Sales going down

I don't know if you guys noticed but the daily amount of money transfer has dropped $600,000USD a day in the last 3 months. It was up to $1.8million a day and now down to $900,000 to $1.1mill...

That and people keep loosing their stuff in inventory isn't helping. Add in all the problems SL had in the last 3 months and the current lag problems that keep things from rezzing in a timely manner. When I shop I give the place about 30seconds to start rezzing. If it doesn't I go somewhere else. Also note there is a TON of decent free stuff running about lately and Anshe Chung is trying to kill all your guys sales.

http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=23290&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

The effect of outlawing gambling was major. Everyone pretends that gambling doesn't matter because it doesn't make good PR to emphasize it, but it was the engine of the SL economy, and about the only profitable thing you can do more easily on SL than elsewhere. Additionally, the flow of juicy PR seems to be drying up.

More generally there about a hundred other issues which the Lindens seem to have absolutely no interest in solving. Just an example: I used to love building in sandboxes. Now you get griefers there 24/7. Nothing is done. I like buying land, adding value and selling it on. Now you get adland everywhere making it a crapshoot. Nothing is done.
The search engine on SL stinks, something that has not been addressed at all.

All these things leave people to leave permanently or, as in my case, semi-permanently.

The worst thing is the sense of a brave new dawn, that SL was the future, has just gone. SL almost feels retro now.

Do you work for their PR department? I found it somewhat more superficial than that.

Well i can't give the precise numbers but i earn now 1/5 of what i used to do on january.
I' am actually thinking about downgrading some, but if i do so it's my little public sandbox that will go first :/

aren`t people still having trouble buying $L? Also, i keep hearing stories of peoples credit card companies checking about sales from linden lab

I made some large land purchases which of course required me to buy rather large amounts of $L with my credit card. My bank allowed one but then started blocking the others. I'm thankful they have the fraud protections in place, but it was annoying to have to keep calling them.

The funny part to this story was my bank told me that someone tried to make a large purchase at a pharmacy in England for the exact amount I was trying to buy $L with. I had to explain to my bank that Linden Lab was not a pharmacy or anything medical related.

We're all feeling it.

I have heard rumors that restricted parcels will appear totally blank to non-verified avatars, no matter where they stand.

The conversation has turned somewhat, but I do want to respond to the original question. I had been experiencing a significant drop for most of the past month, and had been pushing new products in an attempt to resuscitate my sales. Then I noticed an error in the land description that was screwing up search, fixed it, and now my sales are even stronger than before (presumably thanks to the new products.)

My point here is that perhaps you need to review your marketing efforts to keep your sales strong.

I was never a hot shot... I was lucky to sell maybe 1KL in a month.

I've dropped to sometimes no sales in a week, and in the last few months, only a few sales each month (and my stuff is crappy and priced as such).

My theory is that (including my own shopping at others stores), the timeouts are increasing to an insane amount. On an hour long shopping trip at several different low pop sims, I couldn't pay for 1 single thing after it did rez.

When I did get to buy something another shopping trip, it disappeared.

I basically cycled through those two scenarios over the last two months and have given up shopping. I know it hurts others, but it sucks to spend all my time that way.

Additionally, all these problems with stipends coming later and later and for some, not at all, and that drains more shopping money out of people's pockets. Without gambling and traffic bonus Lindens, camping chairs are paying out insanely low, seems to average around 1L/7m. Back in the day, up until gambling was gone for a lot of it, and back when traffic bonus was around, you were looking at 5/10. Instead of making enough to buy something in a few hours, it's taking days, so people are even more choosy. When I first started playing the L's were around 265, but as they went up and up, there was a good increase in sales there. Now that Linden controls the market..........

Negative press is starting to roll around, about the glitches occurring, money losses, the heart of the matter - the market is not moving, and doesn't work half the time. Credit card companies are wary and some don't think it's worth the hassle of buying large amounts of Lindens. People don't even want to try it anymore. The "new" players I usually see by date are either A) friends of longtime players, B) alts of longtime players, or C) camping.

ETA: Forgot to mention, they also now force market buys at THEIR price if you don't have money already in your account, instead of being able to choose. Instead of just 30 cents and buying at 265, you have to pay the 30 cents AND buy on average around 260. Doesn't sound like much but for each 10 bucks or so, you lose a buck. Considering that some items in game are selling around 10 bucks... and you can't upload money to your account and if SL goes to hell, you can't get it back either, if you loaded money directly, so you're only choice if you WANT the option to take it out, is to buy L, so you can be able to sell.... more money in their pockets for a broken grid.

what can I say ...... ive had good weeks and bad weeks, I generally average about 15-20k a week but have gone down to something like 8 for the week or up to 10 for a day.

One thing I have heard a lot of in this thread is......

