Lucky Chair/Board/Etc groups

Before I do anything further about this, I wanted to get some opinions from other sim owners. We have a sim with a Lucky Board that gives out prizes of fairly substantial value; L$1000 sculpty packs. As my other identity was standing near it, working on something else, someone appeared and stood near the board, apparently doing nothing. As soon as the name letter changed, though, poof, there was someone there beside him with, you guessed it, a name that began with the correct letter, who quickly collected the prize, and TP'ed out. Soon, the letter changed, and the same thing happened again, but this time the first avie TP'd out, and the one who had just won stayed, until the letter changed, and then another avie TP'ed in, collected the prize, and vanished. Various permutations of this went on for over an hour with a few of the same people reappearing several times, and we finally pulled the board.

I've spoken to the proponents of these groups. They gush about how it brings traffic and customers to a sim, and act like we should be grateful.

To me, however, it looks like people are just scamming the Lucky boards, chairs, and so on, as they manifestly do not hang around to shop. Someone TP's them right to the board, they collect, and vanish. Or they only hang around until the letter changes, and TP someone else in to collect.

If you are a member of one of these groups, I suppose I can't tell you not to respond, but please rest assured, I've heard it all, and I don't buy it.

If you are a sim owner who has experienced this, I would especially like to hear from you.

If you put out freebie givers, you attract people looking for freebies.

How profound. But I have to agree with you; it was not my idea to put in the damned thing in in the first place. I think they are one step above money trees and/or camping. And, I suppose any scam that is possible is going to happen.

However, it sets my teeth on edge when people scam you, and then talk like they are doing you a favor. So, I guess I am just venting. Try to do people a favor, admittedly in hopes of generating traffic, and SOMEONE will come along and scam it. I just wish, I suppose, that they weren't so brazen about it.

So where's your board?

(times like these I wish I hadn't made all my alts "Argent"

(no, I mean, I'm doing you a favor really)



I set up my own lucky chair. Call it a "crazy chair". I guess it's too crazy for people, I never get anyone standing over it.

If you're going to use lucky chairs to game the search engine, you've pretty much forfeited your right to complain about people taking advantage of your chairs.

make your freebies non-transfer.

I was once giving money away with a lucky chair.
I saw also one day bots taking all the money.
So i stopped giving out money and put only non-transfer items in it.
I never saw a bot back.

Heh. That's why I logged in here as an alt.

Yeah, it looks like that is what we are going to do. Put in partial sets of no-trans prim versions of the sculpts. That way, if people really like them, they will have to buy the sets to get the complete, full-perms versions.

*LMAO*

You could put your lucky whatever on a short timer, so that the letter changes every minute. That makes it hard for residents to get their group members out to take advantage of the letter coming up; they have to type out the message to the group, someone must reply, and the area has to load so they can see the lucky whatever. Hard to have that done in a minute.

I would question generally whether the lucky whatevers actually lead to customers. If it causes the equivalent of camping (residents standing around waiting for the letters to change), it could help you indirectly, by boosting Traffic which in turn boosts your visibility in search. However, I just doubt that the people you are attracting with the lucky whatevers are the people who are going to spend some money in the mall once they get there.

Couldn't agree more.

Heh, there's one store I go to that has a gift card in their lucky board. The gift card is set up so it doesn't divide evenly into any of the low priced items you can get with it, and I ALWAYS feel like I have to use it up and spend an extra L$25 or whatever in the store.

Guilt or perfectionism, your choice.

I have two lucky chairs in my shop, both filled with one color wave of every gown I made, except one. They are no transfer.

I have one person who hangs around for it.. and often times, some of my repeat customers hang around it to. That's what it's for. Rather like a free demo, if you have a little patience to wait for it.

It brings in a few sales, since I've had some that loved a particular style and wanted the whole color selection of it.

Now, if it was causing actual problems, like an overflow so that other land owners couldn't use their lands, the chairs would be gone in a heartbeat.

Oh, I agree, but that is not really the issue, here.

To put full perm items in a Lucky board sounds like a very bad idea to begin with.

If I come across a lucky chair with my letter and I like the item I end up with, I will browse the rest of the store. If I see a chair in a store I already like, I will stick around for a while. If the letters of friends show up, I offer a tp. At some stores people will hang out in crowds waiting for their letter. One designer even has a dance machine out so people waiting can do some dancing.

