Previous threads have highlighted the problem with declining sales in many areas of SL, even after drastic Sales campaigns, giveaways, massive advertising, etc. So, what are the solutions?
I must say from the outset that I rarely shop inworld nowadays. I tried again last week to get a mask for a Ball, and after parachuting into a store, and finding that after 10 minutes nearly half the display boards had still not rezzed, I gave up and went to slexchange instead. Found what I wanted in seconds, paid there, and collected my mask inworld.
The problem with rezzing ad boards in stores is not confined to the one-board-per-item route either. Multi-vendor boards with arrow keys to cycle through the goods for sales cause as much wait frustration. One I saw a while back had over 100 items in the vendor. Sure, the image rezzed a little faster, but the time taken to go through all the items to try to find what I wanted was just mind-numbingly painful I gave up.
So, if you are suffering from declining sales, do a little research. Install a visitor counter, and see if the number of visitors to your store is declining or not. If numbers are being maintained then it could be due to lag that visitors are leaving without making a purchase.
If lag in your store is a problem, then you might want to consider moving your store to a Class 5 sim. You might also want to think about not having a store at all and selling through slexchange or slboutique.
If you only have a few items for sale you might want to consider getting a store to carry your goods on a split of the profits basis, to avoid renting space for your own store.
I am sure that others have got more suggestions and solutions to offer.
Rock