Do you use Xstreet and why or why not?

Someone (I assume a merchant) once asked if we shopped in Xstreet or in-world. There's been a lot said about commissions, sales off or sales up, etc and people searching for the reasons. Here is my simple answer:

1. Because of the commission Xstreet merchants pay (I prefer to be sure they get all of the sales price)
2. Because of the texture rezzing LAG in SL that has never been fixed (JIRA) which makes browsing in world impossible most of the time and it's getting worse which turns any one-store shopping trip into an hour long ordeal
3. Because SL in-world search is horrible
4. Because of the hassle it is to get an account verified for Xstreet terminal and deposit lindens when I've already got a verified SL account with lindens

(WAIT..I know my reasons sound contradictory so far).......the true IRONY is this----->

I Use Xstreet as a SEARCH engine..THEN I go to the store In-World to buy it.

Take that for however it may be significant to you as a merchant. I know 4 others who do the same thing for one or all of the same reasons. To counter the no-transfer perm/no gift option in-world usually, I'll either not buy it at all (because by the time my partner's come come online, I will have lost interest or forgotten the item) or, if I want it that bad for my partner, I'll pay her the lindens and TP her to its location and have her buy it.

I posted this to help those merchants who were seeking answers. So, do you use xstreet and why or why not?

For many items I use XStreet to search, and then check the seller's profile picks to locate a store if they have not put a store link in the ad itself. For some things, like scripts, visiting a store does not give me any extra information. I will buy the item right off Xstreet or contact the seller if I have a question. For others (skins, hair, furniture) I want to see it in person if possible.

When searching XStreet, I try and be creative in my search words to narrow the results. Note that the maximum results is 5000 items, so in a large category or generic search, you will not get all the results to show. And being thrifty, I will often list from low to high price (the reverse of the default high to low results). i.e. what's the cheapest script that will do what I need to do? then scan for one that has some good votes over a period of time and comments.

A bunch of comments all in a few days that are all positive can indicate self-promotion from alts, so it is useful to check the seller's other items, and see if the same names are commenting on all of them, that would tend to indicate fake comments.

i don't use xStreet anymore since they started charging to list items. i pulled all my stuff, and i refuse to shop there.

They haven't started charging the fees yet.

To respond to the OP, I very rarely use XStreet now, thanks to the fees that LL will be charging per listing per month and "soon." (Is it wrong to hope that their idea of "soon" on this is the same as their idea of "soon" on fixing these forums?) I will be pulling my stuff of of there when the time comes. There are better sites, with better customer support and equal quality tools who go by commission.

When I did use it more, it was more of a search tool than a shopping tool. I'd rather shop in world, where I can get a feel for the quality of the creator by the quality of their shop/venue.

Before they changed the fees generally xstreetsl had the more accessible list of things via a single search (and occasionally even things that were not available inworld anymore unless you contacted the creator directly). My usual model was to go there, run a search, see if the owner had it for sale inworld, then buy it inworld if I could. Sometimes buying it off the web if need be (like I was unable to get away from some event but needed some item I could not get to a store for).

Now with the fee structure I am less likely to assume xstreet would have things it may have had before. I am just as likely to use one of the countless competitors instead of them as their previous advantage, number of listings, gets reduced.

I never liked the search engine on XStreetSL

I used to be a merchant on XStreet-SL, but I am not any more. Nor will I sell there or shop there ever again, so long as the current Lab policies prohibiting mention of other e-commerce sites, and charging fees for listings PLUS a commission on all sales, or penalizing recurring prices for free items, remain in effect.

I started doing on-line sales with their predicessor, "SL Boutique", which eventually became XStreet-SL. I could list items for free, and pay a small, very reasonable commission to the website owners for every item that actually made a sale. My sales were never stellar, but they did make me some money. At the time, there was also one other independant and well-known merchant site, OnRez, but their commission structure wasn't quite as good, and I decided not to use them.

Then Linden Lab bought out both XStreet-SL and OnRez, closed OnRez down, and ensured they had a virtual monopoly on web sales of SL in-world merchandise. My sales declined to zero rather rapidly. I blame that in part on the fact that unlike the previous owners of XStreet-SL, The Lab does virtually nothing to prohibit shady merchant offerings, like people selling freebies or copyrighted content. So the place got flooded with Business in a box free crap, and no one could find any merchandise unless they looked for known merchant labels.

When the Lab announced new, restrictive and anti-competitive policies that disallowed making any mention or links to "competing e-commerce sites" on XStreet, in the Blogs, or in these forums, I started to pull my merchandise. It wasn't selling anyway, and I started looking for a new home to sell through. Found one, too, though I dare not mention it here. No sales yet over there, because it's almost impossible to let anyone in-world know the alternative merchant sites exist!

