WHy is there no set pricing for items in SL?

Earl, you might want to shop at SLExchange and SLBoutique, or at least window-shop there.

Then set the items to list by price, then start at either the low end or the high end. You can get a good overview of what's out there, and what's an outrageous price and what isn't.

coco

The variability of pricing is why I *ONLY* do custom work (aside from a few small vendors in friends shops).
Of course, I script, so that may change some things. I don't have "materials" costs, but because scripting is technical, and most people don't want to learn it, I can charge more for my time (since it is "more valuable" due to lower abundance)

keep in mind, you're paying for the effort and time of the creator. A shirt takes a hell of a lot longer (a good shirt) to make than a house. A house is just prims. A good shirt takes a lot of mucking about on photoshop. The amount of raw materials (if they exist at all in a digital environment) and the size of the object is neither here nor there.

Pricing often reflects not only how much money the manufacturer wants to make, but also how much effort, labor and care s/he has put in the product.

I went furniture shopping the other day. I was astounded to find couches that cost nearly 1000L. I kept wondering what in the world would justify that price? I mean yeah, they were nice and all, but still... 1000L is a lot of money when you're living in an economy where making that kind of money is difficult for the average resident.

So, I kept shopping. And I found pieces that were 500L and 300L and lower even. But there was something about these pieces that I didn't like and couldn't quite put my finger on it. Until I realized, wait, these pieces look 2D instead of 3D. The shadowing was way off, and you couldn't tell the back of the couch from the seat, no matter what kind of lighting you used.

I went back and paid nearly 10000L for my house furnishings. I like to pay for quality and quality is difficult to produce.

Same thing with skins. First skin I saw was 4000L. I about screamed when I saw it. 4000L for a skin! Who in their right mind would charge that kind of prices? It's ridiculous. I kept shopping. I found some that were much much cheaper, but then, wearing the demo, I still looked like a plastic doll. Skin tone was flat, and there were blotches, etc. Yeah. I went back and got the 4000L skin. Some things I'm not happy about it, but it still looks nice, and I don't look like a plastic doll.

Clothes! I love to shop for clothes. It's fun. I love to find good deals too. I found a place that has everything on sale for 50L and it's all very high quality. The clothes don't look as though they were painted upon my body. I shop there a lot. But I also shop at the expensive as crud places too. Because they have a lot of detail in their clothing. In a flexi lace skirt, you can actually see the lace. The flexis move with you and looks more natural.

And hair, oh my! I got lucky when I first arrived and found great hair at a freebie wharehouse. It was flexi, and it looked natural. I loved it. Still do. But I also wanted hair for when I go out also. I found hair that was expensive, and I found hair that was cheap. What I couldn't find was hair that was of the quality that I desire. I couldn't find hair that looked natural, flowed naturally, and enhanced the way my avatar looked rather than distracting from it.

I did find the perfect hair for me, at a wonderful price. Actually, a bit low if you ask me. lol

The point is, you need to shop around a bit. Look at things, demo them before buying. With some items, you are paying for quality and detail. It isn't easy making this stuff! The design itself is probably fun, but the creation is expensive and probably a pain in the keister. Some people, like the girl I bought the hair from, simply love seeing their creations brought to life and charge little because they love to see people using them. Some people charge according to the pain in the keister factor when bringing a design into creation. Quality takes a lot of steps and a lot of time and a lot of money. That essentially is what you are paying for.

Shop around. Find the good deals. Find the type of quality that you are willing to have. Pay what you think something is worth. If you don't think it's worth it, don't pay it. But don't ask for a basic price listings, because everything here varies so much, that putting a standard price on everything would hurt design and quality. I happen to like those two factors in my purchases.

Pricing is quite often unrelated to labour costs or effort. It has more to do with the end product quality, design and perceived value, sometimes brand loyalty.

A newbie can take a few weeks to make an item that ends up of low value due to the lack of skill, experience or talent. Theres lots of effort put in, but crap results.

An oldbie or someone skillful might take just a few hours, but the end product is worth several times more and sells well.

In RL, I'd happily pay multiples more for a well designed, branded piece of clothing than one amateurishly designed. Both of them can be made in China at the same labour and material cost with the same number of hours spent on design.

None of the items in SL are necessities, like bread and rice, so it really doesn't matter, nor does it marginalize anyone.

