Sales plumeting?

Cute, Lil!

I'll clarify what I breezed over earlier. For more explanation, please start a new thread on Excel charts!

I open the Excel file, which contains a bunch of columns of data. One of the columns is the date. Another column is my balance. I click on the top of the date column (to select the whole column). I hold shift and click on the balance column (to add that whole column so now i have two columns selected).

Next, I click the little "chart wizard" icon in the toolbar. The first thing that pops up is to choose the kind of graph. One of them shows a bunch of dots, and the popup help text for it is "scatter chart". (That means that the first column will be used as the X coordinates, and any other columns are Y coordinates for the lines. We only have one other column, so we'll only have one line on our graph.)

I think I take the defaults for the rest, and wind up with a nice linear chart.

The steps posted earlier, starting with "Right click on the vertical axis", turn the linear chart into a log chart.

The thing about log charts is that steady growth appears as a straight line. For more on that, see /341/63/296915/1.html.

I must be doing something wrong (been years since I did charts hehe)

when I do it, I end up with 2 dots, nothing more...

I've mentioned this many times to in world peeps that LL needs to get a clue about the economy and offer perhaps 800 lindens per $2.50 U.S. dollars if not more if the economy worsens. SL is a business and RL businesses are offering 50 to 70% off items. I'm shopping right now in RL at these prices as it's a buyers market. LL needs to get in touch with the reality of what a deep recession is. Did anyone alert them? lol

If you're not selling, advertise half price sales. I bought some very nice things at 50% off sales recently from SL designers I like very much.

LL would get reamed by business owners if they intentionally did this. (It did happen in the past, the exchange rate went over 300 for a little while, and they got reamed when it went up, and reamed again when it went back down.) LL is doing the right thing by keeping the exchange rate relatively stable, with intentional minor fluctuations with sound economic reasoning behind them.

Raising the linden rate, when private islands are paid for in $US, would cause all private-island-based renters to have to raise their rates in Lindens or face serious losses. Sure, it would be the same for their customers in $US, but why change the numbers?

If businesses want to reduce prices, they're free to do so. LL shouldn't put them in the situation where they have to take action if the do *not* want to change them.

A steady exchange rate (or, more to the point, a stable currency) makes it possible for businesses to plan. If the rates change unpredictably, you can't plan ahead. If you can't plan ahead, you're unlikely to invest. If people don't invest in their businesses, all residents suffer.

LL makes mistakes, but their management of the Linden supply over the last 2 2/1 years has not been one of them.

Thanks again, Lear That helped a lot *smiles*

(I tend to think in a linear fashion - no pun intended!)

Thanks to you as well, Amar So far I've been doing the pencil/paper thing, but that is just silly when I should be utilizing the PC for that.

And Lil...I think I need another Pepsi to understand that but it was pretty much what I got out of the first explanation...lol.

QFT!

I'm amazed at the vast range of prices I see in SL when I compare like items. There are some items that are mediocre listed with higher prices than similar items listed for far less.

Another thing is, many people tend to stay in certain geographical areas of the grid. (I'm reminded of one man I met very early on in SL who said he never left his home sim and he had been in SL over a year at that point!!) These types of people aren't traveling all over the grid to do comparison-pricing. So if they see an item they like but decide it is too expensive they just don't purchase. That is where advertising as much as possible comes in.

I found this today. It seems i'm not the only one holding this view (my earlier postings)

http://www.pradprathivi.com/pradprathivi/i-can-haz-freebiez

It’s unsustainable for business owners if there are thousands of high quality freebies on the grid, as it leads to a culture where a large number of users refuse to buy anything and live off freebies. If content creators aren’t making any money, then there’s no incentive to release freebies. Heck, for the times I’ve released freebies, I’ve never even gotten a single “Thank You”.

I disagree in that all currencies fluctuate, and if we go into a deep recession for say 'til 2011 is what most economists are predicting, SL and all of it's businesses will suffer because the current currency exchange rate is not worthwhile to the consumer.

For instance, my example, with it being a buyer's market, I'll be spending more in RL in 2009 because the deals are better.

In short, Lindens are exchanged by real currency and it could end becoming a playground for the rich and the free players, while the inbetween who spend some real money on SL as a hobby decide to give up their hobby due to being able to find such incredible deals to purchase items in RL, not to mention all the great rebate incentives right now in RL also.

Also, a problem is that many people running a SL business have no understanding of how to run business. It's a jungle out there in the business world and you need to fight in tough economic times to keep your customers by offering incentives, or face losing them altogether.

1) Set up a buyer incentive plan. For instance, buy 3 items, get 1 free of your choice. Or buy five items, get two free. (Just an example)

2) Have 50% off sales during slow business times.

