How are your inworld sales?

[Deja Letov]

I know a lot of people focus on MP sales, in fact a few months ago, alot of us were sharing our sales data that included MP data as a major point. But for those who really focus on in world, how are your inworld sales comparing over the last few months? You don't have to give numbers, I'm just curious as to the overall general performance, have you been doing anything different or are you just letting it ride, is your traffic higher/lower, etc.

I noticed a huge increase in inworld sales for August and September, but back down to normal numbers in October so far. I did run a huge promotion in August that I'm sure attributed to that month, and most likely also September as a trickle down effect because I gained a huge number of new customers. But things are slowly tapering off to being normal again for October...though we still have several days left in the month so I can't officially report that I guess. I also cut back on my hunts for the month of October and November due to the giant velociprator growing in my stomach that is ready to burst out any day, which I feel very strongly is affecting my sales since hunts usually net me quite a bit...so it's hurting.

As far as traffic counts go...I've never been one to watch my numbers on the traffic side of things until just a month or two ago when someone explained it to me better on the forums. I wish I could find the thread to post it, I think it may have been Darius or Toy, but I could be wrong. So I'm still learning and still trying to understand how it affects my sales but I can say my traffic is pretty much the same as it was 2 months ago, for the most part. Sure I have days where the numbers just goes crazy high, and then the next day I have crazy low. But for the most part it generally stays somewhere in the 2,000-3,000 range...whatever that means. I'm still not totally convinced about traffic mattering all that much, since at the conclusion of my survey I ran in my store showed the highest numbers of "how people found me" was through hunts..and second was through organized shopper groups, but I'm still working with the thought process of trying to increase traffic...at least for awhile to see if it can help...surely it can't hurt!

 

 

[mtwtfss71]

Hi Deja,

Thanks to your last post, I too put up a survey inworld at my mainstore and for me, the overwhelming reason that people are finding my brand is through Club sponsorship and my marketplace store. I said I'd report numbers but I've only got a small number of responses so a little patience.

But to answer your question, inworld sales in September were 70% higher than they have been so far in October for me. This is a huge drop and my marketplace sales are very close to the same they were last month. I've been trying to attribute it to Hallowe'en taking up customer lindens (I don't have costumes) but really, I don't honestly buy in to that reasoning.

My store is searchable and I keep up a classified. Granted, I don't pay high into it but it's up. There just doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to the fluctuations we've all been seeing since the summer. 

[Deja Letov]

Wow, club sponsorship! i honestly have had no luck with those, that is really interesting to hear that! I wonder if that could be attributed to the different types of businesses we are in.  Looks like you are having the same downsize in october versus September as I am. Did you also have the increase in August and September over previous months as well?

[Medhue Simoni]

Well, of course, I would not consider myself a strictly inworld seller, as that doesn't seem to be up to me. The way I look at it, you can work your butt off trying to get more and more inworld sales, and you can make some head way. As soon as you stop tho, things will go back to normal. The only way to make any real head way is to, somehow, get your store to show up high in your keywords in the inworld search engine. Classifieds accomplish very little. I know I sound like a broken record, but when you feel you know the answers based on sound statistics and charts, and no1 seems to listen, all I can do is continue to hit the gong and state my conclusions. I'm not talking about you Deja, I'm talking about LL. Until LL makes an inworld search engine that make sense, the loss of inworld sales, and merchants abandoning land will continue to happen.

Now, yes I say that I know exactly why inworld sales have taken the big hit, but this does not mean I don't try to do things to counter the affects. This month, just as I was considering abandoning my own sim, I had 2 merchant friends that mentioned how they had to abandon their sims and knew I owned a full sim. I invited them to open up on my sim, and they jumped at the chance. I don't offer land to rent, but these 2 are very good merchants with high quality stuff. They both make different things than I do, so I thought it would be very complimentary. So, currently, my sim now has me, an animator, my scriptor's store, a friends furniture store, a mainly building structure store, and a mostly clothing store. All of us can make mesh now too. Oh, and both me and another make combat stuff, but different systems. I'm hoping that with all of us bringing in customers, we'll all benefit each other. We'll all save money, which is the main reason. It's too early to tell on a whole if we are getting more customers.

