Lexy Oller Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 With all the changes has anyone else noticed how business has dropped? I own 9 Sims and am having a hard go if it. I am giving away land at cost just to stay full and some can't afford that. I know that some of this is due to economy. But I also see it as falling SL numbers. Please make a post and tell my your experiences with this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ziggy21 Slade Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 The last couple of weeks have been dreadful for me, but it always slows down at this time of year, and the economic conditions in Europe have to be having an effect. I havent noticed any big change in concurrency though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrimSoul Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 Well to be honist renting out inworld shop's is now dead in the water. Everyone now shops on marketplace and that has really killed rentals.As for homes inworld that itself has became harder too beause all the ex shop place owners have moved into rental homes.theres just more land up for rent than people now days and the few that do want to rent want it for almost nothing and tend to keep moving on to diffrent places.This is way so many sims are down sizing or just closing down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle Lebed Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 SL is swirling the toilet. Making sales and not being paid will do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtwtfss71 Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 My business is down overall these past two months as well. It seems to have a few really strong days and then a terrible week. Up and down. Might be economy. Might be SL issues. Likely it's both. I do have to agree with one of the posters, though. The old model of a sim built around rentals is slowly (or quickly?) dying. In order to really make a go, I think we need to rethink that model and give players a reason to want to be on your sim other than to just rent a house or a shop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flea Yatsenko Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 Well, remember that really bad crash we had on Friday April 27th and then again on April 30th? SLMP has never recovered. . My sales are down compared to the last few months as well. So are the other merchants I talk to. You are not alone. I don't think this is a matter of magic boxes or direct delivery being broken, but the thing that magic boxes and direct delivery talk to being broken. May 18th there was a marketplace release that dealt with "performance" issues and I saw my sales skyrocket to how they were before. They slowly tapered off. It makes me think the Commerce Team has an idea of what's wrong but they still aren't able to fix it. Things have been slow for about a month so far, and it's not good. LL needs to get SLMP off of the cloud and back into a local datacenter. It might be saving them money in server costs, but the lost revenue (if my sales are an indication) from SLMP transactions is probably costing them more money.If LL was really cheap on the hosting, they used AWS in Virginia (which is the cheapest one). So, that would mean a standard SLMP transaction would have to communicate several times between the data centers in California and the cloud server in Virginia. It's just speculation, but if that's the case it's no wonder things keep getting lost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexy Oller Posted May 24, 2012 Author Share Posted May 24, 2012 I know this at this rate I will not be able to weather the summer. LL will loose the revenue of 9 Sims from me. I personally think that they introduced mesh and everything has fallen apart because of poor coding and low band width. So I hope they get a grip soon before its too late! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Min Barzane Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 Idk,for me ewerything works as usual,sales go up and down as they always did... Mesh didnt make it any beter or worse sales vise... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 I have always found March-May the slowest time of year for my business. For me, summer is avg., fall-winter is above avg., spring below avg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtwtfss71 Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 That's good to know, actually. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flea Yatsenko Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 I don't think people are affected evenly by this or that they don't realize it's happening. For me, when I switched to DD, I have pretty much seen my sales double and I've been making around twice as much as normal. This month, it seems like all that's happened from DD has gone away. I will make more than I did before DD came out but that's probably because I've finally restructured my store and I've been adding things. Sales fluctuate, and I understand that. But when CommerceTeam releases an SLMP update that "fixes performance issues", I see awesome sales for a day, then two days later I make a tenth of what I did (and nearly a tenth as many unique customers), it tells me something is wrong. Things were working really good for me when I swtiched to DD right away. I think the system was working better then, in the brief window when DD came out and before the crash of April 27th. If you haven't seen much change in your sales, did you see sales increase after switching to DD and then have them fall off? Or have you always been on Magic Boxes? I saw sales increase greatly after switching to DD and now they are not nearly as good as they were. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lava Babii Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 GrimSoul wrote: Well to be honist renting out inworld shop's is now dead in the water. Everyone now shops on marketplace and that has really killed rentals. For me that's very true, I had a number of satellite shops, and I closed them all since they didn't even pay for their rent. And I just keep my main store because there are thousands of landmarks out there, and I don't want them to go nowhere, but even the main store doesn't pay off. However, marketplace works quite good for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Susanto Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 Today has been a bit slow, but my total sales have been really high recently. Of course, I'm still not bothering to try to run a shop in-world. If there's a way to make sim ownership profitable I'd be eager to see it happen, but not by hurting the marketplace. If the grid is too large to assure income to sim owners, that's not the fault of the Marketplace merchants. Maybe if sim owners would consider producing other types of profit ventures besides commercial real estate speculation (which some of them want subsidized, apparently, by killing off marketplace competition), they'd be able to make at least some money in-world, in spite of the RL economy being sluggish. Second Life seems like a good medium for a virtual museum, for example, and I have already supplied hundreds of copymod items that could be used to get the ball rolling. I know that there's a bit of this kind of thing happening already, but I just don't see it being much attacked as a serious professional project. It's weird to me that people are willing to just throw money at the grid without any kind of a plan in terms of how that is supposed to produce value for consumers, and then they complain that the money isn't just magically coming back to them. Why would it do that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spica Inventor Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 All roads lead to the fact that LL wants to keep costs and prices up far higher than they should be and especially their tier prices elevated outside of what the potential market is willing to pay for them to their doom. Drop tier prices to 25% of what they are now and I bet the land will start filling up to capacity in the grid again in no time. In conjunction with that if LL takes a 50% cut in The Marketplace sales, that would equalize things nicely I believe. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexy Oller Posted May 25, 2012 Author Share Posted May 25, 2012 I have no satellite stores and very little on MP Most of my sales are in world. I use to do a 100K + a day then it dropped to 25K and now its under that. So its relitvie to whats ok. OK to me is 50K a day http://slurl.com/secondlife/FAB%20International/183/156/26 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medhue Simoni Posted May 25, 2012 Share Posted May 25, 2012 If LL took 50%, they'd lose all their merchants. I certainly would never go for that, considering how LL runs their business. I'd pull completely out of SL and sell everything on all the other grids. My guess would be that every top merchant would do the exact same thing, and SL would definitely die within the year. Right now, LL still has the vast majority of merchants selling exclusively on their grid. That would change overnight, if they took 50%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexy Oller Posted May 25, 2012 Author Share Posted May 25, 2012 Humm I cant get the avi to work right. Seems a picture is missing. Par for the coarse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WADE1 Jya Posted May 25, 2012 Share Posted May 25, 2012 Ouch... I'm seeing a little downturn last couple months but not 70% :catsurprised: Concurrency is slowly falling & that must be part of losses you're seeing. Can't really do anything much about that. Lindens are the only ones can promote & grow SL? Thing is population of SL any given day used to hit above 80,000. Until a month or two ago, population would hit above 60,000 consistently every day. Since then, SL often doesn't even reach to 60,000 anymore. At this rate, by end of summer, SL could have shrunk to 50,000 concurrency :catsad: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tilly Kiranov Posted May 25, 2012 Share Posted May 25, 2012 I think the decline started when they merged the teen grid with the adult grid and created No-Go areas for many people who didnt want to log their credit card/passport detail with LL to access them. SL is a 'slow burn' environment which hooks people gradually. I joined in 2007 and loved exploring EVERYWHERE.... I would find it a very dull place if I joined today. The reason marketplace wins hand down for shoppers is the length of time it takes for things to rez in world. You can make a cup of tea and walk the dog before my store rezzes fully for me... It only houses about a third of my builds, but at least lets customers see the quality and style before they buy, and I will always rez pieces on request. If SL is to pick up, we need to make it open and inclusive once more. Get rid of those 'members only' sims... they should be free and an inspiration for everyone. Kill the maturity ratings. Pandering to the teen audience his sucked the joy from experience for everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WADE1 Jya Posted May 25, 2012 Share Posted May 25, 2012 Yeah, I don't know what triggered the current decline, but SL population has been declining for about 2 years now. I think it started when the past CEO fired some rather massive percentage of the staff. Almost every smart good Linden got canned. Since then the lab has seemed kind of incapable & pretty amateurish. Its like the brain of LL fell out. Really seems like Lindens not making any good moves any more to grow the world, and just lately I really get the impression Lindens gave up on SL, seeing more potential in diversifying & working on developing new products, products that are not related to their SL product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spica Inventor Posted May 26, 2012 Share Posted May 26, 2012 "If LL took 50%, they'd lose all their merchants. I certainly would never go for that, considering how LL runs their business. I'd pull completely out of SL and sell everything on all the other grids. My guess would be that every top merchant would do the exact same thing, and SL would definitely die within the year. Right now, LL still has the vast majority of merchants selling exclusively on their grid. That would change overnight, if they took 50%". Oh come on Medhue. You would at least wait around and see how it effects your bottom line first wouldn't you before you'd make a decision to pull anchor? Besides, does the so called competition to SL even have an outworld marketplace that you could flee to? ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vick Forcella Posted May 26, 2012 Share Posted May 26, 2012 I was never a successful Merchant but was able to balance SL costs with SL income. But at the moment, since about two months, it's zlich, nada, nothing, no-go, rien, niets, nix, ingenting, niente, nichts. Even less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czari Zenovka Posted May 26, 2012 Share Posted May 26, 2012 Spica Inventor wrote: Oh come on Medhue. You would at least wait around and see how it effects your bottom line first wouldn't you before you'd make a decision to pull anchor? Besides, does the so called competition to SL even have an outworld marketplace that you could flee to? ;-) I'm not promoting this particular "other virtual world;" in fact the only reason I occasionally step foot in it is because a dear friend is primarily there now, having moved her entire, very profitable, business there as well (as have other merchants who are still also in SL), but to the question: The one to which I'm referring does have its own version of the MP. Again - the above is strictly informational. No matter what happens with SL, that is one "world" you won't find me in. (Let's just say I had a very negative experience there with its "owner.") Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czari Zenovka Posted May 26, 2012 Share Posted May 26, 2012 Vick Forcella wrote: I was never a successful Merchant but was able to balance SL costs with SL income. But at the moment, since about two months, it's zlich, nada, nothing, no-go, rien, niets, nix, ingenting, niente, nichts. Even less. I can relate, Vick, although I will say, for me, "success" depends on one's definition. Did I ever make big money? No. But I choose to keep my business small for a variety of reasons. However, as you note, I made enough - mostly on the MP - to have not put any USD funds into SL for the last 3 years or so. I was a premium member for the majority of my time on SL, owned differing amounts of land, paid rent and expenses for my shop, purchased whatever I wanted for myself in SL (I'm not a huge clothes shopper - but 3 VKC dogs, gadgets, etc.), was able to tip nicely at clubs and classes and most recently have been renting a lovely parcel of residential land. For me that was success. However, I am now at the point that I either give up my residential rental or pay for it with USD$, which I really can't afford, due to the lessening of sales over the last few months. My landlord is so kind and each time I give my notice of moving he offers me a free month or rent at half price for a few months in the hopes that my MP sales will go back to normal, but even at half price it takes just about all I earn in a month currently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spica Inventor Posted May 26, 2012 Share Posted May 26, 2012 C'mon Czari, spill the beans. Which Grid are you talking about? You can say. hehe ;-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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