More Stores Inworld with Higher MP Fee?

[Desudesudesuka]

On 11/26/2019 at 4:18 PM, Alyona Su said:

You're right, it is arguable. A tax is an amount of legal tender paid to your government. Legal tender. No government recognizes the monetary value of a Linden Dollar. Hence, it is not legal tender. You can argue back, that's fine. But opinions never change facts. I know, I get it, such annoying things, those facts.

Despite words having factual definitions, as is often the case they have many factual definitions, which is why prescriptivism doesn't work. Taxes are a surcharge for using a system as well, you're not really contradicting anything OP said. Personally, I understand what OP meant so I wouldn't pick apart any linguistic choices as it is a bit of a derail or at least unneeded aside. Did you read the post full though? OP didn't even call it a tax, he compared it since it is also percentage, which is fair. And the tax in question was the sales tax which is quite apt for a comparison with the sales fee that merchants absorb.

LL's 10% TAX skimmed off the top, their fee, cut, slice of the pie, whatever, it makes it less viable to use the MP for merchants and sell things in general. Personally I wouldn't charge much more on the MP because it simply isn't viable, there's little money to be made on SL overcharging as a smaller merchant. People are very accustomed to sweatshop tier pricing on 3D objects in this sandbox - ones which they can quite easily do with whatever they please without the artist being able to police it. Unless there's some sort of position you hold that other merchants don't you'll be undercut and someone else valuing their time at a lesser rate will make more L$ in sales volume. There isn't a ton of money to be made from inworld sales unless you are selling things at events, so it's not a great alternative to paying the 10% marketplace tax.

Edited November 28, 2019 by Desudesudesuka

[Polenth Yue]

Malls never worked for me and this was years back in what was apparently the good old days for malls. Most of the traffic wasn't there to shop. Events do work and this is where I'd expect to see a boost. It's more likely that something that already works will get more customers than something that hasn't been working will suddenly appeal to customers.

I enjoy visiting inworld stores, so it's not that I wouldn't like to see them get a boost. It just doesn't seem that most customers feel that way.

[steeljane42]

2 hours ago, Polenth Yue said:

I enjoy visiting inworld stores, so it's not that I wouldn't like to see them get a boost. It just doesn't seem that most customers feel that way.

Some stores are a joy to visit, although it's mostly ones that sell landscape and decor things. They often tend to have a nicely built environment and sometimes I see some good items from other creators I never heard about rezzed there, so I check them and go to check their stores as well (assuming they have one). So I do enjoy visiting those, too. Besides I need to see those items in person anyway, to check the quality and animations (if there's any).

Clothing, makeup and similar things are a whole different story, though. If I'm at my region and messing with a bunch of things I already have and/or demos, while trying to find a matching piece of clothing, then last thing I want is to stop, find some clothes to put on and teleport to in-world store to try and find demo/item I want to check/buy. And in case of it's a demo, then I'll teleport back to my region to demo it anyway, because I need to check it closer, with other items, with my AO (some things looks normal while static, but have serious issues during animations) and I won't be doing it in some random store. So MP has no contest here.

Events kinda work, because usually it's new stuff and pretty decent quality (in case of top events) and even in case of big events, it's almost always just one region with around 100 vendors. Doesn't take all that long to check, especially if you know what you don't need and skip those items. While some stores sometimes have thousands of items and often is a nightmare to navigate, FS's area search does help, though.

[Cackle Amore]

From my pov, the main reason MP became so popular is mainly the simplest reason. Land costs a lot of financial upkeep, even if your just renting some small tent or storefront in a fancy mall. And if you're just starting out with making stuff to sell, you'll probably not have a whole lot of L just sitting around, and your handful of items aren't gonna be making you much at the start

And once the MP wasn't tethered to the magic box thing anymore, the flood gates really opened up. All the creative virtual hobos finally had a way to set up a shop.

[Alyona Su]

8 hours ago, Digit Gears said:

From my pov, the main reason MP became so popular is mainly the simplest reason. Land costs a lot of financial upkeep, even if your just renting some small tent or storefront in a fancy mall. And if you're just starting out with making stuff to sell, you'll probably not have a whole lot of L just sitting around, and your handful of items aren't gonna be making you much at the start

And once the MP wasn't tethered to the magic box thing anymore, the flood gates really opened up. All the creative virtual hobos finally had a way to set up a shop.

Also: It's a lot faster, more convent, more efficient, and easier-to-discover (visibility) when shopping. This is why it is popular on both sides of the retail coin: Merchants for what you describe, customers for what I describe.

Edited January 6, 2020 by Alyona Su