Mysterious Lack of Sales

Same for me.
Not only is business fine, it's growing pretty fast, so I have absolutely no complaints on this.
I've never sold on SLBoutique, but my SLX sales are higher than before too, but not as high as they were when teleporting was broken, which is expected.
If your business is doing poorly, work REALLY hard on advertising and promotions and try to answer all questions you get from anyone. It really helps.

I also think that things like "Businesses in a Box" and the reselling of freebies (or items marked mod/copy/trans for BiB's) is destroying inworld sales. Less creative folks, who can't really make their own clothes or competitive furniture etc will nonetheless gather these BiB's and freebies, and resell them for tiny amounts.

So look at it from the newbies viewpoint: they get a small stipend for their premium account, and discover they can either make one "premium" purchase every week or two, or can buy a ton of stuff (and get freebies for the rest) every day, even though the content may not be *quite* as good, they will often chose the later.

In SL you are competiting with free, and even when you aren't you often still wind up competing with people willing to accept less for work of equal value (SL is the ultimate in outsourcing and global competition).

The rise of BiB's is very recent, and probably correlates with the loss of sales many are experiencing. SL is becoming commoditized in a way it never was. The primary engines of the economy are land (it always was, but now more so) and spam (small plot advertising, campers etc).

The only solution is to produce items of a type or at a quality that requires high-level skills, and never, ever mark it copy/trans -- copy/trans items, regardless of what license you require, will *always* wind up in a freebie or BiB box.

Glad to hear that only us american's are facing an increase in the cost of petroleum products, or is it use them all together. Tell me, what do your cars run on?

gas? as in lpg? autogas? a lot of fleet vehicles run gas here, but the majority of cars run on petrol!

It sounds like you moved, since you have bigger lots now. Any time you move, it's going to take a while for your customers to catch up to you.

Maybe someone should make a website or some sort of in world listing of REAL quality work so that people don't have to sift through the disaster that is business in a box.

BIB is largely of our own making..............and driven by greed! In that once talented creators who have decided to leave SL are trying to make a killing before exiting the game...instead of selling their business (es) to single entities for a true & fair value (which is what i would do), they have opted to sell it on places like SLEX and SLB with full permissions including textures files as multiple copies.

The growth of BIB has the pyramid effect and are multiplying by the day! I have seen some new obscure backyard shopping malls that are literatually filled with BIB vendors without a household vendor name in sight. The irony is that they only last 2/3 weeks before closing shop, realising it's not so easy to make rent each week with the same stale products.

There is something that could be done but would require some collective backbone from your everyday mall vendors......say NO to malls that rent to BIB vendors....SIMPLE AS THAT! Instead of scurrying along searching for premium spots in a new mall make an enquiry first with the Mall owner.

The knock on effect is simple- the mall will probably only have BIB Vendors, they don't rent too long anyway---> mall will eventually become empty and unable to cover their Tier payments ---> mall owner would require major rethink for future rental strategy. The culture of these shopping malls needs to change back to what it was not too long ago.

Most BIB vendors won't buy land to create their own shops.....anyway there is always the problem of marketing the same products seen everywhere in SL.....not an easy task.!!
Gradually these BIBs will fritter away as people realise this is not going to be a successfull get-rich-sheme.

Maybe people should make their own stuff rather than trying to get rich off of someone else's work.

They probably want to, but the quality bar is much higher now that it was in the past, and probably many people just won't be able to reach it. Sad, but true.

Most BIBs are the SL equivalent of a pyramid scheme, the assumption being that there always someone more clueless who you can sell on to. As such they'll eventually collapse under their own weight.

My concern is that it puts people off seeking out the truely unique stuff created by current SL designers (Finding quality items using search or random walkabout is haphazard at best).

A website that helped in that search would be priceless. Please someone tell me such a site already exists...

It does, but it was poopoo-ed/torch'n'pitchforked by various SLers for reasons of privacy. It is also down/being revised at the moment. The site in question is http://search.sheeplabs.com .

Returning to my original post - sales are still non-existant, even though I have sold one or two of the actual stall plots and re-invested the money in new sites - but no products selling at all.

Hello,

have you thought of summer holidays? Lots of people are not at home currently but lying in the sun somewhere, not thinking of SL. I am quite sure it will get better again in about 8 weeks.

(Because I didn`t see anyone say this yet)... In my humble opinion its not "right" to say you have a mysterious lack of sales when all you ever sold were 1-2 items. I could see if you were selling 200-500+ Items a day and then suddenly it went down to 2 digit numbers. But 1-2 items a day is too close to the 0 mark to say there is a mysterious lack of sales.

Perhaps get more content out, put up a land listing/classified, and do some advertising.. im sure youll get some customers

You also mention you moved plots- that could cause a problem, I dread moving. and when I did I always made sure I put a "I moved" sign on the old land for awhile.

