Mysterious Lack of Sales

I noted a important drop in sales the last couple weeks but more sale in SLX. Anyway, the increase in the second (SLX) doesn't cover the cooling in the SL direct sales.

Yeah at first I thought it was me but now I am seeing this is a issue for everyone. Not a good sign. Been thinking of selling the business and maybe now is the time.

My sales flatlined during the problems with the in-world Lindex, but they seem ok at the moment, maybe a little below what I've seen in previous months but nothing major - and that can easily be attributed to summer vacations and the like.

I had my best weekend ever last weekend, but it kinda goes in spurts too..

You missed my point, you said you moved all your outlets to new premsies... Have you updated every form of advertising? People create LM's for places they visit, you can't update those.. in your situation, I would have used the old plots as a redirecting point, much like a website that changes location, until people update their LM's (you won't catch them all). When other people ask where a previous customer of yours got something, they are probably dropping them old LM's etc. They TP, look around, think you have gone out of business and tp to the next place of interest... some may try and find you in search, but thats been borked of late.

Oh God ,how that line is tailor made for Brandi.......

Just a note, from a long time shopping addict


I used to shop like crazy, because my own sales permitted me to do so. My sales are still ok, I am just having to save more to pay for tier etc. However, I still did some shopping...untill a couple weeks ago when I started noticing things I have purchased are disappearing. Whats the point? Im not going to toss perfectly good cashoutable lindens on clothing I wont have in a week when the next update deletes it from the database. The really frustrating part is this ISNT a known issue (though it HAS been brought up on the forums and in tickets by multiple people) and there really is no fix. Its just luck that anything works anymore. I just cant see myself tossing more money into something that wont be there the next week, even if it has a *chance* of being there. Not good enough.

Until some major issues within SL get fixed *gives a lil shrug* this shopping addict is hanging up her shoppin shoes n bag. I know other people that have left SL because their inventories are thinning out, its just throwing away money (even if its insisted on being fake money, ffs)...but it seems no one at LL cares if people leave, because 500,000 alts are waiting to log in in their place. I miss shopping

Or Brandi tailor made..?

Time to pay n00bs to walk around with sandwich boards advertising your shops!

...and my sales are about normal. They went down a little bit but that's because I redid my store twice at different altitudes each time and didn't keep up on the listings and landmarks like I shoulda!

...and petrolium unleaded gasoline fuel has actually leveled out in the last month around here. I guess the NW is blessed by hobos and bikers!

This may well be a major reason why sales are dropping.

I seem to be having the same conversations with my friends over and over. "Grrrrrr, my new thing i bought has disappeared". Happening an awful lot, and it's always with recent purchases, not stuff thats been there a while. People are getting very pissed off about it, and refusing to buy anything until it's fixed. They can't afford to keep buying things over and over. And no point goin to the seller, the item has already appeared in your inv, and gone again.

No doubt LL will post a blog saying it's fixed, while it's still happening all over the place (like everything they've 'fixed' lately). Untill it stops happenin, people will stop buying.

hehe, someone tried that once, and it didn't work out too well:

/327/d9/166321/1.html

I was thinking through the various factor that could be causing this. I suspect it is a combination though. The ones I immediately thought of were:


i) seasonal
ii) we're over the cusp of a massive growth curve
iii) inventoty instability
iv) lag (if it takes 5 minutes before all the textures have rezzed and you can actually see what the shop is selling, you've probably lost interest)
v) people logging on, not seeing any of the friends online and logging off again (due to the friends list not working)
vi) voice chat (people now stand around in large groups behaving as statues just chatting, and don't bother much with the 3D aspects)
etc.

However, then it occured to me whether the massive over supply of land was also effecting things. The constant onslaught of new continents has pushed land prices down. Not this is a good think for people looking for land, but not for those whose business is land. All those who make money via land either on the large industrial scale to the small scale are probably feeling the financial hit of the land price crash, with smaller players the most affected. It is also, I suspect, having some impact on the rental market too. Even those who just own land to live on, may be unsettled that their land is worth a fraction they paid for it.

Given how much of the economy is based on the land market, the land price crash has probably resulted in an economic crash too!

Matthew

thats my experience. Sales are better atm for me too, but they were flat in May/early June.

Hm... the ads should be on persons or body attachments that people usually pay close attention to. Advertisement tattoos for strippers, freebie prim genitals with company logos... the latter could even be scripted to hand out landmarks. Or announce products hidden in XCite-like emotes, kinda subliminal... that would even work for advertising of RL products.

