We are always looking for great new stores to join us! The upside is that we welcome everyone to apply. The downside is, with so many merchants already in the group, and so many applications that come in, we have to be really picky and choosy about who we allow to join us.
We have developed some standards that can be really useful if you are trying to determine if your store would be a great fit for the $60L Weekends group so read on for more details!
◊ Quality!! Seriously, quality is a critical must have. It is what separates so many stores on the grid. This does not mean things like style though, please don't get them confused. Just because you have a unique style, doesn't mean you have bad quality. Examples of quality things we look for:
In clothing there should be seams, edges, wrinkles, shading and such. Plain clothes just don't look good! Templates are fine to be used, however using them creatively and making them unique will help improve your market share, and increase your potential business plus it decreases the chances of putting out something that is identical to someone else!
In furniture, we are looking for well aligned prims, nice looking textures, some dimension to things, if shading is used that's a huge plus since it makes furniture look so much nicer. Good quality animations are also very helpful!
In textures, we are not looking for things that are repeated over the entire grid. For example, if you have a copy of Filter Forge and just punch out presets, your not likely to be accepted. As a tool for designers Filter Forge can be AMAZING, but it should not be the only tool you use in your textures. Additionally, Google search is not your personal free supplier. :-\
These are just some of the things that we look for, but can be a really great start for most stores!
◊ Prices!! We hate to break it to people, but when your normal prices are already super low, it's not a sale to put something out for $60L, it's also not cool if you would have to mark your prices *up* to make them $60L! We've had tons of stores apply that had bad pricing and it's a disaster, simply put, we are looking to ensure that a large majority of your store is priced at $100L or higher since that is the lowest price allowed for normal merchandise pricing.
◊ Resellers not welcome!! Sorry, hate to be like this, but we exist to help promote creators and someone who is a reseller simply isn't a creator. We know that this limits some of the stores that we can get, but we are truly ok with it. Plus, since we have quite a few merchants in the group with affiliates, just doesn't seem right for them to compete against their own affiliates! Small amounts of resell or affiliate vendors is ok, for example if you have a clothing store and a few vendors for shoes, or if you have a skin store, and have a few for shapes, but the majority of your store shouldn't be affiliate or resell products or we're not going to let you in.
◊ Copybotted, ripped or stolen content!! We absolutely do not tolerate any form of theft, whether inadvertently or known. Any theft is reported to the original creator whenever possible and the merchant will be automatically declined from the group. This includes animations such as in the freebie MLP that is all around the grid.
◊ Item creator names and names on application do not match. This is one of those things that upsets some people, but we strive to help original creators and avoid ripped and stolen content and ensuring that creator names match the names on the application is something that has to be done.
◊ Lack of stock!! Of course everyone must start somewhere, however it is important to have something in the store for customers to buy. However, exceptions to this rule have been made and will be made again in the event that the merchant offers something to the group that is extremely unique either in actual merchandise or the actual designs.
◊ Copyright or trademark infringements are not tolerated at all. Even for works that are considered public domain, we do not permit the pieces to be used. For example, artwork from artists such as Monet and others that are considered public domain as we do not feel that the overall value of these works should be lowered to only a few pennies when the price in SL is converted to RL dollars.
◊ Art galleries are typically not accepted. This is largely due to the copyright and trademark stuff above, but also because it's really hard to determine *who* the creator of the artwork is. Because of this, we will rarely ever accept an art gallery.
◊ Incomplete or incorrectly completed application – hint a SLURL is not requested, it is REQUIRED. I really do not know how many times I can stress this. No SLURL your store is AUTOMATICALLY turned down. If you can’t provide what we need on an application, we are not going to spend the time to review your store. Same goes for other parts of the application that are ignored, this goes to show not only that you pay attention to details, but also can follow instructions that makes things much easier in such a large group.
