Only new people seem to buy things

Has anyone ever noticed that 90% of your sales go to people who have signed up in the last few months or so?

Soylent Green is Newbies!

I haven't noticed that but that is probably related to my not selling anything.

I wouldn't really doubt that, though.

Too bad we don't have a good way to charge admission for events Events have be purchased over and over, but there's no simple perfect way to charge for them in a pleasant manner.

The stuff you buy here lasts forever, and if it's it stored in inventory, along with ten thousand things, finding it is a major pain in the derriere. More items purchased and kept in inventory just means more trouble finding anything.
Improving the inventory system might help increase sales.

If you've maxed out your prim allotment on your land, as might happen the longer you have been inworld, buying something new means giving up something old, unlike RL.

Buying items inworld should be easier now that you don't have to fly to the store, maybe business will pick up among longer term users as a result.

I dunno about anyone else, but I spend about as much L$ now as I did as a newbie.

-Ghoti

Depends on the item. I think new players are more likely to buy a motorcycle or car type thing because they don't know how $@#% bad the physics are.

Also once you've been here a while and have 10,000 items in your inventory i guess you become a little sated.

I imagine clothes sell to all ages

Personally i buy hardly anything at all. In the last 2 months i think i bought a pair of pants and some bagpipes. Bagpipes rock.

We all used to buy stuff when we had L$ to spend freely. Now that L$ = USD$, we are on the RL treadmill of paying bills, etc. It's harder to justify splurging L$1000 on a new outfit when you could use that USD$4 to pay the LL bill, or the cable bill, etc.

Me too. And I also have a friend who has shopping down to an art...there is no slowing her down.

Shopping the lost art form? Looks the other way WHERE?!

I'm kind of new (June), and I don't buy anything. It's too expensive, I'm too broke, and I am no good at building. So I just explore and dance and when that gets old, I suppose I'll leave.

I'd have to agree with you there, Hank. I have a big Linden balance from selling all my land but I only get the 50 linden a week stipend, and I'm cheap. I have lots of things in my inventory I have never even seen, why spend money when I can "go shopping" just by going to a sandbox and pulling things out from inventory for a hour or two?

If you haven't had a good teacher give you individualized lessons in building you might want to try again with a teacher.

Does that correlate somewhat to retention? I mean, if people find shopping fun for awhile but then get bored and leave. All dressed up and no place to go?

How new is new?

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I disagree Blaze, it all depends on what your selling though. My business is about 40% repeat customers who have been around for a while.

What percentage of sales are we talking about here?

I don't think I've ever gone to an "event". AT least nothing that saw advertised as such, though I suppose some of the groups of people I've wandered into might have been having an "event".

I buy stuff when I find something new I like. I have bought new versions of stuff as well, though I've asked the creator if there's an upgrade deal when I'd bought the previous version pretty recently and they've been pretty good about upgrades in general.

The real key is making new stuff that's so much better than the old stuff that I GOTTA HAVE IT.

Which means that if you want continuing sales to existing customers, you can't just create something, put it in a vendor, and wait for the money to roll in. You only get "infinite income" (as some people have described it) from that kind of thing if you get an infinite supply of newbies. That's not a sustainable economy, it's a pyramid scheme.

I've got WAY more room for stuff in my Inventory than in my real-world attic. If I could buy a helicopter for US$350 you can bet I'd have the same "problem" in RL I have in SL. But... damn, I could do with that "problem".

The real way to get more business from long-term users is to work on your stuff and re-make it and improve it and do new versions until awesomness oozes from your pores and everyone who looks at your gear HAS GOTTA GET SOME OF THAT.

And then do it AGAIN. ALL THE TIME.

ive been here two years now and i consider myself a power buyer. if anything, i shop more now.

I buy everything neph makes and can't get enough

How do you even find a 'good teacher'? I've looked for classes, and what ones I find seem to assume you know certain baseline things (which I do not). So I just wind up frustrated and feeling like I can't do it.

I went to one class listed as a 'beginner's class' and this person giving it was spitting terminology I didn't know and they didn't bother to explain it.

I don't like feeling frustrated or worse, stupid.

Wander around a bit, look at random player profiles as you encounter people. Better yet go to the places listed in events, classified, and popular places with money chairs and such attractions... that's where you'll find the most people.

You'll find that 90% of the people are new.

It only makes sense that 90% of the people buy 90% of the stuff.

Usually I like to just make my own stuff. After I demo other products and think... I prolly can't make one better, but I can make one that handles the way I want it to.

I have some ideas for when I get back in-world, but I'd need a dev team for it.

I'd suggest it depends on what you sell, how much it is etc.

I don't think I ever really bought vehicles, houses etc. in a big way, but certainly don't know. I used to buy furniture and still would, but I've got an inventory crammed full...

But I still buy clothes a lot, despite being a scripter and making a lot of my own stuff I buy scripted gadgets sometimes. Despite being a moderately competently pixel pusher I *certainly* don't make many of my own clothes, and I do sometimes buy really good textures.

But because I also sell stuff I've got more spending power. I keep a steady balance that as a newbie I'd have dreamt off, now it's there so that basically just about anything I see I can buy if I want it. However, as someone else has said, since there are lots of newbies if you sell stuff that appeals to them you'd expect most of your sales to be to them - the old hands have them, or don't show up in the general population.

This is a reasonable point.

Charissa, what timezone are you in? I'll help you get over the basic hurdles if you like but i can't get inworld until midnight GMT.

Oh and don't feel stupid, you can't possibly know what you havent learned yet