It does annoy me that people continue to blame the Marketplace for the lack of inworld sales. Even both of my new renters blame the Marketplace. To me, this is extremely frustrating, because If people would stop blaming the MP, and actually blame the real culprit, in my eyes, then we could make LL do something about the inworld search engine. Maybe I just have a very unique situation where I was highly ranked and saw just how much the search engine mattered. No1 else that I talk to have ever been highly ranked for any major keyword dispite being successful merchants. The bottom line is that you don't have to have been highly ranked to see the stats clearly. As I've said, LL's own charts shows the decline starting exactly on the day that the search engine was originally changed. That is the biggest clue that it all has to do with the search engine. For me it is just obvious because I was highly ranked, meaning top ten for a major keyword like animation, and the next day I couldn't be found in that keyword search.

This month, I also stopped renting a parcel I've owned for over 4 years now. I reluctantly messaged the sim owner to tell him that I have to cut costs. It was hard to let that parcel go, as I've been there for so long. The sim owner told me that he completely understands and thanked me for being such a good tenant on the land for so long. He told me that he will likely let the private sim go, as he has been losing money on it for a year now. I hate that he has to let it go, as I've known him for a very long time, but we all have to do what we have to do.

[Deja Letov]

I think it can also depend on what your business is and how you are marketing yourself. In other words, is your business the type of business people would use the search to find you? To be honest. I'm still not convinced search helps me much at all. Is it hindering me by not making the most of it? Maybe...I don't know. Perhaps if search was better, my in world sales would be spectacular! I can tell you the majority of my customers as of right now do not find me via search. I am a heavy marketer in world, it's what I mainly focus on. I don't even really compare MP to in world sales any more because to me they are two different beasts, basically two different businesses, so I am on board with you in  saying I don't think the MP is to blame for lower in world sales. As for the search...I've been on the first page of results and the 3rd page and even the 5th page, I guess because of my traffic it moves, but my revenue has never changed due to it or at least not suffered due to it. I've found what changes my income is when I don't do marketing. When I leave myself off the shopper lists, when I go on vacation and don't send out my weekly newsletter or when I don't release a new product for weeks on end. Honestly, lower in world sales I typically can point right back at myself. But for the month of October, since it didn't just go as high as I was hoping, it actually went down and I did everything I normally do it left me baffled. And it's funny because I posted this thread yesterday and that statement was true, then had a whopper of a day all day and night and now I'm back up to normal this morning. But who knows if it will continue the rest of the month. Shopping habits are a strange beast and hard to tame the inner workings of...who knows who will need a bed tomorrow?

Just out of curiosity, what is the date you are talking about when the search engine changed? I've seen a stready increase in sales every month for the last year, but this month is my first downward sales slump, is this something recent you're talking about? Of course.. If you were to take out August and September from my own numbers then it would still continue to be a slight increase every month. But I can tell you, if you remember a post awhile back from me, there is a reason August and September are strangely high. I did my little experiment with the time I spend in SL. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Another-boring-experiment-In-world-promotions/td-p/1657815 The experiment was great and my sales were awesome due to it...but of course, I can't commit that kind of time every month. I have to decide family/Real life over SL...obviously RL wins. And don't get me wrong, I'm still happy with my normal sales when I can only spend 3-4 hours per week at most so I'm not complaining at all. but, if you take out those 2 months, were sitting right back at normal I guess. So you are absolutely correct in your statement "As soon as you stop tho, things will go back to normal."

By the way I love love love your idea of sharing a piece of land with friends. It helps pay your tier but like you said, you share traffic and how nice would that be!

 

[Medhue Simoni]

The time frame when search started to get it's major changes was January 2010, when the GSA 5 was implemented, and in April there was a major change. In July 2010, they dropped Picks from the equations, which hurt many long time merchants.

