Should SL stores offer premium members a discount?

Bad analogy. This is more like <insert most chain supermarkets> having their stupid "price club" cards that you have to divulge your private info to get, so you can get alleged "savings." They'll take anyone's money, but those who have registered get a little extra somethin' somethin'.

Well this is a good set of answers! I really didn't put much thought into the question. I'm surprised that non-premiums and store owners would feel so strongly about it. I didn't want to create any class of haves and have nots. I'm not premium myself but I thought that how this would work is that the store owners would be able to raise their sales by both retaining the usual customers but gaining more premiums.

But why even help premiums? This was more of a tactic to get more people to sign up as premiums. I guess a higher amount of preems would be more beneficial for SL. In a way, the stipend can be considered a means of providing a general discount for preems and is controlled by the Lindens and puts no burden on anyone else. I suppose this will have to do.

Brenda

I think what LL gives out to premium members is plenty. You get 512 and a stipend of 300 per week now. Some of us are on the 400 a week plan and the Oldbies are on 500/week. Reducing tier for merchants really doesn't make sense -- unless of course you are talking about guys like Desmond who have 40 Sims. A tiered structure as it pertains to bulk holdings would make more sense. One island = 295 per month -- 10 island = 245/mos etc (ex only) The merchants are not only in it for the creativity aspects but also to make a couple of bucks. And reducing regular tier fees polarizes them also. Why should a merchant get a better deal on a sim than a person who gets one because 'they can?'

To me, what is invaluable is education. The value, for myself, would be in business development agencies, sponsored by LL, that could help and educate new business owners in SL. Too many times have I met folks who have purchased an island with an 'idea' to have it turn into a money pit because of ignorance to the market, poor planning, and genuinely bad decisions. What happens? They lose their arse and become jaded by SL.

I have had my stumblings before I found my niche and it was not without my shortcomings. I had a camping business that i just divested about 4 months ago (and yes Kitty, I still support them Lol) -- But the Giftcard System business is booming and the shoes have their own little fan club now. Yes, there are some serious scumbags in SL, and I think that's where Kitty was pointing to earlier -- but thats a part of business. You will have good and bad. You will have high end and bottom feeders -- I personally like the middle market myself Offer a fair product for a fair price and service the hell out of them -- then they come back. I have personally trained Portuguese, Germans, Italians, French, Mexicans, Swedish, et al -- to me, they are just customers and we find ways to break down the barriers of language and culture to accomplish our mission, and with that, I've made a few good friends along the way. Premium or not.

Cheers

Maybe. But the benefit, if there is one, is still to the store that is giving the discount. It's not like a discount to someone just because they belong to a certain class or group that is no benefit to you.

CC....the tier and stipend is fine, but not everyone will want that. I stopped being Premium because I wasn't interested in owning mainland, or any land as it stands now, and the 300 Lindens were not worth the $9.95 a month. Why not have some kind of incentive to get people like me to go Premium? It doesn't have to be what I suggested. Or is LL keeping all their eggs in the land basket?

Ding ding ding ding ding!!!!!!! You win the Kwepie doll!!!!!!!!

The 9.95 per month isn't what pays the bills -- its the land owners who pay the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in tier each month. Its the 125.00 a month I pay to display shoes and create a (hopefully) nice shopping experience. Its Desmond's 7500.00 a month to create the ultimate Steampunk experience. Before I decided to wear my fetish on my sleeve, I almost backed out of premium. In fact, I decided to rent 20000 sqm.........and after 6 months of renting, I thought it was ludicrous to pay someone else's tier for them when I could invest in myself.......all in. If i decided to close tomorrow at least I could get 'something' out of my investment.

I personally don't see any reason to go premium, if you don't have to. So enjoy it. There are good landlords......if you want a place to hang, a house, or a business even. Polarization and special interests do nothing but cause problems -- people are people. Enjoy each other, have fun, and buy my damn shoes!!!!!

CC

The only way to know whether this could be successful for a store-owner is to experiment with it yourself and see how it works.

As far as predicting how successful it would be, I would be inclined to agree that this risk of alienating non-premium residents, who would otherwise spend money at your store, would probably outweigh any potential extra business from premium users.

On the occasions that I buy things in Second Life, the things I buy are generally in the 100L to 300L range. Saving $5L to $15L for a purchase- maybe 2 to 5 cents in USD terms- just isn't a great additional incentive to buy something.

I'd guess that a great deal of the spending that happens in SL occurs for emotion-based reasons than logic-based reasons. That's why I'd guess you are far more likely to lose more money from non-premium spenders who feel snubbed, than you would be to gain money from premium members who might want to save a few extra cents here and there.

But the only way to be sure would be for you to try it, if you really wanted to know if it would be a great idea. Maybe you'll come up with the next great trend in the SL economy.

I bought 9 pair today.

/me sighs and places another kewpie doll on the shelf

This is a horrible thing to say, but the problem with that is that they "lose their arse" - to LL. If they went Premium, they might have been simply warned off buying the island and then LL's income from the island purchase and monthly fees would be reduced!

If you want to target premiums, just have a "Featured item for only L$299" sale for everyone and plan on having it on say.... a Tuesday... just to pick a random day of the week .

You can't distinguish between payment info used and premium in any case .

I am premium it gets me 400L stipend and ability to buy land from other premium users and Linden labs.
I don't really think LL will give any incentives unless there is too much land and not enough members who are premium buying land or something serious.
Either way they have good deal we pay for linden dollars, be their beta testers, content providers regulars who is Premium or not.

