SL Exchange Completely Useless?

You have to be at version 3.03 or 3.04. They're the same except for a warning message added in 3.04 to discourage folks from hitting reset after loading.

I don't sell inworld; I don't want the hassle of setting up and minding a shop and paying rent. Just my choice, no doubt I'd sell more inworld, for certain types of products.

I don't understand why folks search SLX and then buy inworld. For most products, you don't see much more about the product -- actually you often get more images in SLX. (Inworld you sometimes get to see the list of items and their perms before buying, but only if it's not boxed.) But they do. Frankly, it's not really fair to SLX, but it's certainly not a crime either.

For things where the actual item is available to see ingame, well of course I understand preferring that. Most stores don't have the prim count, though.

Business and practical items sell well in SLX. I find that jewelry and furniture does not, and I suppose it's because women tend to like to "shop" and would rather walk around looking ingame than scan web pages. (I'm the opposite: I'd usually rather use the web than the world.)

I offer my freebies on SLX, it's a nice no-hassle way to post them. Kudos to SLX for offering freebies at no cost to the seller or buyer.

I also browse slex during the day, and make a note of what I like to try to find in-world at night. If I like something I find, I want to see what else they sell. I know you can do that with slex, but I like to visit "in person". I've stumbled upon some nice stores I wouldn't have found otherwise, which led to sales.

On the other hand, sometimes it's very convenient to quickly find an item on slex and get it delivered on the spot. It all comes down to circumstance.

Either way, slex is great! I wouldn't have spent half the lindens I have without it. Er, slex sucks!

Yes, I make a nice profit from SLX, offering the #1 selling item on there right now

To put things into perspective, for those who may wonder about a thing like that,
a top selling item on SLX will make you about 80k L$ a week. So we have that cleared up.

Does this mean it is better than in world sales? No, it never has been for me, not even now. SLX earnings are still a lot less than in world sales.

But my in world sales on several items have definitely increased through the exposure on SLX. This is usually highly related to the popularity of the specific item though. And it works both ways. (Items popular in world, get more exposure on SLX.)

You can't force exposure, either in world or on SLX.
You can only nudge it, by delivering the right product at the right quality and right time, by putting in an effort to advertise and/or promote your products, and by delivering good customer service.

Are we all looking at the same persons items I see 3 pages worth of stuff.

As far as whining and complaining about things not selling I've got a small handful of items on SLX myself and am lucky if I have a couple sale a month but I've been more focused on getting my new product working right to get it up for sale then trying to promote my items.

Simply put if you want to sell items you have to work to get them sold you can't just put them up and just assume people will pick your stuff to buy. You have to promote sales be it posting a thread in the Products section of the forum on SLX or paying for the enhancements for your items.

I sell a very nice amount on SLX myself
If your not selling its only because people dont want to buy your builds at the price you have...try lowering the price some

i dont think gender is the issue. i think its closer related to which product is being looked at, and the reputation of the builder. before spending $1000 on a prefab or furniture or whatnot i would like to see it inworld, see the quality of it etc. but maybe if i am familiar with that builder and know they do top quality stuff i might take a punt and buy it on slx.
something like a hair, or shoes, or a skin i would never buy on slx because i like to see demos of the product.

Bingo.

I can browse SLX from work/Grandma's/anywhere. I put stuff in my favorites there for later reference.

I repeat... again and again... I am selling these in-world, when people visit my store in Second Life. It is on SL Exchange that it fails to sell.

This is why I asked the question in the first place. If I were not selling anything both in-world and at SL Exchange, I would have considered a price decrease.

Right. I'll have to do that. Thanks for pointing it out.

I just find it sad that we have to do this to keep people honest!

I agree. Just remember, those locks on your house are there to keep an honest man honest. When in reality, they don't do diddly.

Watermarking is a added pain. I put little things here and there on all of my textures to be able to identify them. If you need assistance finding the needed tools for watermarking your images, I can point you in the direction of easy to use software(thats freeware). Just drop me a IM.

When I still used SLX (or SLB for that matter), I'd always tp to the store in-world and buy it there simply because single prim vendors don't fail and "next owner can" permissions on a prim don't lie as opposed to what's listed on SLX. I'd never buy any prim item without having seen it first in-world (goes for in-world stores too). I'd also never buy from someone who didn't have a store in-world because to me they simply wouldn't seem established enough to consider spending money on.

---

I stopped using SLX about a year ago now when the results started becoming 95% noise/ad results and 5% matching results and the average quality of items on sale there seemed to be taking a quick dive for the worse. The last time I gave it a try (there was a sculpty pet kitty I really really wanted) I gave up after wading through 8 pages or so of items that noone could think had anything to do with pets, or cats.

