Is Your Business Being Affected by the Falling L$?

Is the falling L$ having a negative effect on your business or are things still booming thanks to the front page BusinessWeek article which has brought a massive influx of SL citizens?

Personally, my business has been down since the Christmas months, but up over February and holding steady.

The L$ fall may make me re-evaluate my prices, however.

What has your experience been?

What I don't understand is why Linden Labs won't leverage its
monopoly over Second Life with the creation of Corporations.

Allow in-game Businesses to create a corporation like they create
groups. Assign officers, issue ownership shares, and payout dividends.
Throw in a Stock Market so players can Buy/Sell their Shares...

Doing this would not only be great for the corporate infrastructure in
SL, but it would also generate demand for Linden Dollars. Since investment
in company shares are Linden Dollar denominated.

Because there comes a point where macro economic stimulation (sic) disappears so far up its own arse its not even funny anymore. oh, my bad. it IS still funny. It tickles a bit too.

The falling L$ has not effected my business to any extent that I can see. I index my prices to current L$ values though.

I've already made this. It's at http://www.slsolutions.org/, and was recently featured in Business Week magazine. You could make a market too, in the event that you don't find mine satisfactory. No reason to wait on LL. It would probably be a mistake for LL to do something like a stock market in-house.

Neither the linden exchange rate nor Businessweek have affected my business.

My prices are staying as they are, and I will never charge for freebies.

If you ever get any original content though Jamie, I may copy it and sell lower than you sell. Its called capitalism.

Kazzy Land Ownership -> Profit decreased. (less L$ value & less customers)
Kazzy Designs -> Profit increased. (increased prices & more customers)
Kaz Financial Bank -> Profit increased. (usd prices & more customers)
slwizard -> Profit didnt change. (less L$ value vs more customers)
Sparkle Paradise Rentals -> Profit didnt change. (less L$ value vs more customers)

Already decided to end Kazzy Land Ownership(main land business.)

So yes, surprisingly, my business is still doing better and better each month.
But the thing is i spent very high effort to deal with unstable L$ value.

My business is not effected by the value of the linden and continues to do well

Mine is usally a steady flow but this week my sales have gone down by almost half

With the price of $L down, one would think business would pick up. It might be a need to create/buy new objects to market.

I know I need to update stocks. If it weren't for new users business would be dead.

Also, virtual goods never wear out.

Stop drinking the Kool-Aid

Don’t insult my friend! You are the silly one! If you raise prices and others don’t, your sales will go down and their up! Your fixed costs are stable in real money and your unit costs are effetely none. The lower your prices the higher the demand! You should do your homework before talking. Do the supply and demand charts!

I don't bother with him, Ranma, so don't worry I only 'broke' my rule not to respond to him twice and he still hasn't shown where I said the sell rate for lindens to USD would get 'better.'

All I know is I am buying lindens now when I can rl afford it, and plan on buying as much as I need when the time comes. I guess I still can not see how this is really affecting how I play the game. I have been in SL over 6 months, have most of what I really need to play with. Now I buy something I see I like, new toys, new clothes, etc. Once you have the basic items it takes something pretty neat for me to look at and buy. The more lindens I have the more I buy. I have seen a few prices increases but for the most part stores are keeping their prices reasonable or the same and I think that is the way it should be....we are only talking pennies here people....come on...

If designers, creators, etc., want to sell things then they need to come up with more new things....for a good example when is someone going to make good things for men, shoes, suits, etc...I haven't seen anything really outstanding in SL for men. If someone does come up with some really good stuff you bet I will buy.

Something else, I would love to buy things to give to my partner and friends and wouldn't mind spending a the money on them but in almost every case you can't transfer it once you buy it.....My money goes to those who sell things that I can buy and then give to others......

I have tons of things I have purchased that I no longer want or need but can't even give it away because of no transfer....so therefore I am forced to either keep it (Inventory over 15000 items now) or delete it which I don't really want to do because I paid for them.

My 2 cents worth....

Some things like vehicles simply can't be sold as no-copy/transfer. I know many content creators who sell stuff as copy-only (myself included) will manually handle a gift purchase. For me, what that entails is you telling me what you want to give, and who you want to give it to, paying me the money directly, and I will then drop the item on that person.

