Web Commerce vs. Sim-hosted Malls

In the interests of comparison, bolstered by my belief that malls are dangerously obsolete, here is a short (but by no means complete) list of why Web commerce supercedes Malls in sims. Of course, I never know when to shut up, so I felt I had to share (Hey Kris.. hehe.)

Web-Based Commerce vs. Sim Malls

Web: Products available instantly upon rendering the web-page.

Mall: Wait forever as your download stream chokes with everything you *don't*
want to see.
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Web: Excels at providing search capability to find the precise item you want.

Mall: Luck and chance play a good role in you finding a particular item, as
most malls are organized like the aftermath of a category-five hurricane in a
trailerpark.
-------
Web: Once products are listed, they have the same visibility as any other
entry, and can be searched as mentioned above.

Mall: Once your stall is selected, you're at the whim of the mall-owner. If
your stall gets fenced in by other retailers, tough luck. Visibility? Totally out of your control.
-------
Web: Updating your products is a painless process - a few modifications and
you're done.

Mall: Because you have to visit each vendor to update, this can take forever.
Especially as you battle the sim-lag and the constant downloads from other retailers things rezzing in your view.
-------
Web: Costs for listing are low to nonexistant, or simple commisions are
involved.

Mall: Be ready for everything from charge-per-prim, or just rate hikes whenever
the mall-owner feels they need to defray their sim costs, or go on that vacation to Ibiza.
-------
Web: Transaction histories available so you can plan your products and remove those that don't perform.

Mall: Depending on the vendor system, you may get transactions, but having a
way to sort through and analyze these is problematic at best.
-------
Web: Hosting costs are predictable, and have nothing to do with sim-land costs.
This results in a lasting presence free from the whims of Linden land tier fees.

Mall: Sim-land costs are everything, which influences mall owners to do rather
questionable things, such as delete malls without notice, or 'redensification' of existing stalls to shoe-horn more retailers in the same space, causing everyone to suffer in either case.
-------
Web: Builds upon established means of commerce on the internet.

Mall: Builds upon established means of producing sim-lag and sub-par client
performance wherever they exist.
-------

Like I said earlier, I'm sure there are more reasons. Just the few that I thought of right away.

And remember, sometimes when systems change, like horse-drawn carriages to automobiles, the ones inerred and 'wedded' to the old system are the ones to watch out for, as they try to spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) about the system that is about to replace their outmoded business model. Certainly an entertaining thing to see, if you are on the right side of the fence, change-wise that is

I like the idea of seeing web based shopping coming to SL. However, I compare RL shopping to SL shopping. I will still always want to see both in world and web based shopping available to SL residents, just as in RL we have web based shopping as well as stores and malls.

To me, I like to immerse myself in the SL world. So I will mostly likely continue to do 90% of my shopping in world.

Why is this not in Poll Form? All important topics are now in Poll Form and provide and easy Poll voting mechinism. Don't make me spread FUD about your posts!

More on topic...

Malls do however provide the experience of "shopping" which I assume is a big draw for womens and for groups of womens and for men who are almost womens or who have to be drug along with the womens (if that sounds sexist, I appologize to the womenz). Atleast thats how it used to be, I only get drug along every now and then so I don't get the mall experience very much, so I'm not sure if this is still around or has been drowned out to lag.

Also the question is asked, where will the vendors in-world go?

I think eventualy there will be just malls with vendors on the walls.

I think web based shopping is nice service to completement in world experience. Ugly, littered and badly run mall have no future indeed. But nice places offer fun shopping and immersion that looking at web page can't replace.

Then there is issue of privacy and trust. As retailer in world I can sell directly to customer without middleman knowing about my sales.

It's a mystery to me why some of the top architects, most efficient land barons, and best designers have all gravitated toward malls in this game -- given what you say, that you believe they are obsolete. It's because the mall enterprise still makes the most money for players.

All those problems about rezzing and visibility and the high cost of tier are problems in the game manufacturing, and the Lindens should try to fix this somehow (zoning malls only to certain sims, which have the speediest servers?) or they will see their game blown out from the inside by the new web commerce. Ppl will be able to log-on during their lunch hour and buy cute outfits for their av without having the battle lag and slow-rezzing, and without having to load up a game that might not be on their server at work.

The businesses with web pages will still have to have some kind of in-game presence, however, to gather new customers because not everyone will find their webpages at first. That means there are likely to be a lot more promotional events of various types.

An advantage to the mall system is that many of the booths or stores have a device that says "[name] online]. And then you can click on that and talk to the person, and sometimes they even come over in person to help you with some decision or problem. So it's like a RL nation of shopkeepers who care about their customers and administer to them in person or are reachable.