" I used to like SL, then my sales went down and i dont want to play anymore and i cant be bothered to build" or " Since my sales have gone down I have to sell up and leave"


When I started Secondlife I came into the game to have a bit of fun and as an old chatter I liked the social aspect. My land costs could esily be paid for out of sales but I work on the fact that I should be able to afford to pay for my SL overheads in RL, that way regardless if I sell nothing then I can still enjoy what im doing without panicking about tier or rent. I use my in world earnings to buy tools, land for my store, removing addfarms or even some new dreds for my avatar...this reinjects money into the game so I feel happy that im contributing into the economy and encouraging the SL wheel of life.
Yes there are BIAB problems, camping is killing enterprise and meaning you cant search for items any more.......

In fact to be honest the Electric sheep search that everyone complained about is proberly a better search system with the user being able to search for an item and check the prices accordingly.

I have always maintained that if you came to SL to make money ... you will leave disapointed... many come on the Anshe backlash hopeing to make millions. eventually they realise that making anything in SL takes time , effort, skill and a certainly amount if not a key compoent is know your business..... being agood builder isnt good enough if your a twat.

e.g Customer came to my store last night ... bought 4 lights they were cheap at L$50 each, they IM'd me while I was sat at the Cartel Hangout ... So I asked to tp me over to them ... all they wanted is the lense of the light to be the beam colour NOT white.. anyway not difficult .. so I went back to my store and rebuilt the lights how she wanted saved it with a custome name and gave her a light ..... I asked hr to rezz it so that she could check she was happy.... so I gave her a further 4 lamps. She then was really happy and asked me iuf she could purchase a further 2 lamps.....

I gave her the lamps as a bonus, now seeing that the originals wernt faulty and she just wanted something else ... I could have charged her the price again .. plus the extra 2 so is that L$600 lost .... or a happy customer gained. for me the happy customer is worth a LOT more than about £1.50 REAL MONEY.

So sales have gone down a little ...... I would suggest that if you cant afford your tier... then down grade your land, if you still want to run a little outlet then let me know in world as i have some free space I am able to help with (for free)./ the term of phrase is "cut your cloth accordingly" but dont be another stat where you overstretch yourself trying to be the big shot then as soon as sales go down you cant survive any more. there are a LOT of quality products in SL .... I went to Min's storee recently and her stuff is LOVERLY.

I cant really suggest methods of how to make things better as I have heard about people making at least $L50,000 a day...... but are they happy .... yes proberly but just becasue you dont you shouldnt be sad ...just carry on .. make those items you love making and rotate what you have to encourage people to return vist, I am sure many successfull people in SL didnt just fall into that posistion ... they worked HARD both making and promoting thier business.

PLEASE CLASS THIS NEXT BIT AS HUMOUR!!!!!!!!! AS CAN BE DEEMED AS ADVERITSING
And for the finest dancefloors and lighting systems come to SB Lighting ... #1 on the club lights search .. mention Forum Cartel for a 10% discount next to Juicee clothes for the woman who DOESNT want to look like shes 14 or just fallen off the top of a wedding cake.



Ciao Bella

Marty
(The flying rasta)

Can we say a giant ad? /\/\

If you're not in it to make money, why feel the need to spam?

I took Marty's comments as a response to the OP and an example of how and why customer service is important to him. So...no, I didn't see it as an ad.

A slight (on-topic) digression... my partner dealt with a well known radio maker the other day about how to configure his kit on one of our sims. After insulting her intelligence (and believe me she is VERY far from lacking smarts), ridiculing her reading skills and then saying she should not be installing it for the specific renter because he (the creator) has "issues" with the renter's publicly avowed religious tendencies..... you think I am EVER going to buy or install any of this guy's kit on my sims ever again? You don't increase sales by peeing off the people who buy from you or have control over how your product is used... sadly a fact that many creators have either signally failed to grasp or have forgotten in their pursuit of the mighty Linden. I lose count of the number of creators with "DON'T IM ME FOR blah blah blah....NO REFUNDS!!! NO COPIES!!! NO CUSTOM JOBS!!!" etc in their profile. Sadly I shall never be in a position to comment on their work because I refuse to buy from them if that's their attitude.



See above. And if you really MUST start throwing your opinions around, there are plenty of posts where you can actually be more accurate (one today in fact - though I didn't see you commenting there last time I looked)

Inc

Why do you feel the need to be an arse......

I was proving a point at the end....
I dont shroud my points by saying ..." what do you lot think of my store" I gave good advice from my point of view... wether thats a good point of view or bad.

The only thing I have in my Sig is about the Uk forum for SL... and a lot of people have commented about thier business... or how they like other shops named which is against the forum TOS.

All i can see is that I have advised that it is a good idea not to come to SL to make money, as I said it shouldnt be all about that, that its important to offer VERY good customer service at any cost. People even said about putting banners etc in your signature, well I for one dont like to see my explorer window freeking out becasue somebody has put a massive image as thier signature, but for the most part that sa good thing to have.

I appreciate you are entitled to your opinion but I certainly wouldnt class good advice as spam and I consider your accusation to be offensive and ignorant. Something I wouldnt expect of a player of your vintage.

but the the original comment..... the " sales are down" threads happen every couple of days ...as does the AV threads etc. Or questions like " tell me how I can get rich in SL"

Marty

and I put the bit in at the end as a touch of "light" humour ... hense the "now a word from our sponser" type phrasing.....


