Web Commerce vs. Sim-hosted Malls

Maybe you just need to give up on thinking you know whats best for everyone, Catherine, and consider that different people have different ideas about what's "fun" or "good" or whatever.

Seems your problem is the fact that money even EXISTS.
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It is a game... what are you talking about and why are you apologizing?

WTF?

Dont post unless you have something nice to say, I hope that saves this thread.

Just to put it back on track:

Malls - disorganized mismashes of vendors, badly organized ones, badly built ones - should experience accelerated decrepitude due to the new web-commerce tools.

Specialty Stores - will always exist, and given that the more creative usually make them, should end up be aesthetically pleasing at least, with easily browsed content.

Web Commerce - the new hotness, and frankly, most of us have jobs - and this makes it VERY easy to tap into that market of people browsing at lunch for new things to buy. It totally makes sense, and avoids a lot of pitfalls when dealing with densely packed nightmare malls that I've mentioned at the beginning of this thread.

I still say there is a balance to achieve, in light of all the comments, but I do believe the common mall is history, as in, over - or should be.

Discuss!

Not quite, Maxx. I think mall sims - the concept of an entire private island sim, created for no other purpose than as a giant mall - are a dying idea, and web commerce is just going to be the nail in the coffin for them. However, chain shops, where you have a compact, highly visible and easily accessible set of booths, usually in prominent locations such as near telehubs, still serve a very valuable purpose. Specialty stores as well are not going away anytime soon.

I agree Cereal. Maxx I think your missing the fun in shopping. Searching for your item or your favorite "Mall" is have the fun. When I first got into SL this was part of the exploring. True there is a "Mall" or some sort of shopping in every sim it seems. But as Cathrine points out many are selling off. I think we will soon be left with only the better thought out better planned ones.

Why would I pay a monthy fee to view a virtual mall when I am already paying for an internet connection to view or purchase from a https site? (secure site)

Why would I buy anything from someone within sl for rl $ when LL protects their RL identy and if something goes wrong with the purchase I no rl recourse.

Agreed. If some of the malls in SL were better designed, I might use them more. When I find a creator/designer that I really like, I like to Landmark their shop and go back periodically to check out new items. More often than not, when that shop is in a mall, the shop is replaced with something else, or the mall is gone completely. It's simply not worth the hassle of porting, lagging and rezzing to find out there's been another turnover.

Again, I agree. Specialty stores have better staying power, better design (usually), and are (usually) easier to navigate. They're not as limited in Prims as mall booths, so the selection is usually much better as well.

Being able to search for an item without porting to 20 different locations, wait for rez, then wander around trying to find it is wonderful. I'm loving SLexchange so far.



Malls still serve the purpose of allowing those without land, or those without available prims on their own land, the ability to create wares to sell. They offer some exposure to creators who haven't yet made a name for themselves and might otherwise be overlooked. I would still welcome a few well designed, well layed out malls in SL, but as it stands now, it's just silly.

When I started out, what carried me at first was word-of-mouth advertisement. People would see my stuff, ask where to buy it, and then go buy it, no matter where it was. That's always the best way to get exposure, whether you're just starting out or an established "brand". You don't need to be in a mall sim, you just need to be renting somewhere.

Failing that, the #2 way to get exposure is to be in as many places as possible. The high rent in most mall sims makes this prohibitive.

Maybe my experience is specific to selling vehicles, but historically my mall sim spaces have not performed nearly as well as my open, roadside spaces.

with the ability to advertise searchable keywords in land settings and profiles, there's little point in trying to distribute your wares all over the map. i have found that giving away a few freebees, that subsequently end up all over the map, works pretty well. but word of mouth is by far the best inworld advertisment.

Yeah... if I really like something, I'll really talk about it because it excites me so much. It's inexplicable... I have an urge to go gaga over stuff.



I feel the test drives are handy!

I have been freeaking out about the money thing too. Confused and tired of being frustrated. I mean no one should be suprised this game is about making money. I mean the first thing you realize when you get here is you better find money if you want a sex life. So the first week you are stuck trying to find a penis, a house in a box. and someone to shrink your house in a box to fit on your 512 becuaase there is no one in hell you are spending 80 cash to get the plot you want to have a 40 fee to pay monthly to keep the plot. Lindens lindens lindens. I was trying to find moiney so bad i wondered if the guns really worked so i could kill off some competition at the events. lol

Ok but now i am doing the Ahkin Math and here it is

Before I came to SL whne i only had my Real lfe i was going out to movies way too much, renting movies way too much , depression motivated shopping, and Taking trains into New york to drink a massive amount of ten dollar long islands. So even if i get the Plot I want and staff my business with people i will have to pay by buying money I am still saving real life dollars and its not every day you can buy someone the nipples they always wanted.

