Drop in Merchandise sales

Has anyone else experienced a major drop in weekly sales? I still have 30-40 people visiting my store daily, they still seem to look around and spend time(I get dwell payments), but no one is buying big ticket items that are 200-400 lindens.

The only purchases I get are the 10-20 Linden range and even those are pretty infrequent.

I am doing everything the same as I was doing 3 weeks ago. I do the classifieds, parcel listing, even started on Slexchange this week. I am talking to people, handing out business cards, giving away freebies, keeping content new at my site....

I just can not figure it out. 3 weeks ago there was nice pattern to the sales: From Tuesday on there was a small spike, then a calm in the late week, then a spike for the weekend followed by a dead Monday. Now it's nearly dead everyday.

Anyone else experience this?

Troy

My sales and traffic dropped alot after the updates..but I realize the reason. Its not the products or the services..

After the lastest updates, the entire sim of Meins started having nonphantom prims act phantom at random. Currently it looks fixed (as it hasn't hapepned to me today) but who really knows?

This phantom/nonphantom issue has cost me sales and the use of my land unfortunately, but I know for a fact I can blame it as I have had consumers tell me thats the reason.

LL needs to re-institute the referral program so we can bring in more new users.

I've seen sales drop since the update, despite adding a new store and updating my content.

Not that my sales are significant, it was just interesting to have them suddenly drop after they'd been rising. I assumed it was just a random fluctuation... but if other people are seeing it...?

Yes, my store sales are down. I know at least one of my store sites, the Forest Store, also suffered that phantom prim issue, and that likely hurt my sales for half a day or so, as no one would have had a 'safe' way to get to that store. But I have stores in 5 sims, and they are all slow this last week or two.

Texture sales are down as well. I'm still selling bundles of textures, but they aren't moving as fast as they were for a while. That would seem to imply fewer people looking for new textures to build new things with?

Actually, I do wonder if the end of the referral program has caused a slowdown in the flow of new members. A lot of my store sales come from new folks. People who want an inexpensive t-shirt ir a fairly affordable dress. So that could be it...

I don't seem to see as many people on-line at all as I used to. That is probably just because I am spending more time in sims that are still being developed, as I work on building projects. But still... has the volume of active people dropped off that much? I was in Furnation skymall recently, which is usually a busy place, and I hardly saw anyone there.

It could also be because the colleges in the USA just had Spring Break. Lots of college kids away from their free-to-cheap high-speed net connections at school, and stuck at home with the folks for a week, with no or slow net access? (Or maybe not daring to do at home what they do normally in SL?) Or off enjoying the Break as a vacation? I don't know. And now that Break is over, it's time to hit the books for the last streach before the end of the school year, and therefore less time to play?

Fortunately, my work as a builder is more than taking up the slack... Busines is booming, there. Making complex builds for other people's sims.

Sales at all of my shops have stopped completely. During past bad weeks at lest one shop sells one item per day - now none of my shops are selling anything. Granted, furniture and home items are rather specialized; however, the cheaper items used to sell regularly.

I also rent apartments at a couple of locations - that's been doing very well...welcomed a few long-term guests this week too.

One interesting observation though, as another poster pointed out, is that people do visit the shops. I have a rather innovative landmark giver that gets used frequently at all of my locations every day but no one is buying anything.

SL business is very cyclical and demand shifts from item to item. The best approach is to diversify your business so that you spread out your reach/brand and sources of income. I have also started to blend my businesses to provide more value to my customers - this has been very positive since it increases my revenue without actually giving up any revenue through the blend .

The number of new accounts has slowed a bit over the past month. Perhaps this is having an impact throughout the economy.

omgz the economy is collapsing

I have never been able to get a steady stream of sales, so i have no idea, generally i would say my sales are Ok though

Has anyone figured out that the longer you're in SL, the less stuff you need?

Now that I've been here a number of months, I would bet that my purchases have dropped considerably, particularly impulse buying, which must be the staple of the SL economy.

A good neighbor also has given me many items for my own little shack, including the shack (thank you, Mannie). Lots of avies share items; it's part of the charm of SL, and that must affect the economy, too.

Maybe there are now many more "older" avies in SL, so the economy is changing. We don't need to buy as much and have Lindens to spend on more thoughtful purchases.

BTW, another post said it was content creators who made the SL economy. But I respectfully suggest that if I don't want to buy it, your creation ain't worth nothing. I don't build, script or design, but all you guys still need me, to admire, be titillated and buy.

Make more interesting stuff or create better experiences for us old and bored avies, and you will make your Lindens. Maybe this is what "art" is all about.

If the fat lady doesn't have an audience, it doesn't matter whether she sings or not, except to her, of course.

