As no-one seems to have noticed...

There's been a massive change in the retail rental market. Blue Burke (Plush Shops) has sold all his mainland locations to Anshe Chung. The new locations are still trading under the name Plush but with rental boxes paying Anshe rather than Blue. (Ecity and Erotica sims are still under Blue's name but don't have new rentos yet)

The following telehub locations seem to have changed hands:

Plush Zuni - 12,544 m2
Plush Hanson - 28,512 m2
Plush Clarksburg - 7,328 m2
Plush Brownlee - 2,688 m2
Plush Wixom - 7,728 m2
Plush Baileya - 2,384 m2
Plush Isabel - 2,352 m2
Plush Montezuma - 3,456 m2
Plush Orient - 4,064 m2
Plush Clunn - 6,144 m2
Plush Warmouth - 6,784 m2
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The telehub rental market was previously split between Anshe and Blue. Some smaller players have some locations but those two were the big boys.

You may say why rent at a telehub? Well (most) people are not idiots - we rent because we make money. I've no desire to subsidise Anshe

Before the weekend Centre Ville charged more per prim for telehub space than Plush. Centre Ville also required more up front which made them harder for new designers. Centre Ville run events at their locations which may or may not translate into extra sales.

Now we have some Plush locations with higher rates per prim (although not as high as Centre Ville) but all with more required up front.

Did blue see the writing on the wall which said:


1. The telehub economy is about to be screwed over by p2p teleport
2. SL is spiraling downwards, time to bail
3. Blue is getting bored of SL time to sell out to Anshe

Blue? Let us know?

I reckon the amount of money he was making wasn't worth the amount of effort in running malls (tier costs, rento problems, voids, drama, returning objects etc). He's bound to make more per hour making and selling jewellry.

Blue will have got economies of scale, especially in tier- but lets take one of the Plush Malls in isolation.

Plush Orient.

4064 m2, telehub, mature

Expenses:
One off cost for the land (? $)
Tier ($25US = $6,250L)

Income:
12 units. They were $50/week - they are now $75/week.

At 100% occupancy you'd get $2,600L/month ($50/week) or $3,900 ($75/week).

You are much more likely to get 75% occupancy. $1,950L or $2,925L.

Balance:

In isolation you'd lose a packet. The cost/metre of tier decreases the more land you have.

If you had a full sim's worth of tier then it works out as $12US ($3047L)/month for a 4,096. Even with Anshe's raised rent and a not-achievable 100% occupancy you'd only make $853L/month.

A ring in Bluestone costs $250L. Selling rings involves some tier costs, but considerably less. Bluestone Isabel is 624 m2. Tier costs for that are about $5 say. That's $1,250L a month - or 5 rings to break even.

I'd sell rings if I was Blue

Well, I don't know if it was Blue, but the New York Times described a land baron with 14 mall locations and an income of $1800 a month "after taxes". I questioned that figure at the time, figuring it couldn't possibly be from telehubs alone but had to include land sales and other types of income, and that if it came from telehubs, the income state could not possibly reflect the original expense of the land.

Yes, I've noticed this process for months. Blue was always a substantial competitor to Anshe because he offered $75 rentals contrasted to Anshe's which were $100 or more. More than 6 weeks ago, Anshe decided to start downsizing her telehub land and slashing her telehub prices. One of them was Wixom, which she slashed after she moved Midge, her zoned community next to it, to private islands.

The private islands which constitute a significant undercutting of the mainland market, including telehubs, as well as the glut of New Continent land created by the Lindens, forced Anshe to compete with herself, i.e. she got New Continent land AND private islands so she made her own mainland grid land (and all of ours LOL) worth less. So she began to sell Wixom and others. She also sold parts of her Ross mall to me and others who now have mall vending space outside that telehub. Philo Hatfield and others began to buy up Anshe's mall land at Wixom and other locations. She still has Brownlee for sale at a very high price, but some bargains have been there to be had as well.