After I posted the comment here today, I went and tried to track down some of the evidence. I found some of the evidence but it seems many of the threads and other stats have been deleted or moved. Needless to say, it became more of a headache than it was worth. Let me give you a couple graphs that shows something pretty significant tho.

This is the chart that shows the PMLF, which is the users with Positive Montly Linden Flow. LL stopped reporting this data after Sept. Notice how income peaked for all SL merchants and then dropped directly after the implementation of the new GSA 5 search engine. It would be interesting to see the numbers today, as I'm sure it would be drastic.

 

This is a graph of the amount of land owned directly by LL. Notice how this jumps during the same exact time. I'm guessing much of this is Mainland, as LL can't just take these offline. You can bet these were all merchants directly hit by the loss of sales, because of the major search engine change. Also notice how it stops as merchants and other land owners adjust to the change, but it still creeps up as time goes on. It is also worth pointing out that this graph doesn't show how many private sims were lost during that time.

 

This is a chart of the Median Daily Concurrency. Notice the drop in concurrency immediately following the new search implementation. I attribute this to people not being able to find the best places and simply logging out.

Now, during this same time period, LL released Viewer 2. Many people might attribute many of these drops to that viewer. To me tho, this doesn't all match up. You might expect concurrency to go down, as new users getting this new screwed up viewer don't spend as much time in SL, but this would only apply to concurrency. Older users all knew of and had access to older viewers, so why would older users abandon land more, or all of a sudden lose sales? So, to me the new viewer doesn't account for this.

Now, because LL stopped reporting much of the data, I can't say for sure that all my conclusions are true. The bottom line is, that LL has access to much more data than I do, and the reasons for SL's decline are in that data for sure.

It is also worth noting that LL bought Xstreet at the beginning of 2009 and you do not see any significant change in any charts. This would imply to me that the Marketplace is not a significant factor in the loss of sales. Even the Inworld Sales chart shows no significant downward trend and actual goes up right after.

[mtwtfss71]

I did have that same increase as you, Deja. Interesting, hm?!

And I mostly sell clothing so I guess that's where the club sponsorship works for me. It does nothing to increase my mannequin or pet sales though!

At first I was hesitant to give away product through gift card prizes but it's amazing how many return customers I'm seeing from the practice.

And to your point, marketing inworld makes all the difference (usually) in my sales volume. If I slow down on my blogging, or releasing new product, or sending out newletters, etc., there is always a decline. I'm about ready to hire someone to take that part of my business on to allow me to concentrate my time on new designs and customer service. It's difficult when you try to do it all.

[Madeliefste Oh]

My inworld sales are this month lowest since ever.

Few years back it was
95% in world, 5% xstreet - for items for the general customer
25% in world, 75% xstreet - for builders and creators items

First months in 2012 it was
50% in world, 50% marketplace - for items for the general customer
15% in world, 85% xstreet - for builders and creators items

This pattern changed for my brands since June this year, while I changed nothing the way I advertise and promote. Since June the average is like:
20% in world, 80% marketplace - for items for the general customer
5 % inworld, 95% marketplace - for builders and creators items

I'm making about the same amout of money as one year ago, but I have a lot more items for sale then a year ago. So in general the profit per item decreases.

My conclusion is: more and more people prefer to shop on the marketplace above shopping in world.

[Ciaran Laval]

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

 

It is also worth noting that LL bought Xstreet at the beginning of 2009 and you do not see any significant change in any charts. This would imply to me that the Marketplace is not a significant factor in the loss of sales. Even the Inworld Sales chart shows no significant downward trend and actual goes up right after.

---

March 2010 was when they were completing work on merging XStreet and inworld balances, this significantly increased the power and appeal of the marketplace, so I disagree that the marketplace is not a significant factor here and it has had a knock on effect with inworld sims not attracting commercial rentals.

The Marketplace has certainly played its part.

 

[Deja Letov]

Medhue...I wish I was doing better tracking back in 2010, I didn't start really taking my business all that seriously until about August 2010. It would be interesting to see if I experienced the same thing.  But those are some interesting numbers, it's a shame we can't get those same stats today. I'd love to see a chart this year with PMLF.

