MP Sales collapsed 3 weeks ago

[Toysoldier Thor]

So just to point this out in case any other SL Merchants have noticed the same and its not just me, but about 3 weeks ago - very suddenly, my MP sales (which is about 75-85% of all my SL sales) collapsed. 

Now, I can understand and I have actually experienced on a few occassions where my very regular daily / weekly sales volume will collapse for a day or a few days or even a week.  But except for back on August 1st of 2011 when LL clearly did something to MP that crippled my sales for 2 months, I have not seen what I have been witnessing these past 3 weeks.

In the past 3 weeks I have made less sales than I would normally make in a week. 

I have looked at what little I am selling on MP and I have noticed a pattern here too.  Normally 90% + of my daily / weekly sales come from my 6 Sculpty Terrain Packs.  Thes sales from all my other MP items make up the remaining 10%.

Just to paint this picture for you all... of all my items on MP... the only items I have not transitioned to DD from MB has been these 6 Sculpty Terrain Packs.  And until 3 weeks ago, their sales have been as normal after DD was release as it was before DD was released.  i.e. DD had not impacted my sales of my MB sculpty terrain packs.

THEN... as of 3 weeks ago, the sales from all my MB items (my 6 main sellers) has almost stopped!  I am making maybe only 1 sale of these packs every couple days or more.  My sales of my DD items - although never that big in sales - has not gotten worse.

Did LL do something to the MB listed items?  Is this a way to push merchants to get off MB?

[Couldbe Yue]

I don't think it's got anything to do with the MB - my sales died for a week w/c 7th.  The last week it's been inworld sales that have taken the hammering.

I suspect they're just tinkering with search again, you know they don't care about the impact.

[Czari Zenovka]

I'm sorry to hear this has been happening to you, Toy.  From following these forums since the introduction of DD, sales irregularities seem to be the norm to lesser or greater degrees and I have noticed the sales irregularities have hit various of us who post at different times.

About a month ago I had not had any sales during a 3-week (or thereabouts) time frame, then sales began trickling in and built back to almost what they had been pre-DD. (I'm still using the MB.)

The past couple of weeks have been the best for me in terms of sales since DD began.  Mind you, good sales for me may be a pittance compared to other merchants, but I have been pleased.  However, during this same time period, your sales stopped.  It's like LL staggers who gets sales when, but since all this is coding, I realize that can't be the case, but the pattern sure feels like it.

I try to stay out of the realm of paranoia, but with all the MP madness in the past 3 months, I have wondered, as others have also expressed, if LL is trying to drive off the smaller merchants and have the MP just be comprised of the larger merchants.

On a sidenote: I was doing a MP search earlier today for a specific type of female attire, found one; description, price, store, etc. were all in place....but the image was of a horse stall.  Interestingly, unlike many mixed listings, this one did not default back to the MP home page, but actually opened to describe the clothing, but with a photo of a horse stall.  It's tempting to purchase it to see what I'd get...lol. 

[Calamari]

Last 3 week for me are all in the top 5 all time werst weeks I have on record.   I'm all DD with no inworld shops left, I don't think it has any thing to do with DD vs magic boxes.  One thing I have noticed is a shift in customer avatar age, in December it was 75% 3 yrears or older and now it 38% less then one year and 38% over 3 years, the rest evenly in between. 

[Spica Inventor]

Have you noticed any competition with terrain products being brought to the market recently? Perhaps mesh ones?

[Toysoldier Thor]

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Spica Inventor wrote:

Have you noticed any competition with terrain products being brought to the market recently? Perhaps mesh ones?

---

No.  MESH Landscape terrrains are not competitive to Sculpties because of the LI penalties that mesh has to ensure over sculpties for very large sized shapes.

Not only that but one new merchant with a mesh pack would wipe out my sales.

BUT what I have noticed was that my 6 terrain packs - that used to be on the top 2 - 4 pages of searches - have now pretty much dissappeared from the top pages.  So I suspect that LL was playing with search and I further suspect that their dabbling impacts MB listings.