Depending on what other aspects of your land and other types of businesses you have, telehub land can break even or make money, but it requires a lot of hard work. The cost of the land, not the tier, is the breaking factor. On a bulk discounted tier schedule, the land, which is not in flat parcels but sometimes in levels of floors or divided stall space, can pay for itself, but it requires constant scrambling to try to get and keep tenants in this very competitive environment. Vendors take space based on their perception of whether there is traffic, but the traffic is usually a factor of whether vendors take space LOL.

I find the single biggest factor for me in how much capacity I reach in malls is whether I am on-site, or at least always reachable, to answer questions, help set up, clear prims, take care of problems, etc. And I figure Anshe, who used to spend a considerable time herself on-site in person at hubs like Wixon found that it was too demanding time-wise when she has the islands to take care of now.

I've studied the telehub "ecology" for months and it is fascinating to me. I camp out telehub spawn sometimes and it is amazing to me in particular to see the hundreds of people who will come to a telehub, look around, and leave because they've not seen what they want -- which is often a chance to socialize, not shop in a ghost town -- or they resented having their avs grabbed. I see sometimes people staying and shopping and buying because they don't care if their avs are grabbed . I've seen builders attempt to make more aesthetic telehubs with more plaza space and activities like Tringo for the "masses" and others try to make giant skyscrapers that trap avs, and I honestly don't know if they are so successful.

The fact remains, there is considerable traffic at telehubs, and sales! That's why they exist. I disagree with blaze that p2p will kill the telehub -- people will always need centralized train-station or cross-roads type of places to gather, if anything, to get started.

And I'm sure Blue isn't getting bored of making money, but since he sold even his grand mainland home with the gorgeous build and views, I'd have to figure he's moving to the islands or adjusting his business activity like many others. I guess you have to stay pretty agile in this very volatile game economy.

I also don't see that SL is "spiralling downward" but I've only been here about 6 months.

I'm going to continue to try to create an alternative to high-cost av traps at telehubs with $25 and $50 stalls that are more accessible, have more socializing and event opportunities, and have towers with more entrances and no "trapping".



That's exactly what he has been doing, putting more and more ring vendor shops everywhere, even ceding or selling his space to others.

Well, I noticed.

As one of Blue's former tenants I am not particularly enthused about this change.

And, for the record, I would have preferred a different, more open approach to the transition.

I was told simply, "we are changing the rentos, here is a refund on current rent. We'll tell you when the new rentos are set up so you can rerent your space." Nothing in there about the land being sold.

It wouldn't have been quite so disconcerting then to arrive to pay rent and find it would be going to Anshe.

I dont argue with Blue's right to sell, nor even the right to announce as suited him. But Im not happy about it, nor about so much /more/ telehub land being in the possession of a single entity.

Oh, well, I was thinking of cutting back anyway.

Don't forget architects fees in the equation. Unless you have the time to build a mall yourself or you buy an existing structure, a builder is going to cost $2.5k per hour. A modest build would probably take about five hours, adding an additional $12.5 to the start-up cost. A more complex build with decent landscaping could end up costing twice that much.

Also, I tend to agree that p2p teleport (a misnomer, IMO) will not impact telehub traffic, at least for a while. I think shoppers like the browsing experience at telehubs --even if it takes five minutes for everything to appear. And the current p2p subscription-based business model may make it appealing only those whose business relies on getting somewhere fast.

Absolutely, very good point!

But the cost of the land is a one-off not recurring expense. You should get back the cost of the land after you stop using it (roughly).

The recurring expense is tier, and the recurring income is rent.



Well actually traffic figures don't count for much at telehub malls. According to the magic traffic formula an avatar needs to spend 5 mins there or more. People are generally going to somewhere else and see something. They may spend 5 mins there, they may not. People who are spending lots of time there are generally setting up

For me it's visibility, cost (not necessarily per prim, no-one needs 100 prims in a 10m2 space lol), how much in advance etc. If somewhere needs 4 weeks in advance I'm less likely to give it a go.

Setting to group is also a hassle - we all have 15 groups, and swap in and out. Some mall owners have not worked this out yet and expect all vendors to be members of their vendor groups at all times...

