Hello,
I write this as a reply to the thread posted yesterday here by Vanilla Sola accusing me of immorally making profit on freebies and ripping off newbies with the enkythings L$1 Shop. I started this shop about 10 months ago and making profit or ripping newbies never was in my mind, let me explain how it became what it is now.
When I had my first little furniture store on my first land at Seu I had no traffic besides the neighbour passing to say hello, no customers or sales. I realised that I needed traffic in order to get noticed.
At that time it was also pretty hard to find some items you needed without searching for hours, and paying a lot for them, or going through tons of freebie crap and not finding what you were looking for.
I got this idea of a shop where you could find about everything you could possibly need in sl, especially for newbies and first land owners. It would be no junkyard, all stuff needed to be of decent quality, in its own box with a clear pic on it, nicely arranged by subject so it wouldn't be to difficult to find what one needed. And all for $1. The $1 was not such a strange idea as i saw freebies sold for $1 (and more) all over sl.
I though this shop could give me the traffic I needed, traffic achieved in a much more creative way than just to place some camping chairs.
So I started to build items for this store. I made a lot of furniture, houses, lamps, mirrors, hats, castles.. anything i could think of and was able to make. But there were also some items i couldn't make myself but that i considered as basic avatar equipment and therefore needed in the shop. I went through 1000's of freebies in order to find really quality items that newcomers could use. And only the very best (in my opinion of course) were accepted. I tested every item and wrote an instruction note-card if needed. I placed signs everywhere in the shop saying "Part of the items in this shop are freebies and can be found at other places in sl for L$0".
I also worked on a lot of freebie items from whom i thought they could be good enough if i improved them, so I added parts, textures, colors, pose balls, doors..
For example the Linden House Kits that are freebies but not easy to assemble, some even have errors where one needs to create his own parts in order to get it together. Once assembled the houses had like 250 prims each wich isn't very usefull for a first land owner, so i started to strip them, rebuild parts of the houses and reduced the number of prims to an acceptable amount of 60-90. Also, after that I applied other textures and colors to get other versions of the houses. In total a few days of work and altho these houses are freebies, the ones i made from them can't be found anywhere else and a lot of my time went into them.
The shop grew and people liked it very much what kept me motivated to work on it for many months, almost every day for many hours. I moved to Wolchulsan and yes, I finally found the time to made my first shoes trying to get some real sales.
When in september sl was entered by so many newbies that the welcome areas were completly filled, newbies started to appaer everywhere looking for help. So I made a help section with some info pannels, I wanted them to explain the sl basics in a very clear manner wich meant I wrote and rewrote them many times before i was satisfied with them. When a few months later a lot of french speaking people entered sl and I noticed most of them didn't understand english at all, I translated a few of my help panels into french wich wasn't that easy at all as i wanted to preserve the carefully build logic in them.
I didn't want profit out of the $1 store as it was made to give me traffic, but I always hoped and aimed to achieve the point on wich it would pay for its own rent. And I think after 5 months at Wolchulsan I achieved that.
Even before that moment I installed a money orb to return the shop's real profit to the customers. At first it gave a dollar every 5 minutes, but after a few months I could set it too a dollar every 4 minutes, and then to 3, and 2..
The shop became a hughe succes and got really busy wich means a lot of daily work for me. I am contacted by many of the $1 customers about the products they bought, how to open a box, why they recieved $1s.. and I always try to help them the best I can. Not to mention the griefers I have to deal with almost daily too. Need to talk to them, explaining them to behave, sometimes eject or ban them, getting insulted, caged, orbitted..
The shop's own succes became a problem at Wolchulsan. There was soo much lag nobody couldn't move anymore and at times the sim was completly filled with $1 customers, wich made the land my neighbours had there pretty useless too them. I had no other choice than buying an entire sim to run enkythings on, wich i did about a month ago.
That was a hughe step in investment for me, I had to buy the island itself and need to pay US$300 fee a month for it.
Of course I don't want to rip off newbies or do something immoral and I will do what is necessary to satisfy the people accusing me of that, but it would be nice if there was some nuance.
What about a freebie on wich I worked for a few hours to get it better, where I added parts like poseballs (I bought the animations myself), applied textures (also bought by me) and colors.. is it immoral to ask $1 for them too?
If I cannot ask $1 for those that could well be the end of the store, and a great loss of time and effort for me.
I thought profit was something left over after all costs had been taken into account, and that's what I did concerning the $1 Store. All real profit (and more) from it was returned to the customers by the money orb.
The shop has been an enormous amount of work, and still is every day and it would be sad and a project without future if besides all the work I need to pay a lot of real dollars for it.. that just doesn't make sence, then I better go back to Wolchulsan and pay some campers to get my traffic.. like all others do.
