XStreet SL Crashing?

Or is it just "clutter" getting removed?



Wish I could make the piccy smaller but it isn't mine. Anyway, full blog post here:
http://alvisl.com/2009/12/09/xstreetcrash4/

Probably all those things some of us have had on there for years and not bother taking off even though sales on them very periodical if at all. I must admit I took items off belonging to my other AV as they were only on there as didn't cost to keep them available.

I now only have items that I sell regularily either inworld or on XStreet.

Not crashing just people removing stuff.Still a long way to go and it should fall even more.
I wonder how much stuff is on there that the creators forgot about,perhaps don,t log in too much nowadays?Boy are these guys in for a big shock when they start charging.

Yeah, that's one of the things that worries me about this new fee system. Most of the stagnant stuff on XStreet are from people who didn't have the courtesy to take them down when they left SL. The fees aren't going to get paid and the accounts are probably going to get treated like a premium account, if there is nothing in the account to pay the fees. It's not like they're going to come back to take down their stuff..

I do hope that LL emails Xstreet content sellers BEFORE putting the fees in place.

This is true.

What I find most disturbing about this is that the 'clutter' that is being removed, is being removed mostly by people who were active with their XSSL accounts, that frequented the forums and blogs enough to see what was coming and react to it.

The big question in my mind, is what percentage of the 'clutter' actually belongs to people who do not know (or in many cases, care)? It would suck to know that these are the people who have actually cluttered the marketplace, while the people who are more active with their accounts have had to take action to prevent fees.

I guess when LL enact the fees and then clear out any content that is not paid for after the first billing cycle we'll find out. Now *that* is a chart I can't wait to see.

Huh.. one of the things I just realized.. Xstreet isn't going to see much growth for a while. Most of us will be pulling their items down when the fees come and we're not going to be listing new items. Those that do stay aren't going to be listing as many new items and for those they do list, it's highly likely they'll be removing older stuff, to keep their fee payments stable. The only real growth XStreet might see is in new content creators. Though it won't be nearly as big as LL thinks, because many will have second thoughts about posting items there because of the fees.

I admit, if XStreet had had the fees when I started selling my items, I would not have gone there. A fee requires a commitment, and a surety that your items are going to sell or you can afford to take loss after loss. How many new content creators have those? I didn't.

Also, how many of us will be recommending XStreet to new content creators? I won't. In fact, I'll advise against it and to try their luck on the competition until they've got some experience under their belts. XStreet lost a good chunk of the most valuable free advertising there is... word of mouth from like minds.

I am also not sending customers there. In fact, I'm going to warn people away from there, because honestly, many freebie people are going to start charging to cover the fees and those that were already selling other people's freebies are going to start charging more. Plus, they won't have the check of competing with the real freebie. Actually, the wise business person on there will use this as an excuse to raise their prices on this one venue, so they can cover the costs and still keep their profits. And there will be those that decide to eat the costs and see a reduction in their profits.

Huh, that may actually be what LL's counting on. They can cut overhead if XStreet stays at a certain level where growth is concerned.

My personal XStreet stats tracking shows an overall decline in listings of 76,767 items since November 20th = ~7%

Bizarrely the only category showing an increase is 'Audio and Video' which, after a steady decline shot up by almost 1,200 items (total listed is only 6,059) since my last snapshot a little over a week ago. Almost makes me want to go see what they are

It's down 113,000 items since Nov 18th, or 9.9%. Over the last 4 days it has been essentially flat (down 104 items).

Meanwhile other sites are up 28,750 items, or 19.9% They are growing by almost
1000 items a day.

My spreadsheet is here if anyone wants it (Excel 97 format):

http://www.mediafire.com/file/0dnng0njonq/SL Shopping Stats.xls

Yah, but what of those other sites? I posted my four best selling items on three of the alternate places. Not one sale over the past four weeks.
Meanwhile, they're selling better than ever on xStreet.

Well, here's the same graph scaled to full range instead of showing a scary slice off the top.

I think your premises are off here. I don't think it's true that most content creators are going to pull their listings. For non-free items, the new fees are not so prohibitive as to offset the promotional value of having items listed there.

10L/item/month - that comes to about 50 cents (US) a year per item. For most items you only need to make 1-2 sales IN A YEAR to recover that cost. Even if you have a large inventory - even if you are burdened with having to list multiple colors of related items - again it's 1-2 sales per item PER YEAR to recover the full cost of the additional fees.

This is hardly prohibitive. Having listings on the most popular, most widely-used e-commerce site for SL is worth way, way more than 50 cents per item per year. Most SL consumers are just going to carry on using XstreetSL just as they always have, and for most SL businesses it's simply not rational business to leave it based upon this tiny, tiny new charge.

There has been a very vocal burst of outrage at LL for raising the cost of doing business on XStreetSL, but (with the exception of the specific cases of free items and demo items). But that outrage is wildly out of proportion to the actual amount that's being charged, and I think the vast majority of content creators realize that, are sitting quietly now, and will continue to list on XstreetSL.




Again, for 10L per listing per month? It's not like a new content creator has such a massive product line that this is a prohibitive risk to take. By your argument you may as well ask why a new content creator would upload a texture without sure knowledge that an item they make with it will sell.



Well, I will, and I'll wager so will most people who regard this situation with rational rather than emotional responses. I think, for most content creators and especially new ones with small product lines, it's downright foolish not to list there.

Some perspective:

How do the new XstreetSL fees stack up against a business's typical operating expenses? After the new fees on XstreetSL go into effect:

* You will be able to list 20 (non-free) items each month for less than the minimum cost of running an in-world classified ad for a month.

* You will be able to list one (non-free) item for an entire month for the same cost as uploading the texture you use to display it for sale in your shop; or for a small fraction of the cost of uploading the textures you used to make the item.

* Assuming rent of 2L/prim/week, you will be able to list more than 90 items for a month, for the cost of renting a 512m plot (117 prims) in world for that same month. Put another way, the cost of listing 8 items for ONE YEAR will be about the same as the cost of renting a 512m plot in world for ONE MONTH.

* The cost of joining the Designer Showcase Network (390L) would get 3 items listed on XstreetSL for more than a YEAR. The cost of joining the What's New SL network (1000L) would get you 8 items listed on XstreetSL for more than a year.

* Any item that costs ~130L or more pays for its own XstreetSL listing with just one sale IN A YEAR (I've even accounted for commission here). Any item that costs ~260L or more will pay for its own listing and subsidize another listing with just one sale IN A YEAR. And by the way, that's not one sale on Xstreet - just one sale originating from your Xstreet listing. Someone who finds your ad on Xstreet and then buys the product in world has also paid for your listing.

Put in perspective of ordinary business expenses (I haven't even considered expenses like advertising on websites and blogs, which can cost a couple thousand L each month if you choose to do it), the new Xstreet fees are really vanishingly tiny. It's not a barrier to entry for new creators, and it's a downright foolish reason to delist. Delisting because of this fee would be cutting off your business's nose to spite its face.

Those sites need to grow more before they have "enough stuff" to be worth searching. I have more in my personal inventory than several of them. The real question is what will happen after the new fees actually hit Xstreet. The total shift so far is about 3% of the "universe" of online shopping items. Those are the early movers.

Once the fees kick in, you will have a cheaper alternative than XStreet, and so more people will move over to the other sites.

You also have neglected the people who have listings on XStreet and dont even play in SL any more. Until these fees hit, there was nothing to prevent old items from just sitting there forever. Now they will be removed if there is not enough in the balances to cover the fees.