I really do not think summer has anything to do with it. If you watch the log in numbers for how many people are online it has not dropped. In fact I have noticed that its gone up some. I think most of it has to do with SL being messed up a bit for a while there. Sales in SL go up and down all the time. I have times when nothing moves and you wonder what the hell is going on then all of the sudden its like a rush. To this day I still don't get why and most likely never will I have just learned to accept it. In fact I have even noticed a slow down in the forums.

As a new SL consumer who has spent quit a bit of late, here's my take on what I have seen thus far. First off in one purchase I was going to make which was quit a large amount for one item, and while there deciding on which one to pick, (after several visits to be sure, I check the other products out of other sellers to be sure of the best bargain for me L), I was approached by a very nice seeming avatar, conversation then proceeded, getting to know each other type of thing,, and then I was asked if I had $ to buy, which I said yes I intended to, just decided which, and then they asked me if I could also buy them one. Taken back/even embarrassed, I did not at first know what to say, I just said I did not have $ for 2, (which I did, but had no intent of giving such a gift to someone I do not even know, my L are hard earned to BTW), and excused myself, left went home, almost did not go back, but did decide to came back at a much later date, LATE in RL time when it was very quiet in SL, and then did buy what I was after, but I did take a few weeks to decide to do it, due to the shock value in the buy experience. Part of the issues in buying for me too has been slow rezzing, to much in one area to rez everything, wish items were on sep. floors, sep. buildings, or something, ladies pants here, shoes here, dresses here, men's over here, a sign of where to go for such, not all together here or there, no time for such, and then there have been a few issues in the buy, click then nothing happens. This may have been for server issues on my part or issues we have been dealing with here in SL, I am not sure. When they had Paypal issues I shut down, for if they could not resolve that I was outa there, I mean I have been with eBay since they came online, and have had no issues as we just saw in SL with Paypal. I have bought a few high $ items I have decided I will not be going back to for seller lack of customer support after the purchase is made. I also was looking at a high $ item just in the past few days, asked the seller a question about a special order of a certain item they created, went back the next day to the shop and it was marked up 500. L, not exactly what I wanted, but close and decided I best buy it to check it out before it went up another 500L in another day, lol. I had planned to buy 4 but after watching the owner doing this after I IM about wanting to buy 4 in the first place, I won't likely be back ever again. After that I do watch sellers and the items they have/make I want far more closely. At any rate, hopefully it will get back to order for all. I sincerely would love to see everyone do well here. On the razzing if it ALL won't load in 30 mins. I am outa there, I am not spending my whole night or day of free time in one shop that won't rez, so imho less graphics to make it look pretty, and more of just your items for sell might help in them being seen to be sold.
Many Warm Blessings,,

i dont think business in a box has anything to do with it,
BIB serves a purpose... new uers come in and they are faced with clothes by X at L$600 for a pair of jeans etc. In the past when there was less competition you could get away with makeing ABSOLUTE SHIT and charging the earth for it.

Now new users are presented with an option... by expensive shit .... or buy cheap shit.
Some places like Juicee, dollyrock or "Nyte n Day" have kept thier quality regardless and not secommed to attempting to pile out the same old crap as everyone else, not only that but they have created an atmosphere with thier shops rather than the same old box with 30 posters on each wall.

I think the quality products will ALWAYS shine through so have no reason to fear cheap BIB products which we all know arnt that great at the best of times.

I suppose a sign of the times is seeing a guy wearing womans BIB hair.

Just hang in there.... if sales are down... maybe do s hop refit .. or make new products or different ranges.... remember ... just as new folk turnaround so does SL fashions

On the BIB, I went to a type of park in SL, ( I won't say which , that had these around the park edge and I decided to not go back to the park. I felt the items in the box to be very low end and so thus thought less of the park for allowing such a thing to even be there in the first place. There was nothing in that box which had anything to do with enjoying the park, the products all low end type, not even park recreation related. I'd feel the same of one in a mall, I'd rather see the shops. So I'd vote in getting rid of the BIB boxes, again, just mvho,
Blessings,,

I think that in the end BIB won't last.
I think those increative shopowners will learn eventually that they need to improve the amount that they are selling. People will get back to you and want to see new items.
And those BIB don't suply that. Also I think that the exclusivity will be the big point when people are in for a longer time of period. That is why I started in to the clothing making anyway. I didn'l like to see that I was dancing at a ballroom and wearing the same freebie as three other Avi's.

I am sure that quality will win from quantity. Now those BIB show new stuff but in the end all newbies will wear them and then they will look for something new and different.................
wich we all supply

And maybe it is an idea to give newbies a little amount of L$ at their start of the SL experience. That will make it also more fun.

And............................. it will us get rid of all those g&g that ask "where do I make money"