Sales plumeting?

Hi all,

Is anyone else experiencing serious lack of sales during the last 30 days?
I checked all my advertising and all seems okay.

Are we feeling the hurt RL economy here in SL?

Thanks for your replies,
Stukas

Just the opposite. My sales have been extremely good since I introduced my personalized Christmas stockings. Other Christmas items, especially personalized cards, have also sold well.

December can be the most unpredictable month for sales in my experience. Over all the last 30 days have been good for me though. I am anticipating a slump in the last 2 weeks of the month based on last years figures.

I just found my numbers from 12/1/07 thru 12/9/07 and compared them to this year. Now our products include sounds, watches and seasonal Christmas items, although my wife's av sells most of the seasonal items. My numbers show sales are only at 20% of last year's and I have more items than last year. Her numbers are around 65% of last year's, although we didn't do a lot of updates and new products for this year.

So all in all, I blame it on the OS fiasco. A lot of people have lost their homes so they're not looking for bird sounds or Christmas lights, and certainly aren't in the mood to buy watches. I would say the RL economy is affecting it too, but when I go to a RL store, it certainly hasn't been tumbleweeds this year.

I sell jewelry and specialize in watches. My sales have been very steady throughout 2008 but have almost doubled in the past 3 weeks. December 2007 had been one of my best months to date and I am hoping to have a record-breaking month this year. I feel the increase is due mainly to holiday gifting. Transferable watches make great gifts and I get a lot of requests for custom engraving.

Devastating, I would say. Ever since the initial OS announcement, sales have been going down dramaticallly. 40 percent decrease last month and this month it looks like my income will be 80 percent less.

Sure, the RL recession has something to do with it, no doubt about it. But it was the OpenSpace price hike that translated it into Second Life. With that, Linden Labs is running the SL economy to the ground.

My sales have been doing rather well the last few months. However I am still only just growing my business little by little. I think the keyto the fact my business is still growing while so many other small place like mine are closing is the simple fact that unlike most i dont have overheads.

I dont pay rent, or tier or much else except upload costs.


I hate watching good stoes close. It i hard for meny to justify buying lindens right now though, so many are just using what they make in world. So i expect to see this happen more and more

straight after the OS debacle, sales suddenly slowed down for about 2 weeks, but now they are way up again, normal sales, speciality items, as well as bulk buys by ppl who are obviously preparing rental homes.

I have noticed the lower prim items have become very popular as ppl are probably making do with less than before.

Sales for us have been, on average, lower than they have recently. We obviously can't tell if it's due to the OS announcement or the catastrophic turn that the RL economy has taken, and I doubt that many can really ascribe it to one or the other.

I wouldn't describe them as "plummeting", though, at all. We are in a very definite niche market, though (Traditional Asian furnishings and buildings) so I'm not sure if that makes a difference - most of our clients are long-term residents who seem to be prepared to spend for quality.

My sales have been better than ever with several record sales days in the last week. I have been in biz for about a year and half and sales have consistently increased over that time. Whenever things get a bit slow, I pour on more marketing efforts and they go right back up again.

I sell prefabs and from my experience this is not accurate. I've spoken to allot of customers who have lost rental spots on OS sims and a lot of them are taking advantage of the lower price mainland and setting up home from scratch. The amount of package deals i am doing to estate owners has fallen but individual sales have increased allot. So the requirment for homes and associated products is still there. Just my 1p (2 cents).

I agree porky...i dont find that the RL economy or the OS situation effects my sales at all. I sell home decor and furniture and people still buy in even higher quantities than ever now. The only thing that impacts my sales is if SL is not working so transactions are messed up or if i take a day off from promoting my store and items. With the very competitive environment now in SL, creators must do more marketing and more effective marketing than ever before. The days of making something and then having folks find you is over.

Sales of my plants, even with a new sculpted base, additional location, and some additional promotion have been almost nonexistent. I suspect that it is a combination of the winter wether for many in SL (who wants spring-like plants when everyone is decorating their plot with snow?) and people dumping openspace land (versus buying new land that needs landscaping).

Sales of my toys are increasing slightly. Holiday gifts are being purchased.

There was a downturn a week ago overall in kids sales due to the skin flap, particularly as we experimented with new vendors. This seems to have leveled out at this point, but we've not seen an overall increase in seasonal sales on the island at this point.

sales are at an all time low for me



don't know if it is the RL affecting it or not

Would be interesting if someone conducted a survey on the forums. List the major markets i.e. prefab, clothing, skins etc and try to find out if certain markets are seeing a downturn whilst others are not. I wonder if it is certain markets that are failing or if it is the lesser known brands accross all markets. I'd do it myself but dont have time/my dog ate my keyboard/bone idle laziness etc etc.

Meh, My sales have been slowing for a while. Luckily I still have one or two products that sell daily. Enough to keep the doors open. =)

From my point of view, I can't pin the slowdown to one particular issue. It could be RL eco, or the OS debacle, but to what extent I am unsure.

I play in a niche market that is slowly getting crowded. My fellow niche-ers probably market themselves better than me also. This (i think) is effecting my sales more than LL's latest attempts.

Reading the responses above shows me we all have unique situations, and showing a trend from our personal experiences will be difficult.

But it is interesting to see Porky doing well(congrats!). Do you think that's because you are established in your field? Is it Your marketing? Do you track which marketing trick sell in this climate?

Curious
Alisha

It's just swings and roundabouts, my sales were nicely up until the weekend, since when they've dropped like a stone. That's what way it goes.

People will be looking for Christmas and party items.

Interestingly Dani's sales are the best they have been for a long time.

I suspect that is because she has concentrated on value for money in these tough times and that her clothing is the highest quality it's ever been. Add into that seasonal sales, and she's doing well.

What he said for me as well.

Jojo is my "marketing guru" and when I follow her marketing advice/strategy, I get sales. If not, I don't. For me it's pretty much that simple

jojo do you have a notecard from any of your classes?

I am always a day late to get to any classes, but would love to learn your marketing info

I imagine the RL recession would naturally effect SL sales in general, most people are cutting back on non essential items and SL certainly falls into that category.

I am not a creator, I don't sell anything, I am a consumer in SL and I have most certainly cut back, in order to keep my credit card debt in check, to ride out the recession, refinance the house next year etc etc

Not really doing anything more now than I was 12 months ago. If anything I am doing less in the way of marketting as I don't bother running a classified any more. For years I have had a good regular customer base that keep coming back and buying build after build as my new stuff is released and allot of new customers become aware of my prefabs by seeing them rezzed in world as they are big and visually attractive objects, so they sell themselves. I now run minimal advertising, do a bit on SLX and sponsor a few events every week but my main efforts have been put into my search ranking.

There is no real secret to my success though. For the last 4 years I have followed these rules when designing a new prefab...

1) Must be unlike anything currently available from my competitors.
2) Must be better than anything I've built before.

I would advise every commercal content creator in SL to follow these 2 rules.

We saw a temporary dip in all three businesses in the 2-3 weeks after the initial openspace announcement. Things have picked back up in all sectors, though. We don't really even expect to do especially well during Dec/Jan because there's nothing especially holiday-specific with what we do, but things have been just fine.

P.S. Porky, I really dig those builds in your sig. We will have to come check them out.

Porky is quite right repeat custom is very important to any business, RL or SL.

I have a designer I buy from and I don't really buy from anyone else.

Porky I bought one of your prefabs a several months ago and your product is great, there is a point of difference with your product and that's what customers like. Also your premise makes it's easy to find what you're looking for.

I was looking at prefabs in the mainland yesterday, the lag was so bad and I couldn't rez anything, I won't ever go back there