have you used the following items?

As a store owner do you use or have you used... lucky chairs (or similar) the new mob vend and also the bid box?

as a shopper have you used any of those?

if so what did you think of them? if not, why not?

(I have all 3 at my store, the lucky chairs get some action, but never seem to have ppl interested in the bid box or the mob vend)

and my stuff is not crap... how do I get ppl there??? I have ads in classifieds, I can not afford more than 50L per classified though

do higher cost classifieds actually work? is it worth it? or is it just this slump?

Do you know of any other gimmick type things such as the above named items?
(I know about the new lucky chairs type of prize chairs out there, just can not remember what it is called hehe)

I am not a store owner....so my response will be as a shopper, I don't hunt out stores that offer the gimmicks like Lucky Chairs, Mob Vend or Bids. If the store I'm in happens to have them, then I might take a glance. Some stores have so many gimmick chairs and vendors that all the object talk fills the chat....thats kind of a pet peeve and I might not stay at the store for as long as I normally would, if the object spam is super bad.

I have a lucky chair, however from casual observation, I've not seen any corelation between prize winners and purchasers.

ange ty for the response, this is the kind of stuff I am looking for

trying to decide if I keep the chairs and mobvend and bidbox rezzed or just remove them

I only use 2 chairs (one is the silent version) 1 mobvend and 1 bidbox

I am finding more and more the luckychair places have tons of them all filled with the stuff from the business in a box

I like to use the chair as a means to promote my own product, putting in an item from a business in a box seems pointless.

my lucky chairs bid box and mob vend contain items I made myself.

not sure if that makes any difference

(and yes when the place has 10 20 30 even more lucky chairs, it is ... toooo much)

zaphod same here
I do not really see how the lucky chair is helping me.

As a store owner, no, I never have used and never will use any gimmick like "Lucky Chairs", camping chairs, dance pads, etc as a means of gaming the traffic stats for better visibility in the ads. I don't like them and generally consider their abuse unethical, though I'll tolerate a single "lucky chair" in an otherwise good store.

As a customer, if I am already IN a store, and happen to notice that there is a lucky chair there that is displaying my name letter AND happens to be offering something I might actually use, I have occasionally sat on them. But I don't bother to even look at the chairs, most of the time. The presence of a lucky chair does not make it any more or less likely that I will go to a store or remain in the store.

Any store that is clearly using numerous gimmicks like camping chairs, dance pads, etc as a means of gaming the traffic stats for better visibility in the ads is quite likely to lose my business. The more of them that they put out, the less likely it is that I'll ever go back there.

I think that the above "random enticements" for people to repeatedly visit and hang out at your store are more likely to backfire with experienced customers than they are to help. As I said, while I don't particularly mind a single "Lucky Chair" as a promotional gimmick, multiple ones or any of the other methods that I mentioned above are tricks that I consider unethical.

I also tend to avoid stores that try to buy their way into prominence with an expensive ad. Those who spend far more than the minimum required amount don't get much interest from me.

I think good customer service, high quality products, and a steadily increasing variety of products will do more for your business than any gimmick. The stores I go back to again and again have good products, at a reasonable price, and when I go there I tend to see something new and interesting each time I visit. Stores with dead inventory - where what is offered never changes, are not much worth going back to.

My own stores, (except for my texture sales where I have a steady stream of new items coming out), tend to only do well when I have new products being made available regularly. Right now I confess I haven't updated the shirts, hats, dresses and furniture that I sell in a while, and my sales are suffering as a direct result.

i spent weeks lucky chair hopping

the shops i wont go back to are the shops that had items from freebie boxes in them or items they hadnt made

i constantly go back and buy items from the shops that the items in the lucky chairs were made by the store owner

the lucky chairs gave me a look at their work so i could see if i liked what they were doing

In general I hate lucky chairs (mobvend is even worse since it constantly spams) to the point of disliking stores that have them.

There is one exception and that's a store where I will occasionally make an in-between tp stop to check on the letter (but it's not even 5 seconds so there is no traffic gain) but only since it sells collectable cuddlebears and the bear in the chair is an exclusive one.

In general from what I've seen and from what I hear, people only seem to ever put junk they know noone would buy in there. Free things are nice, but unless it's actually a quality item (something you wouldn't be afraid to actually sell) I think it would probably be better not to have one at all.

As a customer, I find all this stuff a bit of a turn-off.

I don't rule out high-traffic places when deciding where to shop but if I go somewhere and find a bunch of zombies or lucky chair campers hanging out, I'll probably move on without looking at the products too closely. If I'm shopping, I'm either looking for something specific or browsing for things I like - all the traffic-raisers are just noise that get in the way of me doing that.

