System clothing on decline?

[Zantyago Mannonen]

Yes, I said it, I am having harder time achieving sales because of apparent omnipresence of human-like  mesh avvies.

Is it just me, or its actually happening? Would-be costumers ask if I have it for this and that body whose creators are ***** retentive about giving out the devkit.

But you know what's funnier? my outfits tend to cover almost the entire body, rendering any so called perfect mesh body irrelevant.

[Chic Aeon]

Well I wouldn't say a texture covering a whole body makes a mesh body irrelevant.

We look SO much smoother and shapelier AND poses look better (hence AOs are more pleasing also as any imperfections in alignment get buffered by the mesh "skin").  I still use texture garments, but as you have found out, these need to be made into appliers now.  

Many clothing creators have abandoned standard sizing meshes for body specific fitmesh and when done correctly (and not just CALLING something "Maitreya fit") it is a dream come true. 

So yes, time to rethink your creating. I started learning mesh making four years ago and it has been a struggle but  "I am there" now and happy of it. Folks pretty much don't buy prim buildings any longer either. I have a few old things on the marketplace still that sell from time to time at deeply discounted prices, but the majority of folks want mesh and appliers. Its been a long while since good mesh bodies appeared on the scene.

I am not being factious when I say  -- if you want to keep creating as you are creating and not learn new skills -- that you think about Opensim. There, most folks still use texture clothes. There is one mesh body for women but it is $25 US plus I think some fee from Kitely (I have never purchased using Paypal) but most of us are hanging around like the olden days.  

 

Edited March 31, 2017 by Chic Aeon

[Zantyago Mannonen]

I do build fitmesh, but only for the System avi, both genders, just not for fitmesh avies ( i think either I forgot to say it, or the message got lost)

here's the proof

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/58846?

Edited March 31, 2017 by Zantyago Mannonen

[Talligurl]

maybe you are having a hard timegetting sales because you stuff is pricey

[Zantyago Mannonen]

how much should I slash it?

[Klytyna]

 

I remember hearing some years back that the rough limit for an umpulse purchase in SL was L$ 350, that is to say, under that price people say "oooh like that add to cart" but over that, people stop and think. A lot of your stuff seems priced closer to 500...

But truthfully, you can find outfits not that much different in coverage and lack of support for the fashionable fits, for 200-300

 

Edited March 31, 2017 by Klytyna

[Chic Aeon]

Only trying to be helpful :D.

#1  You have no DEMOS. That is a huge thing. Most folks won't buy mesh clothes without demos and for good reason.

#2 You customer base genre has diminished notably over the years.  I know as I used to blog and wear those type of clothes often maybe six years ago. Sad and I miss them, but with less people to buy you have a problem.

#3 In general prices in SL have gone down a LOT. This even for the very top of the line items. Population is in decline and there seem to be just as many or more retailers :D. Hence competition. Check out those selling your type of items and see what they are charging.

#4 Your vendor photos are very old school. You need avatars in your clothes, good lighting, nice backgrounds --- things that will make folks want to buy.

 

But the biggest deterrent you have IMHO is the lack of demos for the mesh.  

[Zantyago Mannonen]

agreed to all of that, except I have demos

[Chic Aeon]

I clicked on a BUNCH and so no demos.  Example (one of five) https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Zans-Stroller-dress-petit-blue/10590173

But I did find one eventually that had a demo :D.   So maybe "more" demos is a better comment **wink**. 

[Zantyago Mannonen]

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/58846/search?utf8=✓&search[category_id]=&search[maturity_level]=GMA&search[keywords]=demo

speaking of that, I could do some cleanup

Edited March 31, 2017 by Zantyago Mannonen

[Lexbot Sinister]

Some of your clothes have no demos, or the main listing is not connected to the demo.

At that price point, i would expect more/all the colors available. Consider that.

A single buyer might select just one color and not buy several copies of the same dress, but the dress in several colors would increase the chance of making a sale.

So while at first it might feel like you are giving so much away for free, you might actually not be losing many, if any, sales on it.

 

[Chic Aeon]

I too thought today that perhaps the issue was that the demos were not linked. I of course like most shoppers was looking at the item for sale and then looking for the linked demo in that listing. 

