So you Decided you wanted open a shop of your own but you can't get your head around how to make it work? well here I shall go through with you how I made, maintain and make my shop work. It really is quite simple and if you place enough effort in you do get many great results!
So here we are at Lesson one and starting with the basic building blocks we need to run a successful shop. First of all we need to ask ourselves some questions!
What Shall I sell?
Why do I want this Shop?
Do I have the time and energy to run this shop?
How will I lay it out?
and Last but not least, How will I get publicity?
There were these groovy pair of socks that I had wanted for some time but getting them seemed impossible as they continued to rise in price and I was not getting gold fast enough to keep up. So I thoguht to myself, I can do art and do it quite well so I'll sell it for gold and get those socks!
As I was on holidays and work wasn't that busy, I decided I had enough time to do some art. So I jumped on the
Requests and Commissions forum and posted a topic there.
As I mozed about other shops I realised the ones I was more interested in looking at were the ones with cool banners and grpahics. I myself had never considered doing that but seeing how much of an impact it had on me I decided to try my hand out on photoshop.
As I continued on I found that business was getting increasingly slow. However we shall adressed this issue in Lesson 2
So the basics then?
well first of all you need to be able to sit down and think about why you want to open your shop. Is it because you are bored or you want more gold or items? This is the best way to of maintaining your shop as you know what you want!
Another thing is if you can maintain a level in which you complete art and to a standard you can put out everytime. These things are really critical when considering to open a shop. It isn't that hard if you are dedicated enough!
Now that we have all the thinking bits out of the way however, let's move on to creating your shop.
The best way after thinking of a cool title that'll catch the gaian's attention is to so through and decided on a contents that way you know how many posts you'll need. then go through and reserve as many posts as you think you shall need to avoid any breaks from spammers and bumpers... this is important for a professional layout!
It's as simple as that!
now that you have done that we need to consider getting us some banners. These make for a nice layout making the over effect one of professionalism. The best way is to make one in photo shop. With a bit of bold colour and simple use of lines you can make really professional banners. Consider the one for this tutorial. Here's the break down.
That's how a few simple lines can make a real difference. However if you are finding it hard to make you own, you're too lazy or don't own photoshop the
Personalised Graphics forum may be able to lend you a hand. If you find nothing there and you are desperate then just drop me a line and I'll help you out free of charge!
After making all this you need to place some examples into your shop. this is done with simple codings. Here are some examples of ways to show off images.
1) Simply place images
[img]insert image Url[/img]
2) Placing a link
insert text here![url=insert image url]Insert Text Here[/url]
3) thumbnails!
[url=insert image url][img]insert thumbnail url[/img][/url]
there are many sites that will be willing to help you out in terms of hosting images. Useful ones include~
imageshackphotobucketlinks to other image hostsI use Imageshack as it is easy and simple with very fast uploading time without having to sign up.
So I think that is it for now folks... come back tommorrow for Lesson 2! Catch you then!
