The true cost of freebies

[Desudesudesuka]

Wondering what people's thoughts were on these. When they should be listed if ever, how other people have used them, what people like to see out of them, and strategies for giving them away.

L$1, L$5, L$10 "freebies."

I noticed a practice of people selling items for L$1, which I don't entirely understand or agree with - I've decided not to "purchase" things simply because I did not want to navigate the L$1 deals after scouring actual freebies, and I never looked into L$5 "freebies" at all, partly due to attention span. Is there a benefit to  L$1 "freebies" other than nickel and dimeing people or are they a mistake?

Demo freebies.

There's the case of things that are limited versions of full products, particularly eyes being given away in one garish colour to try to get people to purchase other colours. I like this idea more than the idea of linked DEMO meshes, since it can serve as free advertisement and doesn't really clutter the store.

Group gifts.

Not much to say. Often overlaps with the other categories. Encourages people to join your update and profile advertisement groups.

Full featured freebies.

In the case where there is no "superior" version of the product available, it's just a promotion for the store in general or a gift. Could be ethical or due to respecting licenses. Goes without saying why this is a good thing but it could cut into potential profit. Good use of "waste" versions of products that don't meet the standard there is for sale items.

[Alyona Su]

I sell my freebies on MP for 1L$ for two reasons:

1) It allows you to GIFT it (say, to your alt or a friend) - if it is listed as 0L$ you *cannot* gift it.

2) Every time someone "buys" that freebie, no matter how much it is sold for, even 0L$ I get the email.  I consider the 1L$ a surcharge for my having to deal with it.

Not being funny or sarcastic: I am abso-farkingly serious.

My personal take on group gifts is that they are more often epic-failures that can't be sold no matter what, so call it a group gift to trick people into joining your group and often forget to leave the group even after they realize how bad that gift is and throw it away. Then there are those who charge MONEY to join their group and what you pay to join their group rarely ever is recouped in any "discounts" or "group gift value" that you will receive.

I stay away from group gifts. It is ridiculously rare that I ever see any that are both: high quality AND something I'd actually want.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Alyona Su

[Love Zhaoying]

If it costs L$1, how much of a cut does LL get?

[ChinRey]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

If it costs L$1, how much of a cut does LL get?

Nothing. LL takes 5% rounded off to the nearest whole L$. If the price is nine L$ or less, LL's cut is rounded down to 0.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, ChinRey said:

Nothing. LL takes 5% rounded off to the nearest whole L$. If the price is nine L$ or less, LL's cut is rounded down to 0.

 

So LL only gets MP transaction fees on items costing L$100 or more? (I can do maths, because I am smart.)

[Cindy Evanier]

7 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

So LL only gets MP transaction fees on items costing L$100 or more? (I can do maths, because I am smart.)

I think its L$10 or  more and better to do maths than math  

Edited March 6, 2018 by Cindy Evanier

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Cindy Evanier said:

I think its L$10 and  more and better to do maths than math  

But 5% of 10 is 0.5.  20 sounds right: 5% of 20 is 1.

[Cindy Evanier]

12 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

But 5% of 10 is 0.5.  20 sounds right: 5% of 20 is 1.

flicks her blonde hair and looks pretty standing in the corner.  Someone more knowledgeable than me will put me straight soon  

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Cindy Evanier said:

flicks her blonde hair and looks pretty standing in the corner.  Someone more knowledgeable than me will put me straight soon  

 

[ChinRey]

16 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

But 5% of 10 is 0.5.

That's right and...

oh, I see the problem. It's my poor English. "Rounded off" means rounded down, does it? I thought it meant rounded to the nearest integer. Sorry about that.

To translate the actual answer into scriptish:

default{
	state_entry(){
		float NumberToRound=10;
		integer RoundedNumber=(llRound(NumberToRound*0.1))*10;
		llOwnerSay((string) RoundedNumber);
	}
}

 

[Love Zhaoying]

Oh..rounded “up”!

[ChinRey]

8 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Oh..rounded “up”!

Yes, sometimes we have to round them up or they get all over the place.

Edited March 7, 2018 by ChinRey
Typo

[Alyona Su]

Bahahaha!

Yes, I do believe it is L$10 before they actually take anything out. Though I wish there could be a per-listing option about notifications "Don't notify me of sales for this item) - but here's the thing that is weird about MP:

If you are inworld and you make a sale of anything L$5 or less, you are NOT notified (no cha-ching money sound, no message in chat). BUT if you are not logged-in then you always get the email. Hahaha.

