To Merchants who refuse to use the marketplace

[Medhue Simoni]

As I think most people that have read my comments before know, I'm not all that into marketing. I just try and help as many people as I can, whether helping answer their animation questions, or teaching them to do simple animation or poses. I don't generally take requests, as it's more time than they could pay me for it. I'd rather just teach them to do the simple stuff and then they know who to come to for more complicated things or mocaps.

Oh, I think I do remember you. Gosh, 2 days, that's really not like me. I like to handle things right away. To me, any wait time is an annoyance to the customer and not good business. This is why I always have my alt inworld, just to watch things and help customers. My animation work keeps me out of SL most of the time, irreguardless if it is for SL or not. I've been super busy over the past year tho. My hands are in what seems like a hundred different places right now, and it is only getting worse. Now RL jobs are pulling me away from SL, and the money is too good to pass up. Plus, these RL companies are so impatient and always have to have it now, which is fine as long as they are willing to pay extra for that. Anyways, It sounds like you have a good system for what you are doing. I'm trying to put out more full perm animations for other merchants so do come by if you need something. I can't have all my animations out in vendors, as there is just too many. I promise it won't be 2 days next time, lol.

[Trinity Yazimoto]

lol, no worries.. i wasnt angry at all... i understand that you may have missed my im.. i just felt it was shame.. shame for me above all..you seem to be a great animations creator and i came almost my eyes closed to your store, hoping youll have smth great for my winter's animation. But i know perfectly what is business in sl...and how it keeps busy creators lol.

to reassure you, im not into marketing either. I may say that i hate this, really hate it. But well, i trust in work value, in perseverance and in regularity. When ive started my business 3 years ago, ive been right away confronted to the difficulty to be known, since SL is huge and there are not a lot of way to communicate finally... 

So well, i took my courage with my 2 hands and decided to work, work and work. 

I can tell that i have already a full time job in RL, that i have a social rl life too. I have also a lot of friends in SL; a blog that take me a lot of time too, and a lot of other virtual or non virtual activities. I sometimes have to sacrify one for another.

But above all, i like to design clothes for SL. if i had to choose, i would only create. But once ive create smth, ive noticed the huge delight it is for me to see that pp spend some SL money for my items... This is part of the thrill i have with my creations. Of course i can also only create, for me and my friends, but its not the same for me..its less exciting. So well, sometimes ago, ive accepted the fact that marketing was part of the deal. 

Im also helped by some bloggers who never hesitate to features my items. I do share on all the other social medias i m registered to make also ad.

My great luck, is that i have a high level of multitasking ability. I know, a lot of pp dont have it, but i have it. Nevertheless, somedays i d like to say "Stooooop ! my brain will explode !". lol.

On another side, my bad unluck is too be unable to organize efficiently my schedule and to be unable to trust someone enough to hire him/her and deed to this person some of the tasks.

Nobody's perfect :smileywink:

 

ETA : be ready to see me soon in your store asking for "spring animations" ehehhehehheh

[Ciaran Laval]

---

Porky Gorky wrote:

This sort of mentality from consumers is going to be the death of SL. Sounds over dramatic but I believe to be true.

Less demand for inworld stores results in less demand for private sims and mainland and rentals and commercially associated entertainment venues. This lack of demand has already cost LL millions of USD in lost tier revenue in the last 2 years and the rate at which private regions are being abandoned was increasing as of the end of 2012, so the problem looks set to worsen. Anyone who thinks the commission that LL takes on MP sales will make up this deficit is wrong imo

Inworld commerce was the backbone of SL and vital to LL's revenue stream and it is being ripped out to the detriment of the entire platform. 

If we want to reverse this trend then It's not merchants that need to boycott the MP, it the consumers.

---

I certainly agree with your view, unless LL do something to aid inworld ventues, it will be the death of SL. Inworld store rentals help to pay for the something to do sims, the more stores that forsake inworld rentals to move to the marketplace, the less we'll see of something to do sims and without people having something to do, sales across the board will suffer. The one saving grace business for LL at the moment is breedables, as they are popular and require land.

