Ginsu Knives & Impulse buying in Second Life

I was reading an article about the success of TV pitchmen for those crazy products like Ginsu knives, ShamWow and the Ped Egg (grossest thing evar). The president of one of the largest infomercial companies talks about how despite tough economic times, business gets better for them. He explains that people are spending more time at home watching television and with the decrease in media buy costs, it ends up being great for their business model.

A professor of direct marketing goes on to talk about the endorphin rush of buying these low cost items and how $19.99 seems to be a good impulse price point that you don't feel too guilty about spending on something that seemingly offers good value and a lot of product.

So my question is ... what is your personal "impulse price point" in Second Life? Essentially, what is the maximum amount of lindens you're willing to spend on an impulse item without really thinking too much about it? I know for some 1L is too much and others tipping a DJ 1000L is chump change, so I'm curious in seeing the answers for a large cross section of residents.

Article here: http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1231133742126700.xml&coll=1&thispage=1

What is a PedEgg ?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoHMd1yOBfM

I'll impulse buy at almost any price.

If it looks good, "do it".

And worry about the consequences in the morning.

/me agrees with Alvaro

I don't have a specific price point - if it grabs my eye and I do not think the price is unreasonable for the item, I will buy it.

Almost all my buys are impulse buys - I almost never go shopping for a specific item.

Being that there's very few truly unique products in SL, one can almost always find something elsewhere that's really close to what you're considering buying. For me, around 150L from a vendor I've bought from before, or around 100L from an unknown is usually what I consider a quick throw-away buy. The difference though, is that from vendors who I know take the time to make quality products, I may "impulse buy" 10 or 15 of their items at one time... unknowns never more than one.

ya i acknowledge this poll is a bit hard to definitively answer since there can be so many factors to consider depending on what you're buying. i just wanted to get a general sense of how people felt. mine is probably around the 200L - 300L range but I've made some big impulse buys for things that I just *had* to have. greater than that amount i tend to stop and think .. do i really need another pair of *insert product like jeans or hair etc* or if you're a creator, could i just easily build this, design this or script it myself.

Yeah - L$300 and I don't bat an eye, but it depends on what it is. Clothes I stew over for some reason, so there is no impulse buying there, but if it's a weird avatar I'm on it.

i tipped a DJ 15,000 L at one event. it was an ego thing having control of the music, does that count?

I have no price thresholds, anything I buy is pretty much an impulse buy. The money I spend in SL is throwaway entertainment money, I don't expect any tangible return on it. I buy a few thousand L's at a time and just buy what I want. I don't make anything, I'm strictly a consumer.

I thought more about it and decided that I do have some thresholds where I will at least slow down and think.

Hair - I'll stop and think for anything over L$100 cuz I am not a big hair freak and already have hundreds.

Clothing - If it is a designer I am not familiar with, therefore not sure how it will really fit and look, I'll probably slow myself down around the L$300 mark. If it is a designer I know I like, I probably would not stop to think until L$500 per item, and even closer to L$1000 for a few. Even given that, if I am in the mood, I might easily drop L$5000 or more in a single store for many dresses.

Pretty much any other item, I would probably think hard about anything over L$200-300.

i guess i'm not really talking one off impulse purchases but more like the threshold amount where you don't think twice about on a regular basis when shopping for whatever. i think a lot of people have a "oh it's only X lindens so why not" but tend to hover a second or two over the pay button when it reaches a certain level and think .. "do i really need this?"

oh and if you happen to impulsively tip DJs 15,000L on a regular basis, i'd be happy to dj an event for you

hehehe i dont do those anymore, got a new place to compulsively lay out my lindens. often i get them back plus 15 percent or so, sometimes lose 30 percent. oh well done with one thing and onto another

I think I am pretty bad at spending money on the whole. I don't go clothes shopping very often because my inventory is so bloated. I am premium and tend to let my stipend build up for months before splurging thousands on some one-off piece of art that I don't even have the spare prims to rez.

L$200 doesn't seem like very much at all. I suppose because in SL you don't actually need anything. It would be different if I was renting somewhere and needed to pay my rent in L$. As it is, my entire L$ balance is just pocket money - I could happily empty my account on some frippery without it having any impact on my SL lifestyle.

considering that 15/29 vote 200+ you may want to redo the poll to reflect a more normative range

i think the data is actually really skewed high in this poll already as i was looking at the sl economic stats and most people that logged on in the last 30 days didn't spend any lindens at all. the metrics don't really answer my question at all but but based on LL stats it seems most transaction sizes trend to the lower end. http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php

- about 975,916 resis logged in the previous 30 days
- total resis spending any lindens in nov 2008 was 417,291 so that's about 43% that spent at least 1L. so the majority of people that log in don't spend anything at all on a monthly basis.
- in that month the majority of transaction sizes were for 1L ... with most transaction sizes under 50L

Resident Transactions by Amount (2008 November)
Transaction Size Volume
1L$ 7,048,303
2 - 19 L$ 4,760,514
20 - 49 L$ 2,129,888
50 - 199 L$ 3,573,490
200 - 499 L$ 1,831,145
500 - 999 L$ 696,032
1,000 - 4,999 L$ 671,318
5,000 - 19,999 L$ 162,917
20,000 - 99,999 L$ 37,192
100,000 - 499,999 L$ 3,938
>= 500,000 L$ 304
Total Transaction Count 20,915,041

i'm no economist or statistician but my nerdiness makes me interested in such numbers lol.

I want a ShamWow

The figures for L$1 transactions will be skewed by places selling demos for L$1 - which in a sense is the opposite of what you're asking, since I would have thought looking at a demo means it isn't truly an impulse purchase.



I watched the video and had an almost overwhelming urge to buy one!!!!

yep demos and dollarbies kinda skew things but even if you discount those, looks like most transaction sizes are <200L. the sl stats don't really correlate with my question but i thought it would give me a general idea .. i debated a bit about how i should make the price ranges. too bad we can't go beyond 10 poll items.

I don't normally impulse buy in rl and I don't in sl..... But if I see something cleverly made and unique and one of a kind I just might, and normally this is over 200L... so I can not even begin to give a price..... Hell I buy my boat on impulse and it was 5000L and I tell you it is my most favorite thing in second life, a close second is my mother, father and baby turtles... high in prims but omg I love them!

ooh which boat? i love my trudeau sailboat. not an impulse buy though.

That just struck me as a very funny thing to say

I'm not exactly clear what constitutes an impulse buy. I never buy anything in RL or SL without considering various factors like price, seller/manufacturer reputation, perceived item value, etc., etc.

But like others have said, if I see something that I like even while not specifically in shopping mode, and it looks like a decent value, I'll buy it. I may only need a minute or two to consider it, so you may consider that an impulse buy, I guess, though I don't consider it to be so.

And I absolutely never buy anything based on television advertising.

What in the heck cost L$500,000 or more?!

Land.

Or Ginko Bonds

Is this a private sale? Or are we just talking about purchases from the Lindens?

Private sale I would think, but what else could possibly cost that much?