From Apez

How to sell your own products using iVend

Bellow you'll find detailed instructions to get you started with the Apez.iVend system.
If you require further assistance, please refer to the complete iVend documentation or open a Help Ticket from the support page on apez.biz.

Obtaining the Apez.vend vendor kit:

iVend Vendor Kit package. Rezz on the ground and touch it to unpack it creating a new folder in your inventory.

First, you'll need to obtain the vendor kit if you don't have it already. It is available in a number of places, such as from the Apez.Shop or in-world from the Apez.emporium.

There are two versions of the vendor kit available, one is free and the other is not. The vendors in each kit are actually identical. However, if you have never purchase the full-priced vendor kit, then any sales of your own products will pay a 5% commission to Apez. You can purchase the full-priced kit at any time and commissions on your own product sales will no longer be charged (even from vendors you may have already rezzed in-world from the free vendor kit).

Once you have the Apez.vend vendor kit package, rezz it on the ground somewhere and touch it. It will create a new folder in your inventory - for example "Apez.vend Free Vendor Kit 2.3" or "Apez.vend Vendor Kit 2.3" depending on which kit and version you purchased.

If you've not done so already, it is worth taking a look at the Apez.vend Concepts page for a quick overview of terms before continuing (e.g. like item, inventory, product, collection, vendor, merchant, seller, buyer, owner etc.).

Adding items to your Apez inventory

iServ item-server. Rezz an iServ somewhere where it can remain permanently to serve items to customers on demand.

If you don't have your own land or permission to rezz anywhere for an iServ, you can place is in Apez's own free-hosting area in Apez Sands.

The Apez vend system doesn't have automatic access to the items in your in-world inventory - so to make objects, notecards, textures and other items available to the system and for delivery to customers, you need to place them into the iServ item-server device. You'll find the iServ located in the vendor kit.

You need to rezz one somewhere that it can remain 'permanently' so that it can deliver items to customers as purchases are made through vendors in-world or from online. It is best to place it in your own residence or shop - on your own land if you have any. If you have nowhere to place it, you can use the free hosting area we provide in Apez Sands here.

Once you have rezzed an iServ, wait for it to initialize and register itself with the Apez vend system's 'off-world' servers. It should show a green light and display "0" on the front panel when it is ready.

To actually place items into it, you'll need to open both your in-world inventory window and right-click on the iServ, select "Edit" from the pop-up pie menu and then select the "Content" tab of the edit window if necessary. Just drag any items from your inventory window into the Content tab by clicking-and-holding your left mouse button on it and then releasing it over the Content list.

To continue with this guide, please at least one object, a notecard and a texture into the iServ. Once you've place a few items into it, touch the iServ's front panel anywhere and select the "update" option from the blue owner-menu that pops-up. That instructs the iServ to send the inventory list to the Apez off-world servers. It will indicate when it is complete.

Now those items will be available on your Apez.inventory page on the site.

Important:

• Item Properties will show on your listing with the properties that your Boxed object has,they are taken over directly from the product in the Iserv.(there will be a place to edit this on our edit products page in the future.)

• Make sure all your vend images in your iServ are set to full permissions. Other iVend owners will only be able to sell your creations if your collection is public and the vend images must be full perms. Eles they can't be displayed on another merchants vendor.

Creating a product:

Once you've added some inventory items to your iServ, you're ready to create your first product to sell.
You'll need to do that using the Apez web-site pages. It may be a good idea to open a new browser window so you can do that while following this guide. Click or navigate to the Vend.inventory page to get started.

You should see a list of the items you placed into your iServ.
The iServ itself is also listed in a table at the top of the page (we didn't change the name of the iServ object in-world from the default "Apez.iServ..").

If you will have a lot of items in your inventory, it is a good idea to divide them among multiple iServs so that they're easier to manage. Currently, you should not put more than about 100 items in any one iServ. You can have as many iServs as you need rezzed as it is copyable. It doesn't otherwise matter to the system which iServ an item is in. You can change the name of the iServ to something more meaningful to you simply by editing the object name in-world using the SL "Edit" mode (just touch the front panel once afterward so that the iServ notices the name change and informs the system).

All products belong to one (only one) Product collection.
You can have as many collections as you desire and it is easy to move a product from one collection to another at any time. Since we've not created anything yet - we must first create a new empty product collection to create new products in.