[Deja Letov]

---

mtwtfss71 wrote:

I did have that same increase as you, Deja. Interesting, hm?!

And I mostly sell clothing so I guess that's where the club sponsorship works for me. It does nothing to increase my mannequin or pet sales though!

At first I was hesitant to give away product through gift card prizes but it's amazing how many return customers I'm seeing from the practice.

And to your point, marketing inworld makes all the difference (usually) in my sales volume. If I slow down on my blogging, or releasing new product, or sending out newletters, etc., there is always a decline. I'm about ready to hire someone to take that part of my business on to allow me to concentrate my time on new designs and customer service. It's difficult when you try to do it all.

---

Actually I have to highly recommend that course of that action to you! I am not someone who can spend all my time in SL, so when I do, I want to spend it building more than anything. I hired someone about 2 months ago and I have to say it was the best thing I ever did. She greets customers in the store, is on call for my "paging" system if someone needs help, manages all of my blogging, reposts those to facebook, she's even recently started to help me do some minor building projects and honestly is just an absolute gem to me. It has taken such a load of stress off of me and now when I log in, I just sit in my skybox and build build build. It's awesome. Best thing I could have ever done for myself. My only advice would be to try and find someone who loves your products because if you don't have a ton of money to spend on that sort of thing, you can hand out your products left and right along with some linden and it makes them happy. I even have some special stuff I plan on doing for her around Christmas just to show her how much I appreciate her and everything she's done. I would never want to lose her!

 

[Deja Letov]

---

Madeliefste Oh wrote:

My inworld sales are this month lowest since ever.

 

Few years back it was

95% in world, 5% xstreet - for items for the general customer

25% in world, 75% xstreet - for builders and creators items

First months in 2012 it was

50% in world, 50% marketplace - for items for the general customer

15% in world, 85% xstreet - for builders and creators items

This pattern changed for my brands since June this year, while I changed nothing the way I advertise and promote. Since June the average is like:

20% in world, 80% marketplace - for items for the general customer

5 % inworld, 95% marketplace - for builders and creators items

I'm making about the same amout of money as one year ago, but I have a lot more items for sale then a year ago. So in general the profit per item

decreases

.

My conclusion is: more and more people prefer to shop on the marketplace above shopping in world.

---

ugh absolutely and I hate it. I've been busting my tail off for the last year trying to get my in world sales percentage higher than my marketplace and I just can't make it happen. overall sales are definitely higher on both MP and in world, but I can't get the percentage to shift.  Right now I'm about 50/50, sometimes  MP pulls in front of inworld by about 10-15% but if I work at it I can keep them close. these days I'm basically treating my MP and my in world as 2 different businesses. I have to or it will drive me nuts. I can't keep comparing the sales to each other, which is actually why  I asked the question of this thread, since I don't want to compare anything to my own MP sales anymore, I'd rather compare with others who are actively marketing their in world stores.

But ya...I totally agree with you...MP is rocking the sales charts right now. I guess all we can do is keep trying to do what we are doing and hope the in world sales pay for our in world stores. Honestly, if I wasn't able to pay tier solely with in world sales, I would probably close up and just take the MP sales as pure profit.

 

[mtwtfss71]

 

Deja Letov wrote:

Actually I have to highly recommend that course of that action to you! I am not someone who can spend all my time in SL, so when I do, I want to spend it building more than anything. I hired someone about 2 months ago and I have to say it was the best thing I ever did. She greets customers in the store, is on call for my "paging" system if someone needs help, manages all of my blogging, reposts those to facebook, she's even recently started to help me do some minor building projects and honestly is just an absolute gem to me. It has taken such a load of stress off of me and now when I log in, I just sit in my skybox and build build build. It's awesome. Best thing I could have ever done for myself. My only advice would be to try and find someone who loves your products because if you don't have a ton of money to spend on that sort of thing, you can hand out your products left and right along with some linden and it makes them happy. I even have some special stuff I plan on doing for her around Christmas just to show her how much I appreciate her and everything she's done. I would never want to lose her!