3) Take all unnecessary prims out of your store which may be causing you to raise prices. Customers don't want to pay higher prices just because there are elegant high prim tables in your store.

4) Simplify your store or land altogether by getting rid of excess prims to lower your overall cost and then pass those savings onto the customer.

5) Offer more demos. (I often pass on items without demos.)

6) State your refund policy clearly. (I always pass on items were a "no refund, no exception" policy is stated.) If a designer states "refund if __________ x, y, z, then I would like that designer a lot more!

7) Use live models to show how the items actually look on and/or fit as photos don't really represent the 3D outcome, and I'm finding some photos to be doctored via photoshop in that the real item is so vastly different from the actual product one receives.

I do comparison shop on SL and also make wish lists. I recently bought some items I had wanted for over two months because these were my Christmas presents from my rl family. In my comparison shopping, I find a vast difference in price of shoes. One designer charges on average 800 lindens for a pair of haute coutoure shoes while another charges 380 for gorgeous haute coutoure shoes. The 800 lindens ones weren't worth it, and some styles were almost the same as the other designer and both are considered haute coutoure designers on SL.

I could probably think of more if I was awake, but there are a lot of books on staying competitive in an ever changing competitive world marketplace.

how does using a high prim item cause prices to be higher in a store?
unless you mean reduce the prim usage and sell off the excess land.....

other than that, using your prims to have high prim display items doesn't increase cost, if one already has the prims and are already paying a set tier....

Of course they do, and it's the bane of business planning. Read up on economics. Stable currencies are the best for economies. You'll only see debate on this from wild-eyed nutters. (Of course, there are sound arguments for doing things that tend to destabilize currencies; the destabilization is always a con to be balanced by some greater good.)

There's nothing wrong with the current exchange rate. You want to give everyone a blanket discount, but I say it's up to the individual businesses to set their pricing. LL shouldn't be making this decision for the businesses. If LL forces a dramatic change in the exchange rate, all LL businesses will suffer dramatically and immediately in terms of cash flow. Trust me, if you put it to a voteamong LL businesses, you'd get drowned in the nays. An exchage rate change would also piss off all the consumers who just bought lindens. LL doesn't need this kind of grief for the speculative and unsubstantiated benefits you claim.

Well, that's their problem. You see, there are plenty of SL business that *are* savvy, and those will be the ones to flourish.

I'm not a savvy businessman myself; I'm just in it for fun, and this doesn't really matter to me (I put no US$ in and take no $L out, and if my balance grows too high I'll probably donate it to charity.) But I know plenty of businesses that are very savvy and will do just fine.

I predict that more of the in-betweeners you mention above who face reduced incomes and will be more likely to get their shopping jollies in SL than in RL, where their money goes so much further and they have ample closet space. Those who quit SL are more likely to do it because they give up their broadband access (however hard it may be to imagine, it is an unnecessary expense in many households, far less important than food and clothing).

I mean reduce the unnecessary prim usage.

Well, it's gonna happen sooner or later. I doubt the linden exchange will be the same forever.

I have also talked to people in world and they agree with me because it is only good logical business sense.

Right, but I bet that Avawyn was referring to shops that "pay" for extra prims, for example:
1) they need extra land on the sim to get the prims.
2) they reduce the number of items available for sale because of prim limits

It's just a suggestion, and a valid one for those whose prims actually do cost them something. Also, if your shop is laggy due to overbuild (caused more by textures than prims, though), people are less likely to stay and shop. Balance that against the impression your shop gives potential customers, which is extremely important.

All Avawyn's suggestions in that post are worthy of consideration. Of course, some of them can work both ways: if you often have 50% off sales during lulls, your shoppers will pick up on that and wait for sales. Bottom line, marketing isn't trivial if you want to maximize your return. Fortunately, many SL businesses are more for fun than profit, so it's not necessary to maximize, and we don't have any investors breathing down our necks for ROI.

I'm having fun. are you?

Whoever says that doesn't know what good business sense is.

And it happened before, and the community went berserk about it.

*yawns* whatever I talk to in world people who are rl business owners. Again, whatever.

I've received lots of thanks for the freebies I've created (and not just ones like MLPV2 that are business-enablers). I've also gone to pick up freebies and stayed to buy products. (BTW, I don't distribute freebies at my store; I do it for the fun of it and not as a marketing tactic.)

Freebies are fun. I don't have too much sympathy for business that can't make a profit due to people making the same things, for the fun of it. I don't think freebies will ruin the SL economy, either. The main effect of freebies is to force businesses to make products that are significantly better than the freebies.

