help 3d world sales reborn!

[beethros Karas]

I had quite a while to open my SL Viewer..  What a peety. Things have been change a lot as about 3D World Sales.

Malls are empty, people are using marketplace for their purchases.

Example:

I'm laying on grass by the campfire watching my 5 years old jeans!

What a Drama! I need NEW ones!

/me opening search to find the BEST jeans ever in SL!!! :PPP

Great!

Theres a pair of Jeans, very first result: Jeans only for L$250!

Teleporting..

Brrr..Whats that? Wheres the Shop? thats just ,,,, SNOW!! :O

TP back home (frozen)

-Lay down again, poke fire; opening marketplace this time.. (what a choice!)

Great!

Search gave me 14,844 results of excellent pairs of jeans!

-Thats a great pair of L$99 Jeans (yes, after some cliking i found a lot of L$0 pair of jeans, but i wanted to choose from those of L$99 for to get the BEST quality ever! thats like a real quarter? or what?)

making my decisions, and clicking to :  See item in Second Life ®

Great they have a pose machine and demo, so im able to test what im going to buy! Great Shop! Huge and Luxury! And Special Gifts, and live greeters! -This guys here had spend tons of cash to run this! Excellent -Bravo guys, keep like this! You made me happy with your merchandise!

And now is the critical point!

Is it mind's game?, Is it the power of use?, Is it the adrenaline that runs when waiting hours to get your stuff just bought from marketplace?

...I dont know what is...

What i know is that instead of buying those jeans from that super duper Store that i found them, i just click and bought them from the marketplace!

-So guys, maybe we just need to forget about buying land to create malls? to forget buying affiliate programs? renting little shops or even kiosks to give a little life to 3d world?

Looks like life will be only in skyboxes and AFK dance stages..

well..

im going back to my campfire, (needs to add a log) and im leting you think about it...

Take care,

Yours always,

beethros Karas Virtual Designer.

p.s. Excuse my bad English. Isnt my mothers language.

 

 

 

[Trinity Yazimoto]

well, on my side, weirdly, i do really more sales inworld than in the market place. 

So, lol, i think i will keep my land and my inworld mainstore hehhehehehhe

[beethros Karas]

Thats really wonderfull!

Im so glad someone has more Sales in 3D World than MP ...!

Wish you keep it like this,

and let people take you as an example!

Long live 3D World!

[Porky Gorky]

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Trinity Yazimoto wrote:

well, on my side, weirdly, i do really more sales inworld than in the market place. 

So, lol, i think i will keep my land and my inworld mainstore hehhehehehhe

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Same here. I used to do about 90% of my sales inworld up until 2010. Since then It;s 70% inworld 30% on the MP. Although nearly every Item I sell is listed on the MP, I deliberately don't put new releases on there immediately and try to encourage and incentiveze my customers to boycott the MP and to buy in world. I hate relying on a 2D website to sell 3D content when there is a fantastic 3D virtual world out there. The MP is a great tool for advertising products and brands, but I think it should be left at that, if a person wants to view or buy a product they should go inworld. LL designed SL, if they wanted a commission on our sales then they should have designed that into the platform long ago. 

[Trinity Yazimoto]

Lol

This is mostly due to the fact MP doesnt seem to like me a lot. 

On an other hand, i work on a daily basis for advertising my store in a lot of groups that have this purpose. This is at least 2 hours of work every day, in 3 languages. I never hesitate to thanks customers for their purchases, and often gifting a gift card. I often make gifts aswell, and i think its not bad since they often come back for purchase then.

I design feminine clothes, MP is overfull with women clothes... my items are lost in the middle of tons of others...People are more likely to buy my items while they come in my mainstore, since this one is also really precious.

i buy a lot from MP, but never clothes. My fashion items purchases comes often from a heart-stopper... MP is too cold for this IMHO.. i need to feel the atmosphere of the store before buying. I guess its same for my customers. :smileywink:

[Deja Letov]

I know some people buy a lot from the marketplace But I would never give up my store in world. Number one reason is i know there are lot of people who are like me and go out of their way not to buy from the marketplace. I'm not a huge fan of shopping on the marketplace because I feel like its killing in world sales plus i love meeting people whil i shop so I may use the marketplace to search for items but I try to go in world to make the actual purchases. Plus there are certain business types...mine being furniture, that wouldn't do well exclusively on the marketplace because people like to try things out before purchasing. I just do my best to make it easy to shop in my store and give more incentives to shop in store to get people to shop in world and hope people choose the store over the marketplace...which right now is about 50/50.

