POLL QUESTION - hardest problem in SL commerce?

I'm putting out this poll to find out what the community sees as some of the hardest problems related to commerce in SL.

2 parts:
What are the hardest things relating to advertising your new products to as wide an audience as possible?

What are the hardest things relating to FINDING new products?

Please notice that each question is basically asking what's hard about two sides of the same problem.

Looking forward to your feedback.

The answer to the first part of your question is: I haven't a clue. I don't have a business so I don't have a reason to advertise. But my answer to the second part may be part of an answer to the first part.

Part 2..............if I'm looking for new products I have to go to almost every LM I have to shops I've shopped before and found to my liking. Then look for new products. Search doen't filter for "new products". However if I am in a group that announces new products with group announcements I can visit if I see something I like. But to just go looking for new products? No way to search.

Hmmmm...........was this a trick question? LOL

What are the hardest things relating to advertising your new products to as wide an audience as possible?[/QUOTE]

Market saturation, maybe?




It's a weird one, but teleporting. The number of times I've given up on something I wanted to buy because I TP'd into the middle of a giant mall and couldn't find the shop, or relatedly TP'ing into a shop the size of a sim and nothing is in any way organised by type and... urgh!

thanks for the feedback.

anyone else?

Market saturation, maybe?




It's a weird one, but teleporting. The number of times I've given up on something I wanted to buy because I TP'd into the middle of a giant mall and couldn't find the shop, or relatedly TP'ing into a shop the size of a sim and nothing is in any way organised by type and... urgh![/QUOTE]

Yes I agree with that one Chav. The number of times I TP to somewhere having seen an advertisment and find the said "thing" either nowhere to be found OR virtual miles away from the TP link.

Pardon me for being blunt but that is sheer carelessness. Surely people in Sl are aware of how to set a position on land they own for TPs in, or how to set co-ordinates for a TP to another place within the sim

Another one I very often get is tp'ing into a classified and finding that the store has plainly moved: I'm not allowed into the parcel or it's a desert or some other non-store-like thing. You'd think people paying for classifieds would update them once in a while...also if you have a commercial interest in anything in the "picks" in your profile, don't forget to update that.

Don't know if this is the biggest problem but it is up there - Abuse/misuse of keywords in Classified/Places listings.

You'll often find casinos, malls, etc using every possible keyword they can fit in, in order to come up on every search. These words may be valid in terms of whats on offer but often aren't. So the person creating the ad copy either lied in the first place or doesn't update the listing based on current offerings. And since these same places often use campers to inflate their traffic, they usually come in the top 5 of any search.

This makes it difficult for smaller, niche sellers to show up at a decent placement in classified searches and for shoppers they have to wade through a lot of muck to get to potential valid merchants.

Personally I always skip the top 5 places in any search listed in traffic order. You can pretty much guarantee its a rubbishy place with campers lying comatose everywhere.

1. I'd agree on the market saturation point. Since anyone can pull prims out of thin air, everyone is selling stuff. Starting a retail business of my own has been rather challenging with all the competition out there. Also, the casinos/sex lounges/clubs/camping spots dominate all the listings for everything, and get much higher exposure than my small shop ever could. I have had luck with announcing new product launches in the events section, which is an acceptable use. However, it also is saturated with listings for other small shops that can't find exposure any other way, some of whom use it as a free classifieds rather than to announce grand openings/new products/sale events.

2. How am I supposed to find things I actually want with the big hitters dominating all the searches/classifieds for everything, relevant or not? Sometimes I find it best to ask someone who has something I like where they got it. I find it really annoying to search for something in the listings and TP to some spot in a big mall where the product I'm looking for is nowhere to be seen, and trip over numerous campers as I slowly lag my way around trying to find it with my shoe in my butt. I generally give up and go elsewhere after about 30 seconds of that. I think Chellonia's idea of skipping the first five places is a good one!

Having set up a new business fairly recently I would say market saturation definately plays a part. Also having limited funds to place my classified ad makes things a little difficult too. I cannot possibly afford to pay 1000's of L$ (or even 100's come to think of it) to get my add to the top of the list.


Market saturation yet again. If I am looking for something specific I tend to ask advice from friends in world and here in the forums too.

On a side note I just placed my 1st classified and listed it under "new products". What is an acceptable amount of time to list under "new products"? A week, a month or up to 3 months? I don't want to p*ss people off by kidding on my stuff is newer than it is

It often seems to be malls having some sort of central TP location that overrides all teleports in so that you forced to that landing-point. Fair enough, they want people to look round, but I've never impulse-bought something *before* finding what I've gone in to look for. And if I can't find that I just get irritated.

Looking for a shop in Caledon (example chosen because it's recent for me)? You'll have the pleasure of getting to wander aimlessly or travel half a sim!

I don't think it's hard to find new products. That kind of implies that I even know that the store exists and that I've seen their old products. If it's a store I visit often I will just notice that the merchandise has been rearranged or that the 'new' section has different items or I will get a notice from the store's announcement group.

As far as advertising your new products I think the problem is just for advertising your store in general because if I haven't seen your store... everything in it is new to me. I'd say make sure you show up in the classifieds and places tab. Post in the 'new products' and 'shopping' sections of this forum and other forums. Put and ad in your forum signature. Put a BIG sign outside your shop with your shop name. Don't make the door a phantom door that doesn't open but people can walk through. Don't make the door look like a window. Be sure you actually have a door. Try to get the landmark link to be inside or just outside your store. Put your store in a place with the least lag possible. Set up a store group to announce new items to your customers. Put a 'new section' in your store. Don't put a damn slot machine in your store. Put in a lucky chair with a relevant product.

Second Life is a shopper's paradise

It makes shopping on the web look hard.

It makes shopping IRL look impossible.

The Teleporting issue mentioned is the Land owners fault - it is entirely possible to set up direct Teleports to advertized stores - but most do not allow it in parcel settings.


*****
The two imrpvements Id like to see is -

Better and bulletproof permissions on sold objects.

the ability to try things on somehow before buying.

Thanks for the great responses.

Let me ask a follow-up question, directed at both shoppers and business owners.

Would you find a tool, given to shoppers for free, that alerts them to new products being announced useful? Business owners pay a small fee, L$10-L$100, to list their products. Without too many details how it works on the backend, it will effectively filter out people trying to spam the system. Shoppers will be able to recommend your product directly to their friends, search for the types of products they want, and in some cases purchase the items, all through the same tool.

That's an interesting idea. It would be a free object that would function like a TV? Showing you streamlined SL commercials for products from a SL company?

GB thats not a half bad idea. hmm... I can already think of an implentation...

Here's another follow on question for the public, what percentage of users do you think search for specific kinds of products when they want them, versus onces who are like QVC shoppers and just let it run in the background to see whats new?

Search is dumber than the early days of Lycos and Alta Vista. If you search places for "clothing men" and "clothing mens", you'll get different results. Don't even think about a complex search with AND, OR, and NOT.

Anything that alerts me to a product is, by definition, spam. Do you really think I care whether my e-mail spam is selling bogus viagra or legitimate copies of Vista?

I can already recommend products to friends, and get recommendations back - chat and IM work fine.

The only thing of value there would be a good search - but if business owners have to pay, then again, by definition, it's not good. There's no benefit to me as a buyer to limit myself to business that have chosen to advertise through you. (That's why I use Google's primary results, ignoring the ads - since I'm pretty sure the results are unrelated to how much they pay Google.)