A question for the shoppers

Are you still shopping?

My sales have fallen through the floor since the viewer update, as have other people's. I'm still trying to get a handle on what the situation actualy is and what might be the cause.

As shoppers, how are you finding the new viewer? Are there bugs or performance issues keeping you from shopping like you did before? Do you still have confidence buying things with amongst the reports of inventory issues?

I have my own theories about why sales have slowed, but I really would like to hear from the shoppers

Vale

Truthfully I must confess I really haven't been shopping because when I do there have been issues with products.

I haven't needed to buy anything.

I'd hazard a guess that sales havn't died because everyone's suddenly decided they don't like what's for sale or they don't need anything. I'm not saying such issues don't influence people's spending habits, but they really are personal issues. My problem isn't that one of my customers has stopped buying from me, my problem is that everyone has stopped buying from me, and I'm not the only one.

This hasn't been a slowdown over time, it happened very suddenly and it's ongoing. I'm really trying to ascertain what's going on and why, the shoppers can help me with that, two guys who don't want to shop can't.

Vale

I'm not aware of any special reason to stop shopping. I'm still buying stuff, but I'm doing that very focused: Looking for something specific and then buying just that.

The only "issue" I had recently was an item that disappeared during autoreturn (Stupid me forgot to set it to group on my own land!), so I had to buy it again.

The search issue doesn't bother me: I am not using search to spot merchants. Normally, when I see something nice, I inspect the object and look up the creator, who normally has a link to his shop on his profile. Then I TP there to look around.

I'm shopping as much now as I did before the update. I do have issues with textures and objects rezzing slowly, or textures going out of focus, but I've learned to be patient and wait a little longer for everything to rez.

I have a number of favorite shops that I check out now and then, a few of which have update notice groups that I'm in; in my own experience, having an update group, and sending out regular notices, does help bring people in. (At least it brings me in!)

I don't use search places a lot, unless it's to look for a specific place, if that's any help. I read the 'new products' and 'shopping' forums regularly, and take note of what items I see that I want to get a closer look at; if the shop location isn't mentioned in the ad, I'll use search to find it.

Morning Vale! You need to answer a few questions about being a shop keeper and wanting to make lindens.

Have you made anything new to keep customers coming back? Is your inventory varied enough so that all sexes find something of interest? Do you have enough inventory to offer? You have a great beginning in your store with some very nice outfits. Keeping up the hard work and adding to your inventory line will keep customers returning.

Another idea is to advertise wherever you can. I searched the "New Products" in this forum to see what you have made and didn't find anything. It's a free service and one that you should investigate. Some people shop using the search engine inside SL. Others only use forums such as this one to see new products. Depending on word of mouth and should anyone pass by and read your profile is hit or miss. You have to do what you can to reach all possible customers. There are many other forums besides this one that you could advertise new products on as well. There are also a couple of sales websites that you could offer your inventory. Check them out.

Good luck in SecondLife and may you always have a great time.!

I picked up a few names of places to check out from SLB yesterday and was going through them using Search in-world.
I was in Dublin when it slowed to a crawl and hung. Too late to get a landmark, I relogged. When I got back in, it didn't show on Search. Did Dublin get wiped of the Virtual Earth?

Yay, thanks for the reply, Milady.

Right now I'm working on a brand new shop on a private island, the building is up and I'm busy filling it with all new products, so I havn't updated my current shop or posted in the new products forum in a little while.

My line has been small but from the day I launched I've had sales. If things had been slowing down for me then I wouldn't worry so much, but they didn't slow down at all. One day I had good sales, the next I had nothing.

Somthing else that's really bothering me is that my traffic hasn't fallen, only sales. My classifieds are bringing just as many people in, they've just stopped buying, I really need to find out why if I can, with the new viewer rezzing textures so slowly now, it could be that SL just doesn't support shopping as a recreational like it used to

BTW, I'm raising my game, the things I'm making for my new shop are much nicer than my old stuff, so keep an eye on Vale

Vale

Not sure how or why the new viewer would prevent people from shopping... It could be coincidence that people don't want to buy your product.

This isn't the first thread about it -- Let's stop blaming the new viewer for drop in sales.

Hi Vale, I bought some of your items 2 or 3 days ago (you were already asking why your sales were dropping at that time), the only problem I had was lag, lag, lag. And textures getting forever to load, and yes it IS due to the main viewer. It was doing that with First Look only, and now it has become the norm. But eventually they show up, I accelerate the process by leaving my mouse pointer over those I want to see in priority and everything goes fine.

I must admit though that every time I press the Pay button I'm not sure the item will ever be delivered. However, most of your vendors are single prims that you "Buy" a copy from, so the transaction is atomic and never fails.

And your items are great by the way, I love them ! I'd have a couple of suggestions even, but I will IM you in-world about it if you don't mind...

Cheers,
Marine

/me makes a note to go and look sometime ...

Heh, I'm kinda embarrassed to admit that I *have* been shopping over the last few days, more than usual in fact -- despite the grid-wide problems that have seemingly come out of the new viewer...

