CasperVend 2/Quick Start/DE

Getting Started

You can get selling with CasperVend FAST! Just follow these steps to get started..

1) Rez the included DropBox

This is your "Server" and must remain rezzed inworld, since this is how CasperVend will deliver your items.

We recommend a limit of around 200 items per DropBox just to keep things from taking forever to load as you add new products.

We recommend that you have a second - duplicate set - of your dropbox(es) on at least one additional sim/region, to provide a second source for delivery. See the DropBoxes page for more details.

2) Package your product (if necessary) into a single object (box)

If your product is in multiple pieces - like a set of clothing - OR you want to include notecards, pictures, and/or a landmark together with the product when it is sold (so that the customer has them all together when they unpack the package), you WILL need to put it in a box, bag or shipping crate. CasperVend cannot deliver a folder out of the DropBox.

IMPORTANT: Set your permissions properly on rezzable products WHILE THEY ARE INWORLD, and BEFORE you put them in the shipping package!

3) Give Unique Names To Product Shipping Packages, Notecards, Landmarks & Textures

Delivery works by NAME, not UUID - if you have different things with identical names, it may deliver ANY of them, at random, which means your customer may get a picture or a notecard instead of your packaged product!

IMPORTANT: This means that if your product is in multiple pieces - like a set of clothing - that you WILL need to put it in a box, bag or shipping crate. CasperVend cannot deliver a folder out of the DropBox.

If you want to have everything with the same name, you need SOME sort of differentiation somewhere - for example "PIC" or "NOTE" (without the quotes) - just so that the DropBox knows that they're not a backup for your packaged product.

4) Shipping Package Goes in DropBox

Right click the DropBox, go to "Edit", then the "Contents" tab. Then, simply drag the packaged product(s) from your inventory into the DropBox. The box will upload your items in around 30 seconds - please pay attention to any messages the box issues, it will warn you if you have put items into it that you don't have permission to transfer. If you get a warning about no transfer items, please check the contents of the prims in your build for no-transfer scripts, animations, textures, notecards, etc.

IMPORTANT: Your DropBox MUST stay rezzed, or your deliveries will fail.

ALSO IMPORTANT: The DropBox CANNOT deliver a folder - you must package all the parts for each product in its own bag/box/shipping crate.

5) Add Vendor Pictures, Landmarks and Other Things

At this point, you can add all vendor textures, any separate promotional notecards for your products and your store's landmark into the DropBox as well.

(Notecards and landmarks are NOT mandatory - just nice to be able to give out if your customer wants information they can take with them when they leave.)

The textures must be full perm to you (the system displays by UUID, and it can't get the UUID if the texture is not full perm). Ideally, these vendor textures should contain the name of item, permissions of the item, the prim count/impact of the item, and your shop logo, as well as a good picture of the item itself - but what is included is entirely at your discretion.

IMPORTANT: Textures you set to products are viewable on the delivery status page. Please don't add any textures that you don't want people to be able to download.

ALSO IMPORTANT: Name your landmark something simple like " (your store name) - main location " - this way if you have to move later, you only need to replace the landmark in the dropbox, without having to update the landmark on every single product.

6) Rez a vendor and grant debit permissions

These permissions are required in order for the vendor to handle money on your behalf - the vendor cannot operate without debit permissions. See the Debit Permissions page for details and full explanations.

7) When the vendor has booted up, click it and use the "Admin" option to go to website.

The "Admin" option gives you a link that takes you to the website, and eventually, the vendor's configuration page. If you can't find a vendor in your vendor list, you can use the admin link to get right ot that vendor's configuration page, regardless of whether it's currently showing in the list.

If you have rezzed out one of the panel vendors, you can get the admin link by clicking the "Caspervend" logo on the vendor.

If you have rezzed out a "touch" or "headless" vendor, click it to get the popup menu, then select "Admin".

NOTE: You can get to the configuration page of any of YOUR vendors by clicking it inworld and selecting the "Admin" option from the popup.

8) New Merchants, Create Your Account - Otherwise Log In

If this avatar is brand new to CasperVend, you will need to set up a secure password. See the password instructions for details.

IMPORTANT: For your own security, please do not use the same password that you use in any other vending systems, or in Second Life.

When you have set up your password, continue logging in.

9) Create Your Product Listings

Click "Products" on the left column, then the button.

You will now be presented with the product setup screen for your individual product.

10) Start Filling In Product Information

You at least need to enter a name, price, set the permissions, and choose an item to deliver, and the vendor texture. Everything else is optional. If you use alpha textures, the texture might not show properly on the CasperVend website - don't be concerned with this, the items will still show properly inworld.

Once you have the textures selected for each product, you may delete the corresponding texture from the dropbox to save space. Alternately, you may paste the UUID of the texture from inworld into the appropriate slot in the product listing, and not have to load textures into the DropBox at all.

IMPORTANT: Take extra care to indicate the permissions properly for your products - particularly if they're no copy. We allow customers to claim redeliveries of items which are marked as "copy" on the website.

ALSO IMPORTANT: "Search" on a multi-product vendor does NOT mean inworld search. Vendor search allows you to find a product IN the set of products in the vendor with a specific keyword. If you want products to show on inworld search, you will need to set up your own keyword prims.

11) Repeat steps 9 & 10 for each product you want to configure.

If you are using a multi-panel vendor, you will see your products appear in the vendor as you create them on the CasperVend website.

Congratulations, you're now set up with your new CasperVend system!

Single-Product Vendors vs. Multi-Product (Profile) Vendors

If you wish to only load certain products on a multi-panel vendor, see the Profiles & Groups page for instructions.

If you are trying to load specific products on a 1-prim static (or other single-product vendor), use the individual product selection pulldown (below most of the other options) on the vendor's configuration page.

Vendors cannot automatically know what specific product(s) you want where without either (1) setting up a profile and pointing the vendor TO that profile, or (2) selecting a single product in the case of single-product static vendors.

Frequently Used Options

You can also...

...set up affiliate vendors
...set your vendors for a store-wide sale
...link your Marketplace via ANS (Marketplace store owner name MUST match CasperVend system owner name)
...keep backup dropboxes in case of sim/region failure
...import your sales data from other supported vending systems
...sell textures, if you have the TextureVend pack. See the TextureVend page for details.
...rez demos, if you have the HoloVend pack. See the holovendors page for details.

When you are ready to take full advantage of the many additional options in CasperVend, see the complete user manual.

If you need help with your CasperVend system, please see Getting Help for information on how to get in touch with us.

Thanks for using CasperVend!

FAQ / Troubleshooting

Q. I'm setting up my vendors, but they're not booting up and I don't see the debit perm windows!

A1. Vendors don't finish the boot process because they're waiting for you to grant debit permissions. If you are using a v3 viewer, they can accumulate behind a tiny "chicklet toast" in the corner of your screen. Check the upper right and the lower right to see if they're hanging out there waiting for you to answer.

A2. All viewer3-style viewers actually store your popup notifications, unless you dismiss them. Over time, undismissed notifications build up - if you have too many, you may not be able to log in, OR you may not actually SEE any new notifications at all. You can see details of the problem AND the fix over on the Firestorm wiki.