I think you'll get different answers from no-payment-on-file residents than payment-info-used residents. Saving L$ that amounts to about US$0.04 doesn't mean a lot to me. If I didn't buy L$ via Lindex/whatever, I'd probably have a different story...

Not a store owner either, so my reply is also from a shoppers point of view.

I never look for lucky chairs, mobvend or bidboxes, and their presence in a store will not attract me. Actually I would just as soon prefer they were not there.
Now, if I happen to pass a lucky chair just as it announces my letter I might as well just sit down in it for a few seconds, but I would not wait even for 2 minutes for my letter to come up and it will not affect my decission to purchase something in the store.

There are different ways I happen to end up in a specific store :

1) I need something and search for it. I rarely search in the 'classified' section but almost always in the 'places' section under shopping. So a good description of what the store actually sells is vital. Traffic count means nothing to me. I may even avoid (or go there last) the places with the highest traffic counts since they may be overcrowded. Sometimes I look in SL Exchange for items but I always go back in-world to purchase the items there. I notice the creators name in SLX and look in their profile to see if they have a pointer to a store which sells their stuff. Most have. If I cannot find a store in the creators profile I can't buy the stuff.

2) I see something nice in articles or pictures in one of the SL magazines like Second Style magazine, The Fashionista Blog or one of the other SL blogs. The articles always have a pointer to where the stuff is available. I go there and purchase the stuff.

3) I travel or wander around in SL and just accidentally happen to pass a store which looks interesting. I enter and find something nice I just need to have. In this case it is important the store looks attractive and catches my attention.


The only things that matters to me in a store are the stuff there, the quality and the price and a general attractive atmosphere. Gimmics, camping, lucky chairs etc. are of absolutely no importance.

Thats good....I dont like it when a nice store with nice items has lucky chairs set up that give out freebies or cheap stuff. I like it if the chair gives out items that are actually for sale in the store...just a little bit more classy and looks less like a "gimmick chair". However I don't think I've ever been one to landmark a store and return often just because of a chair.

I went to a store the other day that had about 12 of those chairs lined up, with letters changing every 1 minute, most the items were cheapie/freebies, but every once in awhile a really nice item that was for sale in the store would pop up. There was 7 or 8 avatars lined up jumping on and off the chairs, collecting inventory.....but no one was actually shopping. I'm sure it was increasing the owners traffic stats though....I found all the chat spam from the chairs annoying and left.

mainly that is what I use the lucky chairs and mobvend and bid box for is advertising

it is fun to win on a chair, IF the item is a orginal from the creator, it sucks to see an item that is a freebie or one of the business in a box deals item

I do not get traffic from lucky chairs (I have 2) cuz ppl come in sit down win and leave... hopefully they will one day return to buy something but doubtful

mobvend can increase traffic but not substantially (never seen any group around mine yet LOL) will prolly take it down to get the prims heh

the bidbox I like though, it is kinda like an auction on the item right there in the store, no standing around no needing the correct letter

you like it you bid and then do whatever you were doing (or just go buy it from the wall if cost is not an issue)

I dunno, I am confused on this... I need traffic I need business but dunno how to get it (I had it but it seems to have dwindled)
yes I put out new items when I can, got some new stuff to go up soon

ya know I think I should go with my heart and instincts and remove the lucky chairs and mobvend

and redo the bidbox to an item not for sale in the store, but yes an item made by me, kinda like exclusive to bidbox

I do like bidbox hehe

yep think I will log in and do that now.

heck I could probably accomplish more with a freebie giver than with the lucky chair things...

its vacation time and sales will drop in SL like anywhere else. I had an idea that may help, dunno, never tried it, just thought of it

Something like once a week have a 2 fer day...... 2 items for the price of one?

Remember that no-payment residents don't have access to these forums..

As the owner of a mall, Lucky Chairs can either be a mixed blessing or good advertising.

If you have good items that you made yourself in them and have them hooked up to the Lucky Chair Station, they can be a great way to get word out about your shop. Also, be sure to put a landmark to your shop INSIDE the items you put in the chair. Don't count on the "creator" field to still have your name if they try to find your shop in the future.

If you have crap in them, announcing a new letter every 60 seconds, and/or more then two of them you run the serious risk of having them run off shoppers that would otherwise have spent good money in your shop. Never make your chairs shout and try to keep them out of hearing range of each other.