[Porky Gorky]

What annoys me is if I see a customer spend ages in my shop inworld touring demo's and then they go and make the purchase via the MP. I know some people want to use the MP to make paypal payments etc but It really annoys me. What right do LL have to take a cut of that sale? I already pay them thousands of US dollars a year to host my business endeavors, yet that is not enough, they have to stick their money grabbing little fingers into every pie imaginable.

[Trinity Yazimoto]

well, perhaps LL should add a lil fee for customers when they decide to buy on MP... after all this is a kind of "lazy purchase" and this has a lil price to pay. Maybe the same fee than what they take from merchants. Then it will be up to the customer to or click on the button "view this item inworld" or to simply buy with a click on the market place with a a few lindens more to pay.It would be like the lil transport fee you pay when you purchase smth on a merchant website in RL. This wouldnt be shocking at all..And this would encourage more pp to go and purchase inworld, and as a doble effect, this would encourage more merchants to get even a lil store inworld.

On my side, i only buy from market place components for my designs, since im usually half naked in my workshop and geting ready for going for an inword shopping will be a lost of time for me.

I also use to purchase some gifts from friends from MP, bec a lot of items are no trans and merchants doesnt have often a "buy as a gift " option on their vendor. The way items are delivered with a lil message is nice (at least when the message is not cut in the middle /me winks at Darrius), 

And i use to purchase also some occasional deco for my store, like halloween stuffs, bec again, when i need them i dont have time for going on inworld shopping. The remaining of my purchase are usually done inword. And again, i wouldnt be shocked to have to pay a few l$ more bec i use MP if the fee is of course reasonable (i mean between 1 and 20 l$). 

But i know this wont be popular ..... despite the fact it would be an excellent way to see inword sales raise again.

[Darrius Gothly]

I tend toward the belief that "Offline" sales through the Marketplace are more a result of the human population's trend toward using their computer and browser to make any purchase, and not so much as a sign that people are abandoning In-World (so-called "Online" sales) in total.

Advantages of offline sales include such things as the ability to search through a massive catalog of available choices .. all in one place. Performing the same sort of search In-World is not only astronomically time consuming, but in many cases completely impractical.

Of course we also have the undeniable truth that no matter where something is purchased, the buyer MUST log into Second Life at some point to use or wear it. So even if online sales stopped entirely, it would still not put an end to people using SL as a 3D Virtual World.

I sell a number of devices that not only have no purpose except in-world use (specifically things like doors, windows, venetian blinds, teleporters, and slide shows) but really must be seen to make a value judgement as to their worth. Buying something like a teleporter from an offline site such as the Marketplace is a risky proposition as you really cannot judge how well it will work unless you actually go and try it out.

And that is the exact reason that I wish the Marketplace would make the "See this item In-World" link much more prominent and customizable. Multiple locations, a link to open a World Map, and a few other options would be nice additions.

(... and then with a great sigh of resignation ...)

Of course none of this will ever be done. They aren't even changing "Prim Count" to "Land Impact" .. a change that would require a few seconds of editor time to accomplish. There is no chance in hell they'll undertake a change that actually ADDS features to the Marketplace. But "impossible" is something that has never stopped human beings from dreaming ...

ETA: /me winks back at Trinity ...

[beethros Karas]

Marketplace its a great place. Has many helpfull options; help the buyer and the seller, as you all mention above,

and it has also another good interactive option , i forgot to mention. It has a review button!

That makes people come closer.

The other day i met a person and we became good friends just because i had left a review in something i bought!

He IM me asking me some more details and that was the beggining of a friendship!

The review was helpfull in many ways.

First helped the designer sold one more piece.

Second helped the buyer to know better the product

third made two people become friends.

So yes , blaming marketplace wasnt my purpose.

What i wanted to point with this post was the fact that people act spontaneous and thats a fact.

Also i wanted to see how other people facing this.

and of course brink up this topic help all of us improve our world!

