The best way to turn the L$ around.

Change the marketing campaign. Do away with the below...



Replace it with:


Stop recruiting L$ SELLERS... recruit more L$ BUYERS! =)

--
Yes I'm being a little bit sarcastic.

What position would you hold if the reverse was true?

Lets say the L$ was L$50 (L$1000 = US$20.00). Everybody was
fussing about how the Linden Dollar was so expensive. Would you
be harping about doing whatever it takes to encourge selling?

RBD, I have a great idea.....I'll hire you to be my head of sales.....for the priviledge of working for me I will only charge you 1000 L's per week. Now then as to your pay, you will receive a 10% commission on all sales you personally generate paid in an new alternate currency, backed by nothing that no one accepts. All L's however I will retain. ( heavy sarcasm of course)

make the commission paid in reserve$ and he might accept it

Actually Jopsy I like it. It may not turn the L$ around, but it may help bring about an important cultural shift.

As much as I enjoy the business component of SL, I feel it's over-promoted. I get frustrated when I get approached by someone on their first day asking how they can make money here. I always suggest they have fun, explore and get to know SL for a few months. Then I suggest the Lindex for a while, pointing out that US$10 can buy you a whole lot of fun. This never seems to satisfy anyone, they're like "damn, I don't want to spend 10 bucks, I just wanna start getting paid".

More emphasis on the social, creative and fun aspects of SL would be a good thing. Why not, instead of "maybe you'll get rich", "shop like you never dreamed"! (And one thing I was struck by, what about love? Why not "maybe you'll meet the avatar of your dreams"?)

Dammit Fade. I find myself agreeing with you again. lol


Although Jospy's wording does need a bit of polishing up in my opinion.

If it's any consolation my exes found it frustrating too

OK how about this for wording..." Come to Second Life. Work hard for nthing. Pay bosses for the priviledge fo taking thier orders. Find the avatar of your dreams ( of course they probably ahve three alts with three other spouses) Pay big bux for normally free items. Help the rich get RICHER while you get POORER" LMMFAO

It's a well known fact that Linden Labs is recruiting merchant-players out of thin air. There's a glut of merchants... and not enough bankruptcies to balance them out. The only solution is to do away with the endless flood of new merchants entering our economy every week.

(and yes, I probably would rally for recruiting more merchants if too few L$ were for sale and the L$ price was becoming high enough to scare off buyers.)

Selene: Indeed it does need polish... it was dashed off fairly quickly over breakfast.

--
I don't like Mondays.
But it's friday.
oh.

nevermind.

Oh Dmitri, I agree, there is a shitty side to SL, but that's because there's a shitty side to humans. I really do believe however, that for every shitty thing there's five amazing things. In SL and in humanity.

While that is true but it isn't quite the wording that will attract people to SL....


omfg!! Here we live under the same roof and actually im each other in world and now I'm replying to you on the freakin forums when all I have to do is walk down the hall to the next room..... ROFLMAO!!!

That's both funny and kinda cute

My mate and I can take that one worse. We sit back to back in the SAME room, and frequently IM each other in game. But to be honest, we are both usually wearing headphones and so we couldn't hear the other one talk. Uh... but I guess we could tap each other on the shoulder huh?

Well, what choice do they have but becoming merchants since no one pays for workers in SL? and what good would it do having ANY business in SL if no one who didn't had L's to spend? The point being that less than 1% of the account holders are really crying about the L vs USD value. They won't be happy til we have no income and have to buy thier L's. They are nothing but..the immoral minority. Most of them would sell thier own brother at a profit

Now we're talking. I've been looking for a good reasonably priced previously owned brother.

To me, SecondLife's commerce model resembles a 'tourist trap'. Gift shops, vacation rentals, aquatic recreation, shuffleboard/bingo like games, various attractions, street urchins begging for pocket change, carnival rides, night-clubs, 'romantic' get-aways.

My point? The Tourism Committee is slacking, and the chamber of commerce is promising too many jobs. If people don't bring their money into SL... the model fails.

It's not vegas after all. Property rates are climbing faster there.

--
Elvis Linden -- appearing nightly!

Jopsy im sorry to disagree here ...... Fact of the matter is if you change that you put alot of cotnent developers down the hole buying cool gadgets etc becomes a thing of the past especially if all their stuff is gone. Many rely on selling the L getting rid of that would be bad in general for everyone!

That brings up one interesting point. If, or should I say when, stipend goes down, you go to lindex, buy some LL from probably some merchant, and in game, you head right to the next store, which by coincidence belongs to the merchant you just bought you're LLs from, pay 1000LLs for 4 wigs of 250-prim hair each, thus giving the merchant back his LLs.
Now, not only do you cause heavy graphic lag in crowded areas with your hair, but you're out of LLs again. So you go back to Lindex, buy the LLs you just gave him back again, and buy some more hair, or clothes, or whatever. Now you own a lo of stuff you probably don't need, and the merchant owns your LLs and your US$ or € or whatever.

Is that really what you want?

But it is probably called capitalism...

Oh, and I do own a couple of little vending areas myself, so I am neither a socialist, nor a "welfare receiver", just a rotten apple, I guess...

It seems to be a popular idea . It's using the L$ as a medium of exchange for US$ - but unofficially, of course, so that we don't have to pay tax.

Here is a much simpler solution: Stop charging a fee for people that buy Ls only charge the fee for those that sell.

If I buy 1000 lindens, at 300L/$1 it costs me $3.64 instead of $3.33 so they are charging me 31 cents to buy.

If I sell 1000 lindens, at 300L/$1 I get $3.21 instead of $3.33 so they are charging me 12 cents to sell. (there is an additional $1 fee to convert to cash via PayPal, but this fee is the same no matter how much I am selling)

So why not reverse the fees? Make it cost less, or even nothing to buy Lindens, but triple the fee to sell Lindens? LL will make the same amount on the exchange.

Result, it should increase demand to buy, and lower demand to sell, resulting in deflation rather than inflation.

Linden sellers may scream foul at first, but if it really does reverse the trend, the sellers will be much better off in the long run.

Me work for you? Nonon, You will work for me..

If I remember right... you can pay US$0.30 no matter how many L$'s you buy...
but you pay 3.5% of whatever you sell. Sellers often dump bigger sums at once, buyers probably buy smaller sums per purchase. The US$0.30 is an 'atm fee' like charge.... buy enough to last you a long time and you don't have to pay it over and over.


Lini-

My originally mostly sarcastic point appears to be taken a bit too seriously. I'll give a more serious answer: The balance is off... I'm suggesting recruiting more consumers until the balance is restored. I'm not sure you can go too far the other way... as long as there are buyers someone's gonna be selling something.

--
Crunch all you want... we'll make more.

I like it.

Aw man.. nothing like agreement to kill a thread.