Resale vendor HOW-TO
From Apez
Contents |
Resale Vendor Setup
Since iVend v2.3 you can now configure your vendors to store product assignment during the vendor setup. This is done in a few simple steps from your vendor configuration page on the apez.biz site. In this example I will show you how to setup a resale or affiliate vendor using the 1 prim vendor Apez.iVend 2.3 One from the iVend Kit.
In order to maintain a affiliate vendors group on Apez and manage your resellers I suggest that you ask them to touch any Apez ATM and register with the apez.biz site. This will allow the reseller much better tracking of his sales, commission payments etc. It will also allow you to have them added to a group on Apez automatically when somebody buys (or gets) your affiliate vendors. I will write up another "how to" about collection and group options soon.
Please note, you can now assign products to your vendors in-world as well. To do so, touch your vendor, select setup and assign products. You will see a list of your collections to choose from.
There are several ways you can go about the vendor setup. Bellow is just one way, my way, of doing it.
Getting Started
- Ensure the collection you've assigned is public (or the reseller you gave the vendor to is a member of your sellers group)
- Check that the textures images in your iServ that you associated with your products for vendor display are next-owner copy/mod/trans - otherwise it is possible only you have permission for them to be displayed on your vendors - in which case they will not get assigned to the vendor when rezzed by the reseller.
- Tip: Try to keep your collection and product names short and informative. This will allow you to configure your vendors faster and for others to assign your collections / products manually much easier.
- Tip: Using by in your product names will most likely break your vendor config.
Since the vendor will look for by merchant name in the object description during configuration, it is possible that the use of by in your product name will result in the vendor not working for the resident you give it to.
Rez the Vendor
- 1. Log into SL and go to a place where you can run your scripts (eq. your land / store) and rez the Apez.iVend 2.3 One from your inventory. Give the vendor debit permission and let it register with the apez site. Change it's size and shape to suit your needs.
- 2. Name your vendor to match your product. Keep the new SL search in mind while setting the vendor name. I usually name my vendors thinking about keywords I would use in search.
- 3. Tick the box Show in search if you want the vendor to be listed when it is rezzed by your affiliate or reseller. Set the permission you want the next owner to have. I usually only remove the "resell / give away" but you might want to remove "modify" as well. This would stop the reseller from changing the size of the vendor but also prevents him from changing the "object description" of the vendor which will later hold the collection and/or product name. Changing the description will result in the vendor not being able to download any product to it when rezzed.
- 4. Touch the vendor and exit the menu again.
This will update the vendor's name with the apez site.
Allows you to easily locate it to continue with the web based setup.
Product Assignment (web based)
- 5. Okay, so we're done setting up the vendor in-world for now.
Tab out of SL and bring up the apez.biz site in your browser. Click on vendors on the top menu. Find the vendor we just rezzed and click on edit to start the product assignment. (Note: You can also use the in-world setup to assign a product to the vendor. To do so, touch the vendor, select setup --> assign product.)
On the vendor configuration page you will notice a few new options. One of them is Object description:. Object description offers you 3 options to choose from. Those are:
- Store product assignment
- Stores the assigned collection & product to the vendor's object description in-world. You want to use this for setting up affiliate vendors.
- Selected product
- Shows the product information of the displayed item in the vendor's object description. Good usage for this would be multi-panel vendors.
- Pay to purchase
- This is oldschool SL. Many still believe that Noobs are to silly to use the SL pie-menu and that they don't know how to pay a vendor. If you set this option your vendors description will only display Pay to purchase on mouse-over.
The option we're looking for is Store product assignment. As mentioned above this will save your collection name and the assigned product to the vendors description in-world. So let's configure our vendor.
- 6. Set the vendors options, hover text color, volume mode & auto-hide as you need them.
- 7. Select Store product assignment from the Description Field drop-down!
- 8. Assign the collection and the product you want to sell through this vendor.
- 9. Save the vendors configuration and bring your SL window back up.
Finish the setup
We're almost done and it sounds way more difficult than it really is. You should be back in SL now, looking at your vendor. To complete the setup, touch the vendor and select config from the menu. It should now load the product you assigned on the apez site.
If you right-click the vendor and select edit you will see that the text in the description field has now changed. It will display the name of your collection and the assigned product. As I mentioned before I tend to set my vendors "no modify" for the next owner. This should prevent the reseller from breaking the vendor config by accident.
You should also see the collection name and owner in the floating text. To remove the collection and your name... Touch the vendor and select Setup from the menu. You can now change the floating text options. Once you're happy with your results, turn the vendor off, right-click it and select "take copy". You have now created your first reseller vendor.
All you have to do now is complete steps 1-9 with the vendor setup to create more vendors. After you're done, box them and set them for sale. I'd like to mention that a LOT of the commission settings on the Apez site for users products are way to low. So think well how much you want to offer to another person who sells your products and you don't have any work with it. I always say "a split sale is better than no sale" and your affiliate vendor might get the sales you would never get if they wouldn't be selling your products.
Quick Setup using tags
You can also quick config your vendors in-world if you like.
To do this, you only need your collection and product names, the tag you need to copy into the vendors description looks like this:
<product name> from <collection name> by <your name>
Please note, the by <name> tag is only required in the description if you plan to give this vendors away as resale vendors. For your personal use, you can simply put <collection name> <product name> in the vendor description.
Sample Codes:
1 product config - single prim vendor:
<product name> from <collection> by <merchant name> Apez.tools control-demon (builders edition) from apez.tools by ApezProducts Engineer
This will assign 1 product from 1 collection by avatar name to your vendor. If you don't plan to give the vendor to another avatar, you don't need to put the by merchant name into the description field.
2 collections config - multi panel vendor:
<coll:collection name> (merchant name) <coll:2nd collection name> (merchant name) coll:Apez.textures (ApezProducts Engineer) coll:Chiparus Texture Collection (Tomarus Lednev)
This setup will assign 2 collections to any multi-panel vendor.
Including the (merchant name) behind the collection name allows you to give a copy of the vendor to other residents for resale. If you only planing on using this vendors yourself, you only need <coll:collection name> <coll:collection name> in your vendor description.
Once you configured your first affiliate vendor, simply right-click it and select take copy. This will create a copy of the pre-configured vendor in your inventory. Repeat this step for all products you want to create affiliate vendors wiht, then box them up and put them on sale.
Feedback and comments can be posted in this thread on apez.biz. -Wiseguy
