Are freebies hurting SL content creators?

I can't analyse my own group as its made up exclusively of those that have purchased my products at some point. I'm just saying that had i used an auto-group inviter since Jan 2008 when i first opened the larger group......it would probably be 5000 by now if not larger......and obviously the bulk would not be those paying customers.

Some creators have been known to give the full outfits with all the layers for free. Would any shop in RL give you a free suit?

Sometimes you have to wait awhile to see the full effect. Let's discuss this same topic in a year's time.

These are short term marketing tactics to boost sales now and in the immediate months, maybe you'll get a few customers that will stick by you long term.

The other side of the coin is to why are there an increase number of bloggings from fashion creators concerned about the freebie concept and Hunts? If it were a total success story..those articles would not be appearing, So it's obvious that a section of the Content community are giving it a 2nd thoughts.

You can spin it anyway you want regarding "Freebies" and "Hunts".....your views are not universally shared. You only have to look at this Poll......although it should have been done differently, one just for Content providers would have been far more useful.....I'm sure the Poll would have been a lot closer.

I actually belive the hype about freebie ruining th grid to be two fold

1) Bloggers like drama, writing something controversial gets peopel to read your stuff

2) Some of the older content creators are seeing a loss in their sales from the increase of freebie.

However the older creators arent losing sales merely because of the frebie it is more complex and the freebies are simply the factor which is easily seen and able to be jumped upon.

There is a huge difference in the SL economy from say 2 or 3 years ago, there are MANY more designers and many more smaller shops. Many of the well known older stores have stopped creating and only release once in a blue moon (if at all).

With more choice there are less sales to go around, older content creator who arent pushing and marketing their stuff everyday (with freebies being one of the ways) are noticing people picking up freebies at these smaller store and go OMG freebies are ruining the economy!!!!!!! They are going to pick up the freebie rather than coming to my store where i have released nothing new for 6 months !!!!!!! they must all be freeloaders!!!!!!! OMg!!!!! OMG!!!!!!

And so it starts. The simple fact that freebies are being used as an affctive marketing tool for many content creators is being ignored. The fact that many of us who are using freebies as a marketing tool have seen a marked increase to sales is ignored. The fact that our businesses are flourishing (mine personallyhas grown 200% in the last 3 months) is ignored.

OMG the sky is falling!!!!! It has to be falling becuase someone who knkows someone who knows someone says so!!!!!

Just to confrim....none of my business units have yet to be effected by "Freebies". I'm not taking this position as one who is seeing their sales drop....on the contrary some units are actually increasing in sales!!!. Some of the niche sectors that i'm involved in, hopefully will remain unaffected for quite some time.

I'm taking this stance, because I believe swamping the grid with Freebies in the long term won't do the general Economy any good. If this time next year I'm wrong.....I'll be the first to hold up my hands and say my assumptions were incorrect.

Of course i recognise the Pie has gotten smaller for those original Brand companies, that's just one aspect why they're experiencing reduced sales. Its all relative...many were making more sales with 10-20k logins in 2006/7 than say today with 80k logins.

Now that DariHaus has released her full inventory (Collars, Cuffs, Gags, etc) including scripts FULL PERM, will this affect the collar market?

There was talk that OpenCollar would not have that effect but Dari's stuff is way beyond OpenCollar in many respects and gives people a start point to build on for expanding her things.

I think this for sure will put a dent in the BDSM market for sure. Why go buy anything else when one of the best (maybe even the best...Considered the best by many) collar makers items are free and full perm?

I thought about that when I saw Darien was leaving, and leaving his stuff full perm. That's gonna hurt a heck of a lot more than my little gift bag, that's for sure.

I agree the swapping the grid with freebies isnt a gret idea either. But each store offering say one gift a month doesnt seem that unreasonable to me.

That is about how often i do a gift of some description and those gifts are not always offered to the public some are group only gifts.

I also ake a point to make my gifts an item in a colour i will never sell. This gives the gifts some worth to people and also allows me to offer it on all layers and not feeel bad about something i prevsiously gave away. As i sell ALL my clothingas seperate (well except dresses since that is kind of hard) i wouldnt ever give away a full outfit anyway.