Ok, so for now I did set all real freebies, the ones i just had to check on functionality and a pic made, for sale at L$0. The ones where I spend a lot of time on improvement are still at $1. (And of course all that was made by me or for me)
The money orb went back to 3 minutes..
I apologise to those that feel I've been acting immoral, that was never what I wanted or realised I was doing. I hope setting all unaltered freebies for sale at 0 will solve this issue.
Thank you,
Enktan Gully
Items in the $1 Shop that are no freebies:
Room 1: Avatar Equipment
Terra Runways - Textures I bought and made runways with
BM Helmets and sword - Made for me by Batu Munro
Plasma Shield - Made for me by Achilles Hykova
Rave Hoops - Made by me
Dance Floors 20x20 & 25x25 - Made by me
Jet Pack - Made by me using free script
Doorbells - Made by me using free scripts
Radar Ring - Made by me with free script (L$0 now)
Super Jump - Made by me with free script
Run - Uploaded animation from official guide and placed in ao
Lazy Walk - Uploaded animation from official guide and placed in ao
Female Walk - Uploaded animation from official guide and placed in ao
Male Walk - Uploaded animation from official guide and placed in ao
Height Detector - Made by me with freebie script (L$0 now)
Sarabi Minerva Hair - Bought from Sarabi Spatula
Sarabi Knot Hair - Bought from Sarabi Spatula
Shapes Male & Female - Made by me
Vampire Coffins - Bought on Yard Sale - added colors
Hellfire GTO's - Made for me by Hellfirekarl Corleone
Room 2: Clothes & Accessories
Chinese Hats - Made by me
Golden Bracelets - Made by me
Silver Bracelets - Made by me
Glasses - Made for me by Teren Aridian
Handbags - Made by me
Mens Jeans Coll - Made for me by Daijon DeVaux
Life Heart Beat Shirt - Made by Spider Mycron, contributed
Planet Shirt - Made by Brian Micheline, contributed
Intimate Beings Shirts - Made by Serano Aferdita, contributed
Sweather Girl Box - Made by Marlene Simon, contributed
Neko - Made by Tenshi Vielle, contributed
Enktan Gully Clothes - Made by me
Angel McNally Clothes - Made by Angel exclusive for $1 shop
Odessy Clothes - Made by Princess Kendal and Odessy Forcella, mostly exclusive for $1 shop
Canimal Clothes & Skin - Made by Canimal Zephyr, contributed
Abbie Furse Clothes - Made by Abbie, exclusive for $1 shop
High Heels Shoes - Made by me
Platform Shoes - Made by me
Room 3: House & Garden
Wooden house Big - Made by me
Wooden house Small - Made by me
Colonial Homes - Made by me
512sqm Castles - Made by me
Trees - Made by me
Plants 2&3 - Made by me
Tablesets Wood - Made by me
Glowing Stepping Stones - Made by me
Steppimg stones - Made for me by Daijon DeVaux
Hammocks - Made by me
Fountains - Made by me
Pools - Made by me
Big Parks - Made by me
Small Parks - Made by me
Garden Lamp - Made by Anyanka Feng, contributed
Baskets with Flowers - Made by me
Room 4: Furniture & Decoration
Fridges Big - Made by me
Fridges Small - Made by me
Ovens - Made by me
Dish Washers - Made by me
Marble Baths - Made by me
Royal Baths - Made by me
Basins - Made by me
Table Sets - Made by me
Couches - Made by me
Burgundy Sofa - Made by Grace Niles, contributed
Beds - Made by me
Royal Beds - Made by me
Blue Star Bed - Made by Zee Stardust, contributed
Marrocan sofa - Bought on yardsale, added colors and pose balls
Imperial Beds - Bought on yardsale, fixed construction, added poseballs and colors
Cabinets - Made by me
Decorations - Uploaded and made by me
Rugs - Some are made by me, some found as freebie
Mirrors - Made by me
Lamps sets - Made by me
Paper Lamps - Bought on yard sale, added switch and colors
Candlesticks - Made by me
Dinner Sets - Made by me
Ceiling Fans - Made by me
Solar systems - Made by me (except for Yellow Star wich is a freebie)
Masks - Made by me (except for the Stained Glass mask wich is a freebie)
Window Views - Made by me
One-prim Statues - Made by me
Crosses - Made by me
Tomb Stones - Made by me
Goblets - Bought on Yard Sale, added colors
Items in the $1 Shop are freebies but have been altered:
Room 1: Avatar Equipment
Runway lights - Particle is freebie wich i changed and placed in lights made by me
Kerian Planes - Freebies wich i altererd slightly and colored them
Floating Tube - Freebie but I added two more colors (L$0 now)
Cubey Terra Planes - Put together and colored by me, all other cubey freebies are sold with his permission
Archery Set - Freebie where i added two standing targets (L$0 now)
Assault Rifle - Freebie that i textured
