The new Marketplace Features coming - Merchant Survey Requirement

[Charlotte Bartlett]

16 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

 

And yes there are a lot of people watching this thread too shy to post on forums, and I've had emails from some -- they don't like what's happening.

If they are too shy to post as merchants on this thread to confirm they would like the survey too (the thread has gone off topic a few times but that's the actual topic). They can simply click a like on the OP to lend support without having to comment, perhaps help guide them towards that.

[Luna Bliss]

Well said FatherTheo

And worse than that, the announcement is couched in a type of spiritual lingo (some will need to suffer for the health of the whole), and rather than being unitive it is actually very divisive, pitting merchants against those who want more land/benefits.
If I've learned anything in life, it's to never accept the framework a corporation uses for a debate, most expecially when that framework is used in marketing manipulations. Like you are saying, there are other ways for LL make up for their dwindling income due to loss of land sales. They simply chose the easiest way, gunning for those with little power to affect their situation, while calling them 'partners' -- it reflects how they truely value those who create here.

Sadly, it's a manipulation the masses accept easily. Already I've heard talk of "those greedy merchants", usually by those who don't understand that to earn a significant amount of money here you have to work at it as hard, or harder, than a RL job -- those who critisize often 'work at it' a couple hours an evening most nights, and 4 hours on Sunday, yet think they should be earning what we earn. Or else they have failed businesses, and are taking satisfaction in seeing those who are still successful fail.

Not long ago I ran into a woman who runs a successful sim to help those with a particular health problem. A very nice woman, but when I told her of my financial worries here she said "why don't you just create for freeee". I said, well, if I could even work a full time job someplace else I'd have no energy left to create in SL, because I have health problems too.
I hope I made her think a little, about the plight of artists. It is very strange, that so many think we should give to society for free. You run into this with those who work in the helping professions too.
And then..there's these people who think everything on the internet should be freeee. I think a good percentage of those live in mom's basement. Perhaps some are retired, wealthy, or supported by a wealthy spouse.
I have encountered people with high-paying jobs, even celebrities, trying to nickle and dime me here.
Okay, end of rant

[Luna Bliss]

48 minutes ago, FatherTheo said:

Plain and simple, it's silly, and it makes no sense whatsoever to lower the cost of land tiers in order to try and persuade people to come back, and new people to join with a premium subscription, only to hike up the charges on the creators to make up what's lost in the land tier. It's the epitome of anti-creator customer service policy. There are other ways in increase revenue flow than to chase out the people making the game fun and more beautiful with their creativity.

Do you have any ideas regarding additional ways they might increase their revenue flow?

Edited March 26, 2018 by Luna Bliss

[Luna Bliss]

10 minutes ago, Charlotte Bartlett said:

16 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

 

And yes there are a lot of people watching this thread too shy to post on forums, and I've had emails from some -- they don't like what's happening.

If they are too shy to post as merchants on this thread to confirm they would like the survey too (the thread has gone off topic a few times but that's the actual topic). They can simply click a like on the OP to lend support without having to comment, perhaps help guide them towards that.

I'm sorry Charlotte, I can't do that.

Thinking upon this further (MP changes), and gaining additional information on just how expensive it would be to make significant changes to the MP, I would be guiding them to participate in an untruth -- something that keeps us from focusing on the main core or real issues that need to be addressed.

[FatherTheo]

4 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Do you have any ideas regarding additional ways they might increase their revenue flow?

They announced different "premium" tiers. That would have been my first thought. The L$300 stipend would cost around $1.20 USD, so I would say $2.50 a month for the stipend and 512m land, but no other benefits. Then add benefits by shopping cart such as access to premium areas, $1.50. Priority region entry, $2.00 etc. so that if you were to get ALL of the benefits, it would end up costing the same, but if you only needed some of them, you'd have a cheaper subscription with only the things you will use.

I would also add a "Makers" subscription that is tailored specifically to creators which would include benefits of a certain number of free mesh/animation/image uploads, discounted merchant fees, etc. I would also suggest creating a region specifically for merchants, a G/M region where this tier would receive 512m free to use as part of their Maker subscription. Have it pre-set with streets, street names etc so that they could just select the square they want and set up shop. It would make a great shopping region for all involved, and be a specific tier for Linden to line their pockets with. With their intention to move to the cloud, it wouldn't be that much greater impact on resources.

