Recent economic changes have killed my sales!

Or, why is there so much emphasis on sex and adult activities in general? That's society for ya. But, after all these years, if it's one thing we've all learned - it sells.

Less on that topic, and more on the one at hand, (or paw, your choice) - Lewis has a point. Some products and sales are solely based on the longevity of an avatar's existence in SL, and/or their priority of necessities when nestling themselves in a virtual world. To some, this includes the need for extravagent items of well design and function. But, due to price, these items often take research and time, and are usually one-time deals. Little trinkets and gadgets here and there tend to sell more often due to a lower price, and the feeling of 'having a new toy'. It also depends on the demographic of people you're projecting sales to.

For example - while learning the ins and outs of building in SL while on a journey to create my customized, uniqe avatar, I purchased an avatar from each of the vendors that I showed interest in - both for learning experience by analyzation, as well as support in general. After all, I would have never been able to figure out some of the tricks and little quirky things about building in an organic sense without the inspiration from these purchases.

That being said, I have rather big footpaws. Shoes aren't going to sell well with me due to this - not because I can't compliment on a well thought-out design - I just don't have a use for them at the moment. That doesn't mean that I'm the best representation of what to expect from one of the fuzzy SL'ers, as others may think differently. And should I see something I like that fits my differences, perhaps I would change my mind as well.

A suggestion, after all this rambling I've made, would be to branch out slightly. Provide a broader range of products with the same theme. It all depends on how you look at the market and the perceptions based in a virtual world.

A kitchen is nice. A kitchen sink is cheaper, as the kitchen may be missing just that one thing. But a dish-washing animation... now there's a thing I've yet to have seen.

I've never had a problem with people putting in effort, creating a quality product and turning a profit as a result.

It's the people who are here solely for the money, doing very little work, controlling the market, raising prices and generally making it difficult for anyone else - like the land barons, for example, that cause me and many others distress.

There is a big difference between the two.

Lewis

Then you haven't been listening to my remarks very long.. heheheheh

Does this statement give fuel to the idea that the majority of SL accounts are not actively used accounts contributing to the content of SL? Instead, they are farming accounts which will now begin to go silent?

A great stat would be if LL started posting logs of unique daily logins. One can then begin adding up the days, weeks, months, years to determine the "true" population count. Not just the number of registered accounts.

Uh-Oh.. Don't let the Gestapo hear you say that. Those words are banned by the Second Life die hards who proclaim SL is nothing like the real world.... Hhehehehe... Oh course, most of them need to take the Red Pill and escape their dream world. lol

My sales are down a bit, but that's probably more to do with the fact that I've not been in SL that much relatively and not released anything new for a while (people often buy old things when looking at new things). Also, I think the downtimes have hurt sales a little I think.

I don't think it's anything to do with economic changes.

Okay... If your sales are down then you need to trim and cut your expenses to increase your net. Whether a resident feels their virtual business is a business ("In business for the money" or a simulation of a business ("In business for the fun of it"/"It's a game" in either case it's important to track money as it comes in (income/credits) and money as it goes out (expenses/debits). Keeping your expenses down will help to increase your net profit (if any, after subtracting expenses from your business' income).

This can be a simple as a college-ruled sheet of notebook paper with the month and year written at the top, down the right side of the page each day of the month, and across the top columns for each item of merchandise and kind of expense. Then jotting in the figures by date the following day using the Account History built into the SL client.

Even when sales are up you should always be looking at ways to cut expenses. After the sale it's your money and it's up to you to hang onto it.

i have noticed a huge boom in my sales that push this month in first place in my "best month top" since 2 years

Lewis,

You are wrong. I sell fish and fish related products and have carved out a nice little niche for myself. My products do not fit into any of your categories stated above.

Curious as to why you would make a statement like this?

Maggs

A lot of the new accounts are alts of established players who find it easier to move their wilder aspects to less easily recognizable AVIs: I certainly can understand the boom in your sales Kyrah. The open registration means that the 5 AVIs per credit card doesn't apply anymore.

One upside is we're going to get more "respectable", media fronting citizens as a result: their seedier behaviour will get corraled out elsewhere.

Then I guess you are one of the lucky few. I don't think your success is the majority experience.

Lewis

I'm doing fine too. You can keep saying that we are all exceptions, but it's not falsifiable so we just have to take your word for it.

Shameless plug here ... but if you want to sell more you need to have your products exposed to more people.

Check out the sim SweetLeaf and what it has to offer. Low lag and directed traffic. I drive traffic directly in front of your shops in SweetLeaf.

For full details just go to SweetLeaf and click on a rental information prim on an empty lot.

It's not cheap but it's guaranteed traffic without money chairs in a lag free controlled environment.

Ask for two months rent for the price of one as an introductory to try out SweetLeaf and I'll probubally give it to you ....

Happy selling!