 

[Arwen Serpente]

Hi Toy! I'm sorry this is happening to you. For what it's worth, the past 3 weeks have been uneven in terms of sales. I'm completely on DD except for one item (I have no idea why I didn't transfer it to DD at the time, but maybe it was just nostalgia for an old but good seller).  I chalked it up to a seasonal change - people being busy in rl with family events (graduations and vacations) and also the continuing uneven rl economic news which can make people pull back on spending.  June/July/August are always a bit softer than the rest of the year, and then it ramps up again in September through the holidays. I know you are aware of all these things, but maybe for some reason this year, they are affecting you more than in the past.

 

[Jen Oskan]

 

My sales dropped too last 3 weeks, all off my items are still in magic box because my merchant outbox  for DD is broken.

Hope thay will fix it sooooooon

 

 

[Lasher Oh]

Hi Toy I had a surge after converting to DD and  even sold some lines that I had forgotten about. Then sometime in late May the relevant / best selling sorting started throwing up some really odd and ancient results.

Roughly around the same time you refer to, my sales also took a dip. A bit further than the usual summer season slump. I'm pretty certain that the search wallahs have been  doing some of their imprudent  tinkering again in an effort to make sure that we can never predict the method behind their madness.

I also had problem with my email sales alert that suddenly decided they should embed themselves in the spam folder without my permission, but I clocked onto that pretty quickly.

Yesterday sales surged again which was a pleasant surprise because Friday has always been a very bad business day for me, and my store front still continues to display everything that is not or ever has been a relevant  or a best seller, apart from the single freebie which has been there since year dot.

Fingers crossed it's just a summer glitch and your sales take off  again soon.

^L^

[Josh Susanto]

I also offer a lot of terrain products.

But the decline I've noticed is across my whole product line in terms of prices and product types.

I haven't mentioned it here, though, because it seems like anything I post these days is inviting a warning from the moderator.

Presumably I'm not flaming here if the rest of the thread isn't flaming and I'm merely agreeing with it.

That said, I should just point out that the decline coincides with the resumption of corruption to items in the 14xxxxx cluster.

My guess is that Malefactor Linden was away for about 60 days starting in mid-April and has now returned.

Whichever problem was addressed by The Malefactor being away probably just masks some other problem.

If that person went to rehab/detox, the chemical problem likely just masks a more deeply-seated personality disorder.

 

[Madeliefste Oh]

Last three weeks my sales are far from normal as well. My sales have decreased for more then 50% compared to last month.It is along the whole productline, for both sculpties and meshes. I has nothing to do with DD or magic boxes, I'm fully on DD for several months now.

[Pamela Galli]

I have noticed a significant downturn recently but figured that we are not only in a slow time of year but in a world financial meltdown.  I notice less activity in groups and forums as well.

It has occurred to me too that MP search is involved somehow because I will sell at a steady clip and then sales come to a screeching halt for a while.

 

[Medhue Simoni]

Yep, I'll concur. Personally, I just figured that It had something to do with me not being that active lately, but I've had times of less activity before with no affect at all. The month of June will probably be my worst month since 2007, and that says alot, since I didn't even make mocaps back then and only had a fraction of the products. The only bright side lately was that I started getting a few more inworld sales. This is literally the first time I've actually thought about abandoning my sim.

On a good note, at least for us creators, LL looks to have some serious competition on the very near horizon. Maybe this will kick LL in the nads and make them realize that without the merchant class, which they have been destroying and ignoring for the past few years, they are dead in the water. How the heck does it take 3 years to implement mesh, and now they are dragging their feet again with the mesh deformer. I've never seen any1 take as long as them to get anything done. In 3 years, we should have gotten mesh with the deformer and custom rigs for both avatar and objects. Heck, Qarl had to make the deformer for them and they still don't have it implemented. They should have been kissing our butts, cause we were their main asset and biggest promoters.

With that said, here is what I been working on lately. Totally unrelated to SL.

[Magnet Homewood]

For the last 2 or 3 months my sales have been down a little in general, maybe by 20%, and since then I have noticed a rather regular pattern where for about two weeks sales are good, then for the next two weeks sales dry up.

I have had the philosophy for a long time now to not touch things, so I dont advertize, dont post much in my groups, so in my opinion this cant be the effects of what I do (or not do) because it goes bad and then gets better despite what I do.

I just assume it is the effects of search working, maybe it takes around 2 weeks for the numbers to be crunched, I have no idea.