I have done that many times with my vehicles.

Also, you can do this directly using either SLExchange and SLBoutique (buy copy-only items, and have them delivered to another avatar).

- Jon

And if you don't raise prices, your sales remain, but your profit declines
because of the dollar's decline. You also need new friends... Some people
can be a bad influence on you.

You said it would get better when it was L$275ish..
Now we are looking at L$310.. Seems you are wrong
again, and again, and again... 3 strikes and you're out.

I most heartly agree. It IS capitalism.

Additionally, stocks never wear out.

So every week you have the total amount of products in existance + whatever is created that week.

With each passing week there literally are more goods for sale in the market.

Did I hear created ? Created by who - and then sold by who else we ask ourselves ?

Not original editted content..just original content..period

My Linden income has not been affected, but my sales do not cover tier as well as they used to. I'm estimating that, unless things change, I will be tiering down in two months instead of tiering up. This sort of thing should hit the real estate market first. I expect that retail will be the last to suffer, although stores will be less interesting as more folks feel the prim squeeze and sell only in vendors.

I have always adjusted my vendors and rentals to the current exchange rate and as I watch the trends of the economy. Many say I might charge more then other venues in sl for rent but if no one works with inflation then they wont last simply put. If you think by offering cloths or rentals and prices that dont even cover the cost of the land its on, then your setting your self up for failure.

So many IM me asking what should they charge for vendor rent or land and I tell them dont be afraid to charge more if the location and enviroment is good people will pay. If all your venue has to over is a bunch of cheap stalls and 30 camp chairs then dont plan on lasting long. On the other hand I have some vendors saying they dont make enough sales to cover rent, well Im sorry I wont or have never given them slack but I do give options without having to drop the price of my vendorstalls. If their product is good the one sale a week would simply cover their rent the rest is all profit. If not they should charge more when prices fall. If they think they can whip out 50 shirts with some googled up images plastered on the front sell them for 30-50L each and wonder why they arnt making money then maybe they should rethink their vendor line or up the cost.

I agree that inflation is needed and have been telling people without inflation the L wont grow cause the demand wont increase unless their is a increase in players. We need to not rely on more players to come to sl so that there will be more people buying the L, but that each current player will buy more L as the cost of goods and land go up. We need to not hope that as LL has more press that there will be a boom of more players and they will bring more sales. Granted they will but many are coming to SL for what i call a "SL Gold Rush" they read about the money to be made in SL and are coming in with that in mind as well, so these people you are looking to come into sl to buy your goods many will become your own competition one day as they hope to become the next person to be on the cover of a magazine.

Is the drop in L effecting my buisness? No but I still dont like it. If the L falls I simply bring up rent to match and adjust my vendors. Shameless plug for the new jevn vendors they allow u to adjust the rate of your products according to the usd to L ratio, now if they would just stop updating Id be a happy camper I still also feel that LL needs to hold some responiblty for the recent drop in price with their very vague Linden direct buy announcement, because many who know SL's history know that when they suggest something it means expect it within the next few weeks or sooner I do feel that the L will recover and am buying up and stocking up on all the panicing sellers. As I always says with every change there is money to be made by those who cant adapt o.o *hint* buy up a lot of L and throw it into Ginko and then u can collect the interest instead of throwing it up on lindex and losing your shirt as you watch it fail and sell for lower.

iv had to adjust my prices once or twice
a being who dos not adjust to th echanges is doomed to oblivion
or something like that
the only constant in th enuivers is change after all hehe
but my buisnes still dos good inf to cover land rental adn vendor stals plus new creation
you just gota adjust

I have not yet noticed too much effect on my business thus far due to the rapid fall of the L$. I will probably soon have to raise the prices slightly on my top two sellers at Spank's Specialties (The programmable Super Floor, and my land terraforming robot) soon though if the L$ continues to fall at this crazy rate. Have the last few days been a record decline? I try to keep my prices reasonable, though a certain level of compensation for such complex objects is expected.

I'm not really sure what result this will have overall in the long term. My guess is it won't be good, but I hope I'm wrong.