 

---

Deja, thank you for confirming for me something I've been thinking about for a while. Can I just ask how you found the right person? That's the part I'm struggling with the most. They are your voice, after all!

 

[Porky Gorky]

---

Deja Letov wrote:

......I appreciate her and everything she's done. I would never want to lose her!

---

I had an employee from 2007 to 2010 who did 75% of the customer support and all the boring admin side of the business. This left me lots more time to build, and looking back at those years they were definitely my most productive with regards to releasing new content etc. However the bubble burst after 3 years and they left SL and my production went down hill from there. I had relied more and more on this person as the businesses grew over the years, and once they left I found myself swamped, with 80% of my time spent not building. 

So I guess the point of this post is....if you can find a good and trustworthy employee in SL then take good care of them and treat them well, because the minute they leave, a big old chunk of "work" will come and kick you up the arse. :matte-motes-big-grin: 

[Medhue Simoni]

---

Ciaran Laval wrote:

---

Medhue Simoni wrote:

 

It is also worth noting that LL bought Xstreet at the beginning of 2009 and you do not see any significant change in any charts. This would imply to me that the Marketplace is not a significant factor in the loss of sales. Even the Inworld Sales chart shows no significant downward trend and actual goes up right after.

---

March 2010 was when they were completing work on merging XStreet and inworld balances, this significantly increased the power and appeal of the marketplace, so I disagree that the marketplace is not a significant factor here and it has had a knock on effect with inworld sims not attracting commercial rentals.

The Marketplace has certainly played its part.

 

---

.

My argument is not that the Marketplace had no affect, on different aspects of inworld activity. It obviously does. My arguement has to do with merchants. From a business stand point, I could careless if people buy my stuff inworld or on the Marketplace. The only thing that I care about is whether I make more or less because of it. Whether I keep my sim doesn't really depend on how many people come to it. It is whether I can pay for it. I don't think there is any doubt that some inworld activities, like malls, would suffer from the affects of the marketplace. It would have happened anyways, overtime, whether LL bought Xstreet or not. LL just moved that process along.

This graph says, based on the timeline of LL actions, a pretty clear story. January's have big spikes compared to every december. This happens as expected. LL changes search. Feburary drops a bit, but most februaries drop a little. March comes, LL connects our marketplace accounts, merchants see a boom. which does tend to happen every year. April 4th, LL changes search again, and this time a good number of merchants aren't in most of the results, which was because of a feature of the GSA. Aprils sales plummit, which is unusual according to this graph. This went on until the middle of the summer, when it was somewhat fixed for some merchants. Then LL dropped Picks for the search equations.

When matched up with this graph, we see a major event happened, and affected 2 main areas. These areas are merchant sales, and abandoned land. It is not hard to imagine these to events aren't linked. When we are looking at graphs, we are looking for disruptions. If they weren't major events, then they would not be so obvious. There are always issues or small trends that push graphs 1 way or another. These happen gradually. When LL makes a big change, that affects almost every1, you will see it on numerous statistical graphs. You see this event on almost every single statistical graph you could make for SL and it's economics.

The marketplace connecting accounts would be an event that would show, and it does. What you would expect to see in the graph after that specific day is a gradual trend 1 way or the other. You would not expect to see a drastic change the very next month, especially when you match it up to total sales on the MP the very next month, which show a massive amount of increase in sales the very next month. My own stats show a major increase in MP sales, and I remember commenting on a thread that I got a major increase but that is just offsetting the fact that I can't be found in inworld search.

So, the marketplace, in my opinion, doesn't answer why LL got back nearly 1,000 regions, in a matter of months. Plus, the rate of abandoned regions seems to go in steps, which would coincide with search engine updates. Of course, the search dropping parcels from it's engine affected every1. Not just merchants, which is why it shows on the graph so distinctly.