There are so many ideas and things that could be implemented, but really, I doubt they'll listen, so I'll leave it at this.

[Majestic Kohime]

14 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Do you have any ideas regarding additional ways they might increase their revenue flow?

If you read my analysis, in upper posts, you see the enumeration of the TOS changes that made most of the investors and skilled creators (iam talking about people that had jobs in Rl in the same field of their Sl activity and that FOUND an SL activity rewarding at least as much than same RL activity so they INVESTED time, in SL) leaving Sl the past few years.

You want giant incomes, ill tell you how:

- bring back 3rd party L$ resellers, and this time add small fees on those

- expand L$ ways of buy: BTC transactions, etc.. etc.. all the alternative ways of payments that most of the big internet buisnesses got, add fees on them

- bring back money games creations and add fees PROPORTIONAL to the money gaming activity 

example: it was quite common that SL clubs had few money games on their sim to help with the giant fees, i had both a big successeful club and money devices, and then club without money devices when TOS came, guess what people dont give a ***** about donating to help the venue, but rather spend thousand lindens in money games, those micro transactions help the fees , just ADAPT the new TOS from 2014 to "casual gaming" with small fees and little buinesses you can add to your parcell.

This will bring giant amount of money and bring activity to social lands while they got LESS AND LESS activity during the day (EU times)

- If this isnt enough, bring back universities and companies and make them pay full prices for sims

- At some point its now the time for LL to BRING new people in SL. We, customers and crreators we tried enough, we cannot do more, LL has to invest in their own martketing and bring new people

i can add new ideas laters concerning new incomes without killing creators

 

As you can see this isnt much of an investissment from the LAB , all they just have to do is bring back a large part of SL activities they kicked out past years and add small fees to those activities

Edited March 26, 2018 by Majestic Kohime

[Charlotte Bartlett]

8 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I'm sorry Charlotte, I can't do that.

Thinking upon this further (MP changes), and gaining additional information on just how expensive it would be to make significant changes to the MP, I would be guiding them to participate in an untruth -- something that keeps us from focusing on the main core or real issues that need to be addressed.

You have lost me there - that sounds bizarre!

Anyway, cost/benefit yes the database elements are complex and expensive.  However with a good architect they should be able to make some sensible decisions around front end functionality whilst navigating any migration at the back end.  Honestly in these scenarios sometimes the best route is to demise the legacy technology and invest into a new solution for the gateways, database and front end aspects (there connectivity into asset server for delivery).     Migration is always the challenge but as mentioned above if they include that in the survey I am pretty sure professional merchants here will pick a manual migration of the listings to a platform with rich features versus automated one with lack of features (also will clean out all those legacy listings no longer valid). 

Edited March 26, 2018 by Charlotte Bartlett

[Arwen Serpente]

Charlotte, I'm glad you started the thread, I totally agree that a survey would pool everyone's ideas and allow the most popular to rise to the top. I don't, however, want to live through another migration to a new system (and certainly don't want to do it manually) given the very bumpy migrations that have been implemented over the years and pay more for it unless LL can provide projections for growth due to those changes.

[Majestic Kohime]

13 minutes ago, Charlotte Bartlett said:

You have lost me there - that sounds bizarre!

Anyway, cost/benefit yes the database elements are complex and expensive.  However with a good architect they should be able to make some sensible decisions around front end functionality whilst navigating any migration at the back end.  Honestly in these scenarios sometimes the best route is to demise the legacy technology and invest into a new solution for the gateways, database and front end aspects (there connectivity into asset server for delivery).     Migration is always the challenge but as mentioned above if they include that in the survey I am pretty sure professional merchants here will pick a manual migration of the listings to a platform with rich features versus automated one with lack of features (also will clean out all those legacy listings no longer valid). 

Hi, you seem to forget that sometimes when an update works badly its better to use back the old technology.

-> Concerning the marketplace search LL already got previous search algorythm code, they just have to go back and use their previous search engine from before 2014. This new search from 2014 has proven it isnt working well, since we got very old products that come back in the top of the results while NO ONE are buying them.