Thanks a lot for all the replies:)

 

 

[Lucretia Brandenburg]

Why do some people prefer to purchase items on the marketplace rather than inworld? I'm not a merchant, but I've been in SL going on 5 years and in general, I've had few good shopping experiences in world. I have seen a lot of flagship stores that are far from customer friendly, large builds with walkways ... wait for a sign to rez, read it, walk this way for this, that way for that ... get to the area where what I wanted to purchase is, wait for the textures on the vendors to load, start searching for what I wanted, not finding just what I was looking for. Go to another store or mall, go through that all again. OR log into the market, do a search, wonder a bit how did THAT get listed HERE? Move on, in general, even with the totally unrelated listings that are likely to pop up, I can find what I'm looking for in a quarter of the time it takes me to shop inworld.

There are some merchants on the market that only offer demos of skin, hair, etc. and someone has to go to their inworld shop to purchase the full version. I figure that's so that someone doesn't purchase a pricey item on the market and then write a bad review or cause a headache to merchants when it isn't just the thing they wanted. To me, there are only a couple of merchants for whom that is worth the annoying inworld shopping experience.

There is far more to SL than malls and shopping, the decrease in inworld shops is no harbinger of doom. Rather than worry so much about inworld sales v marketplace, and wonder why more people do not shop in SL, why not make the shopping experience more user friendly for the customer? Shops that are easier to navigate, fewer laggy scripts, fewer big textures. Sometimes I see stores laid out in such a way that I think OMG are they trying to keep me here longer? Personally, if I see a store with massive traffic stats, all I can think of is I want to stay away from there, it must be laggy.

As for the marketplace, like I said, I'm not a merchant. I understand it can be a huge hassle. On my part, I have very rarely had problems shopping on the market.

BTW, one thing that is really really annoying is when I read bad reviews for items and it turns out it is because someone hasn't read the description carefully, or didn't know how to unbox something, or the delivery failed. The rare times I have an issue with purchased items, I always contact the seller inworld rather than complain in a bad review, most merchants are really nice and helpful. 

[Czari Zenovka]

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Lucretia Brandenburg wrote:

 

BTW, one thing that is really really annoying is when I read bad reviews for items and it turns out it is because someone hasn't read the description carefully, or didn't know how to unbox something, or the delivery failed. The rare times I have an issue with purchased items, I always contact the seller inworld rather than complain in a bad review, most merchants are really nice and helpful. 

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Thank you Lucretia

I am so very grateful when a customer contacts me if there is an issue, even something out of my control, ie. MP delivery issues, instead of automatically leaving a bad review.  I've been fortunate to rarely receive customer complaints, but within the last 30 days I've received two.

The first was regarding an item that is modifiable but the customer was unable to resize it.  I met my customer at her home and corrected the mod issue but when I saw the location where my customer wished to place the item I thought of a different texturing idea which resulted in my creating a custom version of what she originally purchased that blended much better with her decor.

A couple of days ago a customer purchased two holiday items from me.  I received the sales notices and double-checked my MP transaction history to make sure they had indeed been delivered.  All looked good.  However, I later received an IM from the customer that the items had not been delivered and politely asked if I could help.  Technically, as a delivery issue and per LL, the customer is to submit a support ticket for redelivery; however, since I have a small shop and my goal is satisfied customers I sent the two items directly to her.  This is one of the issues that frustrates me as a merchant:  According to the transactions report on my end, the customer had received her purchases so I woud never have known differently if she had not contacted me.  When a lot of MP delivery issues began awhile back, I placed rez scripts in my MP products which self-delete when the person rezes the item and sends a report to my email.

This customer thanked me profusely for sending the items to her and, during our ensuing conversation, she mentioned that "4 out of 10 items" she had purchased were not delivered.  That raised a red flag for me and I asked if she put all 10 items into one shopping cart then checked out.  She had.  This seems to be one of the culprits of non-delivered items.  It shouldn't be based on the multitude of other web shopping venues that don't experience this issue, but I have seen this mentioned re: the MP several times on the fourms.  I explained to my customer that this seems to be an issue on the MP and, in future, perhaps place just a couple of items into the shopping cart at a time or use the "Purchase Now" feature and buy one at a time. This customer indicated that she prefers to use PayPal and make all her purchases at once, but at least there is one more MP shopper who is aware that this is an issue.  And in each of the two instances I made a new friend.