Web businesses, however, grow more bureaucratic and impersonal. I spent 2 hours yesterday with $27,000 trapped in cyberspace between SL and GOM, for example, until finally GOM fixed the problem and materialized the cash. Web businesses with cute av clothing and attachment are likely to have a higher volume even than GOM and are likely to spawn more trouble-tickets. They'll be open 24/7, and yet customer service will not be 24/7. How will that work?

Another problem is purchasing power. I have all this free welfare I get in my box every week from the Lindens just for showing up. I get silly contest money like most fugly avatar or I answer a survey or whatever to get play money. So let's say I have $1000 Lindens in play money, that's $4 RL dollars. But I don't use my RL dollars, I use my play money in game to buy shoes or clothes and stimulate the business of those designers. The web businesses, however, aren't going to take play money -- or are they? They'll want to take my real-life money -- but I have play money, so why spend RL money?

I also wonder if the Lindens, once they see that malls dry up, nobody wants to buy land for them or pay the tier, and once they see web businesses booming, with ppl making thousands of real-life dollars on little doll clothes, will want a piece of the action, since after all, it's their game and their servers that made all this possible. They might start charging fees or something for the use of the SL name.

You don't have to be beFUDdled to realize that the game will become a less immersive, less community-friendly space with the onset of web businesses. The feel will become more like a glorified chatroom for cybersex, and less like a virtual town.

The cost of the artisans and designers will no doubt go up too. Unless they arrange deals with web businesses who showcase them and buy from them, their business will tank. It means less diversity and less creativity, just like when Wal-Mart goes bulk and outsources to China. There are likely to be two tiers of creation in SL, those who create stuff sellable in dollars on websites, and those who create items in-game sellable only in Lindens.

Just as with Wal-Mart, instead of a town with diversified activity, including design, manufacturing, sales, etc. all inside the community, the community becomes stripped out to be merely consumers and low-paid store clerks, while all the diverse labour and manufacturing is outsourced beyond the community, and often with exploitative conditions.

The shopping experience and community-building no doubt first became depersonalized with the advent of the vendor, enabling merchants to go AFK or offline completely while shoppers wandered through echoing, empty malls.

You already have a thread you can cry SPY in Anshe, STOP SPYING ON MY NON-SPY THREAD, KTHX.

Mall Maul

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's a mystery to me why some of the top architects, most efficient land barons, and best designers have all gravitated toward malls in this game -- given what you say, that you believe they are obsolete. It's because the mall enterprise still makes the most money for players.

All those problems about rezzing and visibility and the high cost of tier are problems in the game manufacturing, and the Lindens should try to fix this somehow (zoning malls only to certain sims, which have the speediest servers?) or they will see their game blown out from the inside by the new web commerce. Ppl will be able to log-on during their lunch hour and buy cute outfits for their av without having the battle lag and slow-rezzing, and without having to load up a game that might not be on their server at work.

The businesses with web pages will still have to have some kind of in-game presence, however, to gather new customers because not everyone will find their webpages at first. That means there are likely to be a lot more promotional events of various types.

An advantage to the mall system is that many of the booths or stores have a device that says "[name] online]. And then you can click on that and talk to the person, and sometimes they even come over in person to help you with some decision or problem. So it's like a RL nation of shopkeepers who care about their customers and administer to them in person or are reachable.

Web businesses, however, grow more bureaucratic and impersonal. I spent 2 hours yesterday with $27,000 trapped in cyberspace between SL and GOM, for example, until finally GOM fixed the problem and materialized the cash. Web businesses with cute av clothing and attachment are likely to have a higher volume even than GOM and are likely to spawn more trouble-tickets. They'll be open 24/7, and yet customer service will not be 24/7. How will that work?

Another problem is purchasing power. I have all this free welfare I get in my box every week from the Lindens just for showing up. I get silly contest money like most fugly avatar or I answer a survey or whatever to get play money. So let's say I have $1000 Lindens in play money, that's $4 RL dollars. But I don't use my RL dollars, I use my play money in game to buy shoes or clothes and stimulate the business of those designers. The web businesses, however, aren't going to take play money -- or are they? They'll want to take my real-life money -- but I have play money, so why spend RL money?

I also wonder if the Lindens, once they see that malls dry up, nobody wants to buy land for them or pay the tier, and once they see web businesses booming, with ppl making thousands of real-life dollars on little doll clothes, will want a piece of the action, since after all, it's their game and their servers that made all this possible. They might start charging fees or something for the use of the SL name.

You don't have to be beFUDdled to realize that the game will become a less immersive, less community-friendly space with the onset of web businesses. The feel will become more like a glorified chatroom for cybersex, and less like a virtual town.

The cost of the artisans and designers will no doubt go up too. Unless they arrange deals with web businesses who showcase them and buy from them, their business will tank. It means less diversity and less creativity, just like when Wal-Mart goes bulk and outsources to China. There are likely to be two tiers of creation in SL, those who create stuff sellable in dollars on websites, and those who create items in-game sellable only in Lindens.

