Alternative to Dynamic Classifieds Pricing

This has been posted before, and its Flippers idea, but I think it deserves its own thread coz the Lindens seem to have stuck their fingers in their ears and gone "Noooo ahhhh-ahh-ahh lalala not listening lalaalala" whenever it was brought up..

Why not sort by date/time added? So everyone gets their time at the top? Set fee, latest added goes straight to the top.. Maybe drop the price a little and enable a "refresh" type thing, so people that want to be at the top still can be, but so that anyone who adds an add has their time at the top..


The problem I see with "Dynamic Pricing" is that land barons, already established bussiness' and shops, will all pay to, not only be at the top, but the bottom for exposure.. And so they'll be pages and pages on either end of bussiness' that don't really need the exposure..

Anyway its only my L$0.2 but I'm gonna start a vote coz I've got some free , I'll add the URL.. http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=796

I shouldn't do serious posts, I ramble..

http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=796

Good points Zap.

I have to say I'm not sure it's the most important immediate issue, that is the precipitate release of '1.8' (1.7 plus P2P and Ripply Water after a couple of weeks 'exhaustive' testing), but it's certainly important and needs thinking about - something LL doesn't seem to be doing very much at present about any of the flock of new 'features' they are dumping on us.

It's pretty obvious that 'the little people' are going to be squeezed out by this latest brilliant idea and that's not acceptable.

I completely agree Doc.. Good points also..

As I said I've started a vote, and it probably won't get looked at until it has 500 votes.

I've posted in hotline asking they give it some consideration..

If given the choice I probably wouldn't want it implemented in the first version of 1.8, as it'd mean it would either be rushed or the release date pushed back, but I hope they'll look at it and the responces for future versions..

I put my one vote towards this. I feel the origional $250 for 2 weeks was too high, but this is just plain wrong. Those who need the advertising the most won't be able to get anywhere near the top. I definitely agree, that they should be sorted by date/time to keep the newest products/ads at the top

My reasoning behind sort by Date+Time for awhile has been that people without a sense of chronology eventually become insane. I'm not kidding, this is part of the reason behind the pent-up rage vs. the Classifieds. In the fictional world of Star Trek, it's sometimes called "temporal narcosis", but we've been seeing some very real effects here.

Plus, for events like Special Attractions and Personals, they may be dependent on that. For example, the opening of a new zoo or wishing someone a happy birthday.

You got my 10 votes

Very good points Torley.. For non profit events it could be hard too, it'd be easy enough to raise the L$ to put in a classified (altho I still think this should be lowered), but it wouldn't get you very high up, if we had it on date/time it could be added in on the day, and would stay on the first page (probably) for the whole day..



Thanks very much Darkness! Good to know the proposal has support

this got my 10 votes.

Dynamic Pricing is just another in a seemingly long line of bad ideas. There are So many shops out there and only a few who do really well. The find is already based on "popularity" or how many people can we get to our land.

There is no reason why another form of advertising has to be geared to those who already are established enough to pay oodles for more exposer while the little shops continue to struggle.

Not to mention the bad idea that if you pay more it shows that you care about your items.

Cheers for putting this up. Hopefully they will listen to us this time.

It got my vote too.. thanks Zap.

/voted

I think that the dynamic pricing scheme is an excellent idea, except that ads SHOULD NOT be able to be reverse sorted from lowest to highest. They should run highest paid to lowest paid in each category, period. This is the FAIR way to run an advertising system in a free market economy.