I'm sure that shoppers will be back, and in droves, once they are sure that the items they purchase will in fact reliably show up in their inventories, and rez reliably, and still be there upon their next log-in.

Just think of that pent-up consumer demand! Back to your design tables, content creators! I'll be there to batter down your doors shortly!

The fact that as soon as online numbers hit about 33000 and then I cant TP anywhere without crashing kinda stops me shopping atm!

I'm still shopping away. Though I have slowed down after my initial binge... TP problems and lag have, admittedly, put me off from time to time but I'm always back for more!

I'm still using the old viewer, but my shopping has dropped off for several reasons. First off I have bought most of the stuff I need, I've never been one to go to stores and not buy, that's looking not shopping. Also I have a list of preferred vendors I patronize now, instead of blindly wandering from store to store. And like others have said, LAG, LAG, LAG.
Too often I am in stores and it takes so long for the products to appear, or when they do the transaction times out. 30K logged in definitely seems to be the pain threshold.

I have watched people appear at the teleport spot on my land, and poof away no more than 10 seconds after, without having taken a step. Out of curiosity, I cleared my cache, restarted the client and went back to my store.. it took upwards of 3 minutes for everything to load.

I think it is a very real possibility that part of the problem here is impatience. If folks are just TPing point to point from a list of search results, without reason to believe that one place they visit is worth any more of their time than the next, they could simply just be thinking "lag threshold exceeded. Next!"

Vale - do you have a good feel for how you're using textures in your shop? You're not using more than necessary, and they're reasonably sized and it's all somewhat optimized for quick download? Given your traffic is still consistent, I gotta think the problem lies somewhere other than search issues, or even the new default for searching Mature. On that last point, I suspect that most shoppers are savvy enough to have picked up on that by now. Live Help has been somewhat busy dealing with that, and advising folks to check that option while searching..

zk

I usually teleport away immediately when I notice that the place is so laggy that I can't even walk away from the teleport spot. To notice that, and find somewhere else in Search, takes about ten seconds. This is not exactly impatience, I learned by experience that I won't be able to look at the goods, or buy them, anyway when the sim isn't reacting.

Yeah, sometimes I really will want to shop in a particular place. But there comes I point when I just can't wait for everything to rez. My main fault though is I visit places on a whim and often forget to come back again when lag may have lessened.

A bit of personal experience for you from nearly 3 years in game.

Around this time of year there is often a natural drop in sales due to College students being on break and not taking thier machines with them. Also the weather has been pretty warm in much of the US so frequently we see a drop in sale with the first weeks of real spring as people who have been stuck inside for months venture outside for sun and air.Things do usualy pick up again somewhat towards the end of April and through May then stat sliding again in June. Sale for us are usualy lower throughout the summer till the fall return of the college students.

Viewer problems and failed deliverys only add to what seems to be a pretty consistent natural cycle.

-Dark

I noticed after one of the last updates that the search box defaulted to an unchecked "include mature content" select box. This drastically changed the search resutls, and I did not notice it for awhile. Uncheck this and see how it affects searches that would usually include you inteh results.

It took me quite awhile to figure this out and even see that this checkbox had been added or that it had redefaulted to unchecked. For quite awhile I thought search was broken.

Hey Zaphod,

The store I'm selling from now is on mainland and as such laggy. My new one (the one with the phone weasel shirt) is a rented plot no a private island, so it's a much nicer place to be, both in terms of lag and the view

Yup, I do try to keep my textures down to a reasonable size, posters only need to be so big. One thing I've notived myself is textures are taking alot longer to rez, some places I've visited just seem to stay gray and zooming doesn't seem to force them like it used to. Methinks that's more of an issue than the mature button, back in the good old days that was off be default anyhoo, people tend to always be able to find smut when they want to

Vale

Recently I have had some problems with non-copy objects I bought: They failed to rez when I got home. On top of that the shop owner refused to replace them: "I will replace only if Linden Lab refunds me for the damage".

What damage?

Anyway: those shops will not see me again, but it has made me very cautious in buying things in other places as well.

I've gone out several times lately with the intention of spending money, and gone home empty handed due to techinal problems. It has nothing to do with not being able to find what I want; you can find anything you want in SL.

If I stand in a shop for a minute or two and things still aren't rezzing, I know I'm going to have problems navigating and finding what I want, and I leave.

My most sucessful outings lately have been to smaller shops, and to shops that use vendors instead of pasting every single thing they sell on the walls. I've completely given up on my favorite hair place because it sometimes gets so bad I freeze up.

My feeling is that shop owners that have simpler shops, use vendors, and don't have tons of poofie stuff, scripted geegaws, and campers of various types are going to start seeing a big advantage over the big, laggy, overdone places.

Honestly, I might have done more window-shopping if SL were running smoother for me over the past week. I don't know if that makes a difference in what I have spent; lately I have only been buying certain things that I want, and holding on to my money when window-shopping.

Window-shopping is only fun if I don't have to wait for everything to appear.