SLExchange raking it in?

With the latest (and boy didn't we see this coming a 1000 miles away) ability to buy featured positioning for 6$ USD per item per month, and 45000 items listed, even if they only get 5% of the items featured, that would be 2250 * 6$ per month.

Well over 120K USD per year ... and they're just getting started, baby.

I'm afraid I'm not seeing the problem with this -- it's a business, offering a variety of sales tools and features to it's clients and customers, the goal being to turn a profit. Yes?

Did I say there was a problem?

Well, the more items are made featured, the less visible they get in all those featured items, and merchants will start spending their money on other means of advertising.

It is a nice service, but I don't think they'll get rich of it...

This is just the thin edge of the wedge, boyee.

And if it comes to the thick edge, whatever was wedged will break...

SLEX was probably already raking in money just from regular sales. These new things help everyone, so it's all good.

(ps: buy my stuff! *giggles*)

My sales have decreased since introduction of SLEX's new features. Decreased a LOT. Even my freebies have seen a dramatic decrease in the number of people who get them, almost to the day the featured listings were introduced.

I doubt I'll use any of the new features, either, despite the drop in sales.

Is SLExchange run by IGE *yet*? ;p

The featured item listings were pretty sweet for the first 48 hours or so... before everybody started using them... but now there's so many featured listings on the site that there's no perceptible value in being feature-listed at all; you just get lost in the morass of other featured items. My featured item seems to get as much traffic as my non-featured items now. Fortunately I broke even by getting in early - but I doubt I'll renew... the money would be much better invested on advertising through other channels.

Seconded. I observed exactly the same effect (making a third of the sales now). Maybe SLEx is actually losing money with this ? I know they're making a lot less money off my sales now.

I don't think implementing the system has decreased overall sales. They're just being rerouted to other - now more accessible - products. Hence, they're probably making a bit more than usual.

I beg to differ.... Not only are those other items priced differently (and any difference in price might affect sales either way), but they don't necessarily cover what the people visiting the site are looking for. Basically, the "NEW" and "featured" pages have been hijacked by whoever is willing to plunk down the protection rack... I mean the marketting fees.