THAT'S the question I was going to ask. Do you really think they can ome up with a sytem to distinguish and manage the differences without it all being even more rickety?

Good point. They should be paying us.

Why is that a horrible thing to say Yumi? Its the truth and its pragmatic. I came into world in '06 -- within my first 2 months I had been taken for 25k by a scumbag scripter, lost my complete inventory, and started a club. Why? Because I jumped into it without doing any due diligence.

I have an acquaintance at this moment who is desperately trying to sell off their island because the club and the 'once a month' fashion shows' aren't paying the bills. Not to mention the fact that free rent is given to the designers who participate in the shows. What kind of business model is that? -- Is that LL's fault? And.........they are premium. I do believe that is a requirement for owning land. What does that have to do with anything?

LL provides the building blocks in world but if you don't do your own research and business planning -- you are the one who is 'going to get it in the arse' and there's no one to blame but yourself. Hey, my first property was in Dreamland. I didn't know who the hell AC was and how that differed from paying Linden tiers. I started the aforementioned club there (strike 2) I expected people to come (end of inning)

You can't be saying that you think LL sponsored business support groups and training is a bad idea.

You have to be premium to own mainland, but not to own private sims. Unless that has changed, then ignore this entire post.

I don't think it's a bad idea, but the point I was trying to make is - LL makes money from these failures. Thus less failures could mean less money for LL, which would make training a bad thing for them.

Sorry to dredge this up again, however..........you don't think LL benefits from the successful business owner? If I would have had at least a little bit of a clue when I started, I probably would have never gone to Dreamland, however I was fortunate enough to get my land investment back plus a little extra.

Since then I have started a few business which have grown rather well in the last 20 month and have gone from 4096 to 1/2 a SIM. I think LL is making money off me and to a lot of the other business that had started off small and have grown with varying degrees of success.

Do you really think it is pragmatic for LL to give you the ability to start a business in SL and make some money but then have to pay for the failures also? That doesn't make sense. Its like opening a McDonald's franchise and having Ronald refund your dough cause you can't sell burgers. That's not a very good business model now is it?

I'm afraid I don't understand the last paragraph there - nobody's suggested that successful businesses would have to pay for the faliures.

Certainly LL does indeed make money from successful businesses. However LL also make money from failing businesses because their initial stakes (tier and possibly land cost) are paid to LL.

Furthermore, the total number of successful businesses in world is finite. There is only so much money going around and only so much "bandwidth" for marketing. On the other hand the potential number of failed businesses (over time) is infinite.

So, any education system that convinces people who might otherwise have started failing businesses to instead not attempt to start a business at all, is losing LL money and is a bad idea for them.

Respectfully, I didn't mean that other businesses should pay for other failures. I was suggesting that LL should not have to pay for someone's failure in the business world of SL. Once again I refer to the McDonald's scenario. if you bought into a franchise and did not do the necessary steps to starting a business (market research, demographics, population and traffic monitoring, surveys etc) and you failed to sell those burgers -- Do you think McDonalds would give you your money back?

Ex......I enter SL with what I think to be a great idea. I haven't done due dilligence....I just jump right in. I have decided to sell prefabricated .5x.5.x.5 plywood cubes -- I buy a sim, I fill that sim with 15000 of my cubes (cause you gotta have inventory) and sit upon my mighty prim mountain waiting for the hoards show up. First month....bad but I am a half glassful kinda guy -- I SLASH MY prices!!!! I discover the Classifieds and spend a ton of money there too.....Month 2 = no sales. Month 3 comes along and some noob right clicks on the ground and his prim is identical to mine!!!!!!!!!! Do i no deserve all of my money back? Pfffffffttttttttttttt when pigs fly.

How can you say that successful business are finite? What is the number of the very last one? Give me a number. You are way off base here. How can the number of successful business be finite and the rate of failure be infinite? That is ludicrous.

Did you ever consider that the education process will actually dissuade morons from entering the business community at all? There is nothing more valuable than education in every aspect of life and second life. When you present intelligent people with intelligent choices, they are more than likely to make a more substantiative decision instead of leaping blindly into the pit. The rest open plywood cube stores and whine about the lack of sales..........Cheers -- Anyone want to buy a cube?

Um, I think you're completely confusing my point. I'm saying that giving Premium members a bonus of extra education events on business would probably lose LL the money they make from those failures. Nobody has said anything about failures being paid compensation.



Nope, you don't.

But the point is, LL just made US$1885 from you. If you'd gone Premium and gotten a business education first, they'd have made only US$9.95.



Let's do a small example. Suppose that SL had US$2.95 million paid in exchange for L$, in a month.

Jane Success joins and pays US$295 a month tier on her island. To be successful she must pay that back from her sales and cash out L$ to US$. Thus she must take US$295 a month from the US$2.95 million sales of L$. Thus in this example the maximum number of successful businesses is 10,000. Beyond that there is not enough in the income fund to pay all their tiers. Extra businesses will be percieve this as being unable to cash out or establish a market foothold, or as increased competition as their entry to the market makes another business fail to create room.

Janice Failure joins and pays US$295 a month tier on her island. Being unsuccessful, she pays it herself. Thus she does not consume any of the US$2.95 million income. Since it has no effect on the income, any number of people can do this.



And LL makes money from the plywood cube stores, which they would lose if the people became more educated and did not open them.