I find SLX useful - it's what got me started selling things!

Would you refuse to buy an excellent pair of FNKY shoes? All you get to see ingame is the picture -- no demos. Yet they're top notch, best Men's shoes in SL IMHO.

[PS: Agreed -- an overgeneralization on my part about gender.]

Well, I have only been in SL for about three months, and during that time I have made 121 purchases on SLX. That's about 40 a month. I have made far fewer purchases in world.

I absolutely HAAAAAATE shopping in world, because it is a nightmare to stand in a shop waiting forever for a hundred gray blobs to rezz and for the lag to subside so I can move, when I could be off doing something FUN like riding a rollercoaster or exploring or making things.

I also hate shopping in RL, so I think Amazon and eBay are WONDERFUL. SLX is like eBay for Second Life!

I only shop in world for stuff I can't find on SLX or feel I really must see/test before purchasing (for example skins, animations, buildings, anything really expensive). For the items I want to see/test, most likely I have found them through SLX too.

I am doing better on SLX actually than I used to. It doesn't cost anything to list there, so sell or no sell, I really don't lose anything either way.
I do sell though, so I have no gripes.

About half of "big ticket" sales (horses, carriages) are done on the SLX . Things such as dresses tend to sell better inworld. Vehicles and men's clothes break down to about 1/3 SLX, 2/3 SLX.

I admit I find the SLX a bit of a pain. Just one more blessed thing to mess with, the rating system is beyond annoying (people rate infrequently which gives far too much weight to a single rating, people use alts to self rate, etc), the magic boxes often have glitches (there's yet another new one out), and the forums make this forum seem calm and collected (I actually stopped perusing them--who needs to read about other's drama?). At the end of the day, using the SLX seems much more like work than the fun of putting up an inworld shop.

Still, when I considered pulling myself off the SLX for these reasons, I looked at my real income from it and decided that it would, if not pay the bills, at least keep my puppy in kibble. And I love my puppy enough to want her to have the very bestest kibble. She's worth a bit of fussing with websites and boxes, I think.

I use slexchange as much to advertise my products as to actually sell things... Ithink it make me easier to find inworld and am not worried about the comission.

Lately however it has been hard getting on and getting things delivered... I hate having to updaye my magic box several times in a row... and after I got it up to the latest it is still loosing communications.

The watermark thing is why I have never tried SLexchange or OnRez for selling things. I do, however, use both to find things. I tend to use OnRez more often than Slexchange, though, for my searches.

I have found a lot of places through searches run on the OnRez and Slexchange websites, but have never bought directly through either (except for lindens from SLEX and 1 freebie painting from Slexchange that never made the trip to my inventory in world).

We do a fair bit of trade through SLX. Some people like to use it to browse and then will buy through there, some prefer to come in-world and get the "shopping experience" with us. It's nice that we have both ways of browsing, and that it's not costly. We don't mark up anything - we sell that the same price - we figure that SLX takes its cut from us as the price of doing business, we don't think it's right to make the consumer pay for that.

It's a little more added work, but helps heaps for those that sell things that require them to show the items rather then a vendor picture. There are some good freeware watermark programs that will watermark a complete folder of images('batch converting" and copy the new images to a new folder leaving the originals in tact.


Just an added note.

One of the things I enjoy most as a buyer, finding merchants and looking them up in-world is because most sellers don't list 'all' of their makes/products. I can't count how many times I've visited a store and found something else I bought that was not listed on their SLX storefront.

Hmm, I've just checked my SLX account vs my OnRez account and actually, I've sold far more on OnRez in the last few months (i.e. since it started).

Despite that, and despite my well-known antipathy towards SLX, I wouldn't say it was useless. I've bought things from it myself recently.

the last 3 things i tried to buy on slexchange never delivered, but on a side note when slexchange gave me back my money on teh failed sale it gave it back twice


so im making money shopping....sometimes ;p

I don't know what you would consider a lot, but I make a fair amount of sales there, sales I probably would not make in world. I currently have about 65k in my SLX account and I usually withdrawal every couple weeks.

Either you don't have a very good product, people aren't interested in your product, it's a highly priced product, or maybe lack of information and advertising regarding your product.

I have never heard of anyone not making any sales in SLX over such a ling length of time.


Edit to add:
I just looked you up on SLX, and in my opinion you are pricing way too high for a picture, a picture that people can find the same or similar for free on google...
I suggest a new line of business.

I think the point is, according to the prices of those prefabs, he/she is only making 1-2 sales a day.

ferrari sells fewer cars than vw.
charlie trotter sells fewer meals than mcdonalds.
one can mass produce and sell cheap, or sell few and sell steep. 1-2 sales a day for 20k isnt any worse than 5000 sales a day for 20k.