The Former Galleria Sims: A Point of Utter Annoyance

Forget hiding the "Frosty the Blowman". Box that baby and get it out to sell. Eat your vegetables.. they're good for you.

Surreal

Exactly!!
1- is the outlet still there?
2- is the outlet stocked with a theme of products that interest the shopper?
3- do they have cannibal spikes?
4- are there really 102 uses for corn other than eating it?

Not the island. Anshe moved the Centreville mall/market to one of the new mainland sims and sold the island to Lenesy. I lost track of what happened to it after that.




Sounds like Mex Thorn. He's a nice guy but he apparently has a habit of taking down and rebuilding stuff on a whim, which is why I ended up not renting store space from him in Mexican Town.

I read all of page 1, and some of page 2. The issues with the Galleria sims notwithstanding, here are my two cents.

First, I think smaller is better when it comes to malls. If I teleport to a store and have to roam endless aisles to find the actual store location, I'm outta there. It reminds me of a flea market in RL -- I hate 'em, hate 'em, hate 'em.

Second, it is extremely helpful to "merchandize" both malls and individual shops. Organize like products in adjacent locations.

I tried the mall thing on my own land, and it met with mediocre success. My model was to charge a nominal, one-time setup fee vs. monthly rent. Like others have mentioned, the majority of my vendors never set up a store, but I was obligated to keep an open space because money had changed hands. Lesson learned -- make sure you have a time constraint written into your agreement, should you go this route.

Now, as a vendor who has had displays in other malls/sims, I want to point out that I don't update my vendors very often -- mainly because I have been slow to release new products. Inspiration comes in spurts (hehe). I would hope that a land owner would check with a vendor before kicking them out for lack of updates.

I don't know the reasoning behind any of it, I'm just a consumer, but I miss Galleria City and Galleria Skywalk.... the design was so interesting, and all my favorite shops were there. I'd go there just to wander around sometimes. I understand a lot of work's gone into Beverly Hills, but I'm just not as impressed with it. Now when I want something funky and fabulous, I just go straight to Mourning After.

I think when it comes down to it. I am just quite tired of wasting my time setting up at places that disappear within a month. It gets tiring and discouraging.

Yeah I think from here on out for me and Surreal we will want more than the mall owner's word that it will work. We want proof or evidence....

OH and everyone IM spam me to remind me to get my butt to Indigo to update my animations there

I didn't do much for this sim, other than do the original design, and get a ton of people to show up. Other than that, nothing. Whatever, another one bites the dust. Its the cost of doing business. Deal with it.

-Flip

yer ass is always on fire flipper. ive grown immune to it by now

I don't think alot of people know just how much work goes into maintaining a store and/or a sim. It takes constant upkeep and management skills. For example, I spent 4 hours one night checking EVERY single texture (i have 40 merchants who mostly use prim boxes so do the math) in my store in order to isolate HUGE textures that were causing lag. The job wasnt done there -- then I had to make a list a notify vendors of the changes that needed to be made. This is just one example of the kind of dedication and upkeep needed to make a store run smoothly. Its not easy and sometimes its downright frustrating. As for SIM maintenance luckily Flipper handles most of that. I do what I can with the store so it does not become a lag monster. Not to mention managing the store falls on top of my own design work and my current tour of duty in Live Help.

This all strikes me as very similar to the patterns I see working as a planner for shopping centers in RL. The difference is it is all running in fast forward. Your typical suburban mall or neighborhood center has a shelf life of about 10-15 years. This coincides roughly with the amount of time it takes to pay off the original development costs. After that point, the original landlord is likely to have sold the property and moved on. The center then rapidly succumbs to neglect, gets torn down and/or redeveloped.

All the customers have long since moved on to the bright shiny new mall a mile further down the road.

Contrast this with downtown areas, where many of the merchants own their own stores, or there is a robust mix of uses. Over the same period of time, many of the individual uses will have boomed, failed, and been turned into something else, but they don't do it all at once. The overall area goes through much less catastrophic upheavals. And many of the best stores thrive for a very long time! Tiffany's has been on the same corner in Manhattan for how long now?

Owning the means of your success - it's a good thing.

Jennyfur Peregrine ummm... did you forget YOU DIDN'T EVEN PAY RENT !!!!!
YOU GOT RENT FREE !!!

sounds like good ol lensey to me.

