Recent Sales

My sales have been unusally low these past couple of weeks. Is that trendy or just Fate Gardens falling behind the curve?

Mine too. Most merchants I've spoken too have a drop in sales. I contribute it to college students and summer.

I have records of sales for the last 2 years on various stuff. Sales go down right before xmas and pretty much may/june and august, don't know why... summer vacation, nice weather?

More than just this year then? Thats encouraging. Now I don't have to think its permanent.

West Trade Sales (August 05): Nothing, just started up after long absence.

West Trade Sales (September 05): about... $L 1k? Maybe less.

West Trade Sales (October 05): about... forgot, but I wanna say... about $L 50k?

West Trade Sales (November 05): about $L 100k (slightly over)

West Trade Sales (December 05): about $L 100k (slightly over)

West Trade Sales (January): about $L 200k, I think $L 201k if memory serves

West Trade Sales (February): about $L 205k, didn't really focus on every $L

March: Having bought a sim each in Feb, March and April, my finances aren't broken out so nicely. Solidly in the $L 150k range though - dunno, anywhere from $L 130k to maybe $L 180k.

West Trade did take a bit of a hit in March, but for a different reason: I offered a free West Trade house with every one of my sim plots, for people who started the sim with me. When you give away 50 houses between February and April to your prime customerbase averaging $L 2000 or so each, you kinda feel it.

I wouldn't have done it any other way though, and it made me feel richer than $L ever could.


So now I'm slammed up against the $L to USD conversion limit, which is preventing me from opening another sim - I can't convert another 1250 USD worth of advance $L payments to buy Port Caledon for a few weeks at least. Yay me, I'm helping the economy! I think.

I applied for business tier 1, it's been over a week and no indications yet. Not a big deal, I know the Lindens are busy and have always taken care of me when they get a chance.



That's the Desmond Shang business experience so far. What do the numbers mean? You tell me, I dunno. As everyone can see I'm really small-time compared to the Land Barons or Content Barons, but it's been fun, fun, fun all the way.

If I ever get busted to the dirt, scrounging for $L 10 from money trees and selling my little pixellated body, at least I still got my memories.

Just to let everyone know.. SL eco is on a a 2 month cycle (~about).

Heh - August 2005 was my best month out of the entire last year...

Course, I broke my ankle at the beginning of August, so I spent almost the entire month sitting in a chair with my foot up, in SL.

- Jon

The thing that seemed to make the most difference to my sales was the "mature" checkbox in find when it was implemented and the default being off.

I am not sure if this has now changed.

I certainly hope not... That is the main reason Marlin Engineering is in a PG sim. I can certainly understand your position, however, and if I sold mature items I would probably want it to default to on as well.

- Jon

I can't complain, but with a couple of pretty successful product releases and Shoe Wars in early april, I wouldn't have expected my sales to drop. There was a marked lull in january / february though.

Thanks for the all replies! I do agree that being in a PG sim gets more FIND exposure than M. That proved invariably true when I was building small park shops near hubs and malls.

It's also readily apparent that being inworld, and onsite boosts sales considerably but I'm not entirely sure why that's true. Oddly, hosting events, as opposed to just being there, has never had a noticable effect. It makes me wonder why people break their backs steadily posting hosting a daily stream of events. They must just really love doing it.

Is it a two month cycle or three. Looking back, it seems to me that FG will have a couple of really good months then a not so good one. Bear in mind that I'm only talking about a difference of 60k-80k, not hundreds or thousands of kL a month.

So things should pick up in June? Perhaps May, how many mothers are there inworld? No Siggy doesn't count. Is anybody here planning on sending him flowers?

Barnes and I were talking about this phenomenon, just the other day. Both he and I have seen a dramatic decrease in sales over the last couple of weeks. Not really sure I could pinpoint a reason.

So, dammit newbs, get over to LindeX, buy a shitload of Lindens and start buying our stuff!

Barnes has done a really wonderful job of rebuilding Deimos to provide a truly immersive experience. That'll be attracting a lot of attention over the next several months.

How do you manage to type in handcuffs?

I had somewhat thought that my sales were in proportion to people entering Second Life and the expansion of land.

Most notably, the sims that Anshe bought.

This is pure speculation, but my thought was:
- marked rise of users in Jan/Feb (Christmas gifts of Second Life?)
- the cold, stay-indoors winter
- an extra hundred or so sims bought and needing to be house-ified.

Who knows?

Incidentally, I got my business tier 1. Called in, and Lee hooked me up (I got a clean rap sheet and pays da billz). Upward and onward to the 5000 USD a month $L conversion limit!

Yeah, it kinda stuns me in a way. Had I been still playing Lineage2 instead of Second Life, I'd only be maybe a sucky level 48 Silver Ranger that gets beat up outside of town...

Time to roll out the sims people have been asking me for, I guess.

Hmm well, my yard sale stuff is selling pretty damn well hehe

Jon -
Yes the unchecked default is fine.
I just meant when it came in, it effected my sales and coming up in find.
So I moved to a PG sim and things went back to normal.

My sales took a serious dive for almost 2 weeks, it was strange. Most days i barely broke 1000, and around the end of last year i was making several 1000 a day, My sales have since picked back up but its probably due to the renovations in Deimos as Khamon said.

Lets make wild speculations and blame the lindens.

Ill bet anything it has to do with Brent Linden and bikini waxxing.

there is defiantly a trend going on i saw sales increases for 6 months straight last half of 05 and Jan 06 but since mid february i have seen a downward spiral.

i believe there at least a few things that have contributed to this trend

one- is increased amount of content creators meaning every one is getting a bit less of the pie

two- the removal of the tele hubs there is basically no fly by traffic any wear.

three- the removal or impending removal of the DI not as many people willing to hand out the big bucks for prizes.

four-- another big item could be the end of the sign up bonus for the basic account even though it was being gamed there were still many that did not game the sign up bonus and spent that money in world

I'm sure there are more reasons i cant think of ATM

but the best thing any content creator can do to keep the sales they have is continuous creation of new items and work it you cant just plop out your vendors and pray some one will come by and buy even at malls where you pay rent if the land is set to tp anywhere then you may find it advantageous to set a classified at some of your mall locations

Good news Kamon! I can think of 3 mothers and 1 father within my close circle of friends! Plus its my birthday next month so hey, maybe business is looking up soon!

I doubt that is a factor. If it matters at all, the fact that looking things up in Find or the Classifieds and visiting the shop is now much easier compensates for any loss.



This could well matter. I brought a friend into SL in January, and used the bonus Lindens I got to buy him a skin. I was happy to use the found money to do that, but I wouldn't have gone to LindeX to get money for that sizeable gift. So that was one transaction that happened because of the bonus, and I'm sure I'm not the only person to do that.