Navigate to the Vend.products page. You'll see a "Create Collection" field at the top-right of the page. Enter the name of a new product collection into the field and click the "Create" button. For example, you might call your collection "Clothes", "Gadgets", "Razz-o-mataz effects" or whatever suits your business. While you can't rename a collection once created, you can move products out of it into another collection and then delete it. Next, we'll add a new empty product to our collection. Just enter a name for the product into the field below where it says "Add new Product" and click the "Create" button. For example, "Red Shirt" or whatever is appropriate for the item you want to sell. The product name is independent from the inventory item name and can be changed at any time.

You should now be on the edit-product page that shows all the detailed information that is associated with the new product you just created. Don't be daunted - most of it is optional - for advanced use - and can safely be left with the default values provided. You'll become more familiar with the additional options over time as gain expertise. We'll only concern ourselves with the important settings here.

Fill out the following fields

(as necessary, in any order)

1. Product: This is a name for the product. It may be the same or different from the item name. It is what customers see when they're browsing products. It should already be set with the name you entered when you created the product.

1. Collection: This is the collection this product is in. For now it will show your only collection.

1. Associated Item: This is the item you'd like delivered to the buyer when they purchase this product. The drop-down list should show all the items in your Apez.inventory (all those from your iServ Content that are transferable). Select the appropriate one for this product.

1. Short Description: A short one-line description of your product. This is shown below the name/price in vendors that have hover-text turned on and also in chat if turned on. For example, "Contemporary Red Shirt with short sleeves".

1. Vendor Image: This is the texture image that will be shown on the vendor's screen when the product is selected and also online (unless you set an alternative online picture). The drop-down list will show all the appropriate textures in your Apez.inventory. Select one appropriate to this product (i.e. usually a picture of it).
   • If there are none in the list, you might not have placed a texture into your iServ. Do so now and use the iServ "update" menu option (then you'll need to refresh the page so they show in the list). To upload a texture to your avatar's in-world inventory, use the viewer's "File->Upload Image" menu option.
   • You should set the permissions for texture you'll use as vendor images to full next-owner permissions (i.e. next-owner copy/mod/trans - don't worry, the texture isn't given away, so there is no 'next owner' in this case - it is just how in-world permissions work).

1. Vendor product info: Optional - this is additional information you can offer to customers when they select the "info" menu option on the vendor in-world. For example, you may select a notecard, enter the address for your web-site etc.

1. Price: The price (in L$) for the product. You can set it to 0 for free products.

1. Active: This is a kind of on/off' switch for product listing. It is initially set to "Disabled" so that the product isn't publicly listed before you've set all the fields to their appropriate values. You can set it to "Enabled" now.

1. Mature: Check this option if the image or description for the product contains anything not suitable for teen/public viewing.
   • Important - products may be shown on PG sims in-world by resale vendors, on the public Apez.shop pages and possibly elsewhere if this is not selected. To avoid complaints please be sure to check this option if appropriate (it is also possible to set the entire collection as 'mature' to avoid having to mark each product individually).

Finally, click on the "Update" button (either one of them) to save your changes.
Now you've created your first product! It is already available for sale in-world and online and may be purchased at any moment.

Note that although the default is for your collection to be publicly available for resale, you can mark it private if you'd prefer to only sell it via your own vendors.

Placing an iVend vendor

Some of the many iVend models

Once you've setup at least one product online, you can get back in-world you rezz a vendor and see the results of your efforts. It doesn't matter where you rezz a vendor for testing - though you can just go ahead and rezz on in your store or wherever you'd like to sell your products.

The vendor kit comes with a large selection of different vendor models. Most of them function in the same way and only vary in how many preview screens they have (and hence how many prims they use from the parcel quota). Some are special in that they don't have a separate 'info' button panel or one or no arrow buttons. There are is also a choice between Flat vs Angled designs for most models. Lets choose the iVend FP10 - a Flat vendor with 10 preview screens (5 on each side of the main screen). Find that in your vendor kit inventory folder and rezz one in-world now.

The vendor will initialize itself and register with the Apez.vend system. If successful, you'll see it chat "Registered". Since you only have one product collection, the system will probably assign that collection to the vendor automatically - it will indicate a product download has been scheduled if so. (If you have more than one collection, a newly rezzed vendor will not be assigned one automatically, you'll have to select one from the in-world or online settings and explicitly place it online).

It may take a few moments for the product & configuration data download from the off-world Apez server to begin (about 5-30secs under normal conditions). The download will be very fast if you only have a handful of products. The vendor will probably automatically come online immediately - but if not, touch the "info" panel to pop-up the owner's menu and then select "online".

