I will remember you in my Will If you can help me figure this out

My gf and I had stores next to each other--small ones for about a year. We both sold things and were doing fairly well. But we each needed more space--mostly because she was renting spots for some other stores and it just was not efficient to keep doing that.

Anyway--I bought her land and expanded my store to 16000. For her we bought 16000 Square meters and she put all her stores there in one place. I put some of my things there to landcape it

We have events running--I ran ads for both places paying about the same.

In the old search our stores ususally come up about the same (pretty high under some searches for things). Real traffic (by counters) is almost identical.

Here is the puzzel: Stuff sells at the old store like it always had (down a bit because of the economy) but not at the new one and I mean almost zero sales at the new store. It has been this way for 6 weeks too.

She has the same stuff out she had out before (and it was selling) and I have quite a bit of the same stuff at both places.

In the new search the old store ranks pretty high--but we can't even find the new store on the search list. Uggg!

I am at my wits end with this one! How could the same stuff sell well at one store and hardly at all at the other? Keep in mind the REAL traffic numbers (By counters) has been almost the same every single day for both places!

Sighs........ Any ideas about this?

Thanks in advance.

Lion

I have no idea if this has any bearing on your question, but upon teleporting to the Bramant location, assuming that is the one, it is gray gray gray, for a long time.

This is not that unusual for me, but there was probably a bit more gray than normal. If that's consistent, that would reduce my tendency to make repeat visits.

I didn't try to visit yet, but I was thinking that something must be interfering with the "shopping experience" at the new store. If they're in different sims (sounds like they are), Suzanne's suggestion about different texture loading times could be the key. Or some other kind of lag.

The thinking here is that it was happening as long as 6 weeks ago, which was before the new search could have had any impact at all. (I have no idea why something wouldn't show up in new search, other than new search just being incomplete, still.) And the traffic numbers are the same but purchases aren't, so people are arriving like normal but leaving before buying. So it seems like search and advertising is working, it's just something about the buying process itself that must be broken. I'd be inclined to have somebody hang out at the new location and just watch what customers are doing there.

"I am at my wits end with this one! How could the same stuff sell well at one store and hardly at all at the other? Keep in mind the REAL traffic numbers (By counters) has been almost the same every single day for both places!"

Usually people would prefer to buy at main stores. There is always the perception that main stores will have more and updated items.

hmmm--Grey huh? Wow. I wonder why? I have not noticed that nor has my GF
and we are there working all the time. But I certainly believe you!

That is why you don't see the grey. The area is already loaded for you. Not for the one's that never been there. people are impatient so if it takes a long time for things to rez they might just leave.

Perhaps repeat customers used landmarks to get there, that don't work anymore since it moved.

There's a big billboard there that has the word Shopping on it, upside down. Maybe that's thrown them for a loop.

I have thought about the possiblility of repeat customers--and I know I do get some
at the old store cause they buy a tree and want another--but I have also looked back
at transactions and there are not so many repeats that it would account for this.

I bought some welcome mats--for counters and to delver a message and land mark.

I swear I have gotten stuck on them. I am begining to wonder if that could be part of the problem here-------I bought them just about the time we opened the new place too.

I just went there and made them much smaller--so it is easier to get off of them. They use collision scripts--and I am thinking the things could be getting stuck in a loop.

Thanks everybody--you are making me think of things I had not before!

Hugs to everybody!

There are a very large number of textures showing products at 512 x 512.

Would textures at 256 x 256 work just as well visually but take a 4th the number of bytes?

Try clearing your cache (preferences > network) then logging out and back in... then everything will reload fresh from the servers.

That'll give you an idea of what others see when they visit for the first time ... a nice well laid out store, or a murky grey mess.

Broccoli

I looked around a bit at the new place--was reminded I have some of your mega-trees: love 'em! Yeah, textures are certainly a problem. Can't say they're *the* problem that's hampering sales, but... it's pretty difficult getting around the shop and seeing anything. A couple of specific suggestions:

If you're not really trying to sell the landscaping stuff at this location, I'd trim *way* back on the variety of vegetation here--especially while the Christmas trees are also out. Those are *really* big textures (many 1024x1024), and there are a *lot* of them that have to load. (As Broc suggested, clear cache, restart... then turn on Texture Console from Client / Consoles, TP in, and watch the fun start. Get a cup of coffee--don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to grind the beans and brew a fresh pot. )

Also, the "navigation arrow" signs are high-res textures. This makes them slow to load, which is a problem just for finding one's way around the store.

I visited alone at a weird hour, so the sim was essentially vacant. Under those conditions anyway, the *sim* wasn't lagging in feeding textures. But I think if more avatars were around, the delay might be magnified as the textures get pushed to multiple clients.

But again... hard to be sure this is really what's responsible for diminished sales.

[Edit: Oooo! I just discovered a whole new part of the store, on an upper level. Y'know... I kinda think the store is just too *big*. The sections make sense, but they're pretty spread out. And I'd really try to keep everything on one level just to make it easier to see it while walking around. There's a lot of interesting stuff here, and I'm guessing a lot of customers came in after searching for one thing and ended up buying something else. That won't happen so much if they don't *see* that "something else."

This is all kinda subtle though. And we really don't know much about why folks bought before: maybe people came for the plants but bought the other items while they were there, so removing the plants could backfire. The reason this might not happen, though, is that the traffic is still good at the new location. Just... are they the same "buyer" types who came to the old location? Difficult to tell.]

Do you have keywords in land description? That will help.

I want to thank all of you for trying to help--It is wonderful that some of you took the time
to even go there!

I paid special consideration to the possibility of extra lag--and there is some to be sure
but really no more than other such stores--I Tp'd around and watched.

Like other things, there are so many variables it is almost impossible to pin it down
to one thing. All of your comments were excellent and I appreciate every one of them

Thank you very much.
Lion