If I could say one thing to customers it would be to please contact the merchant if any issues in a purchase arise.  Many/most merchants include within their profile the way to best contact them.  Unfortunately there are those handful of merchants who ignore customer contact and make the rest of us look bad, but do try a merchant contact first.

 

 

 

[Deja Letov]

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Lucretia Brandenburg wrote:

 

There are some merchants on the market that only offer demos of skin, hair, etc. and someone has to go to their inworld shop to purchase the full version. I figure that's so that someone doesn't purchase a pricey item on the market and then write a bad review or cause a headache to merchants when it isn't just the thing they wanted. To me, there are only a couple of merchants for whom that is worth the annoying inworld shopping experience.

 

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As a merchant, I find this reasoning highly unlikely. Now I don't do skins but to me the first thing that popped into my head when I read this is...no...they do it for two other very important reasons.

1. By not allowing the full purchase on the marketplace they are not paying the 5% commission to linden labs. Over the course of time this really can add up. I know for me personally I've paid somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000linden in commission fees for this year from marketplace sales. I am actually quite thankful that only makes up about half my sales for the year. I would imagine skin makers who probably have a much higher sales volume than I do, would pay out a much larger amount if they didn't do their method of getting you to come to the store instead.

2. From a marketing and sales standpoint, it's quite genius. You have them come into the store and they will see the other products and buy more. Real life stores do this all the time and its very successful.

3. I just thought of a third reason. Failed marketplace deliveries. If they buy in store they have a much higher chance of ensuring their product actually gets delivered.

i doubt very much anyone forces people to buy in world out of fear of a review...especially since reviews are rarely even left, let alone actually read.

[Lucretia Brandenburg]

Thank you for a merchant's perspective. I had originally thought it was number 2 on your list, compel people to shop inworld to increase impulse buying but then thought wait, that seems sort of silly, since the reason I'm shopping on the marketplace is because I don't want to shop inworld, and if someone would rather shop one place than another, strongly nudging a person to do what s/he doesn't want to do seems a bit counterproductive, since more often than not it can be the deciding factor for me in not purchasing from one person and continuing to look for what I want elsewhere on the market. I know for me, there are two shopping mindsets, one is this is what I want, I don't want to fool around and look for something else. The other is a more general browsing mentality that isn't so specific, usually when shopping for a gift or to say, decorate a place for a party. Either way, I want to be able to find what I'm looking for with the greatest ease or efficiency.  I know some people shop because they're bored or because it's a social activity. My shopping for SL items is very close to how I shop for RL items, I have a shopping list, I determine where I can most likely get what I need, and I go there, sticking to my list. Unless it's grocery shopping while hungry, then I might pick up a snack at the register on the way out the door, which is never an issue with SL shopping :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

[Trinity Yazimoto]

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Lucretia Brandenburg wrote:

. E

ither way, I want to be able to find what I'm looking for with the greatest ease or efficiency.

 I know some people shop because they're bored or because it's a social activity. My shopping for SL items is very close to how I shop for RL items, I have a shopping list, I determine where I can most likely get what I need, and I go there, sticking to my list. Unless it's grocery shopping while hungry, then I might pick up a snack at the register on the way out the door, which is never an issue with SL shopping :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

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(bold is mine)

This remind me sadly how pp have lost the taste of effort now... in RL or SL, all has to be easy and fast... Its the way our society is going... No place anymore for hanging out, dreaming, or poetry or imaginativeness... without mentioning, that we dont want to come anymore to meet other peoples. 

On my side, i still do prefer to buy from handcrafters, local producers (when prices are affordables of course) and little creators, i still prefer to go myself to the shops (RL and SL), the atmosphere of the shop, the care that the creator put in his/her deco, is a big part of my decision to purchase or not. 

Except for building components or scripts i rarely use the MP. I need more than a cold pic on a cold website to be likely to buy something...But well, i know its not the way our society is going towards... Sadly.

[Lucretia Brandenburg]

Wow, Trinity, you certainly read a lot into a dislike of inworld shopping, and your reply comes across as rather snooty and a tad judgmental.