Just as with Wal-Mart, instead of a town with diversified activity, including design, manufacturing, sales, etc. all inside the community, the community becomes stripped out to be merely consumers and low-paid store clerks, while all the diverse labour and manufacturing is outsourced beyond the community, and often with exploitative conditions.

The shopping experience and community-building no doubt first became depersonalized with the advent of the vendor, enabling merchants to go AFK or offline completely while shoppers wandered through echoing, empty malls.

Why are you so touchy? What make you so afraid of discussing privacy issue?

Oh dear, please don't make me explain INTARWEB humor. Really, move along, you've got a lot of scripts to update in your 'for sale' signs, for uh....the self-lit textures....yeah, that's it...

And, for clarity:

STOP SPYING ON MY NON-SPY THREAD, KTHX.

I'm too late, it seems spies have altered your original post!!

On the subject of privacy, in a mall, anyone can have proximity trackers in their venders, which means you aren't the only one who knows who looked at your product, but who looked at the neighbor's product... etc... makes me really afraid to go to a mall, donno what might be a camera in SL c.c

If it's a heavy prim based item I would probably want to see it inworld. For clothing and other types of stuff you usually have to stand infront of a rectangle for 60+ seconds just to see what it is I'd much rather use a web system.

The problem is collecting huge amount of information and be able connect it. Putting proximity tracker into every store in SL (not only your own store) is not feasible, mall owner would find out and ban you and you would still not be able to obtain information on sales.

Maxx, I edit my post because saying I "hit weak spot" might be misunderstood like I want hurt you. Which is not the case. I have one concern about privacy I would like see addressed and I hope you and your friends are able come up with one acceptable solution.

I'm so glad you SPIED your error.

Actually, I have noticed this problem too. I have a large (fairly large) plot in rydal. Perhaps we, as a forum community, can band together to create a mall which has all of the features (WEB FEATURES) he has listed?

Most designers have their own stores, not malls. Or entire cities like Midnight City. And I can't remember ever seeing a top architect gravitate towards a mall. Unless you caught Maxx on a shopping spree.

the best inworld mall model i've seen was the old clover tower in clyde. each floor of a tower contained one, or just a few, vendors so rendering was kept as minimal as possible.

the tranporter consoles pushed you to a specific floor of a specific tower based on what you were looking for, not necessarily whose merchandise was displayed there.

to my memory, it worked beautifully and i've often wondered why people didn't copy the model all over the map.

ll will do well to take a hint from the shopping community though. if they'd rather link out to a web page to do the actual business, llhyperlink() needs to be included in the next release. business is business. people will conduct it the way they see fit, not the way ll dictates.

These are both solvable via good scripting. I do have to visit each of my vendors to update them, but the process takes at most 30 seconds for each one. I often don't even have to wait for the vendor to fully appear. Also, I have good aggregate statistics available to me, which is important for weeding out the poorly-performing vendors.

This having been said, I plan on using web sales to complement my in-world sales. The only real problem is, as Anshe said, trust. Anyone whose web vendor system I use can easily help themselves to my entire catalog, or even make sales without my knowledge. Right now there's only two major web shopping sites, and they're both run by well-known people (in particular, Adam is so megalomaniacal he probably thinks he's too good for my merchandise ), so I don't think it's a big deal just yet. But I've been screwed before by potential "retail partners", and some of these types of people I would never trust with access to an item server full of shiny vehicular loot.

Hmm...I can think of three architects...but maybe I shouldn't mention their names because maybe there is some community notion that getting involved in malls is...shameful? But why? If there were better architects making the malls, they would look better, no? For example, I'd be happy to see a mall in the monumental style of Maxx Monde, and I would rent space in it!

What you seem to be saying is that you and Barnes and others don't have malls...you have little stores...next to each other on cityscapes...so they aren't exactly malls (ugh)...they are um...mallettes? Erm...upscale shopping areas? I dunno...when does a string of stores in a city go from becoming an upscale shopping district to becoming a mall? Certainly those stores of yours are attractive and pleasant and rez faster because there's not a lot of junk in them and they are laid out better. But...What is a mall? Only those boxes made by Blue Burke plunked down in the middle of an elevated landscape, shedding light for miles?

No. They're stores.

Now if we could have web-based dance clubs, that would really remove some lag issues

Done!

O \O/ _O-`'-
/|\ | |
/ \ / \ / \

Aww, they got messed up

I know, to really reduce lag, let's ban all of the SL servers, and make SL a web based and IRC Chat room!

SL was too laggy anyways, and the WWW And IRC experience is much better!

This sounds not too unlike real life, actually.

It's really nice to have these choices. I like both and will continue to use both.

*points* lag burst.