Ok so therefore the little guys... me being one of them... who maybe cant afford to pay top dollar should lose out??
Hmm my local paper sells space by the inch.. think most do as well... but here its not space, its places in a list.. isnt that a bit different to the amount of space you are given??
We are not reading a newspaper here, or watching ads on tv, both of which yes get more coverage with more money, here we are talking about reading through long lists of things to find exactly what we want.
Again my local paper might have a full page advert and on its opposing page ie right next to it.. might have two columns of little ads.
Here we get ALL the big dollar ads at the top and bottom.. that is like having all the full page adverts on pages 1-5 and 10-15 and all the tiny wee classifieds on pages 5-10. Cant we mix it up a bit as in newspapers and tv? Or at least make a search possible... so we can find new things
On the opposing side of this.. when I am searching for something, either a place to go visit or a shop I always look for the ones with little or no traffic... why? cos for me they probably are more intersting to look at and the products will be different
Ok that is my fourpeneth

Actually, the newspaper is the same thing.

Your paying for visibility. More space = More visible.
Likewise, Higher Rank = More visible.

The hotline post has a reply from Robin Linden..



Onto other replies



But don't you think this will stop people being able to open new shops and bussiness' so easily? In the last year or so word of mouth has meant less and less, and advertising has meant more and more.. I had a spot of about a week where I hadn't renewed my classifieds post, and I sold less than 10% of what I normally do.. Its just my L$0.2 Lindens like I said in another thread.. But I think rotating by date would be better for all.. Everyone could have their time at the top, and if someone wants to pay more to stay at the top, they could add a new ad..



Good points.. I don't have a lot of time to spend in world, so my network of friends (and popularity ) has of course fallen, if you can't advertise your products by your own word of mouth you're also at a disadvantage..



NP, Thanks for your vote Ingrid



And Surrea l

I agree as well. Of course the other way didnt work. However this doesn't work eithier.

People are just rating one star on everyones threads anyway so the griefing hasnt stoped.

My personal opinion Is that anyone that has the gutss to post there idea and creations rock in my book.

Not everyone has the same taste or style and not everyone on here will give there honest opinion . Some ppl think by rating other low and having friends rate theres high they look good in a sea of bad creations. I looked at a bunch of new clothing from other ppl that may not have been my style but were done well and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why they would have 2 stars the work was done well. So I figure it's ethier ppl trying to make others look bad for one of two reasons. They want there stuff to look good or they simply are a jerk and cant do anything on there own so they judge others harshly.


Other then rating a few ppl 5 stars because I wanted to bring there average up because they were under rated, I havent rated anyone because the rating styem is pointless. I myself have been rated low but its not hurting sales if someone wants it they will come buy it anyway.


I think it would be better if it was back the way it was as far as posting except the person that starts the thread should get control of post they dont wish to keep on there. when theres a new post if its a personal attack then they can choose to take it off. As far as the bump I think thats the only good thing that has come of the update. Everyone should get there turn up at the top.

Sorry if I didn't make clear, its about the in world classifieds, under the find menu.. They're changing it so those who pay more, get higher on the board.. And those who vote for the proposal would like to see it cirulated in order of date/time

Why should anything worth having be easy? What's stopping anyone from acquiring some L$ and INVESTING in good ad placement to increase visibility and move product? This entire thread is just a rewording of the "something for nothing" attitude and overwhelming sense of entitlement which is so prevelant in this community lately. People feel that they should be able to invest nothing and have L$ poured on them. Could someone elnighten me as to why it should be this way?



Could it be that the market is saturated with your previous products, and your newest line is less and less worth talking about? I'm not critisizing your products, and I don't know! I'm just asking! But word of mouth seems to work pretty well here. My virtual corporation sold nearly L$4,000,000 worth of virtual securities recently, in SL's first virtual IPO. The OVERWHELMING majority of those sales were the result of word of mouth. That, and a forum troll who kept bumping my threads, which I suppose also counts as word of mouth.

I think that if people provide an innovative product or service and invest in good ad placement the rest will work itself out. A hobbiest company's or failing company's lack of sales is no reason why it should be propped up on a pedestal AT THE EXPENSE OF those who are committed enough to their virtual businesses to invest in L$ for prime ad placement. If I'm willing to pay L$1,000,000 for something, and you're not even willing to pay L$2, and the government fixes the price at L$1 so we can both have 1/2 of whatever it is, that's not fair. That's a communist notion. Sorry but, it is.



