The Sweatshop, the Witch and the 10L$ Wardrobe

YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!!!!!!! I just spit Pot Pie all over the screen!


I'll see you in Hell Fairweather!!!!

what did I miss?

Do as she said. you'll find out......

I better get a cut of the profits, Har.

Brenda's panties, still getting around. lol

I need to be more careful what I do with them when I get them off of her I guess.

Yeah, the whole tossing them over your shoulder near open windows is probably a bad bet...

Wonder if thats what that guy who walked into the house uninvited was up to? Stealing them for Har?

Anyway... there is nothing to fear from the Wannabe Walmart of SL. It takes a hell of a lot more than offering items for 10L to put the rest of SL's businesses down.

Thank you for steering this thread back on topic.........

I never thought I'd see that from YOU...must have been a result of the topic it got off on.

like having tons of cash to place your tons of merch at the top of every conceivable search? or owning the single most popular sl shopping/$ exchange on the web? or having the largest landholdings and the most newbie renters of anyone on the grid?

This is a great point of course.

I suppose people could start a "Buy non-Anshe" campaign. But other than that isnt much anyone can do about it.

Oh that made my day

OMG!!!! splat went my coffee!

Sorry Brenda.....

I agree with Desmond about this being just a blip on the radar. For people living a low cost SL existance, they are willing to take cheap over stylish, they already have tons and tons of freebie items - many of good quality - to choose from. People who buy for style to express themselves will still purchase from creators who make a style that is desired. If you are into gothic style then any of the $10L items are not even on a "maybe" list for you, you are going to find a creator who makes items in your style.

Adam Zaius brought up an excellent point over at SC - this is no different from the RL fashion industry. The same basic sweater can be purchased at lower quality/lower cost at Wal-Mart as at Macy's. Yes, the one at Macy's will be higher quality, made of better material and hold up longer in use (irrelvant to SL, but you get the point.) The difference is in people who wouldn't dream of clothes shopping at Wal-Mart because their ego won't let them, they don't "do" Wal-Mart or they want an item of the quality assurance they will get at Macy's. Last I checked, Wal-Mart wasn't putting Macy's or Nordstroms out of business. There is room in the market for eveyone and Mrs. C flooding the market with cheap alternatives just means that other creators need to step up and make items that customers are willing to pay full price for.

I managed not to burst out laughing in the middle of my office. People are gonna wonder what this is about later on in the thread so make sure a reminder is kept up.

Brenda DOES blush ... *smiles angelically*

I agree with this sentiment completely.

Maybe some people are afraid that with Practice Anshe's "Sweatshop Employees" Will start churing out Quality stuff for these same low prices.

Where is Strife when I need them?

That is a legitimate concern, and it again points to a big operator being able to committ resources , mostly a labor force dedicated to the task, that a small business can't. All a small oerator can do is hope for customer loyalty and focus on service and acessibility.Sometimes that will be enough to keep you going.

As many have said, freebies (many of fairly good quality) already exist. Perhaps the motivations of this person are different, but really, are the skin merchants out of business because there are some fairly decent freebies (such as the Opium) on the market?

If one thinks about it, does it really matter to most people if they spend $0.10 USD or $5.00 USD to equip their avatar? As the convenient analogy goes, we're talking about the price of a light breakfast at a cafe. Most people who can afford the computer to run Second Life will spend that, once they have decided they like the game. And if freebies and 10L items help them try out the game long enough to like it, well then, that's more business.

As far as SLEx goes, I've actually seen an increase in sales on the bigger ticket items (horses and vehicles) in the last month, despite not advertising there at all. YMMV, of course, but I don't think that it has become Wall Mart just yet.

Has this category on SLexchange been renamed to just "10L items", or something like that with Mrs. C's name attached? I was on slexchange last night and saw that category, and noticed it was new, and browsed under it. Nothing there to get excited about really, if it's the same as her's, but just renamed to keep her name out of it. I saw some furniture on there, but didn't think it was that great. I wouldn't buy furniture off of slexchange anyway, because I like to see it and try out the poses, etc, before buying it. The clothes were ones being sold elsewhere in SL and on Slexchange. But I'm not sure if this is the same category, or one not affiliated with Mrs. C.

I don't think the stuff is low quality now, but it is very bland. High style tends toward niche markets, but those can also be very lucrative. Over time it is possible that her content creation team might take over a number of style niches but there is still a lot of unique things content creators can do to stand out - textures, scripting, animations come to mind. Why does anyone buy a Khamon Fate tree when there are tons of freebie ones (including Linden made right in the Library?) Because Khamon's trees are scripted to do all sorts of groovy things that nobody else's product does.... There are plenty of freebie and/or cheap clothes, why does anyone shop at PixelDolls?

It has been tried. Even if such a guild system were desirable (I don't think it is), organzing and managing such a group was a case of trying to herd cats.

Nicely said. Yeah this whole L$10 wardrobe thing sucks, but it will challenge content creators to step up their own talents a notch. That's good for the customer who really DOES care about quality and uniqueness. Who wants a chair that everyone else has? And Isablan's right... why aren't we all wearing freebies right now? Why don't we stick with Linden hair and the Dork Bop default walk? It's because we care about our individuality, and most of us are willing to pay to be more individual than the unwashed masses.

Eventually SLX will become just that, WalMart, and good content creators will pull out in order to not be associated with lower quality.

Just one girl's opinion.