From box to first sale.

Start in 5 steps

1. Unpack the box. Rez the VelvetVend box and touch it, or wear it where you can’t rez. A VelvetVend Vendor System folder arrives at the top of your inventory and the rezzed box removes itself (you keep it in your inventory).
2. Rez the DropBox in a region where it can stay. It connects by itself, and the VelvetVend menu appears on your dashboard.
3. Drop your products in (Edit > Contents), with their pictures. Each item becomes a product on the dashboard.
4. Set prices on Products: price, pictures, category, description, then publish.
5. Rez a vendor and accept the request to take L$ (see why). On Vendors, pick what it sells. Done: it is selling.

Every item connects to the dashboard by itself when you rez it: there are no codes or keys to type.

DropBox

The DropBox is your store’s stock room. Every sale, from any vendor in any region, is delivered from it, usually within seconds.

• Where: anywhere it can stay rezzed: your store, your home, a quiet corner. It doesn’t need to be near your vendors.
• Backup: rez a second DropBox in another region and put the same products in it. If one is offline (a region restart), the other takes over its deliveries.
• Permissions: you need copy and transfer on what you sell. A no-copy item can be sold one at a time: the product’s stock is what is in the DropBox.
• Touch it for its state: items, deliveries waiting, deliveries being given. DropBoxes on the dashboard shows the same for all of them.
• If a region is down, sales are kept and delivered the moment a DropBox is back. Nothing is lost.

Products and pictures

• Drop it in: any item (object, clothing, notecard, landmark, ...) becomes a product with its name, type and next-owner permissions. Several items make one product delivered as a folder.
• Pictures: drop the textures into the DropBox too and pick up to 6 per product. Use your own full-permission uploads: Second Life only gives a script the picture of a full-permission texture. A picture without one is flagged, and you can paste its texture key instead.
• On the product: price, category, description, pictures, version, gift allowed, shown on the website, visible or hidden.
• A new version: drop the newer item in with the same name plus a version (“Sofa v2”). The product moves to it; send it to past buyers if you like.
• Wearable demos: an item whose name ends in DEMO (“Dress DEMO”) is never a product of its own: it becomes the free demo of the product with the same name. See Live demos.

Vendors and themes

1. Rez a vendor anywhere you can build. Wall vendors are flat: turn them to the wall. The Stand stands on the floor.
2. Accept the request to take L$. Second Life asks once per vendor. It is used only to pay back automatically: a refund when an item sold out or a price changed a moment ago, a group or coupon discount, a partner’s share. Without it the vendor doesn’t sell (missed it? touch the vendor > Owner > Refunds).
3. Pick what it sells on Vendors: everything, a category, or chosen products, and the order. Profiles are named sets of these settings: change a profile and every vendor using it follows.

• Buyers touch Prev / Next or a thumbnail, Info for the card (price, description, permissions, version), Gift to buy for a friend, and right-click > Pay to buy. The Pay box shows only the right price, so nobody pays the wrong amount.
• Themes: Settings has 12 looks for your vendors (Noir, Ivory, Snow, Sky, Blush, Lavender, Walnut, Sapphire, Emerald, Bordeaux, Royal Plum, Graphite).
• Scroller: turn on auto-rotate and the vendor changes product by itself.
• Missing vendors: one not heard from for an hour shows as Missing; it is never removed by itself. Replace moves its settings to a new vendor; Delete removes it.

Sales and deliveries

• The buyer pays the vendor and the L$ go straight to you. The vendor keeps the sale until our server confirms it, so a sale is never lost, even while the server is unreachable.
• Your DropBox delivers the product and sends the buyer a receipt with a link to My purchases. You get a sale IM (switch it off in Settings).
• Sales lists every sale with its whole log: paid, sent to the DropBox, delivered, refunds, shares. Deliveries shows the queue.
• Gifts: the buyer picks Gift, types the friend’s name, then pays. The friend gets the item and a note; both see it in My purchases.
• Second Life never says whether an avatar accepted an item, so “delivered” means sent. Buyers can always ask again (next section).

Redelivery and My purchases

• My purchases on velvetsys.com: buyers log in with their avatar and see everything they bought from Velvet stores, with Redeliver (3 times per product per day). You can keep your products out of it in Settings.
• Redelivery Terminal: rez it in your store; buyers touch it, pick a purchase and get it again.
• You: Redeliver on any sale in Sales, as often as you like.

Updates to buyers

1. Drop the new version into your DropBox (“Sofa v3”).
2. On Update centre, pick the product and send it to everyone who bought an older version, or only tell them it is in My purchases.
3. Buyers who asked for no updates are skipped. Deliveries go out through the normal queue.

Affiliates and profit sharing

Affiliates: others sell for you

1. Rez the VelvetVend Affiliate Vendors box, open its notecard merchant (Edit > Contents) and write your SL name after the = sign: merchant = Jane Doe (your username works too, any case). Touch the box: it tells you whether the name is right.
2. Rename the box with your brand (keep “Affiliate Vendors” at the end, a version after it is fine), take it back and drop it into your DropBox.
3. Choose who may sell. Open program (on Affiliates): anyone who unpacks your box sells for you at once, with the commission and products you set there. Give the box away freely: your DropBox (your store website then shows “Sell for commission”), a free Marketplace listing, a freebie giver. Invite-only: add each avatar on Affiliateswith their own % and products (a product may have its own %); they accept on their dashboard (Selling for others) or by unpacking your box.
4. The affiliate rezzes the box and touches it, rezzes a vendor and allows the L$ request.

