Ok SALES have even got worse?

I will be updating my classifieds into many different languages for this purpose. Besides I would like to learn French anyways and maybe get into some of the other languages. It won't hurt.

Apparently, Nobody will cares what u talk. Here is SL, not warcraft.

That's great, opporunity, hope u guys make good profit.

Ah so we aren't affected by scheisters then?

Well all I can say is rejoice as more & more people join who are "unable" to input money into the game. Be it what ever reason, Dissatisfaction with LL, still bartering chickens for currency, can't get credit cards, are on the run from law or mob, struggling to pay off the 22 empty sims they brought at bargain prices, Plenty of people are still cashing money out of the economy.
Why input a single cent into something you expect to take RL money out of?
Some aren't here to meet people, buy other peoples products and have fun, they're here to make money with as little interaction inworld as possible because it isn't a game.......

I had about six people who had items disappear when they tried to rez with IMs waiting for me yesterday. It's a mess, to be sure. It's easy to send out replacements (even for the one no-copy house I make, it's no big deal to send one extra out when it's obvious there's a problem) but that's if people can even tp to the store. And I'm also checking my records and handing out refunds on double buys when I can see people must have tried twice to buy because of inventory mess.

Thanks for the double buy refunds, I have had that happen before and been refunded by another appreciative shop keeper, most of the time dealing with a vendor you forget or feel there isn't a person behind the sale of product, perhaps a lot of Europeans who don't appaerntly have EFTPOS or CC fear dealing with machines too. Especially older people who even in high tech banking countries still avoid Automatic Teller Machines.

Forget France. We have an horrible route to Texas Time Warner's network and Linden seems to move more and more sims to Texas. Our lag is terrible (av move at one frame/sec) and the user base is dying.

Well guys, tomorrow first look viewer becomes mandatory. I know several people who, when the updates using it came, had to revert back to the regular viewer. These ppl will no longer be able to play SL, and if theyre addicted enough to keep trying, it won`t be enjoyable at all.

If I, not knowing a lot of people, know a few people who have reverted.. I wonder how many more are out there who, after tomorrow (Or today depending where you are lol) will no longer be able to access their second lives.

Add me to the list of "sales in the toilet" I noticed a marked anecdotal decrease as of Thursday or so. The weekend was a complete and total wash. But I also recall that for me and my friends, teleports were down, things weren't loading, inventories were missing, textures couldn't upload, attachments wouldn't attach, prims wouldn't rez... and sims and clients were crashing all over the place. IMs seemed to fall nearly silent as well.. And we actually took to "logging off because we were bored".

From what I gather, Search was down in addition to the other system functions that *I* witnessed failing. It's also possible that vendor scripts were failing, and it's equally possible that sales MAY have been working, but the income may not have been triggering the blue-dialog alerts.

Tuesday was a bit of an increase. Sales seemed to recover a bit as the world seemed to stabilize today.

Funny, I thought all campers were leeches.... hey, the professional ones are, but not these that you mention...

mentioning them... the sim next to me in drakul has 19 ppl in it and 16 of them are campers in the casino and club
guy who had a store there closed up as the region was full of them almost daily and he couldn`t get into his own store heh

and if u want to go shopping with the money from camping, u would have to camp non stop for a weekfor budget clothing

saw a placxe some where that limited camping to 60 minutes at a time and then random offline time so ppl could get a spot instead of the 24/7 camping on a pad, newbies had a chance there to get some money

A few random observations:

1. Many spot on ideas as to why sales are up and down. Seasons, shift in buyer demographics, and of course SL technical problems. Weathering the tide is a good attitude.

2. I see and hear a lot of moaning about the SL technical problems. Yes, I agree, they are problematic and I've been affected as well. Now maybe it's because I've only been here since January of this year, or maybe it's attitude, but I am willing to cut LL some slack that they WILL (eventually) repair and improve these issues (they have no choice really and at this point I won't pull out my "The end is near" sign). Complaints don't help the situation directly, but are a good way to vent. What does help are bug reports, diplomatic and polite correspondence of concern, feature requests backed by lots of votes etc.

The bottom line is always about money. For everyone. LL needs to make it and maybe they need to be shown that improving/repairing their infrastructure will lead to increased profits. Either that or lately they've hired a bunch of old Microsoft programmers (waits for pelt of overripe tomatoes).

3. The casino near one of my lands went bust and the theory that the owner's helpers are no longer making money to spend in world is an interesting one.

4. Tonnes of auctions lately means lots of new land owners, and hopefully will lead to an increase in sales. However, perhaps people have become very discerning?

I just bought a sim and am hunting for just the right things to purchase, and I must say I'm not finding a lot that meets my criteria. I have money to spend, but think I'm being too particular. LOL

5. International sales. Yes, I definitely encourage retailers to expand their marketing into other languages. Go where the money is

Cheers.

I do not sell anything. I am, however, an avid shopper. Here are my thoughts.

1. Second Life has seen a huge increase in population over the past six months. Just huge.

At the beginning of that spike, everyone should see their sales going up. For a while, those consumers will be consumers only, and not creating their own competing business. Favorable supply/demand ratio for sellers.

Eventually, all of the consumers start making their own shops. You get to an equilibrium point of supply and demand.

Then the residents who are late-comers are still trying to become sellers too, even though they are at the end of the boom. Now the supply/demand ratio is favoring buyers, and will continue to do so until some of the businesses start dropping out.

You're looking at the end of a boom cycle.

