Pamela Galli Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Just because someone has never seen a March decline doesn't mean there isn't one. And yes, I learned my first year in business that if you don't do any Xmas promotions your sales will die. December through February were my highest sales ever, and March was a little less, so I did see a slight decline. That's doesn't say anything about there being a general decline but it comports with my own data. I would be interested in seeing any and all data of this sort. The more sales data -- on sales in general and my own -- I have the better I can market my stuff. I am really flying blind here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Pamela Galli wrote: Just because someone has never seen a March decline doesn't mean there isn't one. And yes, I learned my first year in business that if you don't do any Xmas promotions your sales will die. December through February were my highest sales ever, and March was a little less, so I did see a slight decline. That's doesn't say anything about there being a general decline but it comports with my own data. I would be interested in seeing any and all data of this sort. The more sales data -- on sales in general and my own -- I have the better I can market my stuff. I am really flying blind here. Like I said, Show me the proof before you blame the visibly noticed (enough that it created a very active SL Forums Commerce Thread) sharp decline in SLM sales 2 days after a LL SLM change on something as vague as an expected seasonal March decline. I am not one to believe is coincidences and seasonal declines do not often have in a day. What you are talking about Pamela (that your March sales are slightly lower than your hot jan feb sales) is possibly a decline by % but are you telling me that your noticed decline between those two period could be noticed down to a day or two when Good transitioned to bad? I suspect your noticed decline gradually happened over several days if not a couple weeks. The decline in SLM sales that many of us Merchants noticed were 50% and over a couple days. This is not a SEASONAL DECLINE! Sorry. So I do agree with you as I have said and Medhue.... Brooke, show us the proof by comparing this year's sales graph vs last year and the year before. Lets see evidence of this SEASONAL DIP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Toy. If I had a nickel for every time.... oh never mind. LL used to release numbers about quarterly inworld transactions. It was not very helpful but better than nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Susanto Posted April 3, 2011 Share Posted April 3, 2011 March decline may be a real phenomenon, but I think it's an interesting coincidence that all the inventory and delivery glitches seem to happen at exactly the same time that we "should expect" people to be making fewer and/or smaller purchases "anyway". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted April 3, 2011 Share Posted April 3, 2011 Yes, I am glad delivery has top priority because some of those failed deliveries don't get rebought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dartagan Shepherd Posted April 3, 2011 Share Posted April 3, 2011 Very encouraged about this roadmap, if you will as well. Very practical and addresses the priorities that reflect merchant concerns. Just to babble a bit, agree with you Pam about seeing more data, and at the risk of misinterpretation, rather than the dash deals, especially when it comes to extra commission, personally I'd rather see a more value added, and regularly available plan. I can't remember if it was eBay or a 3rd party that provided this service: For a monthly fee you would get some really powerful stats, such as best selling items, search terms, most searched objects, etc. Obviously this could give you quite a bit of competitive advantage and had solid value. Just as obviously I think it would be impossible to share that data globally (otherwise everyone would be rushing to sell the top selling items for instance, which would defeat the purpose!). So rather than a 50% commission on sale items, I think it would make more sense to add a coherent package with possibly a monthly fee which would justify a higher commission (say 10% on all items). This would be the place to experiment for merchants for first-look programs and sends a better message and a package with high value. That monthly fee would then provide you with some very powerful statistics, come with a base advertising package, the ability to put things on sale, and other tools that would really make something like this sought after by merchants willing to pay the extra, and increase LL's earnings. Call it a Premium Merchant account, or Platinum Merchant ...or tack Premium Merchant on as a higher priced account than a Premium Account, Premium Merchant includes a Premium Account. Agree with you that detailed stats would be invaluable, and as part of a solid merchant offering with real value, a stable and "always on" increased revenue stream for LL, this would be one way to do it. For a great kitchen sink package, would it be worth $20/month and 10% commission to get at those stats? Food for thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted April 3, 2011 Share Posted April 3, 2011 I agree that offering an "Enhanced Stats" program would be not only valuable but worthwhile too. But only AFTER they get back to the basic level (and a wee bit more as they promised in the beginning) that was provided by XStreet. I think any talk of providing extra services at this juncture, especially when we are still begging for the basics, is a bit premature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted April 3, 2011 Share Posted April 3, 2011 I agree -- Pink told us almost a year ago we would be getting enhanced data tools with the wonderful new MP. I would be willing to pay for even more tools above basic level we had at Xstreet -- but a flat fee (or better yet, a perk of the Premium acct. No way would I pay another 5%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted April 3, 2011 Share Posted April 3, 2011 Pamela Galli wrote: I agree -- Pink told us almost a year ago we would be getting enhanced data tools with the wonderful new MP. I would be willing to pay for even more tools above basic level we had at Xstreet -- but a flat fee (or better yet, a perk of the Premium acct. No way would I pay another 5%. Oh .. hmm .. a Perk of being Premium? (grumble grump gripe and groan) ... Well okay, I can see the logic of that. (And stop smirking at me like that. Just cuz you got me to admit that maybe Premium account holders might be deserving of a few