Last month was weird, how is this month?

[Josh Susanto]

Excellent. Thanks.

All by itself, this doesn't prove much, although zero is s number we should all be seeing less often rather than more often.

Until I get some data from other people, I suppose I can at least ask whether anyone does not see Dora having an improvement in sales for at least 2 weeks before 15 June.

 

 

[Spica Inventor]

Are you saying that someone is illegally redirecting some of the marketplace money stream to his own pocket?
That sounds like a serious crime to me.

 

Some one or some thing? ;-) ;-) ;-)

[Josh Susanto]

>Some one or some thing? ;-) ;-) ;-)

Well money is disappearing.

I don't think LL is prepared to prove otherwise in court.

The excuse that maybe it's not really being "stolen", exactly, because maybe it's being destroyed rather than put into anyone's account doesn't fly with me.

I'm sure I've pointed this out many times already, but a point I think bears repeating is that the destruction of Linden dollars is where LL really makes practically all of its money.

Money that is paid in potentially needs to be paid back until it gets destroyed, so the destruction of Linden money is exactly what LL should want to happen. 

What I think is really happening, though, is that someone inside the system is taking the money and creating a record that says it is destroyed. That way LL doesn't actually want any questions asked, much less want to be the one asking them.

That is, LL keeps a lid on the fact that it is being scammed, because it believes it is running the scam.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

You only need two numbers that you'll never see. The USD amount of purchased tokens and the USD amount of tokens cashed out to know how overly monetized SL is, besides fees that they charge for an actual value service like land hosting..

If it weren't sold as "economy", "sinks", "sources" it would just be a series of costs for a hosted application.

Unfortunately, the statistics were as fictional as the economy, so the intent is far from honest transparency, otherwise you'd have seen RL quarterly reports from LL as a company like any other quarterly financials from any other company. Not in L$, not as economy, not mixed in with other "game" statistics and numbers that cannot be verified.

Who needs to steal or siphon when you've got a free license (TOS) to do whatever you like, print your own money and control the amount of monetary churn that ends up back in users hands?

Not giving refunds or keeping money where the seller purchased and the merchant wasn't paid is just more of the same.

I wouldn't say it's theft, because in their case they define theft until the law can cover more of what they're allowed to do.

You've got 300 or so employees, all ramped up to be startup/profit minded, making an average $80k salary, none of whom pay a steady $300/month for any game or recreation that resembles a virtual world in their own personal spending..

Priority question CEO asks is "how do we get more users?".

What did you think would happen?

To make a broad, not technically accurate statement, their model is too pyramid-ish to be sustainable at a level that would satisfy them. A straightforward pricing and quality product would give them something to grow. This won't. Mainstream doesn't buy into it.

They've always tried to take the concept of a virtual world and mold it into a startup, an ideal, a "disruptive" company, an experimental thing both internally and externally.

But yes, the entire concept of sinks and fees in L$ are "destruction of Linden dollars". Lindens are purchased and anything purchased with L$ that doesn't end up back in users hands is a loss for users, and more already-purchased L$ to keep.

If there were an employee skimming, they'd want to know about it, If the commerce team were skimming, they would probably know. What's more likely is that they're paid bonuses against the marketplace gross.

[Dora Gustafson]

---

Spica Inventor wrote:

Are you saying that someone is illegally redirecting some of the marketplace money stream to his own pocket?

That sounds like a serious crime to me.

Some one or some thing? ;-) ;-) ;-)

---

I actually was thinking about a hacker. It isn't necessarily LL or the system. It can be someone inside or outside LL who hacked the system and are milking it. Anyway it puts LL in a bad light.

[Czari Zenovka]

Thanks to Deja I can now post graphs! Woot!

Here are my monthly sales from April - July 2012. 

While trying out the other graphs, based on sales per item I should become "Czari's Drapery Emporium."

[Josh Susanto]

Thanks.

That's a bit spotty, and I must admit it shows almost the opposite of what I expected.

Has there been any change in the way you've been using listing enhancments?

[Deja Letov]

Hey Czari...are you doing mostly MP sales or are your numbers both in world and marketplace. I was just thinking that when I saw your graphs bcause mine include in world and marketplace as well, but I wonder if these other guys posting are purely MP since that seems to be the main complaint.

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

Thanks.

That's a bit spotty, and I must admit it shows almost the opposite of what I expected.

