Builder Stores

[Sabbath]

I've never really considered selling anything I've made in 3DX as an asset of any type but I see it's becoming more common. For those builders who do have experience selling their builds, I wanted to know what your criteria for pricing was. Are you pricing for final look? Time spent? Also.. what would you consider good price ranges for individual models (couches, kitchen sets, beds, etc..)  and full builds?

[Dallas]

Your question is a good one, the answer is an illusive one and I have been trying to figure out since I opened my store at 3dx and when I helped with a store at Second Life.

Many factors are involved, the customer target base is a big one. The tastes differ by continent and figuring out what style or what you build will be based off of where you are targeting. A log cabin will fair better with North American players than a Japanese Kabota would. Residences generally sell more than Clubs or public areas, generally due to a person looking for a Club will pay more but only want one copy out there. Fades or time periods work into the equation, you will sell haunted houses and spooky stuff like hot cakes in October and find yourself wanting after Halloween. Star Wars stuff will be popular until the movie comes out and it sucks. To sum up this part of the answer is why corporations spend big buck for Marketing. Bottom line for me is, build what makes you happy and is fun for you to build. Nothing worse for me at least is building something that is not my style or i am not allowing myself to just do my thing. Lastly, and throughout history, Sex Sells, the same applies at 3dx.

Pricing, depends on other sellers, quality of work, reputation, the prices ranges anywhere from 1 buck for a simple object to 60 and up over 140 and beyond for a villa, estate, club or commission job.

Generally speaking with the amount of hours you will put into a build, your ROI is going to take a butt ton of sales to even give yourself minimum wage. So if you decide get into it, know that its not going to be a lot of money and your doing it because you enjoy building.

This is all just my opinion from my experiences, other will differ i am sure, but I have always just looked at things and said to myself, oh that's cool, I think i will build that. And more often than not, I might sell a bunch or might sell nothing, its not the the quality was bad but rather the customer base wasn't into it.

When its all said and done, it was a fun thing to do and with each build you sharpen your skill set.

[sin]

pricing is tricky for the fact of the amount of work that goes into the different thing. 
 

1.  Custom furnishing or other premade works ( if you got to make it charge for it )
2.  Time frame ( if they putting a deadline on it charge for it. The reason for this is extra presser and sacrificing other things you might normally do  )
3.  Room/Build layout. ( do you have a template you can load for them to see ? )
4.  Build SIZE ( is it small med large? Use actual Retail housing sizes if its a structure. and have a pricing for each size. if its Huge its going to cost more! )   
5. Theme's and Colors. ( people will be nit picky with themes/color choices they want -And then- want you to change them mid build Charge extra if mid build they want it changed)
6. Order Forum & Invoice. ( have them fill out a Forum on what they want. then Review it with them listing out the cost of each item and explain that any changes after the build has started will cost X amount extra based on the build progression show them the Invoice and give them an E-mail list )
7.  Host the room ( Never send the build to them to Review always always ALWAYS have them come to you as a hosted for group room and only ever send the room after payment is confirmed. ) 
8.  Logo ( make a logo and put it some place. you can even put in a donator link )
9.  Lock the Build ( this is more to do with keeping tampering to a minimal with builds that have a lot of items or Stealing custom parts. ) 

I hope these tips will help i made 2 custom builds under commission ranging prices where 100 $ USD to 260 $ USD but it is not a real sustainable income.  

 

[Dallas]

Locking the build (8), are you referring to grouping the build as a whole?