I haven't noticed any difference. Not that one hasn't occurred, just that if it has, it hasn't been large enough for me to notice. This could be because I produce new items almost every day, and get a lot of return customers due to that, rather than relying on new customers to buy older products.

I can usually tell new customers from return customers by the amount they purchase, even if I don't recognize the names. I.E; return customers buy a couple things each time, whereas new customers by 50 things at once. (Bless their hearts.)

Absolutely. For numerous reasons, I'm sure. (Older people tend to socialize less. They tend to be able to create things themselves. They tend to sell their L$ more... and on and on.)

I used to shop every single day. It was the fantasy to me that cybersex is to some others. Now, I shop maybe once a month, or even every 2 months, but I do spend about 10x more L$ when I shop. I can afford more now that I have a successful business. I pay attention to the New Products postings and make note of what's worth the Teleport. And sometimes, even if I don't 'need' or want an item, I'll buy it simply to show my support to the creator in a way they can benefit from. (For instance, I never drive vehicles, but I've bought several, just because they were that cool, or the creator what a super-nice new resident just starting out.)

The opposite for me - increase... and I've been so tied up with work/new house/upcoming vacation/ SL Update/bug hunting -- that I haven't REALLY put out anything new for around 2 - 3 weeks (stuff is being made - just not completed due to the hectic above list).

Despite that - post update has been better than the week before it.

Dunno why - I ain't questioning it though.

Like any business, sales will always have highs and lows. I have not noticed a drop in my sales lately but it is inevitable, it will happen. It is also inevitable that they will see highs once again after that.

In two years in SL I have learned to never to take business for granted, the second you start thinking you are entitled to the easy money and depend to much on it for your RL, something out of your control will change the land scape. It could be competition, glitchy updates, slow down in new accounts, griefers bringing down the grid frequently or maybe even just a laggy sim.

The question I would ask you is, are you still having fun in SL with or without the money?

My sales have been down this past week, but that could be because I just moved my store, and to an area with fewer other stores, to boot.

My sales started exceptionally strong this week, but have been in a decline twoards the end of the week. These last few days have been quite slow indeed.

However, I am more of the optimistic crowd, and I believe that there is a perfectly good reason for this sales slump, and that things will return to normal in a few days.

I ahev also noticed and commented to many on a drastic drop in my sales the past two weeks now.

Admittedly, I am operating a very newly opened business and still have a very small product base and selection. Yet, I had not expected to go from where I was the first few weeks of business to nearly zero so fast. My sales on SLeXchange.com were brisque for weeks...then plummeted to zero in the last two weeks. Almost no views and no sales at all. My store sales have seen a drastic drop as well, though not as severe as online sales.

My intial thought was that I merely needed to get some more products out faster to keep people coming...which I am sure will help regardless. But if many others are also seeing this trend, perhaps its simply more people are spending less in SL overall the past few weeks...or some other factor is involved sl-wide that I hadn't considered.

Its good to at least know I have not been alone in seeing this drop.

- Zoe

I would chalk it up to an ebb and flow of consumerism at the moment. Time will tell and maybe a cause will be seen. In my case (and Ceera's case) the phantom at random can be calculated in too.

My sales are down too. Seems like most people I talk to have a similar decrease lately.

My best guess is that it's spring and people are getting outside a bit more and/or on spring break.

Same for us Marcos, though the past two weeks we've seen a above average up-swing in sales (400$L - 600$L ticket items) , accompanied by 20% increase in traffic, so hard to say. Was talking with Jill over this an she recalls a similar slowing period from around February last year as well, maybe its just a seasonal 'just-post-winter' blah-blip.

We're not really worrying too much about it as it already seems to have corrected and as you say likely just folk enjoying some of the lovely spring weather we seem to be having.

I know I think I'll be going up to DC shortly to take part in the annual Cherry Blossom Festival (25th - April 9th!). ^.^

This is what I, too, would hypothesize.

Well, Marcos. So much for that theory!

For one thing, it's spring break for alot of schools... which means the older kids have better things to be doing on beaches or whatever.

Even in RL retail/restaurants, this time of year is a slump, Troy. From now to just before school starts in September, business is slow - kids are on spring break, then they've got the last few weeks before finals. Right now, alot of people are saving up for vacations. Habits really don't change much between RL and SL, I've noticed -- in SL, residents might be spending their stipends, but not spending much more, unless they're business owners and have extra Lindens to throw around in-world that they didn't have to buy from Lindex.

I've only just started selling things properly and I've made bugger all. More than I made selling at L$1, but the volume is far less.

my sales are up and are continuing to rise, partly due to the huge amounts of free advertising i'm getting from people selling my freebies.