I've had several renters and shoppers say they found my mall (Celebritarian Furs) through the Lucky Chair Station, so not everyone treats them as the majority of the shoppers posting here profess too. It's definately not a good idea to go overboard with them or think that they'll help if they're filled with crap though.

lucky chair for the win!
i cannot see any argument supporting lc's being 'unethical' and the like. its a way to get product to poor people, build brand recognition and loyalty amongst newbies, and has the added effect of boosting traffic. if youre going to claim lc's game the system, are unethical, etc etc remember you are leveling the accusation against some of the most respected content designers in sl.

I have thought about doing a 50% off day for items purchased at the store, posted as an event cuz I would be there hosting it, person buys then I send them 50% back (that way no having to change prices and only available at the store, no remote locations)

run it for like 3 hours morning and then a 3 hour in the evening events

I am not saying anything bad about lucky chairs, I just do not seem to get any traffic with them

I removed them the bid box and the mob vend, why have them using resources and space if they are not helping me

maybe someday I will place them back, who knows

they did not have crap in them, they had my own designs which I do not consider crap

I also use slexchange and slboutique and slshopper websites

I have a slex ATM and a ginko ATM in my store as well (mainly cuz it is easier for me to use them when they are that close LOL)


if they bring ppl then cool

And thats a very good point. No payment people probably feel different and want the chairs...but still dont know if they would buy anything, I would assume they wouldn't buy much, if they are no payment then probably means no or very little $L.

Personally I ignore the chairs, mobvends and the like...as long as they are not spamming chat every 60 seconds.

So....maybe, don't remove them completely, cause from the posts in this thread, and the idea of non-payment folks liking them...you might want to leave them...just keep them quiet, please!

A single Lucky Chair, stocked with items the store owner makes, can be reasonable advertising, and a good way for them to make free copies of an item available as a sample, without making it an outright freebie. For example, one high-end clothier that I know has one Lucky Chair, and it is always stocked with an item that they sell. Often it is a newly released item, and the chair is helping people to see the new product, with an ad above the chair showing the item being given away. I have no problem with that. As I recall, one of the reasons the original lucky chair was devised was to be able to distribute transferrable product samples, without making it possible for the yard sale crowd to come in, take as many free copies of a sellable item as they wanted, and resell them elsewhere.

What I consder unethical is a whole row of the things, like some posters here reported seeing. That is no better than a camping chair. It just encourages people to stand around and play 'musical chairs' to load up on free stuff, and to run your traffic numbers up. Anything that functions primaily just to give a false impression that a store is more "popular" than it would be without the gimicks is, in my opinion, unethical. It also rarely helps your real sales, because if the store is mostly full of people just looking for free stuff, there is no room for paying customers. And those freebie hunters, watching like hawks for the letter to change, are not likely to be doing any shopping.

I've never used Lucky Chairs, but they seem to do fairly well whenever I'm invited to one (usually because a friend has found one that's stuck on "Y" )

It seems that most of these "gimmick vendors" are mostly sold to smaller or startup businesses. I've actually made two - the Multibuy Vendor (like the Mob Vendor, but multiple people have to actually _buy_ the object to get the cheaper price) and the Golden Vendor (people can pay to "claim" the vendor, and then they get commission on items - they'll make a net profit only if they sell more during their claim time than statistically the vendor otherwise would have - so for the vendor owner, they'll profit either way) and the sales on those have reflected that. The exception is that Lucky Chairs are sometimes used by vendors that are _so_ big they have rotated products that they lose nothing by giving away.

This makes sense, since small businesses would be the ones mostly trying to build traffic and break in - but I'm a bit concerned that, as a result, they've actually become a negative sign for customers become a warning mark for customers that a business isn't big. It's understandable, but a bit sad because it'll prevent the development of new commerce models if they're seen as only being for businesses that can't handle the straightforward, old style.

I'm both a store owner and a shopper. I never saw the need to use lucky chairs, camping chairs or anything related. The clientele that you might attract with these things are usually not willing to leave their few, hard earned L$ at a shop.

As for classifieds: if your product is unique enough to get a good search ranking even with a L$50 ad, the ad might work. Otherwise I'd strongly suggest to invest more. I found that the more I pay for classifieds, the more I get back.
Of course you'll earn back an amount like L$50 faster than L$5,000. It might take a week to get the monthly advertising costs back in, but your overall revenue will also be higher in the end.

But classifieds only really work if they teleport the customer right in front of the related vendor or at least into your shop. A spot in a big mall with teleport routing is deadly; few people will make the effort to walk 50 meters and search for your shop between hundreds of slowly loading textures.

Newb question: what is a Mob Vend?

i have never used a lucky chair.... be nice if they mixed in a few numbers once in awhile. wut can you win? cash? i don't even know.