Of course the group limits give large operators an advantage as membership of plush or centre ville gives you access to lots of places without any of the hassle.



Well the biggest factor against re-renting is the impossibility of getting hold of an officer - or finding that the one on isn't interested. Some people seem to be officers of vendor groups because they are someone's mate. They don't want to help you when you need a stray prim removing.

People who return all your prims the minute you are late with your rent are also less likely to get repeat customers. Do they know it can take us 2 hours to set up?

The very worst is people who return all your prims for a rebuild which they announced in a vendors group IM at 2am PST. Group IMs don't go to offline members, and there is no guarantee we will still be a member of your group. If you use your group for hourly spam it's more likely it will be dropped



If I don't make money I leave. I currently have 3 mainland telehub spots. They are shop windows.

Roberta,

Traffic figures indeed are looked at by vendors when they make their initial decision to take a vending spot. If they don't see traffic is high, they won't rent. They may try it anyway if the price is right and it's near a telehub -- and I often tell them that they often have to create their own traffic. If they have something people want to buy, people will traffic to them. And if they use the events space to hold various events, they'll get the traffic. The two go together.

The initial cost of telehub land, anywhere from $10-20/meter is so high, that it is very hard to make it back. I don't know what you mean about "getting back the cost of the land once you stop using it" unless you mean selling it.

Of course rentals then pay the tier after that, and make a profit, too, but then they first have to pay back the cost of that land before you are ever going to see a penny in true profit, and that's going to take awhile. That's why when I first started my malls, I thought in terms of a year.

I agree that setting to group is a hassle. I have shut off that option in some of my malls now. The fact is, the group list created by having such a group is handy for announcements, however. If you don't have groups, you can still use name/count now on the new menus. But you can't turn on autoreturn unless you have people set to a group. That means griefer prims and stray prims start filling up the mall and require constant policing. I think it's better to leave autoreturn off so that people, especially newbies, can place their items without the frustration of joining a group and working the group setting tools, but then I have to balance that against the hassle of prim return chores.

Most people judge a telehub vending spot by whether they can make enough sales to justify their rent. If they don't, some of them leave. Others, including myself when I rent at telehubs, stay to get visibility.

I know people do generally - I certainly do. I'm just not sure that's sensible for telehub spots. I sell plenty at some spots with pathetic traffic.



Of course I mean selling it afterwards. The land has a value - you hope that it won't have gone down dramatically whilst you are using it.

I wouldn't include the cost of the land in my calculation as a) it's a one off b) you get the cost back when you stop using the land and sell it off.

Even with not including the cost of the land I still wouldn't run a telehub mall - the margins are far too small.




But we don't get offline group IMs. The only way to make an announcement is via the voting mechanism.

People leave groups after they set up as groups are rationed. You don't need to stay in the group once you've set your prims to it.

Therefore using groups to make announcements doesn't work.

Roberta,

Some people stay in the groups just because they do want the announcements and don't mind the spam and the chatting. In fact, these groups drive me nuts and the chat is inane but I stay in them due to the odd useful announcement I do get out of them from mall owners myself.

I try to limit my spam postings to once a day, one line about an event or a new renting opportunity, and in some of my mall groups I make NO announcements except the odd cumbersome "vote proposal" to state something about a new or policy or something.

Yes, traffic to your own store can be better than traffic of a mall as a whole, so vendors should take note and take heart and not judge a telehub mall by its traffic.

Roberta, you simply HAVE to calculate cost of land in doing a business! Of course it's a cost. And in this volatile climate, with telehub land in particular dropping, you simply cannot expect it will drop. Indeed, I have one parcel of TH land that I didn't even develop because the cost of builders and my time in developing it and getting it rented and maintaining it is way higher to me than the tier, and I can't sell it except as a loss -- so I delay my plans 30 days. Welcome to SL. They have more than one way of trapping an AV.

Yes, there are changes around telehubs. The new continent tried to get by having only 2 of them because of all the hue and cry about them. I think that was a mistake.