Any store which offers a new gift to the generl population every weekis going to get to be well known as a place to pick up free items and nothing else. Those places also tend t struggle, especially as moststores only release an item a week at most. It comes back to what i think mickey was saying about trainning her group to expect freebies. If you offer them all the time then people will begin to expect them

Howwever if you take the time to build up your items, build up what you make and take pride, if you continue to create on a regular basis and work hard at all ofrms of marketing then customers and potential customers will appreciate a gift and a sample of your work and it cnbe beneficial.

By the way Rene my last comment was not directed at you but more at the bloggers and creators who really do seem to be having a "Sky is falling" mentality right now which i find ridiculous

I got wind of this today in the Concierge Group, when it was mentioned that she was calling it a day. Unfortunately you get disillusioned content creators dumping their Stock before shutting the door behind them! I would call it not very smart.....as it effect all those Content providers involved in that particular niche sector who will end up having their business models taking a big hit!! She is not hurting LL by giving up her lands....she is hurting fellow content providers in her sector. That's my opinion anyway!

Once again...great for the consumer!

I have to agree. Ill say i have no idea about the reasons behind the departure but it is somethig I personaly would never do, mostly because having a store fll of saymy clothes be offered out full perm to the general community really would have an impact on sales of fellow creators.

My store is only small, but imagine the impact of say SN@tch givign away all of their stuff full perm. That is a sim worth of clothing... or bare rose or eomthing O.o

That's the question I had to ask when I was ready to move to the next level.

I think part of the problem in any business developing discussion boils down to a large percentage of people using SL strictly in ways that have nothing to do with commerce. That's fine....that's part of it's purpose. Some of these people are totally against the idea that SL can be used to establish a business and used by some as a tool to generate profit. I think there's some tension there - probably a discussion for another thread. But would venture to say, that some thought processes on "why" you should offer freebies are based on that concept....as if it is a duty to SL society.

Part of the function of those who want to explore the commerce aspect of SL....is to continually find ways to increase profits. I think when you start addressing it from that standpoint.....is where some of the flack comes in. I think that a good portion of SL users are against that concept. In some business discussions about SL commerce....it often ends up "shameful" to discuss profits.

Generally....a profitable business in RL does NOT give away their product. That's the model that I personally have to look at, and have to go by. Although many say that SL and RL business is not the same....I believe that on many levels they are very much the same.....and still prefer to use aspects of a RL business model to run the SL business.

I'm not talking "profit" to pay your tier and have some money left over to go to the movie in RL. If freebies help you do that, and you're satisfied with that....continue and enjoy. I'm talking about a different level. I don't think that having to give away product is going to get you to the next levels.

I don't believe that relying on giving away product as a marketing tool will get you to the next level either. I believe that you better have a lot of other core practices in place and some damn good product to offer.....and the only way you're going to know you've got that is to wean yourself off the freebie addiction. ANYONE can give away their product and make a few lindens. I simply want to strive to be someone that doesn't have to.

The above is a Personal Opinion.

It has been done several times over....fortunatey most end up in those BIAB full perm stores that are getting a backseat nowadays......thats the one plus side of having tons of quality freebies hit the grid. Hopefully more of these BIAB full perms stores will begin to shut down.

Recently I have noticed quite a few top scripters, content creators, leave SL and dump their products full perms for free on Xstreet. My observation is that for this to damage the market, the persons getting script freebies have to have the talent to pass them on in desirable products anyway and those products are likely to be sold rather than in something created for free.

I think that was my point.

If people want freebies to drive business to their stores, they need to do more than setting one of their vendors for sale at L$0 and announcing it on a couple of freebie gropes.

How many outfits do bots buy?

I have to say though that i do think there are two categories of items in SL and one is more damaging to have freebies than the other

The first category of Rezzed items :
homes
furniture
landscaping

The second Category worn items:
clothing
hair
shoes
skins (although this is almost a third category)


In the first category they are likely to find a negative impact when freebies are ued within their own business and within other similar businesses, even when used for marketing purposes. The main reason i say this is several:

a) not every avie on the grid has somewhere to rez furniture homes etc

b) when rezzed you only want so many chairs, houses, bushes etc

c) there is less turn over within the persons inventory of these items. that is once somone rezzes an item they arent likely to take it up the next day and switch and swap every day

On the other hand the second category every single avie on the grid needs to use, unless they want to stay looking like a newbie. Also these items tend to be switched and swapped a LOT more, often several times a day. To this end people shop for these items more, they will wear the freebies you are trying to use as a marketing tool more.

