Update on sales slump.

Well, it's been a VERY warm and sunny fall in much of North America so far this year .. this very well could be the culpprit for ths slow pick up. As we all know, warm weather = less people at the computer, all other things being equal. And at least on this side of the pond, until the last few days, most of the US has been summery.

May not pick up though - with gas prices still so high. And I heard heating oil, etc, is going to shoot up again.

Well I just did my 4 month metrics and sales are VERY slightly increasing since mid-June, despite the bad LL metrics. Maybe all those people fleeing from Premium are spending their money shopping instead...

At least on your stuff lol.

Definitely not on mine .

And not on a lot of people's I know. Though It makes sense I suppose. I susupect the VAT will be another 10% or so hit.

One thing you have to remmeber is the grid keeps having problems, and often.

Failed Tps and failed transactions, especially during your peek hours? That`s going to put a dent in your sales for that day.

Also, with all this missing inventory items, who wants to buy?

Well well well, now Ive had three days (going on four) without a single sale. This is the worst so far. Just made next months tier and m/ship but things look grim. I notice US spend/24hours is down more too.
Oh well, it's nice to have a holiday anyway.

Have fun folks, be nice to each other...

Well, I started waiting for TSO to die sometime in the spring of what, 2004? I'm still waiting.

I never run out of stuff to shop for and buy.

But yes, I do think there are these jitters that affect things, plus stuff like the gambling and the VAT has to have a stifling effect.

coco

That's why I got so irritated when they eliminated the $50 stipend for basic players. You have to prime the pump with SOMETHING. Having a bit of money makes you want to have more, and get over that hump of the first purchase. Having none - makes you look around, decide it's not worth it, and go away.

That $50 made people a lot more likely to get in the purchasing habit, and spend more, later, buying Lindens, I believe.

If I hadn't had my $50 stipend to build on, I probably wouldn't have stuck around. I viewed it as a challenge to see how far I could get on that and whatever else I managed to earn. Later, I had incentive to become a premium because of first land.

I like a challenge, but NOT something that looks hopelessly impossible and almost pointless, and probably a lot of people are that way. The $50 was a definite enticement to see what you could make of it. Nothing is . . . well, nothing.

coco

I think you should, if you think your customers can tolerate the change.

I have some small items that are no copy/transfer, on the theory that people might want to give them as gifts. But with this growing inventory problem, I really need to get around to changing the permissions on them. People can always ask me to expedite them as gifts if they want.

I know some people want to be able to resell clothes, for instance, but I would much rather always have copies of things than be able to sell them later.

coco

P.S. It just occured to me, though, there ARE some items which don't make sense to sell as copy, as you couldn't make a profit.

I have been thinking of using the onrez vendors and put copy mod no transfer versions of my stuff in those, and then have the vendors at my store (I sell mainly clothing, and sell them as no mod no copy, yes transfer (I make them no mod because they are designed to be the way they are, do not see a need to make clothing, except prim skirts etc, as mod)

I am going to be redoing a couple packs of my pants so they have the underwear boot fit layer as well as the reg pants layer.

I don't go out much any more because I'm tired of arriving everywhere with all my attachments up my ass. So I stay home and build. That has been pretty good for business. SL is now just a shiny Photoshop to me.

One would think that by lowering the prices of my builds to 99L would have some impact but even that doesn't seem to help.
I dunno whats going on. we've analized the problems to death but there is no improvement on my side of the paddock no matter what anybody says or does.
Major retailers seem to be doing ok but the battlers are battling even harder.
I doubt very much that the new search fearture will make any difference either. AC will see to that. In fact it will make it harder still for non-academic types like me to get our graphs going northerly.

I don't want to log on anymore and feel zero enthusiasm to start anything, I don't have any new ideas either.
This will be the third business I have failed at, I tried twice in RL as Photographer and Web Design and now failed here.
I know I know it's me and the way I don't do things like a professional. This cannot just be just FUN if you want it to be successful. You HAVE to play for real and do it FOR THE MONEY not just for the fun of creating. The SL world has been built by people "For the fun of it" they/we paid highly with time and CCards.
Those days are soon gone, the real world is here and you have to act like it is or die.
Ive said enough.
When I fully leave I better delete all my SL bookmarks or Ill return like Bamboo.

My guess is that it's much like RL in the sales department... there are ups and downs, slumps and high times, but as in RL the market changes. Those who produce goods have to adapt and change with that market. It's all about having the right product there at the right time and as with all things in life it is somewhat of a gamble - one that you can just as equally win as lose.

From what I have seen in SL over the many months I have been here pretty much resembles RL in that there is a market for cheaper less high quality goods, more geared towards newbies looking for something other than the default Ruthies, and a higher class market of quality items and higher prices - both markets appear to flourish well in the more well known brands and anything else in between really appears to struggle.

My take is that I aim to produce quality over quantity and price accordingly - at the end of the day the product needs to be backed by advertising, marketing, excellent customer service and a continued desire to push the boundaries by creating new content and not resting on your laurels.

Just my 2p worth

Transferring is about the ability to give something away, not about reselling.

9 out 10 times inventory loss is preventable, or happened because someone either acted recklessly or didn't take proper precautions. True inventory loss where LL is solely to blame and you couldn't prevent it is rather rare.

Short-term inventory loss is entirely preventable even, and with long-term loss most sellers will not help because the transaction happened 10 months ago and they no longer have any record of the purchase.

The only thing I ever lost was a potted plant, and I'll take full responsability for the loss since I didn't test-rez something to make sure the sim was stable, but at L$80 I just couldn't be bothered.