 

Marketplace sinks simply do not replace inworld tier in terms of income streams for LL.

Having said that, I don't blame merchants one iota for going to the marketplace, it's an absurdly low cost method of selling wares and consumers like it, but from the point of view of the bigger picture, it's not healthy for Second Life as a whole.

LL really need to get their thinking caps on.

[Rya Nitely]

---

Ciaran Laval wrote:

I certainly agree with your view, unless LL do something to aid inworld ventues, it will be the death of SL. Inworld store rentals help to pay for the something to do sims, the more stores that forsake inworld rentals to move to the marketplace, the less we'll see of something to do sims and without people having something to do, sales across the board will suffer. The one saving grace business for LL at the moment is breedables, as they are popular and require land.

 

Marketplace sinks simply do not replace inworld tier in terms of income streams for LL.

Having said that, I don't blame merchants one iota for going to the marketplace, it's an absurdly low cost method of selling wares and consumers like it, but from the point of view of the bigger picture, it's not healthy for Second Life as a whole.

LL really need to get their thinking caps on.

---

Nothing much to do on a rainy Saturday afternoon except sit here and dream :matte-motes-asleep-2:

LL should help inworld stores by taking away some of the burden of maintaining a store, and also by redirecting customers from MP to the inworld store with a tp that drops them right in front of the item.

They could do this by creating vendors for inworld stores that do the following:

 

• Vendor is linked to MP listing and direct delivery (DD)
• Vendor uses DD to deliver items, so you only need to put an item for sale in one place -> MP
• If your MP listing is linked to a vendor it will allow MP customers to TP right in front of the item
• Vendor could also have touch rez and temp rez options to save on prims
• Vendor can send updates and redeliveries via DD to all previous customers (MP and inworld)
• Customers can get redeliveries and updates of copy items via vendor. (I wish MP could do this)
• Vendor can show the number of people who tped to the item from MP in a given time period
• Vendor can generate a list of buyers over a given time period for both inworld and MP sales. (If only MP could do this). Dream on...
• Customers using the vendor can rate and review their inworld purchases
• Vendor is free or one off small cost plus a commission of 2.5% ( we must give something back)

I know, I know.... it's just a dream. LL wouldn't have the technical skills. And not everyone would want to pay the commission. But I have this huge store and so many items, and it really is a lot of work to keep everything in order. I don't like going around replacing everywhere when I change something small on an item, or making new vendors and inworld blurbs and MP blurbs for every new item. Why can't we just do it once?

Yeah, and I know there are vendors around that do this redelivery thing, but it would be cool to have a vendor that does everything. An all in one super vendor linked to DD :smileyhappy:

 

 

 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

"...

...LL wouldn't have the technical skills...."

------------------------------------

I don't think I can agree with that.  I'm sure the LL techs can accomplish what your "dream" is.  But, as you mentioned, there will be many who wouldn't care for that particular feature.  So a cost/effort determination has to be made......"is it worth it?".  Then the bigger problem.  When LL wrote the server code back in 2001 Marketplace (or any online, outside the SL virtual world store) was even thought about.  There would likely have to some massive server code re-write to get something that sounds so simple done to a point where it would work dependably.  I seriously doubt that such an undertaking would be anywhere near cost effictive.......I'm thinking almost a complete server software re-write (and that ain't going to happen).  The techical problem is minor (maybe even simple) but the untended consequences are potentially massive......maybe even impossible to overcome.

[Ciaran Laval]

I like the idea of MP vendors and agree that a commission should be taken from inworld vendors but at a lower rate than the MP itself.

[wrable Amat]

I am here to have fun, I  only buy non reseller toys that are made from people with a  creative side I can relate to.

If you make something really fun and cool people will come in world to get it,and if not their lost.

 

[Dartagan Shepherd]

---

Ciaran Laval wrote:

I like the idea of MP vendors and agree that a commission should be taken from inworld vendors but at a lower rate than the MP itself.