As for the L$1 price for anything on MP: I believe it's for the very same reason I do it: it allows that item to be gifted. And it makes it easy if I spot something while shopping and logged in with Avie A and think "OOh, Avie B may love this!" - I can gift it to my alt. And times I help someone else do some shopping and I say: hey try this! And send them the demo.

*SMART* Creators always put their MARKETPLACE URL inside their notecards that they include with their demos. NOT! (well, the SMART ONES DO. I guess I just never buy from the smart ones. Ever.)

Edited March 6, 2018 by Alyona Su

[Chellynne Bailey]

18 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

*SMART* Creators always put their MARKETPLACE URL inside their notecards that they include with their demos. NOT! (well, the SMART ONES DO. I guess I just never buy from the smart ones. Ever.)

2

Yip, MP URL, Full Perm Product Ad and LM. It boggles my mind how many creators don't put full perm ads in their products. Those ads are a cheap advertisement, you should make it as easy as possible for people to fling them at each other "look what I found!".

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

A long time ago, some people use to put out 'dollarbies' in their stores. Just like a freebie, except it cost one linden. I haven't seen that in a while. I liked that it was honest.

[Callum Meriman]

Considerate creators also put a link to the their MP and In-World shop in their profiles.  It helps those of us who inspect other people's items to buy them.

19 hours ago, ChinRey said:

To translate the actual answer into scriptish:

default{
	state_entry(){
		float NumberToRound=10;
		integer RoundedNumber=(llRound(NumberToRound*0.1))*10;
		llOwnerSay((string) RoundedNumber);
	}
}

I'd do it different.

default{
	state_entry(){
		float NumberToRound=10;
		integer RoundedNumber=(llFloor(NumberToRound+0.50));
		llOwnerSay((string) RoundedNumber);
	}
}

as an addition is a little faster than 2 multiplications.

Although officially rounding is weird, to do it by the books, you are supposed to round up at .5 if it's an even number and down at .5 if it's an odd number. -- 1.5 becomes 1, 2.5 becomes 3. 1.35 becomes 1.3 and 1.45 becomes 1.5

[Alyona Su]

1 hour ago, Callum Meriman said:

Considerate creators also put a link to the their MP and In-World shop in their profiles.  It helps those of us who inspect other people's items to buy them.

1

An understatement, to be sure. Hahaha!

My favorite: COPY/MODIFY product that comes in a NO COPY box (usually the texture they put on it) - so old-schoolers like me who rez on the ground to unbox go WTF!? when we are accidentally in a one-minute auto-return parcel. LOL

Dollarbies where the best - and the only real reason I would even bother visiting an in-world shop these days. I rarely "go shopping" in-world because it's just too cumbersome (primarily the agonizing takes-forever-to-rez at each location). Oh, and PRO-TIP to creators: no demo=no sale for me, BUT ALSO - if you force me to come in-world to get or see a demo from your Market Place link you have just caused me to rethink my very interest in your product because I have to weight the effort and agony (see rezzing above) of suffering your in-world super-mall and then spent the next five to ten minutes finding the product and, hence, demo in there. Please: if you have a demo, include it on the MP - because if I even think I may like it I'll grab the demo and often I'll buy (see post above about putting MP links inside the notecard inside the Demo folder) Hahahaha

[ChinRey]

3 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

I rarely "go shopping" in-world because it's just too cumbersome (primarily the agonizing takes-forever-to-rez at each location)

And of course, as often as not it turns out the store only contains a ton of vendors with 1024x1024 pixel textures to keep the lag level up and no actual products to see anyway

But an inworld store where you can actually see the items for sale and don't have to wait for minutes foreverything to rez, that can be fun. But they are rare of course and obviously it only works for rezzables, not wearables.

[Callum Meriman]

I like the experience of shopping, and usually drag my partner or my pet around with me as I do it.