On the other hand, I have dozens of outfits "worth" tens of thousand L$ that I just don't like but that I can't even give away because they're NT. I have several limited edition dresses/outfits which cost L$2-3k that I really never wear anymore, so they can either collect dust in my inventory, or I can toss them into the trash can.

I would never recuperate the money either way, but I could still make someone very happy with a LE dress, or even a regular outfit. None of it is rubbish, it's just not my taste or doesn't look good on me.

You can't defend C/NT with inventory loss, because that's just user error and even if you take it into consideration you'll still loose more on C/NT items then you ever will on NC/T items.

Inventory loss is not user error unless they gave a non copyable item away. Any other loss most certainly lies on the LL's shoulders. I got outfits that are not wearable, note cards and scripts that won't load and many objects I made and bought that say "object not in database". How they hell is that my fault? They were not taken out of inventory before hand and cannot be pulled out of inventory.

LL even admits they lost data. People should not have to worry about where they rez something. No other virtual world suffers from this. Calling it user error is completely asinine.

If you rez something "expensive" without doing a testrez first, or if you rez anything on a sandbx, or if you're lazy and think return will sort everything out instead of just "taking" everything, if you buy something without making sure the sim isn't acting up, if you put things in boxes and later find the box went "missing from database".

All of the above are things people constantly complain about, but they're also all almost entirely preventable with a few common sense steps, that makes it user error. LL is to blame for not making the whole process more seamless, but we're at fault too in many cases for being careless.

The first time your puter breaks, you learn to backup. The first time the power dies, you learn to save regularly. The first time you get a rez failure, you learn to rez something else first. It's no different.

LL is solely responsible for making sure all inventory is maintained in tact by the simple fact we cannot back up non copyable items. In any other virtual world if inventory was lost heads would roll.

There is no excuse what so ever you can come up with that SL users are responsible for inventory loss. They should not have to take ANY preventive measures at all. LL is responsible for our inventory. If anyone should be backing it up it is them being we lack the ability to do so.

Buying items is a different story. Paying for something you didn't receive is not inventory loss being you never got the thing in your inventory to begin with. That is a transfer issue. That also should not be happening at all and surly is related.

I also like how you completely ignored the part about stuff IN inventory that does not rez because "item is not in database" error. That has nothing to do with where you are at or how any sim is running (that shouldn't matter anyway). There is nothing preventive you can do there. That is the major inventory problem right now.

There is no way we should be able to be careless other than giving something away. That is how every other virtual worlds works and that is how this one is supposed to work.

We are responsible for the data on our computers because we are in control of them. LL is responsible for the data on their computers because they are in control of them. There is no excuse for inventory loss. It is just bad coding and they even admit to it.

Some have said the same thing about Linden published key metrics.

Ive done all this and more and had aspirations too. I obviously just plain don't have the skill to do it successfully, I could battle on for years like this.
Anyway I just got done setting my 8000 m parcel for sale with all objects with it.
I hope it goes quickly. If I do enter SL again it wont be as Kornscope, He is a dead fish.

The overall sales slump will not end until more actual money (USD) is spent on Second Life.

The flat LindenX activity is proof that people are not willing to spend more money on Second Life and as long as this is the case, businesses will fail.

All this business advice may help individual businesses but its not going to do anything to address the root problem - weak Consumer spending.

I briefly tried to sell stuff when I was new but but I wasn't ready and I am not very good with managing a business.
I often find shopping personally a unpleasant experience because excuse my language their so much awful crappy copycat stuff out there, or I misunderstand what is being advertised and disappointed or the cool sounding stuff is too hard to figure out how use if you're new and not skilled with lsl.
So sometimes I buy Art and textures from other Artist.
Most of my money I spend in world goes to my own art uploads. I create mainly for the fun of it but I do sometimes wish I could also get acknowledged for the work I do but perhaps I am just not good enough yet or its just so much out there and its hard to get others to notice your products.

I would love to hear how the top creators are doing saleswise right now. I wonder how Lilith Heart (plants) or Isablan Neva or Ace Albion's (prefabs) sales are, and if the top avatar and skin creators or the Xcite folks are all experiencing the same sales slump the average joe creator is trying to survive through...

Quoted for truth.

There is high demand for cheap items because you have a lot of cheap people in the game, that are not willing to put any money into it. Although the customer base has expanded, the base of people willing to spend any money has not expanded proportionately. And the winners of all this are the names that always pop to mind first for word of mouth recognition.

Did I say earlier, can't remember, but I bundled up some of my older goods into a freebie barrel and still very few takers.

While I do agree there seems to be a sales low right now, I can`t get over some of the responses....... Not just in this thread, but the past "low sales" threads as well.


In january, "Aitui" will be 2. Even at 2, I don`t feel thats sufficient amount of time to honestly comment on whether or not I see a "sales slump" because only about a year into it did I begin to make really good money off of what I was doing, the first year I was just climbing a ladder. Today, 2 years into it, sale "lows" and "high" months are becoming more clear....... but it`s still a bit of a grey area.... I`m still climbing that ladder.

It takes awhile to build up a brand name, to build up a customer base, and to get to a 'steady' point in sales. Approaching my 2nd birthday, I do not think I have hit a steady point in sales yet. For instance (!These are fictional profit figures!) lets say that in August I made 500 usd, in September I made 700 usd, and by the end of october it looks like I will pull in 600 usd. As you can see, while the sales are lower this month then the previous month`s, they are still higher than 2 months back.

Lows and highs are normal in businesses. And I think to make an accurate response you need to have been in business awhile and reached a steady point in order to properly step back and be able to see your lows and highs. It amazes me how people who are only around 2 months into owning a business are reporting lows.

Being in business for 2 months is not enough time........ This is just my views on the whole thing. Feel free to disagree, but this is my take.