Really, it is more about my dislike of shopping, whether the RL noise, crowds, and traffic or in SL lag and headaches from shopping inworld. You make a lot of assumptions about people who dislike laggy, busy, unpleasant inworld shopping experiences. I get the feeling it would surprise you that someone who wants efficient shopping, in RL, makes her own pasta and bread from scratch (no fancy electric machines), grows her own herbs and vegetables organically, and makes her own soap from scratch ... not from a kit, from measuring out sodium hydroxide and water, blending vegetable fats and oils, and hand stirring. I pour it into molds, I insulate them for 24 hours, I take the block out and slice it and cure it for 6 weeks before use.

 

Come to my SL home, you will find a place for hanging out, and dreaming, with stunning landscaping designed by Nila Byron,fantasy creatures by Julia Hathor, a house by Maxwell Graf, a Novatech holodeck that friends and family use, a Henge for special events. I work as an estate manager, I host events, I meet a lot of people in SL. I do not prefer to shop in SL, I do not like clubbing in SL, I haven't built much in years, I haven't had a SL romance or sexual relationship in over 3 years.

So what do you suppose I do in SL, if not hanging out, meeting people, exploring all the beautiful, creative sims to be found in SL?

[Trinity Yazimoto]

Lol Lucrezia, i wasnt talking about you in particular.

I was just expressing a feeling about what i feel everyday in RL and SL.... Pp like more and more fast and easy things and they want to avoid any efforts... I just think its shame bec without any effort i dont think there can be any worthwhile reward... 

But well, its just my opinion.. i dont judge anyone ... i just feel this as sad.

And im far from being snooty...:smileywink:

Edited : and reread carefull my previous post, i just did... i really .didnt judge anyone and neither treat anyone... i sent it as a reply to you just because i wanted to quote a sentence from what you say for explaining the feeling i wanted to tell... i dont see anything that could let you think i was judging you.

[Lucretia Brandenburg]

LOL Trinity, and THAT is always the fun part of written communications, the inflections and interpretation :matte-motes-delicious: ... always opportunities for miscommunication and sorting it out. Have a great day!

[Deja Letov]

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Lucretia Brandenburg wrote:

Thank you for a merchant's perspective. I had originally thought it was number 2 on your list, compel people to shop inworld to increase impulse buying but then thought wait, that seems sort of silly, since the reason I'm shopping on the marketplace is because I don't want to shop inworld, and if someone would rather shop one place than another, strongly nudging a person to do what s/he doesn't want to do seems a bit counterproductive, since more often than not it can be the deciding factor for me in not purchasing from one person and continuing to look for what I want elsewhere on the market. I know for me, there are two shopping mindsets, one is this is what I want, I don't want to fool around and look for something else. The other is a more general browsing mentality that isn't so specific, usually when shopping for a gift or to say, decorate a place for a party. Either way, I want to be able to find what I'm looking for with the greatest ease or efficiency.  I know some people shop because they're bored or because it's a social activity. My shopping for SL items is very close to how I shop for RL items, I have a shopping list, I determine where I can most likely get what I need, and I go there, sticking to my list. Unless it's grocery shopping while hungry, then I might pick up a snack at the register on the way out the door, which is never an issue with SL shopping :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

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aaahh but you're also making a huge assumption that people shop the same way you do.The reality is not everyone shops like you do. A lot of people like to browse, like to support the in world life, etc. And merchants know this and want to capitalize on it. It's really not counterproductive at all if you think about it, especially sinc we don't know if more people shop the way you do or shop with variety and choices in mind. I don't know that most people shop on the marketplace because they don't want to go in world...from what I keep hearing it is more because the in world search is craptastic and doesn't work, forcing them to have to use the marketplace to find things.

When I shop as a consumer, I hate shopping on the Marketplace. I am a sort of gotta see it in person type of person. That's why I use it for the search but I try to go in world as much as I can. Now there are some types of items that I don't need to do this with but a lot of things I want to see it. Your shopping mentality sounds like my husband  LOL  he's very much a get in and get it done kind of guy. but me...I love to browse, love to check out what else someone has, look and see what's on sale in their store. Plus...since I am a merchant I like to buy in world in hopes of saving them the 5% commission fee.