extras ... ) LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Susanto Posted April 3, 2011 Share Posted April 3, 2011 Asking for new utilities is only going to distract LL from the more important matter of returning to its previous state that which did at one time work better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted April 3, 2011 Share Posted April 3, 2011 Josh Susanto wrote: Asking for new utilities is only going to distract LL from the more important matter of returning to its previous state that which did at one time work better. Hmm .. while on the surface, you do make sense .. it also begs the question of "How many people are working on the Marketplace Codebase?" I've been sole programmer on projects as well as part of a team, yet even when the only fingers in the pie were mine, it was not uncommon to get "defect lists" and "feature requirements" that were several pages long. I may not be skilled in SCRUM, but if it means that only one thing can get done at a time, no matter how large or small the team .. I don't think I'll spend a lot of time getting skilled in it either. As a productivity enhancing methodology, that would make it rather anti-productive (and anti-enhancing too). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted April 3, 2011 Share Posted April 3, 2011 Darrius Gothly wrote: Pamela Galli wrote: I agree -- Pink told us almost a year ago we would be getting enhanced data tools with the wonderful new MP. I would be willing to pay for even more tools above basic level we had at Xstreet -- but a flat fee (or better yet, a perk of the Premium acct. No way would I pay another 5%. Oh .. hmm .. a Perk of being Premium? (grumble grump gripe and groan) ... Well okay, I can see the logic of that. (And stop smirking at me like that. Just cuz you got me to admit that maybe Premium account holders might be deserving of a few extras ... ) LOL I agree with most of the posts on the idea of advanced reporting as well as all Merchant's rights to at least have some form of Reporting stats even up to Xstreet level: Regardless what advanced reporting feature - LL Commerce needs to deliver on exactly what Pink promised us last year - an SLM that would include better stats/reporting than Xstreet was delivering. To date, Pink's promises were just a snakeoil sales pitch since the SLM has reporting that is limited and pales in comparison to the reporting we had in Xstreet. So... we should not now get spun into a new Premium paid service of reporting that would simple give us what we already previously had. IF we had a good fair and flexible level of basic reporting tools, I do actually agree with Dart that this would be a viable LL SLM generating fee-for-service to the Merchant. LL charging those merchants that want ADVANCED reporting on SLM activities would have potential. BUT... big BUT... and this is where I think the idea falls apart, I have a very strong suspicion based on LL's huge resistance in actually fixing current SLM Reporting (something that should be relatively an easy development effort compared to the much more complex SLM hurting efforts they are taking on), I dont think the SLM software architect is as advanced or flexible as the team that selected the SLM foundation thought. As such, I do not think LL Commerce Teams could provide the level of ADVANCED reporting that we would be expecting to pay for from SLM. I would want some pretty powerful flexible and insightful stats/reports if I am going to pay. I dont think LL can deliver. We would likely get over charged and receive nothing more than I could do in Excel. Dart's thoughts on pricing.... NOT! 5% more on sales for advanced reporting. NO WAY. I think based on the reduced level of services that SLM has delivered us, we are getting ripped off at 5%. I think the proper model for an Advanced Reporting value-add service would have to be a monthly flat fee. There are a lot of Merchants in SL. If they provide a powerful set of advanced reporting and keep the monthly fee reasonable so that both startup small Merchants and Enterprise Merchants can effectively access it (lets say $1000L per month subscription), then LL could make some Good Coin and also further stimulate SLM sales by having more informed merchants. As much as I would grumble a bit, I would have to agree that Premium Member Merchants would get the $1000L/Month fee waived as a perk for being a Premium member. I would considered that a fair compensation. But we are all dreaming... because of point #3. Its nice to dreammmmmmmmmmmm sigh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted April 3, 2011 Share Posted April 3, 2011 I dunno, they seem to want Premium accts but they don't offer much reason to have one, esp for anyone who does not have any need for mainland. I canceled mine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arwen Serpente Posted April 3, 2011 Share Posted April 3, 2011 Actually, it affects us all right now. The stale shopping cart issue is a current issue. Any merchant running a promotion of any kind will discover as I have that if a shopper places the item in the cart during the promo but doesn't complete the transaction until some point in the future - even after the promo is finished - they will get the promo offer. I'm no fan of the Dash Deal at all, btw. To me, it's just another one of the deep discount promos that have overtaken SL in recent years. Promotions have their place in any marketing plan of course, however, the deep discounting that is currently done ad infinitum in SL plus the soft economy has lead to bargain hunting overkill (in my opinion). It's very hard to back off promotions once you've started, but a healthy business does not rely on the short term gains of promotions only. They have their place to gain visibility, offer opportunity for trial, offer reward to existing customers, etc - but the current rate of "everyday" is some kind of promo day in SL is just too much. Fixing things like stale carts, providing the basics stats for analysis, insuring reliable delivery, enabling ease of listing and editing of listings for merchants - those are the kind of things I'd like to see in this Marketplace before all sorts of new things get introduced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollee Dion Posted April 3, 2011 Share Posted April 3, 2011 I'm really enjoying the weekly updates, please continue with them. Nice to hear what you've & are planning. The stuff you plan to implement sounds great to me. I would personally prefer the customer facing aspects, like the store front customization and hopefully grouping of items into variations at some point e.g color. to take priority. Just for context, I