2. That huge population influx started out as poorly informed consumers who spent their money unwisely. As they have been burned, they learn to be wiser with their money. And do more comparison shopping. And spend less. And start paying attention to things like name brands.

3. A lot of purchases are impulse buys anyway. The numerous Second Life technical glitches kill impulse buys. The glitches have been far worse over the past month than the first month I have been here. Inability to buy Lindens, or spend them, or inability to search, or inability to teleport- all these things kill the impulse buy.

That has been happening to me a lot recently. I want something. I can't find it, get to it, or give my money away. Then later, the glitch might be fixed, but I no longer want the item. I lost the urge.

4. Not only do the glitches kill the impulse buy, but they give people opportunities to explore other diversions while waiting for problems to be resolved. During that time, users may find better things to do with their time. Even though their avatars may be driving up the population numbers, they just aren't logging in.

5. There is the problem of losing expensive items. Not only from inventory loss, but from things like the sheep-bot problem- features which the technically inclined can exploit to the disadvantage of the not-so technically inclined. I, for one, wonder when the next feature I didn't know about will bite me financially. As people spend more time here, they are more likely to get burned by something that will change their attitude about spending money.

6. Linden Labs just doesn't seem very responsible with people's money, period. I never purchase much money at a time, simply because, I know that if something happens and I lose it, Linden Labs will disclaim responsibility. When I purchase Lindens, I treat the transaction as if I were lighting dollar bills on fire, and appropriately budget my spending. If I actually get anything for the money, then that becomes a pleasant surprise. Again, the longer someone is here, the more likely they are to get a burn from Linden Labs, and change their mind on how much money they really want to invest in Second Life.

7. There really does come a point where one has all the shapes, skins, clothes, and shoes one needs. Really.

8. There are some things I just have absolutely no need for. Homes and furniture? I don't have anywhere to put those things.

I've seen my sale shift into other timezones - half a year ago, the bulk of my sales happened during US late afternoon / evening time, now it has shifted towards asia / EU timezones, which also coincides with low concurrency numbers and hence better grid stability.

I'd also say that borked teleports are very much to blame, whenever I try to go shopping teleports like to fail, and after the third attempt or so I usually call it a day and just continue building.

As to inventory loss - this is still the #1 support request I'm getting, and I can totally understand it undermining customer confidence. (Of course I replace lost items, but it's one extra hassle for the customer, and I understand if people refuse to shop considering the sorry state of inventory nowadays)

For houses, my favorites are Ace's Spaces. For a more beachy feel, the Tiki beach store in Alba. The best trees plants and flowers are by Lilith Heart. An artist named J33bus Carlos makes exquisite and unique furniture. Happy shopping!

I recently had a lil problem with sim lag. The lag came from a really UGLY build next door from my store. The owner had built a club/casino/mall. It caused everyone that came into that region to be hit with such bad lag, that they would freeze up no matter where they went. It caused my store to lose sales. No matter what I had done to try and fix it, the sales continued to plummit. My solution? Well after a friendly debate with the owner of the land next door, he banned me from his land(( lol, like i'd go there anyway)) so i took my entire store, which rests on 8k of land and moved it 500m up. Sales have been great and my store is very successful. oh yeah, here is another thing i have done. There recently has been a increasing number of residents from foreign country. The French and German market for SL has skyrocketed, and most don't speak english. I hired 2 translators. Placed 3 classified. 1 in English, 1 in French, and 1 in German. My sales have never been better. Good luck

It appears that in addition to being sassy and sensuous, you are also resourceful and smart.

My sales have dropped to nil over the last 2 weeks. I make treehouses and a few other prefabs. OK, they aren't the greatest flashiest stuff, but I had a steady turnover to the point where I was able to seriously consider buying a quarter of a sim. I went ahead and got the land in February and since then my sales have plumetted and I've had to sell off bits and pieces in order to cut my losses.

What can I put it down to? Changes in fashion maybe? Other people building better treehouses? The land market going haywire? Who knows? It was nice having the land and prims to play with for a while.

Same with my live music. That was going fine for a while and I was making a bit of money at it, but has completely dried up now. I know my material is quite eclectic and far from 'mainstream' tastes, so I'll put that down to changes in fashion or whatever. Once again, it was nice while it lasted and good practice. Anyway I've got a few RL shows to think about as well, so it's no biggie.

Oh my goodness, thank you! Yes, Lilith Heart's greenery is tops and I have a number of her trees on my smaller lot. I'll be making frequent stops at her shop for more landscaping details

Ace's are quite nice, thanks!!

And J33bus' furnishings are really stylish. I'll look in world when the grid comes back up!

Thanks for the recs!

Another reason for poor sales, everyone recommends the same few shops everytime so nobody goes wondering around looking and buying bits and bobs from all over. A couple of dozen shops probably have all the sales ;o)

There is a knock-on effect, if you aren't selling much, then you don't have the money to go shopping for the heck of it, hence back to square one.

lol, touche

This bums me out to no end. Your treehouses and pre-fabs are some of my favorites in SL...certainly among the most creative. I hope things turn around for you.

Well, I think those that make the best products, like Lilith and Ace, deserve the repeated praise. Survival of the bestest. However my other recco, J33bus, is not as well-known.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Raymond. I'll prolly hold on for another month before I decide whether or not to tier down back to 512 sq m.

Sales have been down for both me and my husband, but he's getting tons of custom requests (he scripts).
One thing we've noticed (don't know if anyone else has) is that our sales in SLexchange are at an all time high. Because of that, I feel one of the big reasons sales are down in world are the teleport issues.