[Deja Letov]

---

mtwtfss71 wrote:

 

Deja Letov wrote:

Actually I have to highly recommend that course of that action to you! I am not someone who can spend all my time in SL, so when I do, I want to spend it building more than anything. I hired someone about 2 months ago and I have to say it was the best thing I ever did. She greets customers in the store, is on call for my "paging" system if someone needs help, manages all of my blogging, reposts those to facebook, she's even recently started to help me do some minor building projects and honestly is just an absolute gem to me. It has taken such a load of stress off of me and now when I log in, I just sit in my skybox and build build build. It's awesome. Best thing I could have ever done for myself. My only advice would be to try and find someone who loves your products because if you don't have a ton of money to spend on that sort of thing, you can hand out your products left and right along with some linden and it makes them happy. I even have some special stuff I plan on doing for her around Christmas just to show her how much I appreciate her and everything she's done. I would never want to lose her!

 

---

Deja, thank you for confirming for me something I've been thinking about for a while. Can I just ask how you found the right person? That's the part I'm struggling with the most. They are your voice, after all!

 

---

It's kind of funny. I posted an ad on the forums for a helper which netted plenty of applications but I really didn't "click" with anyone. I hired one person from the list of applications, but something happened in real life and she never did start working for me.

So I let it go and had my grand opening when I moved to a full sim back in August. It was actually during my experiment where I increased my hours. She was a current customer and she came by during my grand opening. it was insane, way more people than I expected and she could see how frazzled I was trying to do it all on my own. So she stepped in as a customer and greeted customers for me so I could set up the hourly sales that were happening. Actually it was her and one other person, who also does a little bit of work for me now and then still. But after the grand opening was over, she told me she was looking for work and I was like oh hell yes. I hired her right away. The cool thing is, she knows and loves my products already. I didn't have to hardly teach her anything. She has also been managing other blogs for other company's in SL. It's just worked out so perfectly and I absolutely adore her.

 

[Deja Letov]

I can see the points youre making Medhue...I actually understand them, LOL. I don't know about anyone else but I guess my main issue, or question rather is why it's happening now. yes that happened back in early 2010, but since I've started recording my own sales in August 2010, my numbers have increased every month. my main concern is why this month, things seem to be lower or at least tapering off. I say tapering off because if I look at my numbers from the 1st through the 22nd my numbers are lower than the last 3-4 months. Then all of a sudden in one day I caught up. maybe it's just the nature of the beast and I shouldn't run reports in the middle of the month. Maybe I should wait til the month is complete before I complain. but then maybe a better question is how to keep sales more consistent through the month so that there aren't huge lag spikes or drops.

[Ciaran Laval]

Tyche might have some good analysis of what happened but don't forget other events such as the advent of Linden Homes and merging the teen grid with the main grid, these events would have increased the number of Linden owned regions.

GSA was a nightmare and did hurt a lot of merchants, there's no disputing that, there were many threads about that.

 

 

[Spica Inventor]

My sales both in world and on the marketplace seem to follow each other around when they rise and dip, so ratio wise they remained the same for the last few months, but October has seen much diminishing sales for me as well after much increasing sales the previous two months in both areas. I blame much of it on 'animal spirits' doing another freek out period in today's teetering economic climate around the world and expect more to follow until the bottom finally falls out of the world economy.

[Tyche Shepherd]

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

.....

So, the marketplace, in my opinion, doesn't answer why LL got back nearly 1,000 regions, in a matter of months. Plus, the rate of abandoned regions seems to go in steps, which would coincide with search engine updates. Of course, the search dropping parcels from it's engine affected every1. Not just merchants, which is why it shows on the graph so distinctly.

---

The changes in this chart are not due to abandoned land , it shows the size of the Linden Estate in regions rather than the ownership of parcels within those regions.The rate of mainland abandonment will have no impact on this chart as The Lab doesn't take Mainland regions off line, nor does the Estate owner change.

The growth in this chart during the highlighted period was due to the roll out of the first Linden home continent, its subsequent expansion then the arrival of a second cloned continent followed by a third & fourth continent. There was also a roll out of a large number of welcome islands at the time, many of which were then taken offline at the end of March which explains the small dip at the end of the period. During the same time there was also a corresponding increase in Premium Accounts, which had been in decline up until then.

