Unfair competition

I can understand what you mean, but as someone else said, if your products are quality items, then word will get around. Believe me, we customers talk! "Oh that skins so nice, where did you get it? Those shoes are lovely, where did you get them? Where where where"

And certainly get to know the other major sellers or skins and clothes. The good ones. The honorable ones, because those folks do stick together even though they dooo sometimes have their little tiffs ... like a bagful of wet cats! LOL you know who you are!

Anyway, don't worry so much about the classifieds. The dead beats can make a big splash, but they do not last! The major skin and clothing sellers now? They didn't walk in with stolen freebies and a wad of cash. They started as small as you are now and worked hard. They put out good products that kept customers coming back and THAT my frien is where the real business is. Return customers who tell their friends about you.

And as for me? I rarely look in the classifieds. I usually find what I want in Places.

Excellent news!

I must be living under a rock...

that is all.

The store has camping, so their traffic is very high, meanwhile mine is low, as I can't afford to pay campers. If you're looking to find something in "Places", you will find them a lot earlier than me.

That store mostly relies on newbies and newbies don't have the information you're talking about, a lot of them don't even have any friends to talk to in the first few weeks. Word of mouth is not an option for them at the beginning of their SL. They can see, that their skin looks awful, so some of them will look for a new one, and the first store they will find is the one we're talking about, because of their aggressive marketing.

On top of that, I could be the best rookie designer in SL, and still, if I can't survive the first few weeks, months because of unfair competition, than being good doesn't matter much.

Anyway, I really hope that the problem can be solved, all we need to do is to spread the word, asking land and mall owners to change their covenants and mall rules, and make freebie reselling prohibited.

Don't worry, if you're good at your job you'll make it.

Also, be aware that not everybody relies on inworld search. I am a power shopper and I use it only when I'm really desperate or once every while, to test my luck in finding a good place to shop at.

I rely mostly on fashion blogs. They review clothing, hairs, skins and so on. I pay close attention to ads in Second Style magazine and so on.

Word of mouth is indeed a powerful boost for a commercial activity, but it works both ways... Again, do it right and you'll be fine

I've never bothered with the classifieds. I've picked up all my recommendations from here and talking in-world. When I was new I found a lovely freebie skin but since now every second avatar seems to be wearing it I branched out to find more 'individual' ones.
There will always be customers for the smaller shops if their content is good.

Who wants to be a sausage in a sausage factory?

That they have high traffic numbers from the camping doesn't mean they have high sales.



If you're trying to get newbies to visit your store (who, I guess, are a good target audience for shapes), why not set up a freebie box at "The Free Dove"? That place is usually full of newbies, and it's a great way to get exposure. Or try a 50-100L$ classified with a tag line like "New resident? Want to look your best?" - I tried that a while to advertise some free & marked-down items, and it worked well enough. Or offer one free shape to every newbie under 30 days etc. Lots of possibilities - get creative with the marketing!



Don't forget that you have something no competition can steal from you - inspiration and creativity.

WOW, there is an admission. Come on, please don't try justifying this on the basis of being depraved of actually owning land.

Sending in a report is fully justified in my opinion, scammers should be shown the door, for the sake of the whole community and SL's future as a viable platform.

I think it's time traffic was shown the door...of course, that doesn't solve the problem with advertising placement fees.

FWIW, I (and I am certain many others) pay no heed to traffic numbers or placement in classifieds...I like the smaller shops anyway. I hate places with campers and will generally TP right out should I see camping set up.

Now there's an idea: Get the fashion bloggers to start identifying the rip-off artists in their blogs.

Have you tried filing with them under their DMCA policy (http://www.secondlife.com/corporate/dmca.php). I don't think I've ever read any comments on how effective that is, but in theory, they're required to act in the way they describe.

I haven't been keeping up with the technology around embedding encrypted signatures into images. If the software tool you use for creating designs has such a feature, you may want to look into using it, though independent authentication isn't free.

If you want to protect your copyright, print out intermediate images of your design work, and date them by hand. Keep them organized in a binder, and make it habit. This won't guarantee protection; it's merely a paper trail that helps if you get far enough to have to provide some evidence. It will be harder for a thief to reverse-design the intermediate stages.

LMAO, Ok so if I go and steal something, it's ok because I just couldn't afford it and I need to pay my tier. Nice thinking...

Me too, actually. As a general rule, if I see a camping chair or pad or whatever, I am done there and it's time to go. I have yet to encounter a "must have" item that makes me justify shopping in a place that uses camping to game the system.

As for the quality/price issue:

I have a competitor that to all appearances makes a great deal more money and sales than I do on what I personally believe to be much lower quality items (no disrespect intended) that also has lower prices and caters to newbies, and I am okay with that. I feel better about doing my best work when I can, and if I don't make a million here in Second Life I still have my day job Even with less sales, Second Life has paid for itself and given me extra spending money for at least 6 months. All in all I am just fine with lower sales and the amount of personal satisfaction I get from my work.

I don't know what it's like as a skin designer, but I can imagine it must be quite similar in many ways.

I am not disdainful of someone with a legit shop using a couple of campers - that's getting a captive audience! I sure as heck looked around when I camped, and have seen things I wanted and subsequently purchased. I have spent far more than I have gained from camping, and when employed smartly, I see no reason to worry about it.

As for the traffic numbers - those are important for people looking to open businesses. If you get a place that has decent traffic (1-3k) without using camping, all the better! Traffic is fine - what probably needs to go is the "popular places" search.

Nick Naylor: [out loud] "I just need to pay the mortgage."
Nick Naylor: [to self] The Yuppie Nuremburg defense.

-- from "Thank you for smoking"

You're absolutely right, and I've never said anything about others, marketing is part of the product, so if someone's good at it, then he deserves his money. But we were talking about someone who uses good marketing to scam newbies. I don't think we should tolerate that. Creativity is not always enough against unethical merchants with a huge amount of cash and illegal business practices. Hence we have to set rules and force them.