I have been selling mostly on the MP and I have considered closing my shop, but then you never know who comes to see the stuff in-world and then uses the MP to buy in the end, so they can have the power of a bad rating when it doesnt get delivered, etc. (I certainly never get any good rating for good customer service, like some other merchants I see have, even though I have spent hours trying to solve problems that werent caused by my items .. oh look, i am rambling!)

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Agree with a lot of your points.

And I must say, awesome work! A worthy demo reel. Keep it up!

[Pamela Galli]

Cool Medhue!

[Medhue Simoni]

Thanks Dartagan and Pam! It took me almost a full week just for less than 1 minute of animation. It's my first watchable short tho, and I'm sure I'll get faster. Learned alot just doing that 1. The final scene alone took 10 hours just to render. I really love dealing with the camera, it's fun to find the best angle for a shot, or make it move with the scene or an object. Creating shorts does take longer than actually animating tho, just cause of all the other things that are involved. Lighting is a pain in the ash, and can take forever to even get close to right. I animated a whole dragon with all it's needed movement for creating videos with him, all in a few days. So that is the comparison to actually making a short video. My son also liked doing the voice for the kid, but I need more practice with audio, and a better mic, lol.

Some1 in SL feels the need to rate my videos down tho. Every time I post 1 of my videos in the forums, whether SL related or not, within hours I see a thumbs down, not just on the videos I post, but on numerous videos. It's pretty sad that people feel the need to expend such energy. Whatever, I expect it.

Every1 should take a look at DazStudio and consider creating things for the program. The submission process is really long tho and my SL business partner, Roberto, is working on my website now to sell animations for all the different Poser and Daz characters that I will be creating for. These programs need creators tho, so do check the different programs and websites out, like Daz3d, and Renderocity. You don't have to go thru them tho. Also, ShareCG is a good place to promote your creations and give away freebies.

[Deja Letov]

My marketplace sales have been down for the last few months but that's mostly due to a conscious effort of my own to convert most of my sales to in world rather than marketplace, so for me that makes me happy. But I do still monitor my listings and my search rankings on a few key products and I am sure they have messed with the search again. Though I don't think it has anything to do with MB or DD, because all of mine are now in DD and results are all over the place.

[Spica Inventor]

I agree it probably is the world economy taking a dive again and everyone's scared about consuming again. My sales have improved significantly in world and on the Marketplace for the last  month or so it would seem. I figure peeps are probably 'downsizing' in response and buying more of the 'cheap' stuff like the things I sell. hehe ;-)

[wrable Amat]

/me throws her MP sales on the ground and starts dancing and singing "It's Hammer Time...dunnn nnnaa naa duuuna  naaa!"

/me put her In World Sales on her eyes..LOOOK PENNY EYES!!! WHHOOOOOOOOOO

 

It seem for me 3 weeks is the magic number of a HUGE sales drop!

 

As bender says "I come here to have fun on a bun!!"

I play SLcreation and sales for fun as a hobby,I enjoy my RL career and use SL as a nice get away to break out of the norm day in and day out of my boring life.Ijust finishing a beta test on my first game!! I made a rank server and HUDs that interact with every thing from health points to social points,my hopes to make the game for every one that likes Sl family role play.So in sales the past 3 weeks ...yuppers slow...in creation fun 100% pure enjoyment!!!!

[Flea Yatsenko]

You are not alone. I have a mesh terrain kit and it used to be a huge seller, and now it barely sells. LL did something with search results. When I search for the keywords I'm targeting, I get a ton of unrelated things. You are right about them not competing. A mesh kit is much lower poly but it has physics and it should only be used where people are going to be walking, and a sculpty one is much higher poly but doesn't have physics, so it looks prettier but you can't walk on it, so it's for areas where people shouldn't be walking (off sim is fantastic for them).

I've noticed this behavior before when I was complaining about MBs being broken. I was wrong about MBs being broken, but I was right about something being very broken.

The problem is that when I switched to DD, I was an early adopter and I had the whole system with little competition for resources. Because of this, my sales were record breaking by a huge margin.

Now, we're seeing people who use MBs have better sales.

My sales were slowly dying off but they happened to pick back up about three weeks ago, but they're still not as good as they were before we had the big crash of April 27th and April 30th.

There's two ways I've found that you can use to estimate how your sales will be the next few days on SLMP.

1. [JIRA] (WEB-4587) Incorrect items showing up on my marketplace store from other merchants but with my listing texture and vice versa When Web 4587 starts to get active, my sales the next day are almost always awful. Whenever a new merchant posts there, you can expect the next 3-4 days to have slowly increasing SLMP sales (at least from what I've been monitoring).