 

 

[LillyBeth Filth]

As soon as LL purchased Xstreet I started putting my stuff on there because I knew if LL were taking a fincancial interest in it, then in world search and marketing were gonna be a dying trend.

I do think it does also depend on what you sell.

Avatar animations clearly need to be seen working so people need to bo in world to try a demo..I think this applies to most avatar content from skin to hair and often clothes.

Textures (my market) are a nightmare to shop for in world due to the LAG this has always been the case and it was this reason I opened an external website, initially for browsing purposes only.

Also textures depend on the target market to have or rent land or for my target market, targets market lol...to have or rent land. Building items for use in world depends on land ownership which has taken a huge nose dive over the last 3 years.

Amount of people online the last time I looked was 32K - before this I recall 64K.

The SLMP IS and will continue to affect in world sales because thats the new way of shopping by and large. There are of course always people who enjoy the whole in world shopping experience but for speed and ease of search the SLMP is the first and obvious choice for I would imagine 85% of the SL population.

 

[LillyBeth Filth]

"I blame much of it on 'animal spirits' doing another freek out period in today's teetering economic climate around the world and expect more to follow until the bottom finally falls out of the world economy"

For sure.

The media drives consumer confidence or consumer insecurity.

As soon as Oct comes, people start to worry about Christmas (Thanks Giving for the US too)  and cling on harder to that dollar.

Even without seasonal finanical commitments, people are constantly "Saving for a rainy day"

Waiting to lose their job or their partner to lose their job, worried about raising mortgage interest rates ..

Tthe consumer of todays recession is set to "Beware Of impulse Purchasingg" by default.

Its a social conditioning caused by media driven fear.

 

[Medhue Simoni]

Tyche - What you say sounds plausible but I can't find any mention of Linden Homes starting at that time. The closest thing to it I could find was a video by Esbee that talks about the Linden Homes, and that video was posted in March 2010. I do remember getting my linden home, but I could have sworn that was late december.

[Tari Landar]

My inworld sales and MP sales are about the same as usual. They always dip in October for me though. I think my ratio is about the same 50/50. Traffic wise I can't really comment, I haven't checked it, and don't pay much attention to it at all. I don't get high amounts of traffic to begin with. Truth be told I've been rather MIA the last few months dealing with rl, so sl took a back seat. I do have new products coming out soon though. We'll see how they do. Plus we'll have holiday season upon us and I have a crap ton of stuff coming out for that. I'm actually pretty excited about those products.

When I participate in things like hunts, or those weekly specials type deals, my traffic obviously goes up, as do sales. When I put more effort into things, everything goes up, lol.(and no I'm not saying people don't put effort in, just that I don't, right this moment). I usually have a period of 2-4 months out of each year when I produce far less, spend less time inworld(unless needed) and stuff. So I expect sales to tank. I keep a relatively small inventory of items as it is. That's not to say I'm a lazy merchant that doesn't do squat. I do still take care of customers, and do still work. I just don't do a whole lot of promotion or creation during those down times.

My sales don't usually really tank badly until June-ish. I still can't figure out why, but it's happened the last three years. I need to work on filling a niche or something during the times when what I have may not be what anyone is looking for. I do use a classified, and it actually nets me more traffic and sales than I thought it would. It was an experiment and thus far, it's worked. I don't use enhancements or anything like that on MP. In fact, other than my sig, I don't advertise my Mp store. People just find it. I can't be that hard to find, or I'd never get any sales at all, lol.

Guess I didn't really have much in the way of helpful info to add, lol. Basically my sales aren't down anymore than I'd expect them to be for October. They might even be a little higher than usual October sales. I can't say until the end of the month.

[Ciaran Laval]

Tyche mentions the advent of Linden Homes in her regular SLU update, around here you can see them coming online:

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/virtual-business/8523-new-sl-sims-past-week-24.html