---

The vendor idea would be useful, but why on earth would LL need a commission when vendor owners are already paying tier and LL provides a free service of user-to-user delivery? Should all transfers be taxed now in world?

Of course it would also effectively put all independent vendor creators out of business, the way it did independent marketplaces.

Also way back when Rod became CEO at SLCC he said no listing fees would be implemented because "LL is doing fine" and didn't need the fees. Has that changed?

 

[Ciaran Laval]

---

Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

The vendor idea would be useful, but why on earth would LL need a commission when vendor owners are already paying tier and LL provides a free service of user-to-user delivery? Should all transfers be taxed now in world?

 

---

I was thinking along the lines of a vendor automatically listing an item in your marketplace store, this would have potential for people using affiliate vendors too as those items would appear in their marketplace store too. In circumstances such as that I think there's some justification in a commission on inworld sales but at a reduced rate because you are already paying fees for the land.

---

Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

Of course it would also effectively put all independent vendor creators out of business, the way it did independent marketplaces.

---

Perhaps, perhaps not, there was talk of a Marketplace vendor when LL first bought OnRez, I think OnRez had an inworld vendor system. There would be a market for vendors not tied to the marketplace but maybe the lure of the marketplace would eat that market whole.

 

 

[Rya Nitely]

And there was Apez. Another independent MP that had inworld vendors.

I actually forgot about that until now. My partner and I used those vendors until they went out of business. All the sales we got through Apez were via the inworld vendors. Nobody bought from the site. But that was then.

 

[Madeliefste Oh]

The Commerce Team has never dealt with in world sales, and I hope it stays this way.

I have an in world vending system that is working, has the features I need and doesn't have any bugs.

The marketplace doesn't have the features I need, contains bugs, and makes me sink in ranking everytime Commerce Team updates something in the marketplace.

Don't let them break anything that is working fine now.

[Trinity Yazimoto]

---

Madeliefste Oh wrote:

The Commerce Team

has never

dealt with in world sales, and I hope it stays this way.

I have an in world vending system that is working, has the features I need and doesn't have any bugs.

The marketplace doesn't have the features I need, contains bugs, and makes me sink in ranking everytime Commerce Team updates something in the marketplace.

Don't let them break anything that is working fine now.

---

Oh yes !!! THIS !

[Rya Nitely]

yes, I mentioned they might not have the technical skills to make it work. 

But if they did, then it would be the merchant's choice whether to use it or not. And hopefully many would not, so that would keep the independent vendor merchants in business too.

[Lera Keng]

I couldn't agree more with what Madeliefeste said!

I use the marketplace as a catalog to view and discover stores without the added hassle of  the in world search, grid travel and the issues therein from day to day. But once I find something on MP I go visit the store itself to purchase.  I also prefer to give the store 100% of its well deserved revenue. 

But in my opinion the MP is much more convenient, typically faster than rezzing an entire store (and walking it) and for the most part  it is less difficult to find things via MP search than in world search.  If the store does not have an in world presence then 9 times out of 10 I will not buy from them. This is for several reasons including that I like to demo items first (if available or applicable), I like to see the place I am buying from to get a feel for the designer and their style and finally because I believe that every merchant in SL should maintain some physical presence in SL even if only 30 prims and the cheapest available. It tells me that they are not just here to make a quick buck and/or generally absent from SL and for service reasons that is important to me as well.  (I should also mention that I have come across several IP violators on the MP (IE. people selling copybot-ed or otherwise illegally obtained merchandise) and every one of them did not have a physical store in SL. I know this is not always the case and I am not presuming that everyone without an SL store is doing nefarious deeds but it does make one more cautious.)

As far as I am concerned, as a customer and a store owner, the MP is a useful tool for business marketing and customer convenience.  But I would never rely solely on the marketplace and deny myself or the designer a visit to their store (bringing them traffic and 'tax' free money) .

