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is SL going to help shop keepers inworld


greek Wingtips
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I used to own a chain of shops selling clothes and art work, but  like many others we fill LL has let us down, one with the crap search engine in the viewer, I used advertise around 1000 a week for my shops, but once the new viewer kicked in

could never find anything of my shops even if I typed the same title,many shops have closed due to LL pushing marketplace, this has a knock on effect on sim owner renting shops, and if the fal of shop rents has lead to many owners giving up their Sims as this was a good way of subsidizing the rent,

My Questions are simple:

1: Is LL going to fix this damm seach engine as it is crap, my words but many would agree.

2: many are leaving SL, due the many problems that have rencently happened since the viewer came about, crashing

   frequently ,blurred av,s bad lagging, complicated searches, and so for to name a few.

3: LL has to really get their act together if they want to retain the people already in SL and not lose them, the other worlds

   as not far behind and like the real world company's in IT some which I will not name were the top of the list and now have been supass, my advice to LL is listen to you customers and learn from it, one seems to forget that we are paying customers,

 

your thoughts on this would be welcomed.

 

greek wingtips

 

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These are good questions Greek and allot of us have been asking them for a long time now, ever since M Linden, Joe Linden and Jack Linden steered the company down this path of self destruction.  My guess is no, LL will not be making a conscientious effort to help drive up sales and help shop keepers in world. To be honest I don't think I want their help. Every time LL makes an "improvement"  things just seem to get worse. 

There seems to be a severe lack of coordination when it comes to improving the platform mainly caused by the flawed Tao management style. Teams go on developing their projects (like inworld search) with little accountability for their faliures, constantly diminishing the usefulness of the technology in the process. Same with V2 and also with the marketplace to a lesser extent. In my opinion LL has lost focus of the core issues that exist in SL today and they have lost touch with the core needs of the user-base, either that or they don't care anymore. Rodvik has been in SL for 3 months and made zero impact, if anything the situation for merchants has deteriorated further in that time especially with all the privacy issues that have come to light recently. We are facing even harder times ahead I fear.

 

 

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Improving the Search is going to take time. Aspects of Search which do not produce quailty or matching results are easy fixes. Balancing PG/Mature listing and preventing Gaming of Search are not easy fixes.

People do leave for the reasons you stated in your second question. We may be able to retain Residents who experience crashing, lagging, blurring or other reductions in performance by finding Preference settings ideal for their machine's hardware and software configuration. Problems with Search takes us back to question one.

Yes, they (LL,LR) have a responsibility to ensure and maintain a stable solid platform or foundation from which Residents can build.

As Residents we could be doing more to help ourselves. Just the other day, a Resident in the Q&A section was asking how and where to buy land, at the same time another Resident was informing residents in the Forum's that they Rent Land. If those two could only get together somehow.

Building trust in SL is not easy. If your browse the Classifieds Inworld and focus on other Residents who are doing what you do, you may find that very few individuals are as enterprising as you.

In our current mindsets, asking a Region owner or store owner for opportunity in advance in the form of free space or use or resources is not a readily available option.

People in Sales who know Market Place inside and out do not visit the Sandboxes and offer their Services to Residents who are kept busy creating the latest and greatest products. Building takes time and so does Listing and Selling.

I once listed a job offer sorting a re-naming textures; nobody wants that job. I don't blame them, it's a ton of work.

I met a Resident who makes clothing, he made some shirts for a Group I founded. I wanted to give thanks to the Officers in the Group for their help and seeing as they refuse to take anything, I bought them shirts.

If I made shirts and wanted to create Business, I would send out some IM's to Group Founder's / Owners. 

The fact that you have posted here, expressing your concerns, offers clear indication that you are motivated. I would work with you. The focus would be on staying focused. I don't mean to use double speak but in this case it is fitting.

A Community Business group is needed. An Inworld meeting location with scheduled Open Forums... now I'm getting ahead of myself. :smileyhappy: 

 

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greek Wingtips wrote:

2: many are leaving SL, due the many problems that have rencently happened since the viewer came about, crashing

   frequently ,blurred av,s bad lagging, complicated searches, and so for to name a few.

 

 

I have never spoken to someone who has been leaving SL for this reason. People complain a lot about it, but don't leave for this uncomfort. People leave SL for reasons like: having RL less time available, broken SL relationship, rl partner discovered secret SL relationship, people have worked themselves in problems with playing a role, best friend is leaving SL and the lifetime* of SL has past, people get bored.

There is (a much smaller) group of people, mainly active in the commerciel field of SL who leave for reasons like sales have dropped dramaticly, alternative worlds with much more attractive tierprices, the lack of customer support of LL and the way LL is developping.