Lensey,

I was there when Flipper Peregrine did the build and alterations to your sim, which is the reason that Jenn and Munch didn't pay rent. He did your build, and the Mourning After site was therfore rent free.

Rent is not the sole investment. There is the time the retailer spends doing their build and in setting up their store. In this case, there is also the value of the sim-wide build Flipp did for you in lieu of rent. So don't trivialize anyone's investment.

In this case, there is still the outstanding issue of where did those builds, objects, vendors, etc. go to... since they were not returned. Also people are still wondering about rent refunds.

Jenn, Munch, Ferran, myself... and numerous others are justifiably tired of investing our time and efforts in malls which don't last. That is what spawned this thread... your sim just happens to be the latest in a long line of here today, gone next week attempts at a mall sim. So perhaps you are getting more heat than you would normally.

Oh, btw... Jenn, myself, Ferran... we basically do own sims. And we run stores. We DO know just how much a pain in the ass running a retail spot is. We also run our sims and businesses from business realities and with care for our business partners (retailers). Riiki Phobos has been up and running since approximately April. Mourning After has longevity too. Umber Midnight City is another good example of staying power. That is in spite of the dropping value of the Linden, the changing market dynamics etc. I'm sorry your attempt at a mall sim did not work out. Instead of ranting at the people who have successful ventures, perhaps you could ask why they are successful.

If for some reason we decide to sell Riiki Phobos, our retailers will be warned in advance. This is because we respect their time investment as much as we respect their own. That is all that people really want... a respect for their time and efforts.

Surreal

Lensey,

On Dec 14th I rented space from you, paid $L3200, spent my SL time the next week building my store. One week later, on Dec 21st, my store is gone, and I'm out a few thousand Lindens. It would have been nice to have my money refunded, and had time to collect my things in case I wanted to use them elsewhere.

To say that Munch and Jen need to INVEST more in SL, you are talking monitarily, what they are saying is they did. They invested their time, and the least you could have done was let them know ahead of time, it's really just a matter of consideration and respect.

And to be honest, after Ursula's last post, you almost sound more like a con woman/man, (whatever) than you do a professional business women who left because your vendors are bitching. Dignity and Grace go a long way in business in SL and RL, and what you've done more than anything is tarnish your business reputation. These Vendors are online telling you why, being straight forward with you, saying how frustrating it is, and instead of being defensive, you may want to try taking their frustration to heart, refund the money for rent they didn't get if that is the case, and save what little face you may have left.

A considerate person would have notified them before taking down the sim, since you did not, try fixing the situation instead.

And flipper's ass is on fire.

Crow

I bought Galleria Skywalk from Briana and planned to keep it exactly as it was. I did not wipe. I gave retailer time to become comfortable, drastically cut prices from about 4 L$ per prim to 2 L$ per prim and even moved Centre Ville sim and skymall to extend the Galleria sims axis further. After all it was Briana and me who started Galleria City project in first place, so I had high motivation to save it and continue it. I even planned on buying and preserving Galleria City once the person who outbid me in the first place would get bored and move on.

However, people like you moved out immediately after reading my name on the sim. Owners of sims attached to the Galleria sims paid 100 US$ each to detach their sims from the devil's land. Bad evil greedy land baroness Anshe? No! Lets go! This was not only frustrating, but also undermined the economic basis for the whole place. So I had to make a decision. And I decided that it may be better for the remaining retailers if I take my losses, pull out and sell sim to somebody who might be able bring back those retailers that boycotted my person. So I refunded every retailer, informed them about transfer of ownership and moved out.

So in effect some people who voted with their feet got what they called for. And pity for all the people who did not share that bias and are still hit by what happened. All I can do is recommend you to talk to those who have stores in my places. Ask them about business practise in Centre Ville Network. You may be surprised to hear about continuity, growth and respect for the customer

When I first started playing a few months ago, Galleria was my favorite place to shop. One day I was taking a newbie friend by there, and it was gone! Saw a bunch of ppl building with "Rodeo Drive" above their heads. I asked and was told Galleria was no more but Rodeo would be open soon. I've visited a few times and last week I took an extensive tour of the sim and actually liked what I saw. Some of my favorite stores were still there so all was good. Last night I go back, or try to go back since there was no available telehub and IT'S GONE AGAIN!!!

