Fewer Affiliate Vendors?

[Miri Moonwing]

As a medieval role play sim owner with a small marketplace, i have been using affiliate vendors to earn a few L$ here and there for the past 2 years. This not only helps me pay tier, but also allows me to offer products of specific interest to my residents and visitors.   I know my players shop at our market first, because they want to help support the sim.  Also, many visitors ask where to get appropriate clothing, etc, and i am always happy to direct them to the on sim market. 

What i have noticed recently however, is that there are fewer and fewer vendors to choose from.  I am puzzled by this.  I would think that merchants would see the benefit of having their items offered in a setting where they would most likely be needed and used.  In my case, medieval style clothing and silks are very good sellers, but also furniture and artwork and other items for decorating the cottages we rent out  I can understand why creators are sticking to their main stores and not renting out shop spaces as they might have in the past, but an affiliate vendor has no cost except for the commission when a sale is made, which seems a win-win to me.  So, the question is, why don't more merchants offer the affiliate option?  Am i missing some piece of the puzzle? 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Sales are so far down in SL due to the RL economy that a lot of creators have just closed their stores period.  Also, with the MP so dominant over in world sales now, a lot of the rest of the merchants have closed their inworld shops and are now MP only.  If your doing that, you have no need to run a network vendor system, and hence affiliate vendors may be more hassle and/or expense they are worth..

Most network vendor creators take a cut of each sale to defray the cost of running their web servers.  So it is not just your commission that is an expense, it is the vendor creators cut too.  Then there is the cost of buying a networked vendor system with affiliate vendors, which many times cost money in addition to the basic network vendor system. 

FInally, again with sales so far down in general, the demand for affiliate vendors probably has dropped too.  A merchant has to balance the costs and how many sales they can expect from an affiliate against the sales they would make anyway on MP or their store.  Apparently a lot of don't' see much benefit anymore.

[Kampu Oyen]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

Sales are so far down in SL due to the RL economy that a lot of creators have just closed their stores period. 

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SL was somehow doing OK 13 months ago when Rodvik gave his big speech about how SL was somehow doing OK despite the RL economy.

You'll notice that he didn't give such a speech again this year.

What happened in-between wasn't any abrupt shift in the direction of the RL economy.

What happened in-between is that Lindens broke a bunch of stuff and then, while saying they were fixing it, mostly just also broke a bunch of other stuff.

[Innula Zenovka]

My business partner and I see affiliate vendors as an important part of our advertising, quite apart from sales.   If people do decide to cut back on their affiliate programmes because they're worried about losing sales in their main stores, that sounds a really false economy to me.   

There have been a number of security scares about particular types of vendor (I've tried all the ones I've heard about, using alts, on our affiliate vendors and never been able to get one to work, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything) and certainly we've complaints about the service we receive from the people who make ours, but, after talking to people who use other vendors, and trying some of them, we've never thought it would be worth switching.  

Certainly, though a few times we've been angry enough to consider dropping affiliate vendors altogether, we've always decided, on calmer reflection, that on balance they're quite a benefit to our business.

[nikita Jefferson]

I have my own clothing line as well as skins and avatars.

I also have 5 different affiliate vendors,the only problem with affiliate vendors i find is, they get over exposed in SL, i remember one affiliate i have i seemed to see everywhere i went in SL.

I find sales very slow from them and i think it is because of this overexposure. people have seen the products over and over.

I have just opened my avatar collection to an affiliate program, so we will see how it goes.

I do think affiliate vendors are good, i like them, you can sell things you would normally never have the time to make.

But as has been said, MP is killing inworld sales.maybe thats why concurrency declines,,,,when i came on SL there was no MP, there might have been X Sreet but i never used it. but i went shopping for stuff to furnish my house, helecopters, jet skis etc, the point being i did' nt go to some website to buy stuff ,i was in SL travelling around from shop to shop,thats what SL is, people opening up shops inworld, not some silly website, no wonder people get bored with SL, they shop on MP then get bored cos there is nothing to  do in SL.

 

[Spica Inventor]

I suspect the small fry merchants who had affiliate vendors are slowly going out of (inworld) business, while the big and dominant merchants still linger on with their vendors.

[Luna Bliss]

Spica, perhaps you should hone your skills more, and expand your market beyond Halloween/Pagan items, and explore marketing techniques.

Throw in a little luck, and some finger-crossing that SL doesn't totally collapse, and you could be making more money (and hopefully stop posting constantly how horrible the greedy, overpriced, and dominate big in-world stores are).

[Pamela Galli]

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Luna Bliss wrote:

Spica, perhaps you should hone your skills more, and expand your market beyond Halloween/Pagan items, and explore marketing techniques.

Throw in a little luck, and some finger-crossing that SL doesn't totally collapse, and you could be making more money (and hopefully stop posting constantly how horrible the greedy, overpriced, and dominate big in-world stores are).

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LOL! 

[Sassy Romano]

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Miri Moonwing wrote:

I can understand why creators are sticking to their main stores and not renting out shop spaces as they might have in the past, but an affiliate vendor has no cost except for the commission when a sale is made, which seems a win-win to me.  So, the question is, why don't more merchants offer the affiliate option?  Am i missing some piece of the puzzle? 

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I agree entirely.  Affiliates have always been a big part of my philosophy.  Even if someone offers me free space for my vendors, I will ask them to use my affiliate vendors instead as they deserve the commission.

Some merchants don't offer affiliates because they might feel it dilutes their brand but i'm sure Apple resellers haven't ruined it for Apple. 

As has been stated, it does require a vending solution but they are available for around L$2000 to L$4000 for off the shelf ones and they usually have an option where there's a "free" vending system but pay a higher "network vending" fee to the vending system creator.

Regardless of which of the above is adopted, if there's no sale, there's no expense so every additional sale earns net new business, business that I might otherwise not have recognised.  I view those charges as a combination of advertising and expense and i'd have had to pay for either my own tier or Marketplace commission anyway.  Where's the difference?

Even if the commission paid is 50%, 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

Additionally, the value of advertising and brand recognition to the merchant is potentially huge.

Each to their own.

[Ciaran Laval]

Inworld shopping isn't what it once was, the rise of the marketplace has something to do with that but is far from being the only reason. Sales to support a roleplaying sim are certainly much more difficult to come by than they once were, the dynamics there are rapidly changing and it;s not always going to be a positive change.