I think partly its the unorganized cluster frinnzy, which discourages people from renting / shopping at a telehub, who wants to shop threw everything to find something they might be intrested in? not many! the simple truth is many people are on a mission when they TP into an area, and its typically an eye catching product or an unrezzed mall that traps the person and forces them to shop having the stalls listed in find places can help but being organized woud likely greatly improve sales for all vendors.

I think blue might be fearing the p2p teleport option and is erroring on the side of caution, sell while the land still retains its value. he could also have a time conflict, where the time he spends managing isnt worth the SL$ or his RL schedule has simply changed. in any event its really non of our buisness and I wouldnt expect him to spill his guts.

slightly related-
the p2p teleporting (if ever implemented) would likely cause me to quit SL or greatly reduce my financial involvement. being able to have malls and clubs anywhere in the map would cause every sim to be un inhabitable- shout, script, light and lag heavy cesspools. greatly deminishing SL's draw, and increasing crash / lag issues. (not to mention they would dround eachother out) the current system allows for some form of cohesion, a commercial and residential area for the main grid.

Well, first of all I'm not fearing anything of the sort. My success in SL is based on the same reasons for my selling. I watch the market. I noticed that it was time to get out so guess what I did. As far as bored or leaving, Nope. Im not going anywhere, just gonna kick back and enjoy the game alittle well and my brand new BMW 530 ie, Its midnight blue btw. Look the reason I got into malls in the first place was so many of my friends were complaining about mall owners selling out and poofing everything running off with there L$. I didnt, I refunded well over 100k L$ in prepaid rents. I found myself spending all my time flying around malls that few seemed to appricate. Had one Newb scold me on the fact that it took me 5 minutes to respond. WOW people are rude. Oh and renting an occupied booth is rude. lol

I gotta say this though, the members of Plush Shops are some of the best people in this game, for the most part. If you have the opportunity look them up buy there goods, they'll take good care of you.

As for the whinning hypocrites, (edited) to name one. This guy whines all the time about the "Land Barons" meanwhile he does the exact same thing just hides using Groups multipule ALTS. This is just spineless at the very least I stand strong on my actions in SL. Hats off to ya (edited) you have made a name for yourself by being at the heart of the controversy. Not unlike a New yorker I admire (Trump) Ouch did I just make that comparison. Anyway Shut up (edited) noone wants to hear you spew. *points and laughs*

Please excuse the spelling and grammer, math was always my best subject.

One last thing, as far as the NY Time article. You can beleive what you want. Only me and the tax man really know well, and the BMW dealer. BTW I hope you all filed your taxes.

Blue, you might mention one financially salient fact: you can build. You never need to factor in the cost of a builder or an architect. Conclusion: if a mall owner who can save money by being his own builder thinks it's time to get out of main grid malls then maybe it's time to get out of main grid malls!

Btw, while you were my neighbor across the water between Windermere and Bowness I enjoyed the view of your white mansion. That sim sure changes hands a lot, but so far nobody's built a house I like better than the white mansion.

No. I "scolded" you because of your in-game IM reply, telling me I had to wait days on a location I just rented because you're so busy you only visit your rental locations once every two days. About twenty minutes after that, you told me you didn't want to clear out the former renter's location until you got a hold of them to make sure they didn't let the rent lapse by accident. My reply was along the lines of, okay if that's the issue fine, let me know once you talk to the person. But for some strange reason you then asked for the location and cleared it out. Never had these problems with Anshe, makes me glad some of your former 50,000 meters of rental locations are no longer being mis-managed by someone immature enough to use the word newb.

Appears you took this personaly, how arrogant must you be to this that your the only person this could be. Immature? Pleas.

Okay, so let's say it was another customer of yours. How does this change my past shoddy customer support experience I mentioned in the previous post?