Sex Sex Sex
Money Money Money
Power Power Power

What you cant get in real and what you cant afford to buy in real life...thats why this game does so well.

Catherine do you have sl friends? I have wonderful friends, We are all focused on business and one of our friends weddings. But we all have fun. *hands Catherine a FREE HANG OUT WITH AHKIN FOR A NIGHT CARD!!!!

NOW TO THE POST ISSUE

woohoo jsut found a web thingie you are talking about and i am thinking this

Wenb shop at work

SL mall Shop by Night

I AM OBSESSED

I swear!

Hey, I got this great idea. If the Lindens don't get more subscribers and the Linden scrip tanks more on the GOM and the geeks get tired and go and play Half-Life 2, they could sell this same 3-D game thingie technology to all those ppl who have businesses on the Internet.

So like you go to amazon.com in your customized avatar and you enter a 3-D space on amazon.com and this nerdy looking guy in glasses and a plaid shirt comes out -- well, he's like the RL clerk's avatar or maybe an NPC, and he asks you if he can help you and he tells you to "touch" the little miniature books and they popup like notecards and you sit down with one of his little notecards in the Starbucks with a little mini cup of coffee and you talk to some girl who's like reading Chomsky. You look at the guy in the plaid. Is he NPC? Is he artificially intelligent or intelligently artificial?

Or let's say you teleport over to ummmmmmm a sporting goods store's Internet site in Michigan? You want to get some white tennis outfit for your kid for the Christmas pageant? And this really nice lady comes out in her sweet avatar with the big butt and she bustles around and you give her your credit card and she says "just a minute hon while I check your card" and in that 30 seconds or 60 seconds you're waiting you can either play her casinos or check out her little vendors for clothes for your avi or you just go into "appearance" mode and work on your look to see if maybe you can go back to amazon.com and pick up that Chomsky-reading girl? Before the lady makes you stay for bingo?

Or let's say....hmm....you could go to oh, I dunno, cia.gov of whitehouse.gov and you'd have this little spraypaint can with you that was like some hacked illegal object and you'd spraypaint NO WAR or something on their carefullly constructed wall where you were supposed to leave SUPPORT OUR TROOPS type of messages? Then you would hurry away before their av radar could detect you -- you stayed out of the 96 meter range...

Then...it's off to....let's see....www.cnn.com The news come at you in 3-D. It's real people, dying someplace. Or are they the ppl's avatars? You're not sure anymore.
You back out of there quick and go to nytimes.com Some FPS geek shoots you when you come on the Middle East Forum. Why? You can't tell because his av's name is something like !@#$#@$#47 and you can't even file an abuse report, rats!

Need More Shopping! You go to ea.com and they put you *right in the game*. Yikes, scary! You preserve for a while and make some play money -- because amazon.com said you could apply play money toward a discount on a book...More cute outfits for my avatar and then it's back to amazon.com...but the Chomsky girl has moved on, the little cups of coffee aren't rezzing properly anymore, the nice man in the plaid shirt has disappeared into a thicket of raining triangles....

So while your computer is rebooting you go down to the Korean deli and get a corn beef sandwhich and a Diet Dr. Pepper and a ringding and talk to the lady about the $68 million Lotto and then it's back upstairs to see...

well, you get the idea...Hey, imagine what the Fresh Direct site would be like! You could travel through the aisles of fruits, and see if those bananas are REALLY ripe before they deliver 'em.

I also get much better sales from my specialty stores than I do any rented mall spaces. I won't be renewing any leases because it just isn't worth it to me. I prefer boxes to vendors, and mall prims don't allow for this, which is a big issue for me. I've seen some people renting 10 Prim spaces for 50-100 a week. Since I don't sell anything over 300 L, this is just not economical for me.

In the admittedly limited times I've spent hunting through the malls, I can't say I've had a wonderful time in any of them.

Haphazard item placement, laggy builds, confusing, constricting hallways, loud textures, and generally Bad Design Everywhere.

It didn't help that there is usually no mall directory, no planning of products in the same area (Interested in guns? Aisle 4), no cohesive design statement, and overly draconian restrictions on prims for vendors.

It's a bad concept made worse by the fact that it makes money.

Oh well.

This e-commerce thing is an AWESOME idea. Now if I only had stuff to sell...

LF