Also, A lot of customer "whales" were litterally using the "sort by newer" daily to check EVERy new product launched.

Those people disapeard cause the search is broken by either gatchas multi upload (separating gacthas wouldnt be a big deal for theMP devs, they just need to add a category for gatchas, and for demos, that dont come in the results of a normal search

Also as i said if they dont want to change their mind about "adding a fee" they should add fees proportional to the number of items the shops have uploaded, this would limit the upload spam that started after the previous marketplace updates.

It is not normal that some brands upload millions version of the same product for the only reason it has a different colour, there is clearly something to do about it, either concerning fees or concerning grouping options to avoid spam in search results.

 

 

Last but not least surveys , JIRAS, and so on proven that communication LL-creators-customers doesnt work anymore very well since 2011.

It took a full JIRA and 7 years for LL to  bring back LASTNAMES (see the LL 15 years announce), which prove do we have that anything said in this survey wont be used as a justification of a fee added on marketplace (somehing like: look at this update, common guys we worked very hard , lets pay another 25% more

 

Edited March 26, 2018 by Majestic Kohime

[Sweet Valentine]

think alotta folks are not understanding there is going to be and its already starting a trade off from a land based cost to a merchant based cost ....u will be paying less for land and paying more for selling stuff...right now its cheap to sell and cost a ton to much to live on land...lowering land costs is a positive to bring folks into sl that will buy land settle down and become ur new customers. and stay awhile...increasing fees somewhat its not a bad thing.... i believe it will balance out...unless you an MP only person ...that u will just have to expect as in any RL business you have overheads to pay and those costs will increase always ....we have been very lucky in SL to have the opportunity to even be able to make money...im looking forward to the positive changes coming our way

[Pamela Galli]

2 minutes ago, Arwen Serpente said:

Charlotte, I'm glad you started the thread, I totally agree that a survey would pool everyone's ideas and allow the most popular to rise to the top. I don't, however, want to live through another migration to a new system (and certainly don't want to do it manually) given the very bumpy migrations that have been implemented over the years and pay more for it unless LL can provide projections for growth due to those changes.

This. Migration would be absolute last resort for me, I still have nightmares about the last one. Some people’s listings were permanently broken.

[RohanaRaven Zerbino]

9 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I'm sorry Charlotte, I can't do that.

Thinking upon this further (MP changes), and gaining additional information on just how expensive it would be to make significant changes to the MP, I would be guiding them to participate in an untruth -- something that keeps us from focusing on the main core or real issues that need to be addressed.

At this point and in this thread, it is important to point to the improvements that should be made at MP as it is, as well to mark the path for future changes, but above of all, to have some kind of dialog with LL, so our opinion can be heard.  It is on them to make budgeting and to decide what is possible in what time range. Somehow we have to let them know what is important for us, so they can have a bigger picture.

 

[Sweet Valentine]

what migration pam? i havent seen read or heard anything about a migration...just bug fixes some new improved addictions we all been asking for and some fee increases

[Pamela Galli]

1 minute ago, Sweet Valentine said:

what migration pam? i havent seen read or heard anything about a migration...just bug fixes some new improved addictions we all been asking for and some fee increases

Discussed in this thread. Wondering if your listings ever got fixed from last time.

[Majestic Kohime]

9 minutes ago, RohanaRaven Zerbino said:

At this point and in this thread, it is important to point to the improvements that should be made at MP as it is, as well to mark the path for future changes, but above of all, to have some kind of dialog with LL, so our opinion can be heard.  It is on them to make budgeting and to decide what is possible in what time range. Somehow we have to let them know what is important for us, so they can have a bigger picture.

 

Obvsiouly, some creators around have more power than others since the Marketplace "avatar brand" option was added very fast on the marketplace to promote biggest avatars brands creators.

there havent been any discussion about bento, economy and LL choices (about mesh avatars and mesh heads), and now the customers are litterally paying the price of this decision;

You cant imagine the amount of people even not logging in anymore because they are frustrated that they cant afford anymore a decent avatar (a "decent" avatar in 2018 costs around 15k, and then you have high chances to be a clone since everyone buying same mesh heads)...