 

* That lifetime of SL is an interesting phenomenon. For some people its only a few days or a few weeks, but that is not what I mean actually. I'm talking about die hards who have spend much time in SL. I see this happening to quite a few people some after about two years. They have seen so many beautifull sims allready, listened to so many concerts, found the best skins, clothes, shoes and so, had the most beautifull home in sl, made a lot of friends, dealed with a lot of drama, started and ended some relationships, had so much good laughs and danced away so many nights... and then suddenly the urge to log in is lacking. People start thinking 'what am I doing here?' The excitement of discovering new dimensions in SL is gone. They get bored and feel they have no goal. The lifetime of SL has passed.
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After 4 years in Second Life I still shop in-world, and intend to re-open my store in-world when I get time. Linden Lab are missing a trick here because I am not alone.

Yesterday was a prime example, I bought a couple of things on the Marketplace and then went to check out a couple of landmarked sales someone gave me.  I spent more in-world.  Shopping is a process, and if you are in the mood it is not always a chore.  It is fun.

As far as my business concerns are concerned, I've done the private region thing, it took every ounce of fun out of SL for me and for a year I was chasing tier plus VAT.  I was in a lose lose situation.  I sold it in May 2009 and was lucky to get a price that wasn't an insult - albeit not what I paid for it.  Since I've been on mainland, I've found the fun again. I've learned to forget the expensive perks of owning estate and work with what my RL purse will allow.  I have remembered SL for me is entertainment, first and foremost.  If people like what I do it is a bonus.  I don't have cable, gym membership, a car or smoke - I have SL.

I think maybe other people who leave were more involved in business first and foremost and not the community, or not the wider community perhaps - More a niche community.  For me the community comes first, business comes second. I am a realist on profits - While I work full time in RL and insist on doing RL voluntary work after work I will never have the time to make a profit in SL.

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As looking at the comments I do agree and never said those were the only reasons people leave SL, yes I agree Rl play a role and menay other reasons too, but I focusing on the aspect of the viewer  and the problems people are having with

I work in IT in the RL world and belive me I have tried tweaking the prefrances in the viewer to no avail so yes some probs are tweaking other it's the viewer and not the persons PC.

I am not knocking  market place as I have used it many times too, I think it have its place and its easy acess for those who want to shop from it are good, but it also has its fit falls, yesterday I bought two items from the same vendor only not recived

anything in world, the name on the market did not exsist in search and the location of his store gone, so thats my LL's gone

here dsafeguards should be in place.

I like Sl but it has gone downwards, if I am wrong in my estimation and from what I hearing from other avatars that are leaving sl ,then maybe LL should stick the ticker number back onto the viewer to see how people are online, I recall around 8..0GMT it used to be around 50-60K wonder what it is now?

 

reminder again: we are paying customers, thats important to remember.

 

 

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Someone mentioned they do not see people leaving for business reasons like search...they are lucky.  I have lost several SL friends inworld over the last two years due solely to the economics of SL.  It started with the homestead fiasco and then just got worse every month. 

I shop for my business and every day find stores that were, are no longer. Or long time merchants whose sims are now for sale. 

Now, maybe some have just moved and I can't find them in search...and that is huge issue for everyone, shoppers and merchants.  At the very minimum search should be able to provide us with a reliable directory of businesses.  If you type in a shops name it should appear front and center, not be buried 20 pages back while totally irrelevant words and locations are upfront.

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greek Wingtips wrote:

I used to own a chain of shops selling clothes and art work, but  like many others we fill LL has let us down, one with the crap search engine in the viewer, I used advertise around 1000 a week for my shops, but once the new viewer kicked in

could never find anything of my shops even if I typed the same title,many shops have closed due to LL pushing marketplace, this has a knock on effect on sim owner renting shops, and if the fal of shop rents has lead to many owners giving up their Sims as this was a good way of subsidizing the rent,

My Questions are simple:

1: Is LL going to fix this damm seach engine as it is crap, my words but many would agree.

2: many are leaving SL, due the many problems that have rencently happened since the viewer came about, crashing

   frequently ,blurred av,s bad lagging, complicated searches, and so for to name a few.

3: LL has to really get their act together if they want to retain the people already in SL and not lose them, the other worlds

   as not far behind and like the real world company's in IT some which I will not name were the top of the list and now have been supass, my advice to LL is listen to you customers and learn from it, one seems to forget that we are paying customers,

 

your thoughts on this would be welcomed.

 

greek wingtips

 

 

You got that right, then again Linden Lab doesn't appear to be run by business savvy managers.