[Nefertiti Nefarious]

---

Ciaran Laval wrote:

 

I was thinking along the lines of a vendor automatically listing an item in your marketplace store, this would have potential for people using affiliate vendors too as those items would appear in their marketplace store too.

 

---

And when I look for the "FaceLight 2013", I get all of those affiliate vendor listings cluttering up my search.

 

[Dora Gustafson]

I buy inworld and on the marketplace but only if the merchant has an inworld store
A link to a store that once were won't do!
I feel I can't rely on people who are not committed to the virtual society

:smileysurprised::smileyvery-happy:

[Trinity Yazimoto]

I still think (but its only my opinion) that every merchants can have an inworld presence. Im not talking about land and mainstore, what can be a lil too much expensive for some pp and i understand this well. But hey, you can rent stores in malls for an average of 50 l$ per week. Even if you didint made already any sale, you can still pay 200 L$ for a small shop and then have an inworld location...

When i started, 3 years ago,  before doing any sale, before even having my mp, and really monthes before, i did rented a small shop, then a second one and then a third one. Only then i started to upload my items to the MP. and well, my business has grown and now i can afford a land with a mainshop.

you can even find some place where you can have free shops, like barbarru for example...

So well, for me there arent a lot of excuse for not having inworld presence.

 Of course, it depend of the motivation... some pp are so greedy that they doesnt even want to invest less than 1 usd per month...What is, imho, a wrong calculation, bec a lot of pp doesnt buy on the mp when they see there are not inworld store at al so they are loosing potential customers.

ETA : sorry, Dora, my answer is not directed to you specifically, but well the forumpage thought it was lol :smileywink:

[Rolig Loon]

I rarely buy anything in Marketplace, because I enjoy wandering around in world, discovering other things while I'm looking for a specific item.  I'm like Dora.  I tend to use Marketplace like a catalog to see what's available, and then visit the in-world store to do my actual shopping. That's usually the way I shop in RL too, unless I have no choice.  If the merchant doesn't have an in-world store, I usually move on and look at someone else's merchandise.

I have had shops in world for almost 6 years now, and have had things in Marketplace and its predecessors before that.  I make a little over half of my sales in Marketplace, but people buy a broader range of things when they shop in my in-world store.   I'm glad I have both, bcause I know that there are many people who don't shop the way I do.

[Alicia Sautereau]

Only use MP to search for items or a demo and then go to their inworld store, no store, meh, what ever... you aren`t unique

Last thing i really wanted i ended up at Porky`s shop as i was qurious, and bought half his store

[Extraneousnomenclature]

"you can even find some place where you can have free shops, like barbarru for example..."

I'm unable to find any place named "barbarru." Could you clarify? I'm an amateur and desultory creator, not really interested in serious commerce. Just for the heck of it, though, I put an item that I was kinda naively proud of up for sale on the marketplace. It sold twice, much to my surprise and delight, but since has languished unsold. Now I find myself looking for a cheap little inworld store to reinforce my hobby (I have maybe 4 or 5 small items I consider worth selling).

Referring to the OP's topic, I find myself more or less in the anti-MP camp. I am not a consumer and don't shop recreationally, but I prefer to be inworld rather than browsing another web page. I do have a shop on a smaller grid, I will add. There I have resisted listing on their version of the market place, where I am struck by the impression of greed seeking gullibility. Or maybe it's not greed and gullibility, but a premium paid for convenience. A lot of overpriced crap, anyway, IMO.

[Trinity Yazimoto]

im sorry ive mispelled, its Barrabaru.

But i just made search for it, i found it but sounds like it closed on the 31th of january. :smileysad:

maybe there are other places like this one, idk. i knew another one called Voodoo, but idk now.

anyway, you can find some shops 50 l$ or maybe less (with small amount of prims but if you dont have a lot of prims to rezz it can be ok). 

if you dont find, contact me inworld, i know a place where you can have a shop with 30 or 20 prims for 50 l$ a week.