And a shirt is just one single texture.

There might be a great many builders who don't make custom textures for their builds, but there are a great many designers who don't bother to make sure that the strap at the front of the shoulder lines up with the one on the back either (personal pet-peeve) to name just one.

I think fixed pricing might become necessary at some point in SL.

The danger is that an influx of new businesses arrives and, needing to find some way to break into the market, starts undercutting existing ones. Being new, they don't expect to cover their costs yet.

Once this has happened a few times around, the price for those items can drop through the floor, making it impossible to profit from items of that type - and that means they probably won't get made.

And then when they stop being made demand will outstrip supply, someone will recognize a void in the market and move to fill it.

The free market works, artificial price controls don't. We have hundreds of years of history to prove this.

They might do similar core functions, but I dont see a nascent slurlblogger website/community - or nice draggable maps and images etc.

I'm happy there are other products out there in the market. Free or not. It's entirely up to the designer.

very often, I might see a piece of clothing for sale for more than 900. Something that requires no scripting, hosting, support or development (per se). When you compare the price of the bloghud to thinks like that, you see the good value - given the extra support support costs at my end.

I spent ALOT of my own time developing the bloghud system, hud, support infrastructure, new features (free upgrades via an upgrade server I di to build too). People seem to like it. People seem to buy. I talk to them. I provide more new features for the PRO version than for the free version.

I don't think you can say fairer than that.

Respectfully,
Koz Farina

I have yet to see "a piece of clothing" being sold at this sort of price, let alone this practice being "very often".Typically 900 L$ if ever would be cost of complete outfit which can include anything between 10-20 pieces, which seems to fall in range with average clothing prices (i.e. about 100 L$ per single piece)

Keep looking I have seen it!!!

Demand can't outstrip supply, because any given product can be reproduced infinite times. If there's a freebie out there, it can be reproduced infinitely.

What happens instead in SL is that innovation of that product stops, because people don't care enough about the new or different features to make it worth paying for the product as opposed to it being free.



There has never been before an economy where raw materials are free, products can be infinitely reproduced, the cost of living is zero, and departure from the economy has no major negative consequences. We're in uncharted waters here.

Take a look (don't carry any balance of L$ you're willing to hang on to ) at Nonna Hedges' store. All of her dresses are priced $1000, but well worth it in her case.

"$300 is about a dollar in rl". And? The thing is this isn't rl, it's sl, meaning $300 is $300 and not almost a dollar in rl. It's here, not there.

Set pricing isn't done here. Bottom line in most cases is: Greed.

That's why you see over inflated prices in many shops. They want you to think their shops are high scale and therefore their items justify high prices.

Just like RL.... and just like RL its an individual's CHOICE whether to buy a product or not. Instant price control

That's a pretty limited view. One of the larger visions of many people here, certainly of LL, is for SL to become an important part of RL. And bear in mind that people are putting in their time and sweat to create these things. They do not owe anything to you; you are not entitled to demand others do things for you for free.

Saying people are setting their prices because of greed is just an ugly way of stating the simple truth of capitalism: people do work to make money. If they don't make enough money, they'll stop doing the work.

There are considerable differences in quality in merchandise in Second Life. The L$900 shirt probably is made better; things to look at include the realism of the texture (including whether things like folds and shadow look real), the edges (whether there are any anomalies there caused by poor alpha-channel work), and seam alignment (something that takes a LOT of work to get right).

Pricing is a complicated thing. A new designer's work will often be priced a bit under the market, as a way to build business. On the other hand, there are some Second Life designers who are making SL haute couture; outfits where high pricing (and sometimes limited editions as well) are used to create exclusivity. Acedia Albion is a notable example; some of her outfits cost over L$4000.

New designs from a particular designer tend to cost more than old ones. First, the new one is probably higher quality work; the designer has learned some things from experience. Second, the value of fashion gradually declines with time as more people have an item and it becomes less exclusive. Third, RL fashions might have shifted, and made the older SL item less desirable.

When someone asks for set prices, I always think of websites like Renderosity, ContentParadise and other places where 3D content for rendering software is sold. Their pricing has established over years and is a good example for the value of digital wares. A complete outfit = $10-15. Body shape plus skin = $10-15. A good hairstyle = $10-15 again. A simple prop, like a pair of shoes = $5 (pretty much the minimum price).