With people giving up their in-world businesses and therefore Land....it's hard to see how LL will prosper. Land Tiers has always been their main source of income!

All Search is broke due to Sea Linden & her team deliberately gaming it by imposing a "Parcel size" bias, which makes it harder for small to medium size businesses being visible in All Search.

Question is.....under this environment, with the goal posts consistently shifting....would you invest in purchasing a whole SIM?

 

You know the old saying "Someone's loss is someone else's gain". ...meaning if LL continue down this destructive path,, more and more players will simply migrate elsewhere. 3D Virtual Worlds are here to stay regardless of SL or LL.

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My answer to your question is a resounding "no". LL will not do anything to help inworld shop keepers. In fact, LL will not do anything, as a company, to help paying customers in general. They never have and they never will. The only people who LL will help are themselves. SL is all about profits for LL but the management doesn't have the knowledge to know how to do it effectively, so they alienate their customers in the process of trying to get more profits out of the SL system. Consequently, businesses close and the people leave. It doesn't matter in the slightest to LL though.

It's a shame because SL users would like it if we were all pulling together - LL and users pulling together. But the only interest that the LL management has in its customers is how to milk them as much as possible and, if inworld businesses go to wall because of what LL does, as continues to happen, it's no skin off LL's nose because it's in their best interrests; i.e. more marketplace sales for them to get commissions from.

So don't hold your breath waiting for LL to do anything for your inworld business - it won't happen.

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i would love to see the maths relating to  loss Land tiers versus additional 5% commissions from Marketplace sales.

 

The problem is SL's userbase isn't growing and Linden Lab refuses to spend marketing & advertising dollars to try to grow it......so we're just left with a product that's growing stale.

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Not exactly how to respond to the OP, it's a rather scatter-shot set of questions that we can't answer on timeframes on when/how certain things are fixed or verify many of those statements.

One thing that tends to come up though is the perception of the Marketplace as a threat to in-world shops (although not entirely convinced the Marketplace being less cost for a merchant as opposed to land is a "bad" thing for the merchant, making in-world stores more of an option and less a requirement and cost).

That would be to also provide in-world vendors along the lines of the old OnRez vendors, using the new AIS delivery system when implemented.

LL still gets a commission on these in-world vendors, which make it much more realistic to point a Marketplace listing to an inworld store where that vendor is located (assuming that area is where you'd also be able to view those items and demos) and to actively promote in-world stores using said vendors.

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Due respect to Dartagan sherpherd’s views, I tend to disagree Marketplace has been push through quietly by LL at the expense of in house business ,sim owners and renters and shop vendors,the
Fact we don’t not have a level playing due to the crap search engine shop keepers in world can really
Only rely on word and mouth to really get their product out as the advertising in search is a joke.
As for marketplace being a threat to in world shops, yes I believe it does, not only to the shop keepers But the knock-on effect it has on everyone from sim owners down to clubs whatever.
All business in world reply upon each other in some shape or form, when one gets knocked off
It’s perch then it will most def have a profound effect on the others. All we are asking is a level 
Playing field. Like I said, a giant web browser was number 1 in the internet world not many years
Ago, but now if you look they are slowly going to be surpassed by not one but least 2 other browsers
This I feel will happen with second life if they do not start looking and addressing the problems so many of us are suggesting, and most important is KEEP US INFORMED, let us know you are aware
Of our complaints and are slowly addressing them, we are not asking this to be done overnight
But keeps us informed , and once again I say most of us are paying customers to play the game

Due respect to Dartagan sherpherd’s views, I tend to disagree Marketplace has been push through quietly by LL at the expense of in house business ,sim owners and renters and shop vendors,theFact we don’t not have a level playing due to the crap search engine shop keepers in world can reallyOnly rely on word and mouth to really get their product out as the advertising in search is a joke.As for marketplace being a threat to in world shops, yes I believe it does, not only to the shop keepers But the knock-on effect it has on everyone from sim owners down to clubs whatever.All business in world reply upon each other in some shape or form, when one gets knocked offIt’s perch then it will most def have a profound effect on the others. All we are asking is a level Playing field. Like I said, a giant web browser was number 1 in the internet world not many yearsAgo, but now if you look they are slowly going to be surpassed by not one but least 2 other browsersThis I feel will happen with second life if they do not start looking and addressing the problems so many of us are suggesting, and most important is KEEP US INFORMED, let us know you are awareOf our complaints and are slowly addressing them, we are not asking this to be done overnightBut keeps us informed , and once again I say most of us are paying customers to play the game

 