=c)

you think i am unrespectable? ^_^
i don't sell sex even , i build and create my own fashion style ^^
i would gladly open a shop in RL with big glass front if i had the hand for glueing and cutting latex

Never wanted to imply you weren't respectable - just that our AVIs today are often freely mixing entertainment of an adult nature and professional ventures deemed easier to present to the public. Your products are with no discussion among the very finest of SL.

As an aside, have you shown you creations to RW shops now that fetish wear and vibrators are being sold in mainstream parisian fashion shops?

so... I've always taken being a land baron to mean someone who owns a LOT of land in SL and particularly those who buy and sell land.

Do you lump all larger land owners or all larger land sellers in together?

Just tryin to figure out if you have a problem with the whole lot or if your term "land baron" reffers just to those who cause problems.

Just those that sell land at artificially inflated prices, making obscene profits for doing basically nothing except taking a risk that nobody asks them to take, and making it difficult for those who want to buy land for their own use because of the prices.

Even more annoying is people who don't take advantage of special features - like plots against road, water or other landmarks that make something desirable - then just slap up a wall or something equally pointless. Some of us could actually use that feature as part of our build.

Lewis

Hey... You can't talk about my business practices like that. People might get the wrong idea.

Land Barons take on Risk and provide liquidity to the land market. If we barons didn't buy those $1000+ plots at auction, SL might be trapped in a 20 sim world. Its the barons who front the money to LL, reprice the land to recoup the expense, and take some profit. Nothing wrong with that. And thanks to competition, land is cheap. Otherwise there would a land shortage, everbody crammed into a few sims, and insane pricing for a 512/m2 plot.

So give thanks to barons.... On your knees serf.

When was the last time you looked?

Land is overpriced right from the moment Linden Lab put it on sale. Any decent sized plot is beyond the reach of the average individual, and cannot be supported unless you resort to commercial activity - which then drags any unique idea down the the same level as much of SL already.

Lewis

I'm curious Luth - what kind of stuff do you sell?
I've seen my sales drop a bit with the end of free user stipends, certainly enough to notice.

Nice bit of totally inaccurate hyperbole there. I can't be bothered to go and check when they introduced the $1000 sim auction system, but it's less than a year ago, appreciably less than that. SL was in the hundreds of mainland sims at the time, not 20.

They don't post daily info but they do post 60 day info.

Residents Logged-In During Last 60 Days 203,485

These are unique logins, so roughly 2/3rds of the total accounts have logged in at some point in the last 60 days.

Irregardless, I don't need to see those stats to see SL is growing. When I started just over a year ago there were, on average, about 2500-3000 residents logged in at any one time (in fact, I remember them doing a stress test the week I started where they were happy to get just over 4000 in world at once)....now that number regularly hovers over 8000. So even if the number of accounts is inflated the concurrent logins have nearly tripled in the past year. That's pretty substantial growth.

well... I told myself I was not going to say this al ong time ago ...and not to derail a thread, Buuuttt what the heck?

Gold has no intrinsic value.

While it's true that the US dollar has no intrinsic value either, and it ia also true that gold has more extrinsic value than a US dollar, Gold is not a cure-all as far as safe investments go.

Actually, gold is one of the worst performers over time. It meerely paces inflation. But you already posted an article saying that earlier. So I think you agree on that point.

Short term investment in gold is fine, if you are betting that there will be deflation in the near future, but anyone that buys gold for the long term is only slightly wiser than the person that buries a hundred grand in his backyard. (which isn't too wise)

gold is only really good for ppl that want to keep the wealth they have, not increase it.

Have you ever been a land baron?

If the answer is "no", then how do you know that it involves very little work?

I mean, I've never been a land baron either... but I imagine the role involves quite a significant amount of work, financial risk, and stress.

It's at this point I wish Second Life had one of those "Life Swap" reality shows. We could watch Lewis try to hold down a job as a land baron. And, in turn, a land baron could come here and... urm.... do whatever it is that Lewis does...

Long Long Ago in a Grid Far Far Away I land baroned. It was fun. Suddenly it was not fun, it was a hateful, cut throat business populated by people who were desperate to make real money. Not ever wanting SL to become another *JOB* I sold off and backed away.

It's not so much hard work as steady, time intensive work. Land barons can generally make far more money working the same hours in the real world. It's also very easily frustrating. People bitch at you a lot even when you're trying to give them a good deal and still make a little profit. Still, it's fun. I still scour the map regularly popping around pretending to buy and resell those fine parcels. Alas, it's only a game.

Rental barons work WorK WORK their butts off. Those people get buckets of sympathy from me because they don't generally make loads of money either. But man they work. Shadow one for a couple of days and see what all they deal with. There won't be much time for chitchat because they'll be work WorK WORKING their butt off.

Say there's an idea Lewis and Shep. Ask a land broker if you can shadow them a couple of days to see what all is involved. They will have to chat with you a bit because the searching is done offcamera and will have to be described. But I'm willing to bet they could give you a good impression of how much time and heartache they put into the biz.