Creating SL wares is more or less the same effort as producing Poser props (only the clothing is slightly easier to realize here). Which means, most wares in SL are horribly underprized. A quality skin costs 1500 - 2000 L$, that's realistic; but look at the prices for hair... an artist who spent a whole 8 hour day of work to create a fancy hairstyle should earn at least 2k too. I use my SL hair a lot more than I ever used the countless hair props bought for my Poser work. So, if you ask for a set price range, let it be a fair one.

Koz, I wasn't meaning to impune the value of the paid version of BlogHUD by any means.

I said I was offended by the price. "Sticker shock" might have been a more appropriate term.

I was trying to illustrate a point. A lot of prices vary, often in response to high prices. Someone sees a high price they can't justify, and builds their own version of the item, and sells it for less, or possibly gives it out for free. SLURLBlogger was a very recent find for me, when I wrote that post.. but another example might be things like horridly expensive jetpacks, or really expensive "luxury" cars. That's why *I* made a holographic keyboard.. I was offended by the price someone was asking for something so basic.

IN terms of "price fixing".. "I can make one of those for free" is a self limiting element within the SL Economy. Clothing and skin can get quite pricey, BECAUSE of the difficulty in "making your own". Not only is artistic skill needed, but source art.. which very many times isn't worth the effort to create/locate... and when you judge it against the amount of YOUR time it will cost you to make your own.. buying doesn't seem so bad.

Technical things, like scripted items.. often have "open source evangelists" who come along, reverse engineer the functions of an item, and release a low or no cost alternative into the world. So scripted objects won't be expensive forever.. their prices will drop as new builders encounter the free scripts, and undercut the older, expensive products.

Simple things.. like props.. are a dime a dozen.. and are constantly being copied and replicated and inspiring new ideas. Things like "holographic keyboards" might once have been a lucrative item.. but now even the nice ones are free or really cheap.. and anyone who wants one, will have 5 within a week.

Is there still a market for selling things? of course there is.. but in a world with corporations entering the world, flooding the markets with freebies.. and where prims, skins, shapes, and clothes can be copied for a one-time $L3000 fee... The driving force has to become innovation, rather than retail. Newer, more complex and robust scripts, more focus on content rather than packaging.

SL as it stands, is a very superficial world. Perhaps it's time we started making our products work as good as they look?

I recently wanted to buy a gown for a special occasion.

Starting with the shop that I knew and which was expensive, I then looked at other cheaper shops. However, I ended up going back to the first one. The cheaper dresses were okish but didn't have that extra something so I ended up paying more for a dress that I love. The detailing is superb and I personally believe 1kL is not too much to pay someone who has worked for many many hours.

And I think it's the same with everything. You get what you pay for. You can buy a house for 200L which is basically a box, or 5kL for a house that is a work of art.

Depending on how Poser props work the price might be justified. If I actually own them, meaning if I can copy them to a CD for back-up, use them on another computer (that I own), give it away/resell, use some or part of it in another program, etc, then it's worth a whole lot more than anything that sells on SL (other than texture stores which do allow all of the above in addition to creating derived work).

There's also the question of quantity. I own 10 times more hair than skins precisely because hair is cheaper than skins, so any price difference there is more than made up by increased sales.

It's also easy to say that it takes 8 hours of work (which I do believe) but then conveniently leave out how many copies will get sold before it's retired. I really have a very hard time believing that any of the top designers in SL are poor and work for pennies an hour day after day, year after year, sorry.

(Edited to add that I don't think they can't earn whatever it is they are earning, if I buy anything I obviously think it's worth whathever I'm paying for it, but it's the claim that everyone is working for a third world wage I have a very hard time swallowing).

The problem is that the end result is so much different.

With Poser props you can usually edit them, and you can use them in your own renders. You can also usually sell those renders or sell your skills at creating Poser content. With SL avatar accessories, you usually can't do that - you can wear them yourself and look good, but that's all; you can't really use them to develop anything further.

Well Earl, I guess you get your wish, because now everything is free.
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So Johan, if the average price on a pair of pants is 100L and a shop sells the exact same thing for 400L or more, you don't think any form of greed is involved?

What would you call it then? Opportunity? Ok, an opportunity of greed then.