XSTREET Price Dumping and You!

XStreetSL offers probably the only truly convenient method of comparison shopping. When consumers are able to comparison shop, prices are driven down. And that is healthy capitalism.

SLX search system is fixed and manipulated so you get to only see the stuff that gets promoted to the top. Everything there is based on sales numbers not relevancy. If you are looking for new stuff, which tends to be better than the old stuff usually, you will never find it unless you follow the paid ads and feature listings.

If the stuff is higher on the list in search then it is outselling the stuff below it. How it gets to the top of the list is another subject all together. The problem is that regular shoppers would never know all the conspiracy stuff you just mentioned and think it is popular because it must be really nice and good.




I tend to notice featured stuff when I log on to SLX and if there is something that looks much like what I make I will take a look.. I make plenty of new stuff - who knows in 73.678 years I might make it to 80000 textures too if I keep making 3 a day.



I do have competitors as do you but I am not so concerned about there being competition, I do care if I see something that is downright nasty looking garbage that looks like a 3 year old made it sell a few hundred times, while a similar product that I made but is obviously much better cannot get a single sale even with a feature listing. (hypothetical mostly but I have made stuff that is really awesome that has not sold once)

As to the textures that is really another subject, I knock 10 packs, I get reported for slamming 10 packs and the packs I make do make sense for the most part unless I am spoofing on somebody elses with mine...





must heve been something I said lol





ahhh it definetly was me then lol

that too is not really the subject

Listen , fact remains there was some behind the scenes stuff going on that if you knew you would probably stop shopping there too but .. you are just holding a grudge, which is ok .. I can dig it ..no harm meant - you probably read between the lines too hard, If I wanted to insult you I would have made sure you got the message clearly. There is a difference between pushing buttons and insulting in my book


I use 4 digit numbers instead of just 1,2,3 etc at least they will sort properly into the thousands



Good pictures are a must..
I like the proofsheets that are really small to hide the source of the textures.




I am not worried but only concerned that some day a product won't even pay for the upload fees at which point I will become a builder and furniture maker hahah

As it is I make every single product as if I will use it to build with myself.

What cheap junk are you talking about?

I've bought 10L shoes before on Xstreet. They were for an alt I rarely use so I didn't want to spend a lot of money. These shoes certainly weren't low-quality, in fact they were quite nice. I've noticed a lot of quality items being marked down like this, especially shoes. I'm not sure why, other than maybe they have too much competition to survive without cutting prices.

The stuff I classify as "junk" are those full-perm clothing templates and those tend to be very expensive.

To answer your first question: I will not buy anything that looks like crap no matter how cheap it is.

I preemptively resent any implication that I price dump or make cheap stuff but I've been forced to slash my prices due to the sheer flood of products making it impossible to sell items for true price anymore.

The only way I can now make sales is to slash prices, I have tried packaging like items and have advertised large discounts for anyone who buys multiple items and contacts me or buys a pack of 5 chairs vs 1 and no increase. There are too many creators and too many sellers especially now that there's only one place to shop unless you want to go sim to sim to shop and not enough buyers, until that changes unless you have name brand recognition you'll probably struggle.

I guess I have to disagree with this, too, just because "truly convenient" is being mighty generous to XstreetSL's search function. I'm not objecting to the crazy default "popularity" sort order, but to the limited ability to actually specify what I'm shopping for and actually get a non-zero number of results fewer than a thousand. I find it as near to useless as makes no difference--bad enough that now I almost always use in-world Search, go to XstreetSL to hunt for the corresponding product page, then TP in-world to buy.

Honestly, it's the least functional e-commerce site I have tried to use since 1999.

Back in-world, I sometimes TP or otherwise transport myself directly to the coordinates of the object I want to buy--I've even purchased objects before they've rezzed--using the coordinates on the Search / All page and some blind mouse-stabbing for object names. (Aside: Do any third-party viewers offer text search within that Search / All page? I've even gone to the bottom, grabbed the URL, and pasted it into a real browser so I can search its text. In the words of Church Lady, "How *convenient*." )

Um. What I really wanted to say, though, before I distracted myself with that rant, is that I think it's really two different, almost non-overlapping markets, Xstreet and in-world, and that may account for the low prices on Xstreet.

Speaking for myself, anyway, I only buy temporary, disposable junk on Xstreet; you know, the kind of crap I could make myself in less than an hour, but don't want to be bothered. So of course I'm only interested in stuff for L$100 or less. Anything I intend to keep for any length of time, I'll only buy in-world, and so my buying is a lot less price-sensitive there.

I think it was Argent who raised the point about Xstreet needing a better shopping interface and I certainly agree with him, whether that comes at a fee is another issue.

However as it stands it's annoying when you look for an item and find ten versions of one creators items in different colours. How much brand awareness do people get from Xstreet too? People see the names of creators but do they associate that name with a brand?

I'm also not convinced that freebies are great promotion on Xstreet either, people see the freebie but move on, the freebie would be far more useful if it was linked to a shop style page for that merchant's store, then people would see other items too.

Following on about the freebie thing not working on xstreet...Im on the fence..I used to have a 0L fairy ..it sold by the truck load..and a few people who bought it made it to my inworld store. I now made it 1L , fewer sales..but ive picked up more visits recently..is it because its 1L not 0 now ? I dont know...perhaps those that are willing to dosh out the princely sum of 1L also have disposable income to buy other items if they like your product? Whereas those that buy it at 0L are just trawling for anything free with no intention of actually spending any cash? Not sure.