A buyer pays the affiliate’s vendor; the vendor pays you your share at once, and only then is the product delivered from your DropBox. If your share can’t be paid, the buyer gets their L$ back. Stop an affiliate and their vendors stop selling at once; a stopped affiliate can’t join again with another box. A box passed on to someone else only makes them another affiliate, and only while your program is open.

Profit sharing: a share for partners

On Profit sharing, give a partner (a co-creator, a charity) a % of the sales of your whole store, a product or a vendor. Your vendor pays it after each sale; every payment is in the sale’s log. A payment that fails can be marked as paid by hand.

Promotions

• Sale prices with a start and end (SLT) on a product, or store-wide sale events (% off everything, a category or chosen products). Vendors show the old price crossed out and when it ends.
• Group price: buyers wearing your group tag pay less; the difference comes straight back.
• Coupons: codes with % or L$ off, limits and dates. Buyers type them at the vendor (Coupon).
• Bundles: a product made of other products at its own price, delivered as one folder.
• Gift cards and store credit (Gift cards & credit): a gift card is a product you sell on any vendor; its value becomes store credit that buyers spend with Use credit. You can also give credit yourself. Credit is your promise to your buyers: Velvet keeps the balance, never the L$.
• Wishlist: buyers add products from the vendor or the website, share their list, and may ask to hear when a wished product goes on sale.

The sale price is the base; then the bigger of group price or coupon, never both; store credit can pay what is left. Group price, coupons and credit work on your own vendors, not on affiliates’.

Live demos

Builds, furniture, vehicles: a Rez Station

1. Rez a Rez Station in the region: the Desk or Wall station (it also sells, with a REZ button) or the plain box (hide it under the floor). One serves every vendor in its region.
2. Place a copy of your item exactly where the demo should appear, drop the VelvetVend Demo Spotscript into it, touch it and Save.
3. Take the item and drop it into the Rez Station.

A buyer picks See demo at a vendor (or REZ on a Desk / Wall station) and the item appears at its spot for the minutes you set on Rez Stations (5 by default, up to 60). It goes early if the buyer walks more than 30 m away. A demo is a normal rez: it needs room on the parcel.

Big builds: pack the build with the free Build Packer (its READ ME is in your folder), drop the Demo Spot script into the Packer box, save the spot, and put the box in the Rez Station. The demo builds itself and cleans up after.

Clothes, hair, skins: a DEMO copy

Drop a copy named like the product with DEMO at the end into your DropBox. Buyers get it free with Get demo at the vendor or on your website, once a day per product.

Store website and Kiosk

• On Website & kiosk, choose your address: velvetsys.com/shop/your-store. Every published product is there with pictures, price, permissions and a teleport to its vendor.
• Rez the Kiosk in your store to show the website in-world; touching it opens the page.

Notices, bots, managers

• Settings: a sale IM from your DropBox (on by default), a daily summary at the SLT hour you choose, and which problems you hear about (a DropBox offline with deliveries waiting, a vendor missing, a failed payment).
• Bots: connect your VelvetBots, SmartBots or Corrade bot for group invites on purchase and a thank-you IM. Velvet never messages your buyers otherwise.
• Managers: invite staff and tick what each may do.

Statistics and Marketplace

• Statistics: sales and income by day, week or month; products, categories, vendors, regions, affiliates; top buyers; each table with a CSV download.
• Marketplace: copy the address shown there into your SL Marketplace store settings (Automatic Notification URL). Your Marketplace sales then show in Statistics and in your buyers’ My purchases. Older sales can be imported from a CSV.

Updating your scripts

When we release new VelvetVend scripts, your Overview says so, with what changed and which regions still have older ones.

1. Press Click to Deliver: the VelvetVend Update Ball arrives in your inventory (it is also in your box).
2. Rez it in a region with your VelvetVend items and touch it: Scan only lists what is out of date, Update updates it.
3. It flies to each item, swaps the scripts and reports when it lands, then names the other regions to visit. Your products, settings, sales and L$ permission stay as they are.

A DropBox being updated pauses for a moment; deliveries wait or go to your backup DropBox.

Questions

Does Velvet take a commission?

No. The L$ go from the buyer to you (or to your affiliate, who pays you your share at once). Velvet never holds your money.

A buyer says nothing arrived.

Look the sale up in Sales: its log shows where it is. Press Redeliver, or point the buyer to My purchases or your Terminal. A full inventory or a busy buyer can lose an offer; asking again fixes it.

Can I give VelvetVend to a friend?

No: VelvetVend is for the avatar who bought it, and the vendors can’t be transferred. The Affiliate Vendors box and the Build Packer can be given on: affiliate vendors only ever sell your products, for the affiliates you allow.

Something else? IM Wiz Windsor in Second Life.