Taking the fun out of shopping

In my cost list I forgot to mention that successful products have to carry the ones that didn't sell. So any time/$ that I spent making something great that people just didn't care for much is part of my overall expense.

surreal, let me explain to you the fuss:

I AM ENTITLED TO YOUR HARDWORK FOR FREE!

do you understand now????

My clothing prices will never increase. That is unless I get miraculously better in the next 5 mins.

*waits 5 mins*

Nope still suck...
Ok have a nice day!


Lilly

Heh.. I'm not mentally organized today.

Sometimes an item is priced very high deliberately to keep it rare and prized. Same idea as a limited edition.

Prices are set wherever they are for all kinds of reasons. If you don't ask the seller, then you don't know why.

I just hiked my prices by L$300 on Friday.

Enabran's not running a charity here.

The amusing part is that the item they're buying is still worth the same amount in USD. Inflation happens, I bet these same people aren't down being ugly to the super market managers because things cost more today than they did a few years ago. Honestly, people, get a grip.

In addition, a lot of people have already covered the fact here and in many other threads that stuff in SL does have a development cost, that can take a while to recoup in real world equivalents for the time and resources put into it. However, there's also the support side. I don't know about the clothing industry, but anytime you've got a scripted object especially there's always a ton of customer support involved. There's a LOT of time involved in that, we have to make that worth our time somehow. I'm sure that's true for anything you make in SL. Our time is valuable, sorry if you disagree.

Actually one of my pools I did price higher simply because I didn't want it to be an impulse buy - I wanted someone to look at it and have to decide 'yes I want that'.

Mainly because of the high prim count - I wanted folks to actually stop and think before buying... make sure they read the info provided and made sure they had the prims and space for it to be a good pool for them.

Thus far its worked out well.

I agree with a lot of your post, but this particular sentence is just completely false. The L$ has lost a significant part of its value in 6 months, including a very steep drop in the past two months - it has gone from 250L/$1.00 to $350L/$1 in that time - this is not slight, and has had an impact on those who do rely on the L$ to offset their costs and to be able to use the money to continue to produce items for SL. Raising prices is a sensitive issue all around, but it is not simply about greed.

to funny!.

"To me, raising prices because of the so-called "falling Linden" is simply stealing."

Uhuh.

So, hypothetically...

...imagine I make L$10,000 a month and my rent costs me $30 a month. At L$300 per $1 that gives me $3.33 profit per month. But then the rate goes up to L$330 per $1 and my profit becomes 30 cents a month.

How greedy I would be to raise my prices a little to compensate!

"More so I see some arguments sounding much like demanding something for nothing."

That IS what they are demanding: by asking for a product to remain static whilst the Linden value falls is, in direct effect, demanding that they get to buy your product cheaper.

Musuko.

On the opposite spectrum, I see a product at 100 lindens. Next week, its at 120 lindens.

Thats a twenty linden price hike. I don't care about the exchange rate- don't use it- and its fluctuations are not, nor will ever be accounted for in my shoping habits. I don't care if it 'still' costs 25 cents. Its a 20 linden price hike. Thats all I care about.

Some of us don't care about the exchange rate.

I think you'll start caring soon. It'll directly affect the amount of money you'll be paying for your favorite stuff.

The trouble is, content creators often DO care since they use sales to pay the tier or rent or whatever they need to pay to even maintain their shops in the first place.

Anyway, at the end of the day, any product in SL, and indeed SL itself, and in fact the Internet, the heating you likely enjoy without seriously considering what makes it possible, the electricity and running water you take for granted, the food that magically appears in supermarkets for you to buy so that you need never worry about starving ...

Let's just say that even the relatively POOR among us, of whom I am one, are in fact still enjoying what is probably the tail end of an obnoxiously wealthy period in human history. Our ancestors couldn't even IMAGINE the things we take for granted. Rather than get so excited over this small stuff, try to just relax and enjoy what's left of this little party while it lasts. You get to play SL FOR FREE! Do you ever stop to think about how cool that is? I know I do. The toys you can buy IN SL are just icing on the cake.

In the words of (one of the many translations of) Lau Tzu, "Those who know they have enough are truly wealthy."

Your right, the only problems is 90% of the people in SL don't see the Lindex, don't even know about the exchange rate and more to the point, simply don't care. All they see is inflation and sellers taking advantage of new features to in some cases more than double prices.

Outfit A (old style) 300-600L - New Outfit, 99% identical to Outfit A except it now has 6 flexi prims 1000L +

Not shopping.

well since L$ value drop , the buying power increase (you get more lindens for your usds) so where is the change , exepted in the value perception?

Because, as mentioned above, most users don't normally pay US$ for their L$ anyway.

All they see is their stipend buying less and SL becoming less fun.

When something becomes less fun, is it a rational action to spend more on it?

same here... I just cant bring myself to do it.. and in all honestly, I get enough business that I don't feel I need to... maybe if I start LOSING money by designing, I then might consider raising my prices lol

Well there's a couple of things going on here....

1) prices didn't drop when the linden was high. so why raise them now when the linden is low?

2) people that use stipends as their sole source of income won't pay the higher prices because they can't afford to. So merchants will have to decide whether one dress at 400L is better than more than one at 250.


Anyway I'm all in favor of a free market. Let the value of the Linden fall where it will with no further interference from LL. Let the prices of items fall where it will with no further interference from LL. Lets see how things shake out.

Alternatively: instead of 'caring soon', the buyers will continue to ignore the L$/$ exchange ratio and either take their L$ elsewhere, or buy less items for same total amount of L$ spent. Leaving the sellers with still reduced income in either case.

_How_ someone calculates their price is no concern of buyer. It's only the end effect of that calculation that determines if item is eventually bought, or ignored due to being perceived as too expensive.

And you cannot even say "oh well it's their loss" ... because that's money the _seller_ isn't getting. And regardless of how little that may be worth due to inflation, losing out on that sale and getting nothing at all is still less than that.

Phobos Design did drop their prices when the $L was high. I'm personally aware of 5 other major designers who did the same.

There are creators in SL who make their real life living off of their products. If the Linden falls 25%, does their RL rent fall 25%? Their RL health insurance? RL groceries?

I fail to see how it is greedy for a creator to want to make a living wage.

This sort of attitude is pretty ignorant. It's basically the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going 'Lalalala I can't hear you, I'm not listening!' SL is a pseudo economy, and like any economy it's going to go up and down over time, like it or not. Ignoring that doesn't change anything, it just makes you look silly.

Drop? From what? The Linden has been on a constant and steady decline since as long as I can remember. There was no 'rise' to prompt price drops.

The way things will shake out, is the creation pools will become smaller. Everyone will end up having to cut back if this pattern (inflation -and- stipend loss) continues.

The Linden value may drop, creators' income may drop, but I can guarantee, one thing that will not drop, and will remain fixed, is the amount that LL charges people for greater than a basic account.

That may even be set to increase.

Well, Carl, there are people who strongly believe that nobody has a right to make a living in this manner.

I do believe though that this is mainly because virtual worlds are in their infancy. It'll be more well accepted as time goes on. I'm not sure if SL is going to be the proving ground for that, though. Many things, including the economy here, are very embryonic.

No, its not. I don't sell lindens and I judge the costs of things by their in world value. Saying everyone should care about the exchange rate is ignorant.