I don't know all about the economics of owning an island but as a consumer I'm frustrated that my favorite stores keep getting displaced. And unfortunately, I do not always know their names. I know what they look like and where they were located. So now I'm off to find new favorite stores in stable locations :*(

Mex Thorn now owns San (foregt the other part of the name ) it's beside his MeXiCaN ToWn sim but it's currently restricted. There seems to be smoe roads in it and I read a post where he was cosidering building appartments in it or something. Neway! MT seems to be a great shopping sim. It's not got as much coverage as RD etc but it has way less lag and some great shops... Caliente designs, The Trend etc.

Aasim is a really neatly layed out sim and lag isnt too bad. And again, some great shops there, The Trend etc LOL muhahaah *advertises*.

I am raging at RD... i have not got ne items returned from there to ne of my folders and I had some one of a kind stuff there arg.

Umber is great but the only downer is that the TH isn't close enough for my liking I hate traveling thru the backstreets of drugsville to get to Umber. (im not saying Umber's liek that lol, im saying that the poor builds etc coming thru the other sims to get to it are abomnable).

What we need are a few sims dedicated to shops only. like the city sims, where ppl can buy their OWN plot of land and have their shop there. That way you recieve your own dwell as a bonus. The Lindens could inspect this area everywhile by hireing ppl or do it themselves, to make sure shops are updated and that some little homestead has been erected.

EDIT:
How about all store owners group up toghtehr and asign say 1024m to the group and toegther, buy a sim from auction or soemthing, that way only people deicating land to group would get dwell and it would be an incentive for ppl to update stores cause they r paying monthly RL$ to keep it all.

Flipper is my RL fiancee. We live together and play SL about 10 feet away from each other unless he happens to be at work. We bought one of the first mainland sims Indigo in January of last year. Which was months before any of the island sims were released. We have invested alot time and money into the Indigo. We have had a store in Indigo since May or June, which has undergone several changes, but has always been there. Munch and myself spend countless hours not only designing, but managing the store. To say we need to invest more time is a slap in the face. We spend enough time here as it is.

My main concern Lensey, was NOT the return of rent -- Since we were given a complimentary space for Flipper's help with Rodeo Drive early on, which now for some reason you are denying. Eventhough I have a firm recollection of him spending the better part of a day doing terraforming, roadwork etc in Rodeo. If he didnt help build the sim in your book, then I am not sure why we had a complimentary spot in the first place. All i wanted to know was if the sim was wiped clean what happened to our build and store merchandise since I have not had one single item show up back in my inventory?? Which was met with you telling me to shut the hell up since I didnt pay rent and stop complaining cause I'm a mean spirited person.

I stand by my general annoyance of shopping malls opening and closing without warning and changing hands so frequently. I invest countless hours into maintaining ALL of my vending spots and quite frankly I am sick of wasting my time. I could care less about the rent paid to some places

Just my 2$L...

I rented a spot at the 5th Avenue sim (right next to the Rodeo Drive sim) last weekend and set up shop. A few days later I got an IM from Lensey stating she had just sold 5th Avenue, and she refunded my rent I had paid. Since I had the storefront all linked anyway, it wasn't too bad to go and pick everything up again.

I can't speak for anyone else, but Lensey was very civil with me and refunded my money immediately after notifying me about the sale of the sim. She also gave me adequate time to pick up my store and wares. I'm wondering if the deletion of the stores on Rodeo was the actions of the new owner and not Lensey. I find it strange that she would tell one little nobody furniture designer that had just moved in three days ago that the sim was sold, and not any longtime merchants that had brought her much more money in rent.


-Inez

I think one of the things I can point to in the success of places like Umber, Indigo, Le Cadre, Riiki and a few other places is while they are excellent places to shop. There is more to do in the SIMs than shop... Some have clubs and other attractions which bring new people into the sims and bolster their staying power. As well as having events and creating a space where people can not only shop, but meet other players, hang out and have a good time. Shopping only sims are only going to attract those who want to shop. If I go to XYZ shopping sim to buy a pair of shoes. I will buy said pair of shoes and then go elsewhere to hang out and meet people.

Who will manage that group? Who will make sure people really build shops? Who will prevent one little shop owner from lagging the whole sim with particle effects, scripts and so on?

Why the hazzle? Mahulu for example exist since July without wipe, has telehub and just been extended. You can rent store there visible from hub, or even build custom store. And you can pay with L$ and don't need use RL money. All you need is reliable sim/mall management and people are happy