Seems Incanus got me SPOT on .... just you Seola .... maybe you should consider a career in false accusations and flaming rather than observational humour or sound business practice

There's truth to every "lame joke".

Besides, I'm not being an "arse", in fact, I think your post is quite presumptuous and pompus. I'm a realist. People spent hundreds upon hundreds of dollars with promises, empty by the way. In fact, when a medium touts it as a place to make money and therefore people come here to make money, it's much more than a game. Granted, no one should ever sink millions into anything unproven, but a million to you, may be $100 to me. It's not advertised as "a game", at least it wasn't in Wired, or countless other media applications. It was advertised as a business model, a place to make money, etc.

So before you tell others HOW to play a game (then add in a page long spam, yes that's what it was, it didn't address the OP, no matter how you or your alt slices it, btw, don't post so fast in succession with the exact same writing style, phonetics and grammar, you look dumb), it didn't address the OP's initial question. So don't tell me that you are posting on topic, (or anyone defending you might I add). Ironic that Inc posts about being on topic, yet, so far from this particular topic....

BTW, I find it quite ironic that you insult me, then accuse me of a flame, that's quite hypocritical, don't you think? I didn't call names sweetheart, you did. So before you go trying to throw accusations around about others, you probably want to read what they actually wrote, and if your privy to insulting, know what you are saying. It doesn't make your case very eloquently.

I agree with ya Marty 100%. Well, maybe 99.
Trouble is "The Stats" are in and they don't look promising for the future.
The past was diiferent, there was gambling and things. Times have changed ,as they say. Newer business owners like myself (1 year) who seemed to be on the up after many many months of hard work are seeing the graph go down, not up, in all areas.
It's a mental thing and it's only natural to question and reason why things happen.
I'll probably stick it out as long as I can and hope for some improvement, till GE gets motoring anyway.

Interesting... the post above me.

Things are down. Im personally not going to "panic" yet. In whole, my sales have went up. Ive been at this almost 2 years come january, and I log everything. There are days out of the month where it will be low, but that`s normally due to grid problems, but all in all, they have been up and then steady for me.

Maybe when people begin to see drops they just start giving up. *shrug* i did notice one thing though, it seems many consumers won`t just by anything now, they are looking to look good, high quality items, nice seams, nice texturing etc. This is why I am redoing my entire tattoo shop, I notice the shift, and to stay ahead I need them to be top quality.

My feeling is the decline in sales is directly tied to the fact that the average LindenX activity per day has remained relatively flat, even though the world has a lot more people in it.

Means more competition for the same number of Real Dollars.

So the real problem is --- Why are people on Average spending less US dollars on Second Life?

Figure that one out - And you will know why Sales are down.

I been in the retail game for nearly 2 days now with only one product at a single location, no advertising and sold 15 to my alts so far

I think that's just good business sense.

As we become better skilled, we need to ensure that the current items reflect that.

I pull down stuff that doesn't sell, or that doesn't reflect my current ability as a creator.

Personally, I watch for patterns in relation to sales and which items do or do not sell as I feel they should then focus my attention on the types of items that do well...say suits vs. casual clothing or gowns vs. dresses.

Just my thoughts on the subject....
~Ari

There has been an increase in the non-paying population - people that like to play, but not spend too much because their disposable income isn't as great as ours. Brazilians, mainly - they have exploded versus the European population and Americans. Growth hasn't come from the people with the deeper pockets. So as these new, non-spending people learn to build, they compete for the dollars of those that are willing to pay to play.

I was about to post something very similar to the last part of this post.
In the "begining," there were a much smaller population in SL, and MANY fewer designers. Suddenly, everyone and their prim doggy has a store selling this or that. Problem is, now that there are alot of things to chose from, shoppers are becoming far more conscience of what they are buying in world...not necessarily because of bad transactions, but because of poor quality according to their tastes. A newb will buy ANYTHING before they know better, but once they know better, that's pretty much that.

I also think people are looking for a bit of originality. It's difficult to be original in SL these days, but I think it's what people want. They don't want to be like everyone else. Let's face it...most everyone in SL looks just like or similar to everyone else...and we are tired of it! That's a big part of why I think some shops don't sell at all! If you make a bunch of "plain tank tops," "plain tshirts," some run of the mill jeans, and a couple of skirts that could nearly pass as twin skirts...well hell, I got all that in a freebie box when I was still a newb...and it's really no guessing game to me why those people may not be making any money. You can draw the best wrinkles in the world on that plain tank top, and I'm still not gonna buy it. Unfortunately, I've seen tons of people upset about their stores never getting to be "known," yet all they have up is a couple of basic clothing items!

Parents have gotten their credit card statements in the mail. Doesn't matter if your child is pre-school or going to college, their budget just took a big hit. Most parents I know cut their spending until after one or two paychecks.