The bottom line in all of this -- and not just to the OP -- is that with the market the way it is content creators need to up their game. They need to make better and sell things for less money  -- hoping  that VOLUME evens things up. 

I went through my Marketplace listings (many years worth and some old things as mentioned still sell well) last year and took good looks at the products. Were they worth the price? Did they need to be redone? New vendor photos?  Just dump them as too old and dull?   All of those questions had some yes answers. I redid a lot of vendor photos to make items more appealing. I updated some items that needed it and deleted some that were nostalgic but really not worthy these days. 

All of that helped.  People want more for their bucks these days and many of us have very happy and complete inventories already so something needs to really appeal to us for purchases to happen. The big years of never ending influxes of new folks needing things is over. 

So, it may indeed be a good time to reassess and decide what you want to do with your products and your brand. It is always a choice and one person's answer won't be another's. 

Happy creating. 

 

 

[Richardus Raymaker]

System clothing just looks ugly, because it does not fix the bad looking system avatar.
As soon you go use a better looking mesh avatar you cannot use system clothing anymore.

And mesh clothing just looks better.

[Claireschen Hesten]

It's not just system clothes that are on the decline as a classic av user i've been noticing that clothes makers are only including options for mesh bodies sometimes only for one specific mesh body i've also noticed where a classic av option is included with an alpha that one of the mesh body options has been a better fit on me than the sized options 

Edited April 1, 2017 by Claireschen Hesten

[Chase01]

I see you do have demos for some of your products, but perhaps not necessarily all of them? If I click on your "Stroller Dress" for example I don't see any link to a demo. If you do have a demo for that product and it isn't linked—then you're risking a potential sale IMO. As Chic pointed out demos are essential. As someone who shops a lot, I will rarely ever make a purchase for a piece of clothing without a trying on a demo first.

I tried on your Jumper dress to see how your product looks and it wasn't terrible but I can tell you that at 425L that its overpriced. The quality of detail on the dress itself isn't there. The stroller dress at 499L is equally overpriced and I'd feel confident as a buyer that I could find a better deal of higher quality elsewhere.

Take a closer look at what your competitors are offering. Try on their products, look at their ads and get to know prices. The biggest change I'd suggest is your asking price. I just think you're marketing this product to the wrong people. I did a quick search for some various items based upon terms used in your ads and I see a lot of overpriced goods. Some that did have some volume in terms of reviews were older. so my first thought is that these vendors have failed to keep up with the times. In those cases look for comparable products. Look at their clothing, check out their ads and see what a buyer can get for something similar for the same cost.

[Zantyago Mannonen]

That's it, putting some order in the shop

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Besides the issues already brought up, how about adding Omega appliers to your outfits? 

The basic dev kit, which will cater to numerous bodies currently on the market, is actually free to grab. You can easily give it a try with your existing texture uploads.

[Amalia Broome]

I find it sad when I go shopping (Collabor88 for example) and the clothing there does not include sizing for MY avatar - a system (or Legacy) avatar. I have no desire for an expensive mesh body so I will have to make do I guess. And if the future holds only clothing made for mesh avatars, my avatar will be seriously retro fashion. Too bad. I spend my money on clothes too. 

[Teagan Tobias]

4 hours ago, Amalia Broome said:

I find it sad when I go shopping (Collabor88 for example) and the clothing there does not include sizing for MY avatar - a system (or Legacy) avatar. I have no desire for an expensive mesh body so I will have to make do I guess. And if the future holds only clothing made for mesh avatars, my avatar will be seriously retro fashion. Too bad. I spend my money on clothes too. 

I have only the classic avatar and have found that some of the mesh clothing made for mesh avatars fit me. Get a demo and try on everything, like me you may get lucky and have more options for clothing than some of the mesh avatars.

[Alwin Alcott]

9 hours ago, Amalia Broome said:

I find it sad when I go shopping (Collabor88 for example) and the clothing there does not include sizing for MY avatar - a system (or Legacy) avatar. I have no desire for an expensive mesh body so I will have to make do I guess. And if the future holds only clothing made for mesh avatars, my avatar will be seriously retro fashion. Too bad. I spend my money on clothes too. 

a normal standard avatar can wear all standard sized mesh clothing, of course if yours fit withing the sizes for that..and with a alpha layer.

but i think you can't expect creators stick on the layer clothes.. it's simply out of date.