Between hunts, midnite madness boards and high quality freebies, there is little need for me to buy anything n the way of clothing, hair or skins anymore.

For houses, furniture and etc... I like to comparison shop on Xstreet, but make my choice after inworld comparisons. In these cases, I prefer form and function over price.

I am talking about substandard quality products that are promoted to the top of the popularity list, hence fooling many people into buying them.

These are mostly listings by "merchants" that do not even have a inworld shop and just dump product on SLX en masse ..


and I am not just talking about girly clothes that always seem to hit the top overall, I am talking about all the different product categories by themselfes. Each one has their own story in a way.


The thread in the commerce blog actually has some outstanding angles and explanations of what is happening with regards to all this.

This seems to be the general trend, except you have been around and you pay a bunch of tier and thousands of the people that you are reacting to do not even have a shop, they just dump their internet pictures or other creations they make in a sandbox onto SLX and call it a product. What do they have to lose?

"Regular shoppers"......can you define those people? more specifically? I'm under the impression that people who shop over and over again in my store, are totally hip to how the mechanics work. Are you talking about One Shot Buyers? That are only going to buy from you once?



Are you sure everyone shops this way? From the responses in this thread, it appears that some do not. Where are you getting your information on how people shop? From the other merchants that are whining? or from YOUR customers?



Some days I think I have competitors....but I don't. The only competitor I have is myself. You do not have competitors either.....unless you are knocking out the same exact stuff. Here's an example with furniture....I used to buy a ton of it for decorating people's homes.

Store A - has sleek, modern, basic black, red, white, brown.....top notch....but it's high prim. One stop decorates the whole house, if it's a large home, with plenty of prims to use. There is not another store in SL that has this quality, this selection, or this style where I can do it in one stop.

Store B - has the same as the above....but it's low prim. Not quite as stylish (because of having to reduce prims)....but still right on target. This is the only store in SL that I can do it in one stop.

Store C - has unusual style and unusual colors - very unique. This is the only store in SL I can get that style
in one stop. But it's double the price of most stores - so I have to have a client willing to spend the money

Store D - has the same style as above, but the quality is just a tad less....the prices are half, though. So this is the only store I can do it in one stop, for someone on a budget.

Store E - has antique and vintage - but it's high prim.....only store where I can do it in one stop, and only suitable for someone with a lot of prims.

I could do this list forever. The above stores have taken a niche, and they do it right. They offer everything - so you don't have to fly around all over the place. Yes, people love to shop....but for the most part, they would rather be enjoying their home, and not shopping.....so one stop is important.

I can do the same with Textures. I believe that once you figure out what your niche is.....that you can concentrate on that, so that you truly have NO competition. The only competition is with yourself on doing it right and doing it efficient.

I've been shopping for textures for weeks. I just don't see where someone is offering tons of cheap textures that are actually functional. Are you talking about your category - textures? on this cheap dumping topic? because I don't see it. Or are you worried about the rest of us? Are you worried about the people who have not found their niche yet? and think they have a ton of competition? Yes - you should probably worry about those people.

OK...here we go. The Definition.

This is your Target Market? The people who shop this way? And want substandard product?

For about a dozen good reasons I don't go into my sales numbers but I'll say at this rate nobody will be able to afford a shop inworld if things keep going this way, I'm all for the entry bar for selling your creations in SL being as low as possible but it is getting impossible to make an honest wage for honest creative work, doubly so with the overhead of an inworld store.

Yes.. Poseball hoppers that do not care about politics and enconomic issues like all the people on here.. click happy impulse buyers - and this thread is specifically about SLX only.. so all inworld action does for all practical purposes not matter right now.





yeah that's it..

That's sad but true.....many follow this route!

It's zero'ing out.....in about a year's time (at this rate), most SL products will be Freeware!

Walmart model:

You'll make more selling a lot cheaply than a little at a high price.

A lot of the best items in SL are going for under 200L - and rightly so. Don't like it? Put out better stuff for even cheaper, and undercut their Walmart with your own.

Try Slapt.me

Not as big as xstreet, but slowly growing, and worth listing your goods on.

Not sure about that but in a year's time if anyone wants sales want sales they'll probably have to drop every single item to L$50 and every pack to 50*numitems-50, where 50 is an L$ value and numitems is the number of items in the pack.

?

You mean they can't shop inworld because don't fit between the displays?

Experience has disproven this theory. I thought this same thing myself and thus built a $200L skybox to add to my lineup -- as a test. I expected that thing to fly off the shelf since it was less than 50% the cost of my other small skyboxes. What actually happened is that I can't give the $200L model away and the $3500L skyboxes at the top end of my range continue to outsell it 5 to 1.

Not everything is as it appears.

Oh my, is my slip showing again?

And it isn't owned by LL.

Then maybe there will be a trend to focus more on inworld shoppers. Although, many months ago, I was inclined to put all my eggs in the Xstreet basket. It certainly saved on buying more and more pieces of land for prims....and seemed more economical. You Texture creators have it made in the shade on prims.

That is sweet of you, to worry about the rest of us.