2. Long delays for getting paid or getting email notifications. When this happens, the next day or so will have awful sales.

Drops in sales data correlate pretty strongly with increased activity on WEB 4587. The time between June 3rd and June 10th I averaged over 6 transactions on SLMP per day and WEB 4587 has nothing posted. On the 10th, new users began to say they were having issues with their listings. I went from 8 transactions the day before to 1 the day WEB 4587 start to be active. Web 4587 has been active the last week, and my # of transactions on SLMP has been about half of what it was in the time when WEB 4587 was not active between June 3rd and June 10th.

It's difficult to find another date when WEB 4587 had a time that long (about a week) without activity. It was before April 30th, and my sales data before that date is significantly better than after it. I've noticed that it seems like SLMP will have a bad day and then it will take a few days for # of transactions to ramp back up, and then it will crash again. Every day that has really good sales is eventually followed by a day where sales plummet (going from 8 to 1 or even 16 to 1), and it doesn't matter if sales plummet on Sunday, Friday, Saturday, or Monday. So, while I think the day of the week does affect my sales, it's not normal to see sales better than weekends on a Wednesday and then for things to blow up Saturday and have 1 sale on Sunday .

Last night, I had a huge delay in payment, and I didn't get paid for something until I paid to upload an image. Today, my sales have been non-existent. SLMP this last week has been in very bad health.

[Sassy Romano]

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Flea Yatsenko wrote:

The problem is that when I switched to DD, I was an early adopter and I had the whole system with little competition for resources. Because of this, my sales were record breaking by a huge margin.

Now, we're seeing people who use MBs have better sales.

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As I said before, that has nothing to do with it, it can't, it's just a delivery mechansim, nothing more.  DD doesn't sell better because there were less people using it, that has no rational correlation at all.

You had good sales because of other reasons.

I see no change DD or MB.  The whole of SL has slowed, I have metrics around a number of things, not just marketplace sales but inworld sales,vistor ration, landmarks given,  visitor to purchaser ratios, people using our products daily and so on. 

SL has slowed up dramatically recently.  People just aren't spending money.

[Arwen Serpente]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

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SL has slowed up dramatically recently.  People just aren't spending money.

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I see it too, and it happened pretty quickly (seeming to coincide with RL economic news).

[Toysoldier Thor]

I completely agree with Sassy that yoru move of listings to DD - even as an early adopter - had ZERO impact to your sales.  In fact - if anything your early move to DD should have slowed down your sales based on your logic.  And as you have already stated - it didnt.  Why? because as you recall, the first couple weeks after DD's official release LL's bugs in DD and the huge mass of merchants that migrated to DD cause major MP lag and almost collapsed MP performance.

I also migrated all my items except for my 6 top sellers in the first week and contrary to your observation, all my listings that migrated to DD witnessed pretty much the same sales volume as they had prior to DD.  And my 6 top sellers on MB also maintained the same sales volumes.

So as Sassy stated, DD was not the reason you noticed great boost in sales.

 

But back to my OP... I suspect what happened now about 4 weeks ago is that the LL Gremlins were playing with MP Search parameters again.  Because as a few of you mentioned, search seems to have changed and listings have sunk deep into the hole of search results.  I used to use common product search teams for my sculpted terrain pack and at least 2 or 3 of my packs showed up within the first 3 pages.  Now they seem to not even show up until about page 4 or 5.

It could also be the world economic situation but I do not think so.  World economic events usuallly do not imact shopping habits so dramatically in a matter of a couple days.  Shopping declines because of worsening economic matters would likely impact shopping gradually over a matter of weeks or even months as it begins to directly impact each shopper directly at their own pace.

So I think the source of the collapse is either because of LL screwing up MP Search or secret manipulations of MB listings.  Likely the first factor.

[Pamela Galli]

I do think it has something to do with search, because the pattern is this:

 

Something sells a couple of times, gets a bump in search, ppl start buying more of it.  Happens with several different things.  I have steady MP sales.

 

Then suddenly, no MP sales. Not just a slowdown but no sales, for half a day or so. The things that were selling more because they got some visibility, fall off the map.

I think there is some search cycle in place but I don't know what or when.