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I've been in SL since 2006, the good old days.  I've never once seen the Lindens do anything to help a shop owner, they only want profits, as any huge company does.  So they look for ways to make more of the almighty dollar.  I've owned my shop since 2006 and I have virtually zero people visiting these days.  So, what did I do?  I reduced my tier by abandoning all of my land except one parcel.  I look at it this way, I'm getting the good old days weekly stipend of L$500 lindens, and I now only pay $5 US per month to play.  Now I'm making a profit once again.  My lindens keep growing, I don't advertise anymore, (Advertising is stupid, based on amount you're willing to spend and really, what do you get out of it?) and I don't even use the on line shopping option anymore either.  I like to have fun, that's my goal, I don't care anymore about profit, I just wanna play and spend as little of my real money as possible but still have a shop I can call my own, because I simply like to build...

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To the OP:

1: Is LL going to fix this damm seach engine as it is crap, my words but many would agree.

1. I wouldn't hold my breath. The person who did the great flow chart illustrates the reason. This is another example of the LL tradition of shooting on'es self in the foot. To explain, I used to have a script  & stuff shop that appeared near or at the top of what I considered important search fields. Comes Viewer 2 and it's 'improved' search engine and I cannot find my shop. I close my shop, sell my land and make arrangements to have my magic box on a friend's parcel and since I don't have land and use TPVs (which means LL will not provide me with service) I don't need a premium membership, so in my case LL is out both the membership and the tier.

2: many are leaving SL, due the many problems that have rencently happened since the viewer came about, crashing frequently ,blurred av,s bad lagging, complicated searches, and so for to name a few.

My friends' list took its biggest hit when LL killed camping. Since then people pop in & out but few stay. The biggest complaint I hear is the inability to make L$ from the outset, not the viewer. I'm no fan of Viewer2, but I wouldn't blame it all that much as any new account holder who has talked with any of us older folk very quickly discovers TPVs. I have said it on at least 2 iterations of these commerce blogs/forums/whatevers: The secret to keeping new account holders is to get L$ into their hands until they develop the skill set they need to make their own OR so they can save up to get that first unique hair or skin if they are in SL for fun.These are the folks that buy our stuff

3: LL has to really get their act together if they want to retain the people already in SL and not lose them, the other worlds

Agreed here. I'm spending more and more time on OS Grid. There's no money in it YET, but it's a nice place to socialize and build cheaply. I have 1/2 SIM there now and will probably go to 9 if I ever get decent internet service. If an currency is ever introduced, well.......

I have no intention of leaving SL. Neither do I intend to further invest in it until I see major movement from LL.

As an aside, I kept the demographics of my marketplace customers for 2010. Out of  6583customers:

85% were over 900 days old. Of those 60% were over 1200 days old.

5% were under 1 year old.

My business is tailored to help the new builder who had yet to develop scripting ability or those who either can't or don't want to be bothered, yet I am selling mainly to people around my age. When I go shopping inworld I see mainly people over 1000 days old. If this is a trend we (vendors) are basically selling to each other which can be sustained only for so long.

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Inworld search has been and continues to be an utter mess that seems only a small fraction of the inworld merchants seem to know how to manipulate.  Even after I got Rachel to help me deploy many of the secret know inworld tricks on how to get my store and my products to become visible on inworld search - i was shocked when I quickly realized that it has ZERO IMPACT TO IMPROVE MY INWORLD SALES.

I suspect the reason is that most SL residents have long since established a culture to know that SL Inworld search is an utter mess and provides only an extremely limited level of results compared to the SLM search (which is also not great but 10 fold better than inworld search).

Inworld search has never been designed to effectively provide search results for REAL MERCHANT PRODUCTS.  It indexes such a garbage dump of rezzed items inworld that real results get completely lost.  Not to mention how many of the Merchants in the know of how Inworld search works have been playing games and manipulating inworld search based on the hobbled capabilities of search.

The critically bad news for me as a SL Merchant is that until Brooke and the new era of the SLM Commerce Team arrived, my SLM sales were up to 90% of my sales and were relatively stable and good enough that I didnt worry too much about inworld sales not working.  BUT, since the current SLM Commerce Teams major thrust to destroy the SLM market by deploying LL butt covering Teenification filters and tinkering with search that is making SLM sales drop further... I was ok.

NOW.... my primary source of my sales have declined 50% (as have many other SLM merchants).. and I am not seeing these sales recouped on inworld.

So.... like many other fellow merchants have stated... things are getting bad... and we are getting no support from the SLM Commerce Team or the SL Commerce Team (if there even is one).  They are all too distracted worrying how to protect their legal butts from their decision on merging teens to the adult grid.

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