have about a dozen items each in nine colors, so my store has over a hundred listing when I'd ideally like to display just the twelve. For my store, grouping would make a big difference. No real problems with what you intend to do more a case of what I'd like to see done first and what would improve the marketplace the most for my customers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Susanto Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 >"How many people are working on the Marketplace Codebase?" If you hire 1 person to polish 2 turds or hire 2 people to polish 1 turd, the result will tend to be about the same either way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pandorah Ashdene Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 Josh Susanto wrote: >"How many people are working on the Marketplace Codebase?" If you hire 1 person to polish 2 turds or hire 2 people to polish 1 turd, the result will tend to be about the same either way. Not true. In the first case you get twice as many polished turds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argus Collingwood Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 Arwen Serpente wrote: Fixing things like stale carts, providing the basics stats for analysis, insuring reliable delivery, enabling ease of listing and editing of listings for merchants - those are the kind of things I'd like to see in this Marketplace before all sorts of new things get introduced. There should never be Stale Carts in any shopping cart system if daily routines are run. Somebody needs to run the re-index and cart cleanup DAILY. This is SOP for any cart vendor system. Sigh, SLM needs to act like real Internet Merchant Software. At the very least, run it once a week on the slowest day at the slowest time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Susanto Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 <In the first case you get twice as many polished turds. Good luck proving that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BettyBoop String Posted April 5, 2011 Share Posted April 5, 2011 For what it's worth Brooke, my March sales were the best for 6 months... INWORLD, so what's with the "seasonal decline" thing? I also question the value of "moderate". Given that anything that's "for the purpose of erotic role play" is adult, that pretty much makes lingerie adult and if only 5% of content is in this moderate category, why bother? Why didn't you just rename it to adult and be done with it? Most importantly, may we have a guarantee that with AIS, you plan on maintaining (and enhancing) the existing ANS mechanism? Presently we manage that from the xstreet website, a legacy hang on and had to fight to convince the commerce team that YES, some of us do use ANS reporting and it's damn important to us. Further, assuming that you do provide this, please also provide an ANS event that is sent when the Marketplace fails to deliver and refunds, at present it does not thus giving up false data to our log systems since it only logs the initial sale and is thus not correclty logging a transaction where a transaction should be assumed to be atomic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Susanto Posted April 6, 2011 Share Posted April 6, 2011 I also had record profits in March as a whole. It just makes me wonder what would have happened if this hadn't been in spite of a profound drop off to a new low right around the middle of the month, which was basically repeated a couple of days ago. In total, it's my guess that I could be making almost twice as much money if "problems" didn't keep getting "fixed". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madeliefste Oh Posted April 6, 2011 Share Posted April 6, 2011 Brooke Linden wrote: March experienced an expected seasonal dip and some shift in purchase dynamics resulting from the maturity related changes. Hi Brooke, Would you be so kind to publish your years schedule with the expected seasonal dips and peaks, please. We have never heared before that LL expected seasonal dips. Until LL stopped giving us figures about the economy all we heared was: sales in this quarter were all times high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted April 6, 2011 Share Posted April 6, 2011 Madeliefste Oh wrote: Brooke Linden wrote: March experienced an expected seasonal dip and some shift in purchase dynamics resulting from the maturity related changes. Hi Brooke, Would you be so kind to publish your years schedule with the expected seasonal dips and peaks, please. We have never heared before that LL expected seasonal dips. Until LL stopped giving us figures about the economy all we heared was: sales in this quarter were all times high. This is a very reasonable request .. and one I hope Brooke, the Commerce Team and Rodvik choose to honor. We are precluded from having meaningful statistics owing to the lack of reporting tools provided by the Marketplace, our prior experience was on XStreet (which had no such "seasonal dip") and the dip we experienced on Marketplace did not correspond to in-world sales. Linden Lab is the sole holder of sales statistics and thus must be the one to provide them to us. Considering that the Marketplace is less than a year old, and that XStreet never had such a "seasonal dip" in March, I would truly like to understand how they arrived at the conclusion of a "seasonal dip" in this instance. (Now for the "Blunt" part ...) Brooke, the above statement from you smells to high heaven. You give no evidence, no statistics, and it flies in the face of everything else we can see and understand. If this is a blatant lie .. I expect you and Linden Lab to retract it and apologize to the Merchants for publishing fraudulent statements. If it NOT a lie .. back it up. Until such time as you choose one path or the other .. you can consider MY confidence in your statements and honesty .. severely damaged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brooke Linden Posted April 6, 2011 Author Share Posted April 6, 2011 Just adding a post for those who are subsribed via RSS. I've edited the second post on this thread to include updates from the inworld User Group. Brooke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Susanto Posted April 6, 2011 Share Posted April 6, 2011 {Brooke Linden wrote: {March experienced an expected seasonal dip and some shift in purchase dynamics resulting from the maturity related changes. How would that explain a more than 50% sustained overnight drop-off among a selection of over 400 items not marked as moderate or as adult? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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