eMarketplace - Buidling the Financial Infrastructure

With the vast complexity of our commerce, it seems natural that an expanded commerce infrastructure is needed to help support Merchants in bringing their products to market.

The future of Second Life is based on a real economy - one that offers many choices to our amazingly rich and devise creative community. Just as the future of the world's economies was not so long ago poised to enter eCommerce - so has our time arrived.

As stated in a recent SL press release:

"Designers, entrepreneurs and developers will discover an amazing environment with real business opportunities – each month Second Life users currently buy and sell goods and services valued at over US$1 Million."

I see eCommerce as a step to offer our community another choice that hopefully further enriches their Second Life.

Incredibly cool.

I see it as a step backwards e commerce um I have the www for that. whats next? ppl start accepting credit cards? 1 million us! does the IRS know about this?

sorry to break the virual bubble but keep pushing twords rl economy, goods and services and this hobby will end up paying rl taxes also. is that what ppl want? not me.

You have to pay taxes on any income earned over a certain amount due to a hobby (500? 5000? Can't remember) right now. Why would this be any different?

Why wouldn't it be neat to log into SL, go to some eGrocer's land, pick out your groceries for the week, pay for it in either US$ or Lindens, and then have it arrive at your front door 2 days later?

Why wouldn't it be neat to go to a bookstore in SL, buy some books on display, and have the Real Deal arrive in your mailbox after being paid for in-world?

Why is it unfeasible to have a wide range of goods and services sold within SL?

LF

Acturaly if you keep your money off shore you dont pay taxes hehe but that is neither here nor there. I kid

Again LF why would I do that I have the www for that; grocery, bordens books, amazon, etc. Why would I want to waste my time doing that?

Well for one the www costs 0 to do those same things and SL costs a min of 9.95 for the same thing your preposing. So I vote for paying 0 for the same services.

Cat

For almost any service online, you can pay a premium fee to get better access to the service.

IE for an e-grocer,you could pay a couple extra a month to get "priority" groceries. If you're a mega member of the online book club, you get 15% discounts on books. Etc.

And the WWW isn't free; you pay a monthly fee for your broadband connection, do you not?

SL is more enabling than the WWW, potential-wise. the WWW was an accident; did you know that HTML markup wasn't designed for mass use by millions of people?

SL is designed to be expansive, extraordinary, world-dominating, and amazing.

It's the next step of the WWW, if we're lucky.

LF

Merwan,
I just visited the site. What a wonderful job you have done.
I will be listing objects for sale REAL soon.

Excellent!

I would wish you good luck, but it doesn't appear you will be needing it.

Thank you Schwanson - Apotheus Silverman get's the kudos for the site and coding wizardry!

LF your assuming that I would want to pay for a premium service, I don't.
My internet connection is mainly for email service, anything beyond that is just icing on the cake.

SL is designed to be world dominating hehe I like that.

Well I understand the way you feel i just dont think its www3d.

Cat

Merwan - the site is great! Its perfect for those like myself that don't want to fly to malls and crowded areas to find these items. Good going with this idea. It serves many.

Kudos to the site builders too!!

The site looks nice but why is there more of a fee for Mature items?

Cat

look, this is just another person trying to make a buck from the game. Some people will like it and some won't.

But if you really think you are expanding the game, you are fooling yourself.

Work within the game, or go to ebay!

It's not yet, but that is what God, errr, I mean Phillip, intends for SL.

Thank you Cat - there will be more enhancements to the "look and feel" of the site in the future.

That's pretty standard Cat with onLine marketplaces...One thing that's different with SLExchange.com is we do not charge any fees to sellers when they list their Second Life items, and there are no buyer fees.

This looks great

All my toys are now SLExchange compatible.

Azelda

This is primarily because of the extra work that was involved for us to allow mature content and keep everything legal at the same time. In addition, we have to do a certain amount of "policing" of content, just like LL does in-world. The increased fee is to cover the extra effort required on our part to manage that content.

I see thank you

Cat

I think it's a great idea, and very cleanly implemented.

For those that think tying in outside sources to SL like this is a bad thing...

First, it IS entirely optional. The same products are still available in malls and stores on the grid in-world.

Second, by putting related products next to each other, it promotes emergent standards in price, and fosters competition. (And therefore lower prices for the consumer.)

But best of all, it shows Linden Lab a working platform for the buying and selling of goods. Perhaps once they have gotten the true measure of how listings like this help the ecconomy, a similar system WILL be made in-world. Purists could then celebrate. (Though if LL did, they would probably still require the buyer to visit the location where the object is for sale. They want to encourage motion over the map to keep the whole world fresh. So there would still be a place for instant-buy web sites like this.)

It's like buying something from bestbuy.com instead of going to the brick and mortar store. (Though in our case it's prim and pixel. )

Interesting comments Tiger - thank you.