Particle Wreath - Made by me out of freebie particle balls
Yellow Sparkling Body - Made by me out of freebie particle balls
Radiating Heads - Made by me out of freebie particle balls (L$0 now)
Laser Hands - Made by me out of freebie particle
Laser Eyes - Made by me out of freebie particle balls
Party Lights, Rotating Party Lights - Made out of a freebie but looks a lot different
Answering Machine - Freebie altered by me (L$0 now)
Disco Dance Bracelet - Freebie Dance Bracelet in wich i placed 5 freebie disco-style dances (L$0 now)
Groovy Dance Bracelet - Freebie Dance Bracelet in wich i placed 5 freebie groovy-style dances (L$0 now)
Madcap Dance Bracelet - Freebie Dance Bracelet in wich i placed 5 freebie crazy-style dances (L$0 now)
Rock Dance Bracelet - Freebie Dance Bracelet in wich i placed 5 freebie rock-style dances (L$0 now)
Get Drunk - Freebies wich i altered slightly to make 'm look better (L$0 now)
Simple Walk - Freebie Animation wich i placed in ao (L$0 now)
Sneak Walk - Freebie Animation wich i placed in ao (L$0 now)
Multi-poser Female & Male - Freebie in wich i placed suitable freebie poses (L$0 now)
Eyes - Freebie where i added a lot of colors (L$0 now)
Chocobo Heads & Avatar - Made by me out of freebie
Robo Sapiens - Freebie but made some extra colors
Glowing Wings - Freebies i altered
Combat Carts - Freebie, added textures and colors (L$0 now)
Old Pick Up Truck - Freebie seriously altered
Formularacers - Freebie added colors (L$0 now)
Golf Cart Racing Set - Carts were freebie wich i textured and colored, all other elements uploaded and made by me
Room 2: Clothes & Accessories
Race Helmets - Freebie wich i altered and added a lot of colors
Indy Hats - Freebie where i added a lot of textures and colors
Chocobo Hats - Freebie i altered
Tiaras - Freebie i added some colors (L$0 now)
Spike Collars - Freebie i added balck and gold version
Shy Neon Juwelry - Freebie but contributed by creator Random Calliope
Bonia Piercing set - Made out of freebie
Purses - Freebie added some colors
Glowing Cape - Freebie changed the colors (L$0 now)
Censored - Freebie i altered
Chocobo Shoes - Freebie i altered
Room 3: House & Garden
Butterflies - Made by me out of freebies
Small chocobo's - Freebie i altrered
Clapboard House - Freebie i altered so it has 100 prims less, also colored it
Wright House - Freebie i seriously altered, added doors, about 150 prims less than the original
Villa - Freebie i altered to have 100 prims less
Archer House - Freebie i altered slightly, added doors
Honeymoon Home - Freebie i altered
Tavern - Freebie i added doors
Romantic House - freebie i slightly altered, added doors
Log Cabin - Freebie i altered, 100 prims less, added versions in other colors
Beach House - Freebie i altered, 100 prims less, added versions in other colors
First Shop - Freebie i altered, 50 prims less, added versions in other colors
Futuristique House - Freebie added versions in other colors
Misty's House - Freebie I altered, added doors and colors
Scenix - Freebie I altered, added doors, textures and colors
Sky House - Freebie i altered, added door and landing platform
Phone Booth - Freebie added door
Plants 1 - Freebie i altered (L$0 now)
Wooden Gazebos - Freebie i added pose balls and versions in other colors
Picnic - Freebie i added pose balls
Waterfalls - Freebie seriously altered into other versions
Staircases - Started from freebie stairs but made a lot of different staircases in a few colors out of it
Bridges - Freebie i colored
Flowers - Freebies i rearranged and placed in pots (L$0 now)
Silo - Freebie building kit i textured
Room 4: Furniture & Decoration
Workshop Stool - Freebie added two other textured versions
Wooden Beds - Freebie added pose balls and a lot of colors
Grand Beds - Freebie added pose balls and some colors
Dressing Screens - Freebies i altered to have less prims, added textures and colors (L$0 now)
Bookcase set & Bookcase set white - Made out of freebies
Rugs - Some are made by me, some found as freebie (L$0 now)
Globe lamp - Made out of freebie
Birthday Cakes - Freebie i altered to have less prims and different forms
Fireplaces - Freebies i altered, added textures and colors
Big Vases - Freebie i altered, added textures and colors
Augers - Freebie i altered, added textures and colors
Rotating Globes - Freebie i altered, added light and rotating script (L$0 now)
Curtains - Freebie i added flex and colors (L$0 now)
All other items are L$0 now.