Cashout Fees To Rise to 5%

[Luna Bliss]

4 minutes ago, Elvina Ewing said:

it doesn't matter what their RL expenses are like compared to western countries

I will have to think more about all that more, Elvina -- economics are not my forte.

For now I just wanted to whine about how I cannot afford to  live in San Francisco to be near my family...  

[Blush Bravin]

5 minutes ago, Elvina Ewing said:

it doesn't matter what their RL expenses are like compared to western countries, it only matters what it is worth in SL, and in SL everybody uses L$. But to get the same amount of L$ (say 10 US$ worth of it) for you will mean a dinner at McDonalds worth, while for somebody from say Brazil (or something) it will be like a weeks salary worth. While you might easily part with a McDonalds dinner to fund your Second Life instead, somebody from Brazil will think twice before parting with their weeks worth salary.

I mean if they already do that they might still keep doing that, but for that very same amount they will be able to buy less now, if/when SL merchants raise their prices to offset the cashout fee. While you, or anybody else from a western country, will not mind to get 15$ worth of lindens where you used to get only 10$ worth before, to keep maintaining the same spending habits you used to, most people from non-western countries will most likely not be able to afford that.

Considering that this increase is really quite minimal, if they can't afford it with this increase they likely are not spending much money in SL currently anyway. I seriously doubt that it's going to hurt LL's bottom line. I understand that it will make a difference to the user in that they won't be able to afford as much $L as before but the difference really shouldn't be that significant.

[Mollymews]

chatting about creating stuff and back in the day, got me remembering about when creating, torturing prims and sticking them together was fun for me

i don't have anything left from back in those days, so I recreated from memory the first motor bike  I ever made. I also remember that I could never decide what color to paint it so rode round on it for ages in fashionable plywood, just like this 

 

 

 

it could go really fast as well.  brrrrrmmmmm !!! 

 

[LittleMe Jewell]

6 hours ago, MeshPromo said:

(There is a rule that contents can not be inflated in marketplace, than its inworld sales)

As Cindy mentioned, that was rescinded - April 16, 2018, to be exact.

 

4 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

5 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

Agreed.   Apparently (this from support - I "think" Dakota) that was a rule left over from Xstreet and no longer applies -- and hasn't for a long while, we just didn't KNOW that :D.  

I remember Dakota stating (on the forum) we could not inflate/deflate prices because it wasn't fair for people who did not have inworld stores. Whether she inferred the reason for the rule on her own or was giving the explanation from official policy I don't know. It caused me to examine what I thought was fair between those who had an inworld presence vs those who only had a MP store, and what seemed unfair to me at the time was the opposite -- some merchants had the additional cost of land and I thought the policy was actually unfair to those people
I also remember when Dakota said the rule was no longer in effect.
So no, this was not some policy left over from Xstreet.

Anyway, I'm glad they changed it because I'm such a space case with marketing and often forget I did not set prices back to a consistent presentation for both store and MP!  In fact, a shopper just questioned me why my prices were set differently on an item 

 

Actually, you are both right.  Apparently the policy was originally put in on SLExchange to prevent people from listing things on Apotheus' marketplace, but then charging less (to avoid the MP commission) if the customer bought the item at their inworld store.  (Dakota comment in Aug 2018).  Also, per Dakota (Dec 2017), there was some allowance for a small price difference but not more than 5% because otherwise it was some sort of unfair advantage for those that had an inworld store (like Luna, that part doesn't really make sense to me since there are land costs for an inworld store).  Anyway, the thread that discussed all of those issues was brought to the attention of the Marketing team and they modified the Listing Guidelines to remove the reference to 'in-world' for the part about inflating prices on the MP - as of April 2018.

 

Relevant post about the policy change:
https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/421225-changes-to-the-marketplace-fee-and-listing-guidelines/

 

Dakota's two comments about it:
https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/393432-am-i-not-allowed-to-put-my-items-inworld-cheaper-than-the-mp-price/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-1694327

https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/393432-am-i-not-allowed-to-put-my-items-inworld-cheaper-than-the-mp-price/?do=findComment&comment=1776739

 

Edited June 16, 2019 by LittleMe Jewell

[Polenth Yue]

10 hours ago, MeshPromo said:

Please note that I'm not just asking another listing fee, but what I'm suggesting is, implement a listing fee instead increasing the cashout fee to 5%, as LL seems eager to get more profit from SL. So this way will be win-win-win situation for, LL, creators and customers.

Paying a percentage of marketplace sales encourages diversity in the market, because people can take risks and produce niche items. Paying a monthly listing fee encourages a handful of expensive and popular products and everything else would need to be purchased by finding shops inworld. The reason people like the marketplace is it's convenient and they can find a lot of stuff there, so you aren't going to find many customers viewing a reduced range as a win. I also suspect that even the bigger creators would end up paying more through listing fees than they would from cashout fees, unless they gave up on the marketplace... which again means a reduced range on the marketplace.

In other words, it's a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You would clear items from inactive seller, but also most of everything else.

The marketplace isn't like ebay (outside of perhaps the gatcha reselling). The model is more like POD art sites, which also operate on a percentage of sales basis.