Are sales bad for everyone right now?

I've tried having sales, cutting prices, having events, giving away things, signed up for Fashcon, put new releases in the forums, classifieds, you name it.

I get traffic to my store now, sorta..they walk in, they stand around, they look for the freebies, they take freebies, and they leave.

My sales are next to nothing.

My question is should I give up the fashion business as my stuff is obviously crap or are sales this bad for everyone?

Please don't think I'm just winging on after a bad week. This has been a steady decline, and I'm beginning to think I never had a good product to begin with.

I design what I like, and I'll wear it if no one else does, but if it's really crap stuff, then I won't bother putting all this money into SL to pay rents at shops when no one is gonna buy it anyway...

so I did ask a question.... and it's a pertinant question I think.

Please don't turn this into a "bash creators in sl" thread....if my items don't suit you, don't look at them....

I'm just ready to hang it all up..realizing I'm not one of the "top designers" in sl, and probably never will be.

My sales have been bad only for the last 9-12 months now

I'm not in the clothes business but I know plenty who are who've had similar problems.


Basically the population exploded and average spent per person didn't.


Though I do have my good days. *knocks wood*

If you are losing money ..

One thing you could do is cut your costs to the point where the store pays for itself.

A small boutique kind of idea.

Maybe try a 512 anyway and hope for the best.

My PG store is just a 512, a skybox for low lag/ fast rezzing.

Good luck, whatever happens.

As a resident who used to shop and buy things, I can only say I have only bought a few absolute essentials since the asset server started making my no copy items go bye bye 8 months ago. Don't know if it's still eating things in my inventory, but the faith in LL and my consumer confidence never returned.

In general, the sales on the products I have had out for a while have been the same- only a slight tapering off, which is to be expected. I am very satisfied with this state of affairs: it means that the economy is growing at a rate to sustain constant sales. Overall sales have increased quite a bit, but I owe that to releasing new products.

All in all, SL's economy looks to be growing at not an extreme, but sustainable rate. It doesn't seem to be growing as fast as a dangerous bubble market would, and it isn't slumping.

Before giving up, I would change things around, revamp your presentation, and try other advertising. One of my normally successful hotels went through a slump a few months ago, and I got a little depressed. I really worked hard and spruced up the lobby, made the directions SUPER clear, and boom, the place filled up again. And even that might have been a coincidence: the SL market is so unpredictable.

Be sure you've researched the threads on how to get your place found in search.

Try to look at SL only as an entertainment expense, so that any sales you get are just an extra reward. That way you're never very stressed about it, no matter what happens.

as a freebie collector, i think people put out entirely too many freebies. i mean, why buy when you can get a whole get up for free?

i would cut your freebies back to ONE item. and i would rotate that item biweekly, to attract returning customers who might actually break down and spend. *coff* speaking from experience....

also, just change the store around every once in awhile. make it fresh.

good luck.

Hey, the U.S. is either in (or soon going to be in) a recession. The first thing to get cut is recreational spending.

You can't justify buying virtual goods when you r money doesn't cover the real ones.

yep sales down here too

and I too thought the same thing, maybe my stuff sucks, hell I have some stuff that I put out over a year ago, and have not sold one copy, but I keep it there anyway

I keep doing it because I like to do it. If I were trying to make a living off of it, I would be putting new stuff out at least a few times a week

as it stands I put out something when I can, especially right now with my PC being dead

so now, any sales I get go first to the tier costs, then the extra will be "banked" to save up for a new PC (as far as I can tell mine is dead as a door nail)

The problem is everyone thinks they can make money in sl. They fly in here and put up shops without knowing what they're doing in business or making items. Half-ass items ain't going to do it. Not knowing how to run a business isn't either.

This is why you see all these clubs crash almost as soon as they open. They get a club then don't know how to run it properly. They think that putting a music stream and throwing down a few dance balls is all thats to it. Same as shops for clothes and other type items.

Then to top it off they adhere to sl's paranoia of thinking everyone is out to get them and they'll make items non-everything which also causes a sharp decline in customers. Which in turn goes right back to not knowing how to run a business the correct way.

Everyone is a business major but only a small handful graduate.

And you're complaining?

Okay so some stuff I saw tonight? If I look in places for Danielle or Be-Wear all I get is a 16sqm parcel in a mall and it looks like it is empty and doesn't have anything to do with you And your real store is not in places it looks like! And in your real store there is all this stuff that people would wear in real life and people keep saying that it's hard to find that kind of clothes, you and them need to find each other!

Sales are quite steady for me. On the lead up to christmas, sales dropped. But have improved since then.

One thing no one has mentioned, so far, is Onrez & SLExchange. Set up an account, load your servers and see what happens. Both are free, a lot of people shop there and, most importantly, a lot more people see your name.

Oh, and presentation certainly helps. If a shop looks "cheap & nasty" many people wont bother looking past the door.

I might add that I haven't seen the OP's shop, so the above comment is no reflection on her

Well my sales actually went up a bit, though that was not that hard since they were pretty low to start with Bringing out a low prim sculpted furniture series sure did help me there. But still not near covering tier.

