to the section of the Marketplace Listings window labeled Drop folders here to create new listings. It now appears under the Unassociated tab.
    4. Under the All or Unassociated tabs, right-click the listing folder containing your product and choose Create listing.  The folder is moved to the Unlisted tab and now displays a listing number.
    5. Under the All or Unlisted tabs, the single version folder Inv_VersionFolderClosed.png inside the listing folder is automatically made active.
    6. Right-click the listing folder or version folder and choose Edit listing to fill out the required listing fields on the Marketplace website.  If you try to list your product before filling out the required listing fields, you will receive an error message explaining which fields still require input.  Click the Update button to save your listing.
    7. On the All or Unlisted tab of the Marketplace Listings window, right-click the listing folder and choose List to list your product on the Second Life Marketplace.  You may still list or unlist items from the Marketplace website as well.

    Changing versions of a listed item

    Video Tutorial: Updating a Listing

     As you develop updates for your products, you can easily update your Marketplace listings with the new items without deleting the older versions:

    1. Open the Marketplace Listings window in the Second Life Viewer by choosing Me > Marketplace listings from the top menu bar.
    2. Open your Inventory window by choosing Me > Inventory from the top menu bar.
    3. Drag your updated product from your Inventory window to the listing folder for that product in the Marketplace Listings window; this creates a new, inactive version folder containing the updated product.
    4. Right-click the new folder and choose Activate to make it the active version folder for that listing.  All new sales through the associated Marketplace listing will deliver products from the active version folder.

    At any time, you can revert your listing to sell a previous version of your product by right-clicking its version folder and choosing Activate.  

    Changing the item associated with a listing

    Video Tutorial: Migrating Listings & Checking for Errors

    Under rare circumstances, you may need to completely change the item associated with a Marketplace listing. The most common reason for needing to change the item associated with a listing is accidental deletion of the inventory folder associated with a listing and need to re-associate items with an existing listing.

     To associate a listing folder with a pre-existing Marketplace listing:

    1. In the Second Life Viewer, choose Me> Marketplace listings.
    2. Find the listing number in parentheses next to your existing listing.  For example, "Example Crate (3757)". 
    3. Click the Unassociated tab of the Marketplace listings window.
    4. Right-click an unassociated item you wish to associate with your listing and choose Associate listing.
    5. In the Associate Listing window that appears, enter the listing ID of your existing listing and click OK.
    6. The unassociated item now replaces the existing item (if any) in the Marketplace listing.

    Note that changing the item associated with a listing in this way causes the item to become unlisted because you are replacing the active version folder.  You will need to activate a new version folder and re-list the item as described in Creating a new listing.

    Previewing your store

    After you have listed at least one item, you can preview your store:

    1. On the Marketplace website, go to My Marketplace > My Store.
    2. This is how your customers see your store — but it also helps to browse the Marketplace as an alt to really walk in your customers' shoes.
    Important: To see items in your store that you have listed as Moderate or Adult content, make sure you set Show maturity levels to General, Moderate, Adult when you search!

    Delivering items to the buyer

    The Marketplace automatically delivers items for you.  Occasionally, the delivery system fails, and a delivery gets lost on its way to the customer. If that happens, you can easily redeliver the item.

    Third-Party Viewer developer resources

    There are two API wiki pages targeted at Third-Party Viewer developers.  This API documentation is helpful for developers who want to integrate Marketplace features into their Third-Party Viewers, but is not necessary for most Marketplace merchants or their customers:

    Edited by Jeremy Linden
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    Irene Muni

    See this paragraph:

    "If you are brand new to selling in Second Life, there are some preparations you should make ... ... ... Have your store information and graphics ready (logo, banner, store policies, inworld links, etc.) and make sure they meet the store profile requirements"

    The link of "store profile requirements" goes to ... where? :)
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    • Lindens
    Jeremy Linden
    • Lindens

    Right article, wrong section.  The number of sections in the target article must have been updated sometime after the link was added to this article.  It's fixed now!  Thanks for your feedback, as always.
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    Irene Muni

    About how update a product Darrius Gothly has written a VERY interesting guide. See this post: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/If-you-need-to-update-a-product-you-ve-uploaded-to-Direct/m-p/1454065#M18516
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    Rolig Loon

    I thought the editor just accepted my change (in red) here...

     

    Adding the item on the Marketplace website

    1. On the Marketplace website, choose My Marketplace > Merchant home in the upper-right.
    2. Click Manage Listings on the left side of the page.
    3. Under Unassociated Marketplace Inventory, click the name of your item to start editing the item listing, then complete the required fields. You can find a description of all the listing fields here.

    but it didn't.  Could someone else do it, please.  The text is incorrect as written.
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    LishaJoya Haven

    Ihave sold some breedable/craftable items which are originals and their items show quantity 0 -after they were quantity 1.  I still  havent gotten paid for them- and in my transaction history- it states that the order was partailly delivered-  Also the item is no longer available (went from quantity 1 to 0) and its strange for it looks like its still in my marketplace xstreet box (not the merchant Outbox) <<=== becuase its a breedable and ORIGINAL.

     

    So how do i respove this problem andhow do i get paid for items i sold (quantiry1 to 0)

     

    thanks
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    Guest

    You should relly post somewhere that a stores banner should be G and contain no nudity. Even with it set to General only there are some stores that have full frontal nudity in their banner.

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