Are freebies hurting SL content creators?

Special freebie versions, too. I mean REALLY special. Not obviously demos, but... obviously when you think about it demos, if you know what I mean.

When Satch Flan released his rabbit avatar, he made a special release-only freebie rabbit... in bright purple, with his signature on the butt.

yes Argent, that is a great idea. personally, i don't enjoy logo items. but i guess if it's for a special one-time purpose, i might try something - if it's free. LOL

Group members buy a ton of stuff....when I'm promoting, it's 75% of sales. But it's always discounted....hugely.....some will come in occasionally and purchase at regular price....some times a gift giving session will result in additional sales in the store.

Boxed sets are my bread and butter. They will wait for a sale to buy those.

There was one point where I even considered being like a "wholesaler"....join the group....you get half off on everything....every day.....I would just work the numbers.

But people will come in from Xstreet...pay regular price....then send me a note they love it and the prices are awesome....then come back and get more in a few days....just started to see this, as I pumped up Xstreet ads. That's what perked up my ears on this.

There is no way I can advance my skills....grow the business....get a grip on what product styles are the niche....what product styles are a waste of space putting out.....no way to determine what marketing tools work.....if everything is discounted. You're just not going to grow that way.

I'll give an example.

There was a particular design that I made...requested by a friend...that turned out to be a huge hit in the store. When I set it out...group members started to IM....and asked me when I would have it boxed up and offered half off. Conditioning. I'm not talking about 5 IM's.....I'm talking about 30 to 40 over a 48 hour time period.

The first couple of days I had it out....people who were not in group were buying it up right and left....each piece....wasn't even boxed up.

So I'm like "wait a minute here".....I'm not in a hurry to box this thing up and start giving it away. So I didn't. When the group members IM'd....I simply said that particular set will not be boxed....it's offered as individual pieces only.

Typical Response:
"ok...I'll wait until you get it boxed"
my response: "I'm not boxing it"
their response: "ok..I'll wait until half off day."

Over and over again. A month went by. Two very good customers pressured me so much on that set, almost to the point that they were implying that I was being selfish and greedy......that I caved in and boxed it up and offered the half off one day only....as I always did. And I was seething while I did it.

I don't want to operate under those conditions.

i would have booted them out of my group. *sigh*

Having a product that sells for two or more different prices to different customer bases ... based on time or convenience ... is really common. Someone waiting for a low-priced group release of a product is like someone waiting for a special airline fare or buying a movie on DVD instead of seeing it in the movie. You're not undercutting yourself, you're increasing your market base.

I see alot of "no it wont hurt the economy of SL" but not many at all replies to why. I'd be interested in hearing that side of the fence.

because some people like having rare items.

MORE people want it free.

when they are done right it's not going to be a bad thing.

Take the ones that have their logo or name worked into the clothing freebies which are good quality. Sure it's free and a good thing, but it still has a logo worked into it (I still wonder at watching people pay to wear a corp logo to advertise for them in rl...) and in case of scripted items limited in functionality

One reason furniture makers get less hassles with freebies is their freebies usually use fixed static poses or in case of menu driven limited to a couple sample sets

When I did freebie versions of things, they usually lacked functionality. My touch scripts (yeah yeah... I wrote several) for instance worked... but only the wearer got the messages.

course I had my free gimmicks I did on the spur of the moment (the little donuts I made for furry avatars to hold in their muzzles is still showing up at times)

QFT and an excellent point! This has apparently worked wonderfully for Analog Dogs; there is a separate group of Analog Dogs (open group) called Analog Dolls (invite-only group) for those customers who purchased x amount of hair. I'm a proud "Doll" and Que Marlowe gives amazing gifts to us.

maybe

Well for starters you don't get that many freebie houses thrown around....and definitely nowhere near the quality of Julia Hathor's builds. I regard her at the top end of her sector in terms of originality & quality (i would say that, since i have bought 1/2 dozen of her builds)

To be honest its hard to envisage that Julia's sales would suffer under any market conditions, her stuff is that good! Sure it's at the pricey end...and that might be the only aspect where she could feel the pinch.

I could only ever see her sales being effected, if someone came along copied her theme styles and maintained a good build quality ....offering them at much much lower prices.
Other than that, I can't imagine her ever being effected.

I set my inworld "freebies" at either 1L or 5L and these are the ones I advertise in the large freebie groups. I figure that a bunch of 1-5L add up enough to upload at least one (and usually more) textures.