I dont even talk about the INSANE monopoly on clothes creators/mesh bodies which gives mesh body creators (at least some of them) power of life and death towards the clothes creators since the clothes creators need to apply to get their creator dev kit!!!!!

 

This is the HEART of the matter, LL has heard some people and start to realize, that, maybe, some others were right:

Look at this, they brought back past year the welcome sims owned by people, and want to add back lastnames this year.

Maybe they should have heard us 7 years ago and that would have saved us a lot of time

 

Edited March 26, 2018 by Majestic Kohime

[Sweet Valentine]

some have been fixed some not some i had to fix myself...but there has been no indication there will be anything  like what VMM was we are already there the website is what will change now...i dont believe anythings been said about a migration in the discussions with LL

 

[Blueberryxx]

I don't have any insider info, I haven't spoken to any Linden. Disclaimers first. 

I read the forum and saw some numbers thrown around like 25%-30%. I am going to elaborate before it catches wildfire. 

I highly doubt you will ever see Linden Lab come out and say okay now you go from 5% to 25% because we said so. Linden Lab has always been very restrained in how they do their changes. Notice how they just reduced the land fees without increasing the fees with it at the same time? It's because (I am assuming) they want to see what exactly needs to change and from what I am seeing they would rather slowly decrease on land to find a middle point where creators won't pay too much but neither will the customers. 

So from what I have seen so far I expect there to be a raise of 2.5% and they might add another 2.5% if that didn't cover. But from what we have seen over the years, I do not foresee anything in the lines of a sudden crazy change. Linden Lab may have been slow at times, but they are far far smarter than everybody is giving them credit for. I believe @Grumpity Linden when they say they see as partners. We are partners. We are the most significant part of SL economy when utilized properly.

Again, these are my personal expectations, predictions. No claim has been made by any Lindens to me. 

[Sweet Valentine]

3 minutes ago, Blueberryxx said:

I don't have any insider info, I haven't spoken to any Linden. Disclaimers first. 

I read the forum and saw some numbers thrown around like 25%-30%. I am going to elaborate before it catches wildfire. 

I highly doubt you will ever see Linden Lab come out and say okay now you go from 5% to 25% because we said so. Linden Lab has always been very restrained in how they do their changes. Notice how they just reduced the land fees without increasing the fees with it at the same time? It's because (I am assuming) they want to see what exactly needs to change and from what I am seeing they would rather slowly decrease on land to find a middle point where creators won't pay too much but neither will the customers. 

So from what I have seen so far I expect there to be a raise of 2.5% and they might add another 2.5% if that didn't cover. But from what we have seen over the years, I do not foresee anything in the lines of a sudden crazy change. Linden Lab may have been slow at times, but they are far far smarter than everybody is giving them credit for. I believe @Grumpity Linden when they say they see as partners. We are partners. We are the most significant part of SL economy when utilized properly.

Again, these are my personal expectations, predictions. No claim has been made by any Lindens to me. 

i agree.... this is why they hesitate to discuss things even at the meetings cus it gets taken away as gospel that that is whats gonna happen...when in reality it was a discussion only not set in stone ...throwing ideas around at what might work....they definitely have no desire to rock the boat to much ....but change has to come they know it and we all have to understand it needs to happen to keep SL relevant and thriving in the future

[Majestic Kohime]

14 minutes ago, Blueberryxx said:

I don't have any insider info, I haven't spoken to any Linden. Disclaimers first. 

I read the forum and saw some numbers thrown around like 25%-30%. I am going to elaborate before it catches wildfire. 

I highly doubt you will ever see Linden Lab come out and say okay now you go from 5% to 25% because we said so. Linden Lab has always been very restrained in how they do their changes. Notice how they just reduced the land fees without increasing the fees with it at the same time? It's because (I am assuming) they want to see what exactly needs to change and from what I am seeing they would rather slowly decrease on land to find a middle point where creators won't pay too much but neither will the customers. 

So from what I have seen so far I expect there to be a raise of 2.5% and they might add another 2.5% if that didn't cover. But from what we have seen over the years, I do not foresee anything in the lines of a sudden crazy change. Linden Lab may have been slow at times, but they are far far smarter than everybody is giving them credit for. I believe @Grumpity Linden when they say they see as partners. We are partners. We are the most significant part of SL economy when utilized properly.