Has there been any change in the way you've been using listing enhancments?

---

I don't use any MP listing enhancements at all and never have.  The only thing I use is the ability to find my in world store in search.

I was interested to see that the majority of my sales each month (at least for those 4 months; I'm interested to compare them to the same months of 2011) take place on one or two days of the month.

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Deja Letov wrote:

Hey Czari...are you doing mostly MP sales or are your numbers both in world and marketplace. I was just thinking that when I saw your graphs bcause mine include in world and marketplace as well, but I wonder if these other guys posting are purely MP since that seems to be the main complaint.

---

I *think* those numbers are both in world and MP, but it's pretty much MP since that constitutes 98% of my sales.

[Deja Letov]

Good to know! I think I may run mine again with a filter to show only marketplace sales and see how the nubmers trend.

[Spica Inventor]

'Thing' meaning the L.L. collective and official policy and not just some rogue employee. ;-)

[Madeliefste Oh]

June was my worst month in two years. July is a bit better but still not like it use to be. I still loose a 35% compared to what I  consider to be an average month.

[Josh Susanto]

And did you spend the same amount on listing enhancements?

[WADE1 Jya]

July was up a little for me too. I wonder how August will result? Second Life and the economy at large have been taking heavy hits so its to be expected to see an overall downturn. This month however all my non-SL business is picking up too and in SL saw a more slight uptick to match. Thus, I put the recent increase of sales in SL this month down to larger economic factors, not anything Linden Lab is doing (or undoing, not doing) just people are spending a little more money this summer than usual I think.

[Ry0ta Exonar]

June was the worst month in two years also for me, especially mid june was the bottom. In July the sales were up by 15%, that said they dropped about 20% compared to last year, and so was June.

[Dora Gustafson]

My sales going back 3 years and compared month by month
January 2010 is 100%

The only thing I can complain about is the steady drop during May, June and July this year.
In fact July is the lowest of all 21 recorded months.
I don't expect the sales to drop in the months to come.
When the Olympic games are over all will look brighter:)

[Deja Letov]

Interesting Dora....is that all Marketplace sales or is that both MP and in world? I'm gonna post my annual a bit later today. but i've been trying to separate out the MP from in world to see if it's overall economy or just the MP.

[Pamela Galli]

This is the first year I have seen what I would call a "summer slump" -- tho sales are still good they are below 2011.

[Dora Gustafson]

This is my total income and should be interpreted like that.
This is also why March an April 2010 are so big.
I sold some land at that point, but normally I don't deal with land and when I do normally loose money.
Loses do not show.

[Deja Letov]

Here is my annual...mainly i have 2 years to compare for until this month. i started recording transactions at the end of July 2010 so starting in August of this month I will start to have 3 years worth, but even with the two years comparison, I'm not seeing much of a downward slope. And july is actually my second highest month ever.

You know. I've been watching all the graphs posted and reporting of numbers and honestly, I can't make heads or tails of it. None of it. You've got people who are seeing downward hills in sales, and some reporting upwards. You've also got people who's Marketplace sales have just about all but disappeared and others who are seeing record highs. Then you have some who are just kinda waving along not experiencing anything significant one way or the other. The number cruncher in me is dying to know what the heck is going on and more importantly how to balance it all out. But then I'm starting to wonder if there really is any point or resolution to all of our problems. The problem I see is that we are all carrying different products, some focus on marketplace while others focus on in world, some are selling services or custom work and some are product based, some are MUCH cheaper as others and some are MUCH more expensive than others. The only thing I can conclude from all of this is that whatever is causing the difference is sales, is most likely due to each of us specifically. I really am not buying into the conspiracy theories that SL is doing any of this...since wouldn't it affect a much larger portion of merchants if they were messing with a system? I'm also not sure we can blame the economy since many are experiencing increases. So it is just our marketing efforts that differ? is it quality of products? Quantitiy of products? is it that some have missed out on in world sales by only having a MP store? Any thoughts?

[Dora Gustafson]

I made a chart for the marketplace only, but then it goes back only 17 months(the first two are dummies).
It shows the same decrease for May, June and July that was in my earlier chart for all my income

It also shows that my marketplace sales had a drop in fall last year.

I agree with you that if anything can be concluded from the charts published it is that there is no indication of foul play.
The charts shows what can be expected in a big live market where merchants and customers come and go.