Im sorry for baraabaru, i didnt know they were closing, this place was here since years.

[Extraneousnomenclature]

Thanks Trinity.
I've just visited your store inworld (in fact I'm ensconced in one of your delightful rocking chairs there as I type this) and it's a pleasure! So much more fun than turning pages of marketplace ads!
Of course the marketplace can be entertaining in its way too (some of the scams are hilarious), and useful.
I'll keep my eye out for cheap little stores for rent (yes, I only need a few prims). Meanwhile I remain one of those untrustworthy dilettantes with a dodgy little "store" on the MP.
And now I'll get up from this comfortable chair and TP to some of your other Picks.
Salut

[Trinity Yazimoto]

---

Extraneousnomenclature wrote:

Thanks Trinity.

I've just visited your store inworld (in fact I'm ensconced in one of your delightful rocking chairs there as I type this) and it's a pleasure! So much more fun than turning pages of marketplace ads!

Of course the marketplace can be entertaining in its way too (some of the scams are hilarious), and useful.

I'll keep my eye out for cheap little stores for rent (yes, I only need a few prims). Meanwhile I remain one of those untrustworthy dilettantes with a dodgy little "store" on the MP.

And now I'll get up from this comfortable chair and TP to some of your other Picks.

Salut

---

Wow Extraneous ! im speechless lol...

Thanks for visiting my place and for liking it,  so. 

Im so sorry than baraarabu closed, it had a huge mall and shop were usually free or just 1 l$ a month.. of course traffic wasnt great and so you had to work for yours if you wanted your store have visits there. But at least, it was a generous offer that was great for merchants that wanted to start a business..

if i hear about smth like this, i promise, i will tell you. :smileyhappy:

Again, thanks for what you said, it means a loooot to me.... Merci

[GothGirl Demonia]

The MarketPlace isn't as bad as people make it, I am not sure how much they charge but it is probabily less than paying for in world tier.

1. The Lag, stores like BareRose, I love their store they are one of my favorite merchants (Besides the no copy) thing of course which I hate.

However their store is SO laggy I cant keep my drawdistance at 512 without all the asset lag there just too many images to load instead the marketplace could be nice as well.

2. Some merchants refuse to use the market due to CopyBot the Copybot isn't going to stop you see to stop the copybot you have to design the product, never sell it, never use it outside a simulator that only you have access to. (CDS) & (RED Zone) isnt going to stop it eitehr.

In fact I have a list of every merchant known in SL using these systems and I pass around the info anonymously to sources and people to avoid any store or simulator using spyware systems because we deserve the right to OPT-Out and have our privacy unless given an accept button to consent to scan we do not have a right ot be searched without a warrent aka Linden Lab so to speak. I also keep my naughty and nice list of merchants too, those who have been helpful and those who have not be helpful and disrespectful/rude there are a very few of those but still I will remember these people when I report their work for being CopyBotted, and stolen they didn't do anything that bad but just bad customer service like at your local store where I wouldn't want to shop there again kinda thing.

3. OverAll I like the marketplace better because of #2 I can use it knowing I am not going to be ninja strip searched by airport security so to speak I use the market more than going to a merchants store except the merchants I know of whom are Great.

Market Place is great, no need to own land either from what I know now and if so only 16SQM for a box.

Disavantage of market place is scams, & alternate account abuse however.

[Happy Toshi]

I had a shop inworld everyone was like you need a shop your stuff looks so good. Just about everyone I ran across I put one up put it in the class and search. No one went tried to advertise alittle bit in blogs magazines and what not as well. Even sponsered some stuff. I tend to lost alot of money. I will stick to the marketplace I dont care that they take 20 percent.

BTW they take 20 percent in everything taxes real life. Food Liqour and what not even when you go to jail they take 20 percent of your money... You pay 20 dollars a day to stay there ... See everything is 20 percent even in mmorpgs the marketplace takes 20 percent in rpgs on xbox they take 20 percent... I suggest you get use to it or you will live a unhappy life for a very long time...