My normal workflow for shopping is often along the lines of

• See something in world i like
• Inspect it and look at the creator name
• See the creator's profile has no links to MP or InWorld
• Locate the creator by name in MP
• Get their in world address via the MP listing
• Find that now goes to "Bennies House of Pain"
• TP out fast as I am mobbed by weird people in full latex suits
• Search places looking for a matching parcel to the MP shop
• Lucking out and being able to head into the shop in world, or not being lucky and needing to buy from MP

[bigmoe Whitfield]

10 L$ hud I sell, gets 1$ taken out for fee.

[Tari Landar]

I don't consider anything over $1L to be a "freebie". I see the word gift used to describe them too, and that, imo, is just crap lol. 

The $1L charge is pretty much as already described, to make it so people can gift the item directly from the MP.

Anything over $1L is cheap, yes, a freebie or gift, no. Quality will vary greatly on all of these items of course, price rarely is indicative of quality these days.

I don't shop enough to have much of an opinion on the rest, lol. I loathe shopping, especially clothes shopping, and only do it once or twice a year, at most. Stuff shopping, I do when I need something, but otherwise, nah. When I go to sims, even ones with stores (most events, fairs, etc..) odds are good I'm just there to look around at buildings, decor, etc.. not buy anything at all lmao.  I shop, when I do, on the MP. If I need to see something and there is no demo on MP, I'll look for an inworld demo, though I MUCH prefer ones I can get right from the mp and then rez myself, so I never have to leave the comfort of wherever I am at that moment.  If I have to shop, I'd like it to at least be as pleasant an experience for someone that loathes shopping, as humanly possible. MP does that for me

Though, truth be told 99.9999% of the things I buy are for creation purposes. MP works fantastic for the vast majority of the purchasing I actually do. 

[Chase01]

The  group notice is just one way of keeping in touch with your base; whether it is to announce a new product launch, advertise a sale, or communicate anything else you feel is pertinent for your customers to be aware of. The gift itself is supposed to encourage people to remain in the group, and or to buy through reciprocity. Mileage will obviously vary between vendors for any number of reasons, but I'd like to think that periodic gifts are more effective at managing group retention. A vendor should consider that gift to be an advertising expense.

Do you charge entry for your group is a matter of opinion, but should be largely based on what your focus is, and how much effort you want to put into it.

Personally, I don't care for people charging for demos. I am not going to say I have never paid for a demo, but I can say I haven't purchased some demos as a result of the fee, even if it was 1L. The nickle and dimes you earn from those demo sales could cost a vendor a lot more in lost revenue.

 

 

[iamyourneighbour]

I see no issues in freebies. But would be good if demos have their own categories or have a filter to remove them from search.
Selling someone's full perm mesh for free when they specifically asked you not to is a different story, that I cannot agree with.

Freebies are usually have one area or the other lacking or being used to promote the store/other products, sometimes, they just want to sell it cheap even when the quality is satisfactory. If you want to make sales against the same item, you would have to make a better one, so it's good for the consumers and marketplace in general since it creates competition. 

 

[iamyourneighbour]

On 3/7/2018 at 10:53 PM, Chellynne Bailey said:

Yip, MP URL, Full Perm Product Ad and LM. It boggles my mind how many creators don't put full perm ads in their products. Those ads are a cheap advertisement, you should make it as easy as possible for people to fling them at each other "look what I found!".

I always do that, I click their profile first to see if there's a MP link 

[Codex Alpha]

On 3/7/2018 at 6:25 AM, Alyona Su said:

An understatement, to be sure. Hahaha!

My favorite: COPY/MODIFY product that comes in a NO COPY box (usually the texture they put on it) - so old-schoolers like me who rez on the ground to unbox go WTF!? when we are accidentally in a one-minute auto-return parcel. LOL

Dollarbies where the best - and the only real reason I would even bother visiting an in-world shop these days. I rarely "go shopping" in-world because it's just too cumbersome (primarily the agonizing takes-forever-to-rez at each location). Oh, and PRO-TIP to creators: no demo=no sale for me, BUT ALSO - if you force me to come in-world to get or see a demo from your Market Place link you have just caused me to rethink my very interest in your product because I have to weight the effort and agony (see rezzing above) of suffering your in-world super-mall and then spent the next five to ten minutes finding the product and, hence, demo in there. Please: if you have a demo, include it on the MP - because if I even think I may like it I'll grab the demo and often I'll buy (see post above about putting MP links inside the notecard inside the Demo folder) Hahahaha

Could I mitigate this with a very informative video that may include a walk through, instructions and demonstration of the item? Not sure that after I upload some more complicated items that demo items would even help, when a video might be much better.