They also go out and spend timewith peopel wile wearing category too hense it being much more effective for marketing.

Skins (and shapes) and parobabaly somewhere in the middle of these two and i suspect that freebies and gifts used for these areas would be less affective becuase there is a percentage of the community who rarely is ever wswitched their shape or skin and even for those who do it may not be as frequent

I have managed rather successfully to be very profitable without using Freebies as a carrot, so it can be done!
Then again i'm not involved in the Fashion sectors, maybe different marketing concepts apply.....who knows. I see some of the sales made by some of the smaller fashion houses....in all honesty I'm glad i'm not involved in that area.....seems like an awful lot of time spent creating for very little monetary return. I think you have to love fashion and love designing in order to be fully committed....it can't be just about the sales.

Well in Dec 08 i was told about 25% were Bots...by one of the main Bot providers at that time. I think peak logins were 70-75k back then. its safe to assume between 15-20k are Bots on the SL Grid

Yep- you said it. I think that's very accurate!

Well said - and on this, I personally agree.

We make freebies - and we're pretty big on them being of equal quality to anything we'd put out for sale. We still have some freebies out from when we first got started, that aren't as good as the things we make now - but as many have asked us to leave them out, we do.

Our highest sales days are when we offer a promotional freebie. Consistently. Without fail. They are always for a limited time - and it's always marketing.

Sure - there are a TON of freebie hunters, who will come get our freebies and never return. I don't care about them. Any study of economics will show you that making things cost more doesn't force the indigent to have money. People with no lindens have no lindens, and that is pretty much that. And honestly? I'm glad to make something nice available to the less fortunate. Sure - people who COULD have lindens get it too... but again, I don't care. What I *DO* care about is the 1 in 10 (and it may be more) who show up for the freebie... and end up looking around, and shopping. Or who enjoy their freebie, and one day come back.

I can tell you that MANY of our customers started with us as newbies who were not yet willing or able to acquire lindens... but now that they've matured in the game, they are faithful shoppers - who bring more newbies to do exactly the same, because they know they can get their friends something nice to wear.

I have to say that the belief that freebies are hurting content creators seems to be based on the idea that people 'need' stuff - and only a certain amount of stuff - and if they get it for free somewhere else, then they won't come buy something from you.

Except... no one NEEDS anything here, except a single outfit, so they are not naked.
EVERYTHING else is based on 'want'. And it isn't based on wanting their inventory to be at a certain number, either. In the end - what they get for free, or buy - is because they want to have it.

Add to this that shopping and freebie hunting are social activities in SL - and it changes the perspective further.

Did you lose a boot sale this week because I gave away a free pair of boots?
Not if the person who got the free boots doesn't have money anyway.
Not unless it was EXACTLY the same pair of boots.
Not unless they came to my store instead of yours because of marketing - and that's not 'hurting content creators'.
That's simple competition.


And, in a more comical analogy....
Westinghouse seems to be doing okay - despite the fact that banks gave away promotional toasters for about 30 years running.


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Addendum:

Eclectic Wingtips makes a very good point, here:
/327/d3/318905/13.html#post2424869

There is a notable difference in the 'avatar personalization' market and other markets like homes and furniture - and indeed, things like prefab builds and furniture makers are likely to be much more affected by freebies.

At the same time - the value and low frequency of these items is, I assume, why we get 400L for an outfit and while someone else gets 2000L for a set of furniture. Or why a good prefab home can cost anywhere between 5k and 50k.

And, being totally fair... if you got into a market where people can only USE one of what you make... then you had already planned to do less business than people who got into markets a single avatar can use many of their products, right?

S'ok. Vasha can do what she wants. She made the black and white hair with the little skulls you like so much on me. =>.<=

Thank you, Vasha, for all the freebies, gifts, sales, and hunts. I wouldn't have found DV8 without them.

Fresh from the other thread!

Depends on the scale of the freebies you're putting out.

A business putting out a freebie everyday is going to have customers lacking a reason to buy anything.

But if you put out a limited supply of popular freebies that contain things people can inspect to find you - it can be a draw to more business.

You know, I am evil.
I don't always pay attention to when the last post was made. If the subject seems worthy of discussion and I have something to add, I will. I don't usually end up this far back - but such is the beauty of search.
I suppose I could have just started a whole new thread on the topic, so different people could have said the same stuff over again. =P

That's OK, someone just necroed a thread from 2005.