There is or was a company that offered this service, I remember reading a post by Ms filth, the owner of TRU. She paid shit loads of money for this advertising campaign and had endless grief. Long story short, people walking round in sandwhich boards with your store logo on it start griefing, poeple blame the store being advertised rather than the person doing the girefing. try and avoid this form of advertising as it could serious damage your brand and reputation.

Yes, that's the post I linked above.

Yeah, I don't pay anyone I don't already know well enough to determine if they're trouble. New people tend to flock towards me (probably because I'm one of few old schoolers that isn't habitually rude to n00bs without reason) and I have a couple friends that are good guys/girls/maybe really guys that I could depend on for that.

But yeah...you don't just start paying any joe off the street in RL, either. That's what background checks are for!

ppl cant buy lindens, ll has borked the pp method, ll has borked the cc system...
whats the mystery?

that would help explain my sales.

april - 8,000 - opened the 2nd week
may - 30,000 - everything running well
june - 11,000 - broken search, linden issues. 8,000 of that was in the first 10 days
july to date about 500 - i'll be lucky to make rent at this rate.

My own opinion is the cause is the depression of the land market by the crazy amount of land being offered for auction each day.
I look at the auction figures and there are 8 sims a day reaching the end of their auction time on the new mainlands. lets be conservative and say that they are all sold off in 1024s that is 64 plots on each full sim. Equal to feeding 512 new players a day over 3500 per week of paying people. 35000 new paying customers to sl every 10 weeks, but the login figures do not bear out this increase like they used to. Surely you have all noticed the flattened line of logins the last few weeks.
I am an island owner and am seeing almost none existent land sales on my 9 islands. This was a downward curve that started happening in early spring as the new mainland came online with its massive 40 sim start, and just kept dropping and hasn't stopped as the second mainland was introduced.
Add this crushing glut of land to the market combined with the shameful drop of 1st land instead of tightening up who could buy it then the summer time arriving, then mix in the Paypal debacle which is still going on for a large number of us and missing inventory, you have the makings of a serious depression which it seems we are now into. Hopefully the Lindens will stop introducing Huge amounts of land at auction, sort out their billing problems with Paypal, and the Lindex. Plus fix the inventory losses and as autumn arrives we may see the world moving out of the depression it appears to be in.

Also think it's the type of products you're trying to sell, some are regarded as essential whilst others might be seen as a bit of a luxury spend. During hard economic times that can make a world of difference!

My June revenues were 20% down from my Mar-May period.....however July has really picked up and almost back up to Apr levels (my peak in 2007)....i have no understanding as to why that is, as i had expected a further drop off from even June's low.

I imagine the economy is on a downturn, most of the reasons have been described already and accelerated by LL incompetance in providing a stable grid with basic working functionality.

Dumping 100's if not over a 1000 new sims has really flattened the Land market and not the smartest LL policy in recent times.!! If you fly around these so called new continents
you'll see an abundance of "For Sale" signs.....making it unattractive to even want to buy a plot of land there. Its also had a knock on effect on Private Islands......i have had several residents unable to sell their lands, even when reducing the sale price 3 or 4 times. The noobs are not really taking up the slack and buying small plots as they're having difficulty getting money into the game!


Maybe another reason for flattened sales......and also my PET SL HATE..... are these goddamn "Business-out of Box" stuff that are being sold at most new malls for next to nothing prices. Whist it does not effect my business sector particularly....it must effect the Fashion Industry somewhat! Everywhere you go....you see the same stuff being sold at differing prices. New vendors are not even creative enough to either photoshoot new prim boards or place a sticker over original price with their own selling price! Incredible!

Even upon invitation from a new Mall owner, i refuse to rent in malls that sell this cr#p....it's also one of the 1st questions i ask......its a point of principle and a show of support towards the real Fashion creators here on SL.

The monthly numbers in the economic stats are interesting to me. The total number of people making money continues to grow, but the number of people in the top earnings brackets has been gradually shrinking. Why do you suppose that is?

Their slice of the pie is shrinking? More competitors in same sector with similar volume of sales with maybe greater distrubution of it....with top earners not earning as much as previously (maybe pushing them down to next bracket)

er, that is simply restating the point using a metaphor. I'm still wondering why.

EDIT: Darn you, editing after I posted!

My suggestion would be that it is due to more competition.

With the influx of new people, has come many talented individuals. Those individuals that set up businesses that compete directly with the top earners. Since the barriers to entry into most SL businesses is low (and it is easier than RL to offer similar versions of successful products), there are not many of the top earners that are insulated from this competition.

Whilst I don't count myself as being particularly talented, my clothes designs and the sales that I make probably contribute to the overall competition in some small way.