Again, these are my personal expectations, predictions. No claim has been made by any Lindens to me. 

This is already too much since it comes after the SL-RL transactions fees up.

If they want to have more incomes its now their turn to make marketing and to bring new people that will spend money in SL;

Its been 10 years that we are dealing with rumors. Even blogs that were specialized with the spreading of such rumors to see people reactions.

Yeah probably they are reading.

And then when the decision will come we wont be able to do anything.

 

Obviously from the SL 15B description we can clearly see that there is a mainland leaking, and people rather rent to private estates.

The mainland is one of the best idea in the video game industry for the past 20 years.

Is they want to make it attractive they should rather change all the mainland textures, give more power to parcel owners and so on.

When you do visit mainland you see parcels that are 2003'ish (relooked writh prims, the original mainland look from 2005something) with 64*64 grass textures on floor.

Honnestly, how can anyone want to rent  such outdated looking parcels. Start to change those outdated textures, give more power to mainland parcel owners and maybe it will be successful again

Edited March 26, 2018 by Majestic Kohime

[Blueberryxx]

1 minute ago, Majestic Kohime said:

This is already too much since it comes after the SL-RL transactions fees up.

If they want to have more incomes its now their turn to make marketing and to bring new people that will spend money in SL;

Its been 10 years that we are dealing with rumors. Even blogs that were specialized with the spreading of such rumors to see people reactions.

Yeah probably they are reading.

And then when the decision will come we wont be able to do anything.

I feel that the fee we are paying is definitely way lower than the industry standard. Including the most close competitors of SL. I don't believe Linden Lab are trying to be malicious they are trying to find a new balance without lowering the company's value, which would be awful for everyone doing business in SL. At the end of the day if someone is cashing out 10,000 and feels 250 usd is too much of a fee to pay to the platform is going to face a very harsh reality stepping outside of SL. 

Think about it this way, we don't have an office overhead most of the time unless you are a professional team with multiple employees, we hardly have any marketing budget bloggers advertise for free. What is left from essential overheads? 5% marketplace fee, 2.5% cash out fee, the land you are on. Sounds more than reasonable to me. I don't see the greed. 

If Linden Lab came about and said ok guys we are going to do 25% then yes, that's awful as people have bills they have budgeted their life according to their monthly income. That would be cruel. But again from just looking at the history you can see that, that is not the way Linden Lab operates. At all. I understand we all have to be realistic and can not be all hopes of dreams, but we can not also be cynical and project that onto our views and call it just being real. 

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, Blueberryxx said:

l feel that the fee we are paying is definitely way lower than the industry standard. Including the most close competitors of SL.

Shhhh!!!

[Blueberryxx]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

Shhhh!!!

lol!! zipping it immediately 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Blueberryxx said:

lol!! zipping it immediately 

Dear Linden Lab, we feel bad. Please charge us more money.

Love,

Users.

[Pamela Galli]

57 minutes ago, Blueberryxx said:

At the end of the day if someone is cashing out 10,000 and feels 250 usd is too much of a fee to pay to the platform is going to face a very harsh reality stepping outside of SL. 

 I also pay 5% of marketplace sales, 4% to sell lindens, $50 a month for Enchancements, upload fees, and tier on four regions. I have no plans of stepping outside second life. 

I mention again, I am not a 3-D model seller, I am a merchant in Second Life providing abundant customer support, most of which is not for my products but for free basic lessons in how second life works.

To your point: It depends on how often that $10,000 process credit occurs. If its once a year, and SL employment is the only one available, and the creator is, say, a caregiver for disabled family members, then yes, a 10x raise in process fees to a cap of $250 is significant. 

Edited March 26, 2018 by Pamela Galli

[Blueberryxx]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Dear Linden Lab, we feel bad. Please charge us more money.

Love,

Users.

All joke aside though, us acknowledging the general fees doesn't give them the power to raise as they like. They already know what their competitors are charging. They probably talk about it every meeting. It never resulted in a massive crazy change and it shouldn't. 

What I don't like is acting like it is the end of the world that they did raise the fees to 2.5% to cash out. If they did ever do something crazy, we have literally nowhere to go. We gotta know when to be fair and when to really speak against so it counts.