Everyone doesn't diserve their time at the top. Everyone here affords high speed internet, and a computer valued at probably $1400 on average. In light of this, they can't afford $5 worth of L$ or whatever to invest in their business for prime ad placement? I don't think that business diserves exposure at the expense of those willing to invest.

I think the way this is now strongly favors people who set up shop a long time before a lot of people even heard of SL.. When I first started it was A LOT easier to set up a shop than it is now. You could have a shop anywhere on the grid and you knew people would see it because the grid was tiny.

I started a shop up when I was a couple weeks into SL for the reason, pure and simple, it was easy.. My furniture was abismal. Really, really awful. But over time, I got better.. I like to think my furniture isn't too bad now a days, and I like to think people enjoy having it in their home... But if I had come in recently, I'd see a huge grid, one main way to get your items noticed which cost a lot of L$, and a lot of competitors.. I'd be less likely to start a shop, its only when I started I realised how much I loved it..

I just think SL should be encouraging new creators, not giving them less and less of a chance agaist the already established bussiness'..




I wasn't updating when my classifieds ad expired, and as soon as it went back in my sales picked up again within a couple of days...

I suppose your bussiness has less competition.. I don't know either, I've never been to a store in my life.. But my guess is there are a lot more furniture, clothing, jewelry stores than security ones.. So word of mouth works less well..

There were other things you could do earlier in secondlife.. You could hold show and tell or contest events at your shop for exposure, if you did that now I doubt you'd get many attendants.. Few people look at the event board anymore..



I don't think most people would want to invest a large amount in advertising when they first start. It costs enough to upload textures and pay money to be able to put out your items.

If you're willing to pay more than someone else is for visability, then why not just update the ad when you feel you've lost the visability you want? They're not limiting the amount you can take out. If the price is L$1, and you're willing to pay L$1,000,000, buy a million of them. They're not in limited supply and it has the same effect.



I share my internet bill with people, and my computer was built for me by a friend. I really don't have money to burn on buying L$, especially if I was new.

Prices for objects, and renting land have gone up, and the amount of L$ you start with hasn't, the amount you get weekly has even gone down. I have to spend the money I start with on textures and a place to sell from. If I then got told I have to either feed money into the game to get advertising to actually sell my product until I start selling enough that it pays for itself, I wouldn't be happy..

Either the game has been advertised to me as free, in which case I wouldn't expect to have to start feeding money into it. Or I'm already paying for a premium account as it is..



I love seeing new users items and the ideas they come up with, its what stops us all having the same products, without event support for show and tell events etc, theres very little chance you actually get to see what they come up with.

I'm sorry it took me a while to get back to this thread, sort of lost track of it after the grid attack.

I am with Shaun on this. I started small. We all did. I got to where I am and able to afford being on the top by 2 years of hard work. I put endless hours into this place and spent full time hours in marketing and creating my product. I do it because I am having fun, not because of the money, but I dont see why people should be handed what I worked so hard for.

If your product is worth buying and is an original idea, people will spread the word. I was very creative in getting my product out there. It was also alot of work. If suddenly people were given what took me lots of hard work to accomplish, I would not view it as a level playing field anymore.

All retailers in SL had to over come the same obstacles in one way or another. Please do not tell me about your real life bills. We all have them. I have a family of 5 kids, a mortgage, IP bills and everything else that goes along with life. I didnt have money to dump into SL getting a business off the ground either. Eventualy success will come to you. It should not be handed to you though.

Edit to add- To say it is was easier when I started is false also. The grid was smaller but we also only had 1/3 the population. The size of the grid is only dictated by how many residents we have.

In the end the debate is on whether someone should have to spend $5-$10 a week to help their business grow. I am sorry, but if your product is something the people want, you will get your $1500-$5000 back to get towards the top.

Good points, each to their own I suppose.. I'm waiting to see what happens after the current adds run out..

Almost at 100 votes