I personally have never offered freebies (even the 1-5L type) on XStreet; the main reason being that it is too easy for someone to see FREE and click it, then forget it's even in her inventory. I've done that and even in a *very* streamlined inventory I have come across it months later and thought - now what was that again?

Your point of going from 0 to 1L and getting only two sales is amazing - but is illustrative.

/me hands Skell a pint - you're such a nice guy - hate to see you depressed

As a consumer rather than a producer, I answered 'I don't know,' but at the risk of being growled at over answering as a newbie, I'll give my opinion anyway.

Although I have not spent anything in world yet, freebies have been really helpful helping me decide where I might want to spend money.

For example, my avatar is of non-standard size (a little larger and wider than default). Some clothing which looks really well crafted for a regular default avatar just does not fit right.

On the other hand, at least one place had freebie clothing that does fit nicely and appearantly scales better. That place I have made a note of so when I do want to spend money, it will be one of the first places I'll want to shop.

Also, there are some places I have on my list to spend in or outright donate to simply because their freebies are just plain fun.

If the freebies are too good, they ruin the market. If too low in quality, they are negative advertising. Done right, I think they are an effective ad. But then I am just a newbie.. what do I know?

Oh, btw, the stuff I have seen from the freebie clearing houses has tended to be all lower quality/less interesting. I am sure there are exceptions out there, but it is like anything free.. you get what you pay for, and that stuff is not really even being used as marketing.

As with the real world..ADAPT or DIE!

That's an interesting point of view and one I'd never considered, but I like it!

I have a question based on my "Friends List IM to Advertise Business" thread: After someone has made a purchase, do you send one of the blue drop-down type invitations, or send an IM/notecard, etc. offering a join? If it's the latter, is the join automated in some way? I REALLY like this idea and would prefer to begin that at the beginning of my fledgling business before I (hopefully) one day *do* have a large group list.

Blots -That's an awesome build!.....it's been awhile since i've been down to Cornwall!

I'm going to take a trip to your land sometime today!

How much do you have to buy lol I must be almost there

Edit: and Blot, I meant to say before, Wow very nice, and grats on the nice blog !

It's even changed drastically in the past 2 years that I've been on SL. Yesterday was my Rez Day and when I began most freebies were acquired in Yadni's or similar places (The Free Dove, The Gnubie Store, etc.) as Yumi mentioned. Any free outfits offered by clothing designers (this is my experience only) were very sub-standard and I quickly wished to purchase quality clothing.

Now, one of my favorite clothing stores offers regular items via hunts on their sim for 1L each. These clothes are quality and 1L. They may be last year's creation, but I don't follow trends in style, so for me they are gold.

Freebies do work as advertising as well...for an example...Ralektra offered a free dress and since i love her stuff i ran in and picked it up. When I do that i usually look around at any other new things, other colors of the free item etc and spend some money before I go home. I wore one of her dresses to an event i was hosting and three women asked me for lm's to her store because they loved the dress. One went to the store right after the event and im'd me saying that color was not for sale...how did i get it. AHHH, it was the FREE one that had been offered. My friend bought a few other things I believe and i know the two other women visited the store also. That kind of thing happens all the time...i ask others where they got an outfit and if the have a lm and vice versa. I know this happens with the items in my store as well from the things my visitors tell me about seeing my items out in the world. So for my purposes, the free advertising works very very well using freebies.

If i'm inworld....i send Invite almost immediately. If i'm offline....I go through the daily Transaction History...copy & paste names into Group Invite box and invite altogther in one go. I find overall 30% accept my invites....and if you send immediately it's probably nearer 50-60%. I only created the group over a year ago....the first 18 mths i didn't even have a Group set up.. because i was a dumb@ss ! (i'd probably have a group somewhere over 3500+ had i started in 2006/7)

Having been around 2.5 years..i do get a lot of word-of-mouth sales on top of the traditional ways of SL marketing...so that helps overall.

this. Someone has moved the cheese, will you wait for new cheese to come or will you go find some different cheese?

There are definitely a couple schools of thought on it, and I understand completely if people do not want to give gifts, it is their perogative and I am not going to say if they are wrong or right. I understand that they might even see me (et al) being destructive to their market because I gift. But to each his own, I see people do things that I don't agree with (game traffic with bots, or pay-for-pics etc) but I'm not going to complain about it. They can do what they think is right, I will do what I think is right, and peace shall reign o'er the grid

and Jo, yes, I remember that And they came, and they shopped, and it was good