I left my free items up as a public service.

Then the Lab announced they would soon be charging recurring fees just to list anything at all, with a higher recurring fee for listing freebies. Well, my freebies were NOT advertising for me. They were a public service. So I pulled them, too.

I rarely shop in-world. It's not an enjoyable shopping experience -- lag and slow rez times and difficulty finding things and no sales staff to help. It's much easier to use xstreetsl (and it was even easier to use onrez).

I do buy things inworld sometimes, but it's usually not "shopping", not looking around at stores. Rather, I'm getting some specific thing that someone has recommended.

Ok, slit my arms over an exagerated word choice.

I meant the field used to be limited and they were leading it but now the number of out-of-world merchant site is growing all the time (and those sites are getting a boost/PR because of the new fees). Xstreetsl can no longer just see themselves as getting business because people do not have many real options.

Apez, Slapt, and Meta-Life are three I can name.

People, they haven't started charging the fees on XStreet yet. If they have, then I'm gonna be more than kinda peeved, because they "said" they'd give us two weeks notice about the fees going into effect.

Of course, knowing LL, they hid it at the bottom of the commerce blog and I don't read the blogs. That would be their idea of "notice."

But only if customers can find those sites.

You can't mention those sites here in the Forums. You can't mention them in the Blogs, you can't mention them in XStreet-SL Listings or banner ads...

So how can customers find them?

If you have an in-world store, or several, you can put a sign and a URL link there. But that is rather self-defeating, as the customer is already IN your store, and it sends them elsewhere, where they will see many other merchants instead of your merchandise.

If you own a group, you can spam the group with information about the non-LL websites. Probably not wise either.

Which leaves "word of mouth", I guess.

True. But they said that they WILL, and they show absolutely zero sign of backing down from that plan of action, despite massive complaint levels. It takes time to de-list more than a handful of items. No reason to get caught with your pants down, when they post a blog notice that the new fees start the next day.

SLBoutique became OnRez after the sheep bought it. SLExchange became XSt after the LL naming policy went into effect.

*agree bump*

If I find something I want and the creator's profile mentions that they only sell on XStreetSL I'll look for something else no matter how perfect it might be.

It's far too much hassle to find a terminal, pay the silly thing, log in to XStreet, wait for the balance to show up, go back to the item, buy it and hope that it'll deliver.

I don't use any out of world shopping site. I shop strictly in world. Shopping while I explore is explore SL is one of my favorite things.

I stand corrected. It's been a long time since then...

I know.. I had nearly a thousand items on there. I guess I was contributing to the "clutter." Well, I'm down to two hundred and looking at axing most of those before the big day, so I can just go, "Well, bye-bye XStreet."

Wish they'd had the ability to deactivate items and then delete them all at once. I think that's also a contributing factor to the "clutter." It's a pain to delete stuff when you have to do it to each individual item. I'd have gotten rid of much of my old stuff sooner, if it were easy.

i shop there when its a horrible tp day . I also see new items and go to there shops ( some i didnt know was even around . I flip threw slx like rl catalogs love it i spend tons on slx

You were technically correct, Onrez was closed down and merged with Xstreet-SL. Linden Lab purchased both Xstreet and Onrez.

I still have better luck with it than the in-world search -- part of that being able to browse things pagewise instead of tp'ing all over the place, especially on days when TP only works 30% of the time.

I don't spend money at xStreet, though. I go inworld to buy.

I deliberately boycott Xstreet.

I've been meaning to research and make more use of XStreetSL's competitors. But going to XStreetSL is turning out to be a tough habit to break.

That's the one I could remember and the two who's names escaped me. There aren't any others, are there?

I prefer to shop inworld for what little I don't actually make myself.

going to a shop tells me quite a bit about the product before it's ever bought. how much effort and detail the seller goes to in making their shop (within the limits of their location)

do they use super high resolution textures for ever little scrap (then they probably do the same in their products)....can't spot slow rezzing overprimmed/oversculptied stuff from a web page.

do they use only commercial prebuilt vendors, and no cusomizations or store decorations, or bad layouts (they probably take the same carbon copy, poor design choice approach in their products).. can't tell that from a webpage.

are people constantly popping in browsing, trying things on (shows a higher customer statisfaction average, and maybe a more stable business).. can't see that on a webpage

does the creators profile/store welcome input and direct people to the best ways to submit it, or is it a nasty don't bother me type of ethic (I'd rather buy something lackluster that I might get help with if needed than something fairly nice appearing and be told to piss off if I encounter an issue).. you might get SOME of that in a web page

...the list goes on