Now clothing is one of the most competative lines of business I guess (though furniture is almost as bad) so the effort you have to make to get people to notice you is much higher. Way too many people are in the same line of business, making it very hard to make a buck.

SLX and OnRez I use both, but they do not make much sales compared to my store. SLX is the best of the two, when looking at sales. Most important reason for me to be there, is to get my name out at as many places as posssible. The freebies that I "sell" there help me a lot in that, even though the real sales are not that good. Each item out with me as creator, is some kind of advertising

But, if you make good stuff and present it in a nice way, I am pretty sure you must be able to sell. The most important thing however is to have fun in creating your items.

Good luck, Marcel

I'd like to ask if you've updated or changed your vendor images every so often? Do you have a 'New Item' vendor, wall or area? For older stock, you could have a 'Discount' area. Everyone loves a good bargain.

I agree that rearranging a space can make a big difference. Play with the layout, experiment with some new textures. Give the store a feeling to go with the current season.You just might be surprised with how well you like the changes. Try something you normally wouldn't go for.

Go with some friends and take a look at all kinds of stores. What did you all like and dislike? Did everyone like vendors that don't have large numbers of items to look through? Were there stores whose vendors had good grouping of like items? Did everyone hate so many floating text that nobody could read any of it?

I hope you stay with your business and don't give up. Step back, take a breath and let it out. You can do this, it might mean some hard work, time renovating, taking the plunge in new directions, research what are the RL current trends for what you sell. Turning things around will take lots of patience and I think you have that quality. Go For It!

I'm not in the clothing business but am in the furniture business. My sales were booming and then suddenly fell like a rock. Due to some land issues I went from top in search rankings to disappearing completely. That happened a couple of weeks ago. (It has to do with an exchange of land, btw and has nothing to do with any problems or glitches from LL. It wont be resolved into the land sale is done). I assumed that the search issue was the cause of my sales dropping. I guess I wont know for sure until I get back in the listings.

It's not bad, but it's not all that great either. We break even on tier and make enough for recreational spending. I've found that holiday and seasonal items tend to be good sellers.

right, I agree 100% with you. When faced with a 4.00 a gal fuel price and rising food prices and toilet paper being outragious why spend the inflated prices some people put on their virtual goods?
One thing I do buy and will probably always buy, are textures (full perm) from in world and SLX. That probably wont change..
right now the only inworld money I spend is my tiers and throwing venues and muscians tips..

I think it's the market you're in. Female fashion and Female skins are 2 sectors that over saturated imo.....not only the number of creators that are in that market, but add in the re-sellers, the BIABs....then lump in the stolen texture stores too. Just far too many outlets.....there's only so much shopping money circulating into the economy on a daily basis.

If you already possess the ability to design and use Photoshop, you might look into a niche market or specialising solely in 1 area. Eg.Ski costumes, woolie jumpers, overcoats, sexy underwear...make you name in that category.

What i'm finding now is that far too many stores try to be jack-of-all-trades.....they might have started out in female fashion, but end up selling everything under the sun thereafter including skins,shapes, eyes,boots,shoes, jewelry. It's like a form of spread betting!

You start wondering when you enter these sort of shops, what do these guys really specialise in? It's like a mini-Walmart or Dept store....it doesn't feel special (ie Boutique)

If you have ability to create....then either go niche or specialise in 1 area and focus your entire marketing on that. e.g Be one of the few stores in SL thats sells a comprehensive range of Coats (not just have 1 or 2 products as a token gesture like those mini-Walmarts)

While I appreciate the constructive (and not so constructive) criticism of my displays and shops, my question was more directed at other merchants, if sales were bad for them.


I don't want to turn this into attack and defend, but I will say this about the "emtpy 16sqm plots in malls"....

This past weekend, 3 malls moved/remodelled. I am not on during the weekends, so I haven't had a chance to do much more than put up a LM giver and a few items yet. I do not advertise the mall shops, usually, as they are low prim, and geared more towards impulse buys. I do advertise my main shop, which has all my stock in it. I apologize that the smaller stores weren't completely set up, but I had no control over the remodel of the mall, and cannot be in SL 24/7.

So back to the question, is everyone else having bad sales?

My sales are way, way down, but I expected them to drop after I left the sim you're on Danielle.

However, the new search burying my ads and place was not something I counted on. When I'm only selling $500-1000 a week (and that's a good week), I can't exactly afford a $5000 ad to get better placement.

I have skyboxes not renting because people are literally giving away land. My club does great one week and then crappy the next. My donation box is lucky to get 10k per month...and I'm spending 150k to keep it running. I do the club for the love of the game, so that's not a huge deal, but I was counting on the other things to help supplement.

Guess the SL economy is in a recession as well.

.....oh and marketing and presentation are key! I agree with the 3Ring Binder regarding the freebies, don't go overboard.
I have never given a freebie out from my main store and it has always performed well in terms of sales over 15 mths, but when the odd dip has occured I've not panicked and slashed prices.....instead focus on improving your marketing.

So back to the question, is everyone else having bad sales?[/QUOTE]



Yes my sales are down a bit too.

With that said when I look over the past year, my sales goes up and down. Have yet to figure out a true reason for it.

I do think there are so many freebies out there anymore, heck who needs to shop.