Anyways, referring to people coming in to get a prize when their letter comes up as "scamming" is in my opinion wrong. Sure, I see that groups having a stakeout in place will be annoying, but as long as the prize only benefits the person who claims it, where is the harm? Maybe some of the people who stop by for just the prize will take a closer look when at home and go "Hey, this is good stuff.. Wonder what else they have!" I sure know I've done that a few times. If not.. *shrug* All they did was make the letter switch faster..

I wouldn't call it "scamming" as such anyways. If you think about it, you're exchanging a prize for traffic. Thus, paying for the traffic boost without resorting to L$ bribes I do not disguise the fact that I am using my lucky chairs for traffic. And they are a good form of cheap advertising, because if someone likes the product, they'll probably come back or look around while they are there.

I put a lot of thought into getting lucky chairs, taking the time to read the forums for the pros and cons. I worried about bots, but I haven't actually encountered any, though I have encountered the chair groups, which I'm cool with.

Two is my max number, however. I see no need to have more for my small shop.

Oh and the last time a friend and I happened upon a lucky chair with great quality items, we stuck around hoping for our letters to show up for each item, tp-ing in friends left and right to shorten the wait. We also ended up buying an expensive item each before we took off with the loot.

why on EARTH did you put 1000$L sculpty packs in your lucky chair????


dude, those are for cheap freebies ;) or occasional old, slow-selling stock. not... stuff you wish people had paid money for. ;X

And make the thing give out prizes faster. Don't get me wrong, I'm not really in favor of these things, but my partner is, and, truth be told, it's her stuff that is being given away. I'm not really speaking out of school, here, though, because she has also expressed concern.

So, I find myself in the position of agreeing with almost everything that has been said here, and I appreciate it, as well. I really only wanted to see if most people agree with me, and it appears most do, at least as far as the people who have posted so far go. And, as I said before, I also wanted to vent a little. It seems as though there is always someone willing to come along and spoil things for everyone else, as long as they get what they want.

Most lucky whatevers I've seen give out pretty useless gifts. Crappy furniture and so on. My partner, in exchange for traffic, was willing to give out some pretty valuable prizes. So, naturally, her Lucky Board became prime milking territory. And now, that is done. Because of people taking advantage, no one will get the really good prizes. Sad, really, but not entirely unexpected, I suppose.

Balance what you're willing to give away with how badly you want the traffic.

I didn't. My partner, who is a kind and generous person, and who is also a good deal less cynical than I am did.

But, not to worry, it seems this was a mistake that has now been rectified.

Well, as far as the "letter of the law" goes, yes, you are correct. However, in the spirit of it, the idea is to have people come, shop, hang out, and generally wait around for the right letter to come up at random. So, perhaps "scamming" is too strong a word, but what they are doing is a way to take advantage of the system. Which, I suppose, is only human nature, at least for the more selfish among us. However, I can honestly say it is something I would never do.

Well, from my admittedly somewhat limited experience at this point, you seem to be the exception to the rule.

There are actually quite a few exceptions to the rule - or at least there were back in my early days when I did the Lucky Chair hopping a lot. Sometimes, I would pop in when my letter was called out in group chat, grab the gift and get on with whatever I was doing. However, there were many stores that I liked a lot and I would hang around and wait for my letter -- and do quite a bit of shopping while I was at it. That was actually the more common way of doing lucky chairs about 2 years back, but like freebies and hunts, I do not doubt that things have changed.

??

Why or how are they 'scamming'? They are going there for the prize that you set out. You do this as a promotion, yes? Who's to say once they sample your wares they won't be back for second and third helpings, this time, things they will pay for?

I have done this before, with lucky chairs. TP in, TP out. I'm not in a group for it but I've had people post a link to a chair or a MM board in other types of groups, gone, and gotten the freebie as soon as I rezzed. I usually go back again, and look around. I may be too busy at the time to shop, but unless the store packs up and moves, I'll be back. Unless their product is crap, in which case the 'prize' is usually deleted.

Why do you NOT want people to come and get the prize? What do you possibly lose by this? Someone's been exposed to your shop and to your wares. What do you lose? Would you rather the prize went to waste?

It's like hunt participants who expect every hunter to spend a half hour in their shop on the spot. People's inventory stays that way until they delete things. If they like what they got they will eventually shop there, and/or bring others there to shop. Why are you angry at your guests??

(PS, it could also be alts, of the same person...Which would mean they really like your products.)