Once that has completed, the vendor is ready to be used! Residents can right-click and Pay.. your vendor L$ directly to purchase your product, or optionally use the user-menu "debt" option to debt their Apez.bank accounts if they are Apez account holders.

Making a test purchase

Of course, you'll want to test the vendor :)

Select the product you will purchase so that the image is the one on the main screen (it will already be selected if it is the first/only product). Then, right-click and select "Pay.." from the viewer pie menu. You will see a 'fast-pay' dialog pop-up with the amount pre-set. Just select the price.

That will cause you to pay the vendor owner (yourself in this case) and will trigger the vendor's scripts. The vendor will immediately pay that full amount into the Apez.bank system (by paying it to "Apez Mann"). It does that so it can credit your Apez.bank account (the "working" account, as we've not set and other account explicitly).

When you setup any advanced options, such as revenue sharing, different sales commissions for different resellers etc., that is the point at which those payments would be made from your Apez.bank account to the accounts or avatars of your revenue share partners, the reseller etc. If you only have the free vendor kit, then an Apez commission of 5% is applied to this sale because it was a sale of your own product from your own vendor.

In this simple case, you are the merchant, seller, and the buyer. So, nothing further happens. The full purchase price is credited to you and visible on the bank.accounts page. You can withdraw your balance at any time using the bank.withdraw page or via an Apez ATM in-world. It is also possible to setup [scheduled automatic withdrawals at periodic intervals.

What to do next

The iVend FP10 - one of the many vendor models available. Vendors are fully mod/copy/trans - so you can customize them as desired.

Some of the things you may want to do and explore once you're comfortable:

• Take a look at the vend.vendors page to see your in-world vendors, their settings and where they're rezzed. The links are especially useful for teleporting directly to a vendor.
• Create additional products (even additional product collections)
• Use some of the other product settings:
  • Look at the per-collection settings - for example - select a standard sales commission higher than the default (2.5%) to encourage resellers to sell your products
  • Enter detailed long descriptions into the Description text box for display in the online store.
  • Upload higher-resolution multiple pictures directly on the product page to give online customers additional pictures to browse.
  • Use the Groups page to create an Apez group to use for sharing your sales revenue with partners or to allow partners to manage your products and/or vendors for you
• Experiment with other ways to assign products to vendors, rather than just a single collection - for example by using product tags, merchant groups, categories etc.
• Configure and customize a vendor to give away to resellers, so that they can just rezz your vendor and it'll be ready to sell your products and pay them sales commission
• Use the owners group setting to create a group that contains all the owners (e.g. buyers) or your product, so that you can use the Group IM page to send IMs to them all.

That touches on some of the possibilities achievable with the Apez.vend service. It is a system designed for casual merchants and professional merchants alike - so it will grow with you. You'll discover how to achieve more sophisticated use with experience.

Tips/Gotchas

• Don't just delete vendors in-world using the delete key or pie menu - use the iVend owner menu "delete" option so that the vendor has a chance to de-register with the vend service before vanishing.
• Change the names of your vendor and iServ objects (and touch their front panels afterward) so that you can more easily distinguish them online (especially helpful if you're wondering which one you just accidentally deleted in-world!)
• Remember to use the iServ's "update" menu option after adding/removing Content to inform the server (it will do it automatically in time if you do forget)
• Always set all the textures you want to use as vendor images to next-owner full permissions (copy/mod/trans) or the associated products may not be able to be assigned to your vendor, or perhaps to yours but not resellers.
• Take a copy of your iServ into your inventory so you can quickly re-rezz it with all the items inside it just in case it gets unexpectedly returned from the parcel
• Consider dividing your vendors into different vendor sets on the vend.vendors page so that you can easily see which vendors are in which location (e.g. which mall, store etc).
• Test vendors you're giving away as resale vendors with an alt avatar or a friend to ensure they show the products you intend.
• Be patient - the vendors and vend system involve considerable communication between the iVend/iServ and other devices in-world and the 'off-world' Apez system servers. Depending on the state of the grid, communications can be delayed or lost and may need to be retried. If you make a change online it may not be immediately reflected in your vendor - as changes are batched and applied after a delay for efficiency.
• If your vendor seems to be out-of-sync, wait a few minutes and use the "config" menu option (and don't worry - the vendors always check before allowing a sale, so it isn't possible for buyers to purchase using an out-dated price, for example).

If you require further assistance, please refer to the complete iVend documentation or
open a Help Ticket from the support page so we can help you.