Your making less and less of a point as you persist, its the fact that you rented somelses space, An occupied location. Then demanded, with little or no tack, that I remove them. In the good customer service nature I waited untill the occupant returned my IM telling me they would rent elsewhere in the mall befor I removed there prims and let you occupy. Again you are only thinking of yourself here. You speak of me being immuture yet you act like a spoiled child. As for comparing my running of a mall with any others, maybe you failed to read the other posts. Our groups vendors respected the operations. The way I handled things. You appear to be the odd duck "spoiled child" in the crowd. Please dont even begin to act like your one little over reaction has any bearing on my successful 8 month opperations of the Plush Shops.

Please forgive me, oh high and mighty SL business owner and esteemed IRL BMW owner, for having been a customer of a SL business who expected the owner of which to understand the difference between a customer and an acquaintance. I remember asking very nicely, but even if I hadn't, you still should have treated me with curtsey. Not a BS response of wait a couple of days because I'm so busy, then ignoring me for 20 minutes until I offered to pay your 300L$ for a few minutes of your time. After making that offer, I received your explanation of wanting to contact the former shop renter. Also can't say I remember any spaces available in that Mall location, since I looked and only found the one open stall.

Still sounds to me like you were using the previous renter's lapse of rental as an excuse. Maybe, maybe not. You can makeup whatever story you'd like, as you're the only one who knows for sure. So keep on keeping on. Customer service and other's time and money be damned.

Get over yourself already geeez. *points and laughs*

I can't say I was happy with this change The majority of my shops were located at Plush locations. Why? Because the pricing was reasonable, sales were good and change was minimal. I have closed down all of my shops. The primary reason was due to a 100% increase in price at most locations. I think there could have been more communication to the merchants in regard to this change. My rent was refunded for all locations. That I was happy about I'm sure it took awhile to figure out who owed what and the time to disperse those refunds.

Personally I think over time we will see prices go down. If merchants can't make back what they put into these locations they will leave. The one thing I find in general that discourages me from renting at mall locations is changes without thought or planning. I have noticed this a number of times. All of a sudden an anouncement is made stating such and such is not allowed followed with a lot of confusion and a lack of answers. The problem is when you ask for clarification no one seems to know. You'll get an answer like, "We need to check on that".

I'm gonna miss the Plush shops They were managed well! For that I thank the management.

Ok forgive me, but I am confused. Why do you feel you needed an explanation as to why he couldn't get with you right at the moment you asked? Regardless if he was busy or if he was waiting for the renter to make sure they didn't lapse due to rl issues; that's HIS business, not yours. He responded to your request giving you a valid timeline and then went to explain why he was not going to rent that spot right at that time. You stated that yourself. This seems that there was an expectation of something above and beyond customer service.

I understand Blue wanting to relax now and enjoy the game more. Actually that is necessary to do. I am feeling that way too.

What I don't understand is that here comes Anshe and increased the prize of my rent (in all Plush malls) without any notification. Then wanting to pay minimum of 4 weeks.

Well guess what, I am leaving Plush. Actually I was there because Blue is a friend of mine and I felt good going there and be part of his fun with the malls.

But to pay Anshe inflated prizes like that? NO way!!

I actually left Centre Ville too, since I didn't sell anything there. I sell everywhere but in Anshe's famous Centre Ville. Centre Ville looks like a haunted place now. This is my second time I left from that place, and now not returning again. All you see are ghosts in that place. lol

Is she about to buy Second Life? Let me know, because I will leave...

By the way, I will watch some of her locations and see how she increases everything, because many will leave. There are tons of great malls out there. Why do I have to pay her inflated prizes where I can find places like Rue and TeaZers, Slootville, Paradise where the owners are friendly and they have time to talk to you in case of a rental question?

Sorry, but Anshe, you just asking too much and I am not going to contribute that much to your pocket, your malls are too expensive, it is getting out of hand

I didn't realize Anshe was the new owner of Plush Shops, til I paid the rent tracker and found I had just paid her! Then I notice the amount was double per week, from what it had been. Of course prims had more than doubled, but it was just a tiny vendor spot for me, so I have no need of all those prims.

For me, it reflects poorly on BOTH management teams. Total disrespect for the Plush group vendors. A deceitful business manuever, that obviously was planned.