Why Charge For Demos?

This question is for the stores out there that sell demos. First of all, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! I can't imagine buying some items, such as hair, without a demo first.

I'm wondering why so many charge L$1 for the demo though. I should shrug and figure it's only one Linden, but it just seems damned irritating. I wouldn't refuse to buy from a store that does this but I will say that when I find a store that sells their demos for L$0 it gives me a positive feeling about that store. Like the owner there is more interesting in providing good service than scraping every last linden out of their customer.

Is it possible that so many of these L$1 demos are sold that the income it brings in makes it worth it? I have a hard time believing that to be the case.

I think some don't. I think the ones that do it so they can cover the cost of the upload.

I don't own a hair store, but maybe it's to offset the time to redo the permissions of the item (if needed) and to add the demo prim? If I did skin, I'd definately charge for demo skin. It costs more money to upload those.

I know it used to be true that you couldn't set something for sale at L$, or at least that if you did, you had no way to track those distributions. It's no longer necessary to charge the token amount, really, unless it is a limitation of the vending system.

I think it's the people *not* using a vendor and buying from prims where you see this more often. Considering the income that comes from selling demos alone, why would any of them give it up?

I was in a store once that had mediocre male skins who sold for at least 2k each. What made me flee the store was the fact that they charged 5 L$ for a demo skin. That was a bit over the top...

I've always thought this was goofy. You'd think a demo is supposed to help sell your product, making more money even though the demo is free. Hell, I think it makes more sense to pay people to try your product, not the other way around.

They're still charging 5L per demo. I know, it's laughable...

We shouldn't forget that demos also take time and money to make and, as Bradley points out, they make buying hair and such a lot less risky.
Hey, and if you're not European you're not paying VAT)

I think it's just momentum. As Ceera said, used to be the only way you could keep track of those transactions. Same with freebies not really being "free" and being 1L$. It's what has become accepted as the "norm".

I don't mind paying the 1L$ to try a demo or grab a freebie. It's a cheap way to see if I will really like something before spending lots of cash (and a nice freebie will make me want to check out what else they have).

And it does add up over time. I have at least one little shop that would not break even without the 1L$ freebie lol

As far as paying people to try stuff.. Oy! I can only imagine how many demos some people would end up with!

I always thought the 1L charge for demos was a community service... like, "Help keep the inventory numbers down," service.

I thought about doing demo's of some of my gowns, but the problems I found made it a bit cost prohibitive. I quickly realized why there aren't many demos of clothing in SL because of this.

Does this keep the "riff raff" out, in any way? Less lag, less fooling around from avatars with no money and no real reason to be there? Just a thought.

It can also perhaps make the transaction log a little easier to read. They can filter out the $L 0 transactions and still see which items are generating interest.

What I wonder is why a lot of them are no-copy no-trans. As someone else suggested, you'd think they'd want all the exposure they could get.

Ceera is correct $L0 purchase used to give no indication to the merchant that a sample or "almost freebie" had been bought"; the L$1 is likely a holdover from that time.

Still, L$1 is roughly US$0.004 (4/10ths of a cent) or €0.003 (VAT included); is this really more than an idle curiousity?

Actually I don't mind paying for demos, because like others have said they also cost time and such to create. And given that the only demos i ever buy are hair and i've bought some truly horrific ones, i'm glad i only bought the demo.

At least for vendor sales ("Pay", as opposed to "Buy", it's an artifact of the functions available to the scripter. Specifically, llSetPayPrice()--the thing that pops up the little blue dialog with price button(s) and/or a place to type in the payment amount--requires that the prices on the buttons be strictly positive, or else it will just give a blank type-in field. And then, even if you type in "0" to such a field, that amount won't trigger a money() event in the script, so it doesn't even know that anybody tried to buy anything.

It's a pretty trivial matter for the script to give back the L$1 it just collected... but usually that's not a huge win to the customer anyway, who will just wonder why the heck he had to come up with the L$1 in the first place.

Boxes (the "Buy" interface) can of course be sold for L$0; I defer to the earlier posts as to why those might still be L$1 in practice.

I don't think you should charge for a demo--however, if they want to charge L1...so be it. If anything, that rids my pockets of pennies.

As usual, you know just how to say precisely the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Considering how much most Content Creator's sales have dropped begredging them the cost of demos probably is a bit much.

Many of us arent even making Half what we were a year ago.

/me waves to Betty Barracuda. Hi Betty! Long time no see!

They charge so they have a record in transactions of your interest -- how many demos browsed versus how many sold. Marketing data. The $L1 also creates a slight barrier, you must be somewhat curious to try. Personally though, I make all trials and demos free (as in beer). I think it is a stupid practice too.

Some vendors are also programmed to give out things when clicked on... so there's no need to set them for L$1. I know of at least one vendor system that does it.

Darius - even L$0 transactions are recorded in transaction history. I have a L$0 newbie kit that I see people "buy" every now and then; it definitely shows up.

The 1L demos don't bother me. I think it helps cover the cost of upload you get dinged $10L each time you up a file...

What the hell did I say? Can't I have an opinion...isn't that the point of this whole thing? I was answering the OP's question--and in a humorous way also. God you people...

You're an idiot...how about that? Is that the right thing to say? The right time?

I've never had an issue with the 1L. I'm just glad so many places have demos!