"modern" sales events like collabor /k9/ultra ...and so on.. are not intented to serve public for classic made clothes, perhaps there are more suitable events...or start one yourself?.. find some creators who support your style and see if they want to cooperate?.. if it doesn't work you can always pull the plug.

[Rolig Loon]

19 hours ago, Amalia Broome said:

I find it sad when I go shopping (Collabor88 for example) and the clothing there does not include sizing for MY avatar - a system (or Legacy) avatar. I have no desire for an expensive mesh body so I will have to make do I guess. And if the future holds only clothing made for mesh avatars, my avatar will be seriously retro fashion. Too bad. I spend my money on clothes too. 

I sympathize.  I do like the look of many of the new mesh avatars, but they have one major drawback.  You can't change their shape the way we could with the classic avatar body.  You have to accept some creator's idea of what you should look like.  If you don't want your butt to be quite so big or your boobs exactly the size that the creator made them, you're out of luck.  I have spent my whole life in RL putting up with designers' ideas of what shape I ought to be.  When I came to SL, I was overjoyed to find that I could be any shape I wanted, and I could tweak clothing to fit me instead of the other way around.  Now, if I wear a mesh body, I have to accept someone else's design shape again. If I wear mesh clothing on my classic body, I have to hide my body with an alpha mask and accept the creator's idea of what my body should look like.  It's RL all over again, and I share your disappointment, Amalia.

[Madelaine McMasters]

3 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

I sympathize.  I do like the look of many of the new mesh avatars, but they have one major drawback.  You can't change their shape the way we could with the classic avatar body.  You have to accept some creator's idea of what you should look like.  If you don't want your butt to be quite so big or your boobs exactly the size that the creator made them, you're out of luck.  I have spent my whole life in RL putting up with designers' ideas of what shape I ought to be.  When I came to SL, I was overjoyed to find that I could be any shape I wanted, and I could tweak clothing to fit me instead of the other way around.  Now, if I wear a mesh body, I have to accept someone else's design shape again. If I wear mesh clothing on my classic body, I have to hide my body with an alpha mask and accept the creator's idea of what my body should look like.  It's RL all over again, and I share your disappointment, Amalia.

I fiddled with my shape for months years ago, finally getting it to where I didn't dislike it. During that fiddling, I discovered that half of what I liked about my shape was knowing that it was mine, and I could change it. There have been times when a windlight setting revealed something in my face that I didn't like, so I adjusted a slider.

This also reminds me of a shopping spree I went on shortly after returning as Ms. McMasters. Phoenix Rising had a lot of androgynous female clothing. I really liked the unbuttoned dress shirt and untied tie look, as if you'd just returned from doing something important and were ready to relax. This look was available in both the male and female sides of the store. I ended up buying the male version because the female version had the shirt unbuttoned halfway to the waist. So I'm wearing guys shirts but they fit just fine, they're the same coat of paint as the female shirts. Can we do that with mesh? I don't want to be constrained to buying female clothing for a female shape.

[Whirly Fizzle]

20 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

I sympathize.  I do like the look of many of the new mesh avatars, but they have one major drawback.  You can't change their shape the way we could with the classic avatar body.  You have to accept some creator's idea of what you should look like.  If you don't want your butt to be quite so big or your boobs exactly the size that the creator made them, you're out of luck.  I have spent my whole life in RL putting up with designers' ideas of what shape I ought to be.  When I came to SL, I was overjoyed to find that I could be any shape I wanted, and I could tweak clothing to fit me instead of the other way around.  Now, if I wear a mesh body, I have to accept someone else's design shape again. If I wear mesh clothing on my classic body, I have to hide my body with an alpha mask and accept the creator's idea of what my body should look like.  It's RL all over again, and I share your disappointment, Amalia.

Fitted mesh bodies respond to edits to your worn shape in the same way that the classic avatar body does.

[Madelaine McMasters]

5 minutes ago, Whirly Fizzle said:

Fitted mesh bodies respond to edits to your worn shape in the same way that the classic avatar body does.

Face too?

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 minute ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Face too?

The major mesh bodies on the market allow you to use your default head with the new body. Meanwhile, most new mesh heads use the new Bento bones which allow a certain range of slider adjustment, although you won't be able to exactly match your current head.