Of course, I'm not talking about BIAB, or products that have become freebies against the makers' wishes. That's another matter entirely. I think it's too bad that SL's permission scheme doesn't support the value-added reseller, leading to the BIAB problem in the first place. I feel strongly that the future of the SL economy (long term) depends more on this one issue than any other technical issue, other than client/server stability. If a competitive virtual world appears that supports value-added resales with protection and profit model, there will be an explosion of content development that will make SL's (considerable) development look feeble in comparison.

I still do not understand how reducing prim usage will reduce cost.... (again, unless they sell off the land that supports the prims)

for instance, I have about 300 to 400 free prims on my land (depending if I am working on something or not heh)

if I decided to make a 200 prim fancy sofa set to put out in my store to "pretty" it up, that doesn't mean I am going to be charging more for my product (and that, in my opinion, would be an unnecessary prim usage)

*shrug*

on the topic of freebies....

you will always have the consumer who will purchase and ignore freebies, because they just do not want the same thing everyone else is getting for free

then you also have the consumer would not be caught dead in a free item, it is a status thing, they would rather buy, than wear something free

then you have the consumer who will never purchase and always use freebies

then of course the consumer that does both...

it all balances out in the end

OK, I'll start a thread with a vote, and asking for opinions. Maybe this is a chance for me to learn something, and that there are valid arguments for dramatically changing the exchange rate that offset the significant problems it would cause. If there are, I'd certainly like to hear them.

It depends on how much land is necessary then, and how important to you that land is to your top growth potential when you could say instead hire a live model or two? It depends also on what are your goals and your current financial status, i.e, whether your doing it to make a successful business or doing it just for fun because you are already financial set. It depends on what your financial goals are. However, financial business goals need to be within the reality of the current economic recession not ending any time soon as well as a lot of competition in the world marketplace right now.

And thanks for your answer because I wasn't quite sure if the mark up in some stores compared to others was due to the fact they had too many prims as decorating items not for sale (meaning it's not a furniture store) and their prices were higher than others.

We're teetering on an economic world "depression" and looking at least 10% job loss or more by early 2009, and that we are in a global economic recession which has no view of growth potential or turning around until about 2011, and that there are a lot of business offering incentives to purchase, and money only goes so far.

again you did not answer my question... or if you did I do not see the answer

are you saying reduce prims, then sell the land to lower prices?

because I highly doubt folks raise prices so they can have extra land to support unnecessary prim usage... (but that is just my opinion, I have nothing except my own ideas and way of doing things to go by, and I would never charge more just to support unnecessary prim usage)

A few points....whenever i do a push on free items, i have higher sales. So in my experience over many months, freebies only increase my sales and have no negative effect at all. I know this is true for many other biz's in sl as well. So the thought that freebies will destroy the sl economy is far fetched acc to my experience.

As far as reducing prims to reduce costs...i am actually acquiring land over time to have have more prims so i can offer more items. The more items i have in my store, the more chance someone will buy seomthing. reducing prims to increase profit does not work the same in sl as in rl...we have such low overhead in sl. And, I am already paying a certain tier level. Until I have added more land to get the that tier's higher limit, i can continue to add prims by acquiring the land with no additional monthly cost. I only have the initial outlay for the land as a one time expense. So applying RL financial concepts to SL does not always work. A larger store in RL means additional energy costs, taxes etc. Those overhead expenses to not increase proportionally unless you get to the next tier level in SL. I would caution folks who try to apply RL marketing and biz concepts to SL to really think them through...often it is comparing apples to oranges.

And as for the RL economy affecting SL spending....I believe the opposite is true for one time item purchases. if somone comes into my store and buys 1000L of furniture and decor items, that cost is fixed. If someone buys land, they incur tier costs etc every month. I believe that people in SL may be reducing their recurring monthly land costs while hold steady to their spending or even increasing it. In tough times, people look for low cost entertainment and SL is low cost. If someone reduces to a non paying member of SL, they reduce their cost by 70+ dollars a year. If they reduce their land holdings, they reduce additional monthly RL costs. That money is then free to use for in world smaller items or for RL expenses. What i see - sorry to repeat myself - is that my sales have increased a great deal over the last few months. And im not talking about 3 sales a day....i have strong sales, many sales, many people who come into my store and spend quite a bit over and over. I do not see anything impacting that other than my own marketing efforts or when the grid is messing up transactions. I truly believe that predicting the demise of teh SL economy due to any factors - the rl economy, freebies, the OS thing, etc etc etc - is saying the sky is falling.

I know there are people who disagree with me, but im speaking from my own experience in SL as a biz owner, as a consumer and from hearing what others tell me in the classes i teach etc.

Oh, and i get people thanking me for freebies all the time...they are so kind and give me lots of good feedback, but im in my store alot talking to them as well.