MarketPlace Strategies... Enhancements?

[Haveit Neox]

I really got some interesting feedback on this question. Thanks so much to those who responded. Some of the items about marketing I must admit I don't understand yet, but I'm taking note. Not being too clever with strategies (a mouse would beat me out of a maze, then have to return to rescue me), it's very interesting to see the various points of view. I have a lot more to go on now with the offered advice, and also with reference to sites I'd never heard of before such as tribe and the mysterious system of ad visibility. 

[Haveit Neox]

Mickey, I'm taking your idea about prims into consideration. I will most likely try for that magical number of a 25 prim limit in the near future for certain builds. Thanks for setting that out as a unit of measurement. I don't know what a super promotion is, so sorry I didn't know how to answer back about that.

[Pamela Galli]

Havelit, there are simple programs sold on the MP that can enable you to cut a lot of prims from your current very nice build. IM me if you want a name.

[Sassy Romano]

Haveit, I sent a number of comments inworld because that's where I was but for completeness, i'll summarise here.

As per Mylars comments, I was also confused.  Superb build that I arrived at but it wasn't clear to me that it was the item you were selling.  I'd go for a "shop" skybox maybe with all the adverts of the items in one place and tp methods to the actual builds to view.  I don't have time to spend ages trying to hunt down what you're wishing to sell to me.  Remember, I have hair, dress and shoe shopping that are priorities

I'd reinforce the Pick entry, to make it clear that's the "shop" part.  I might have missed it, maybe it would be ok if it was clear when arriving that I was at the shop.

You are using the SLURL on the MP listing to take people straight to the product so bonus point.

You have NOT set up related items on marketplace so have failed to cross link your items and market to someone who is already viewing one product so i'm having the above bonus point back.

Lovely sim though, great items, loved the baked lighting and sorry for the naked exhibition but I have a script that removes my clothes when I enter water and your SLURL to "Marionette" plopped me in water.

[Darrius Gothly]

(Shameless Plug) I happen to know a guy that sells a reasonably priced, one-touch point to point teleporter that could make great sales signs that when touched take you right to the builds.

@Sassy: Remind me to send you a few "special" LMs sometime. LOL

[Mickey Vandeverre]

Hi Haveit -

the 25 prims was not really a magic number, just a ballpark number.  I don't sell structures so not sure what a magic number would be, but you can figure that out with some experimentation on your own products.  And you might have a market with the higher prim version.  Just might not be as large a market.  But there is a niche for everyone.

By super promotion I just mean that when I put an item into the featured listing slot I push it with some extra promotion to group, blog, twitter...give it an extra shove.

You would need to have those things in place to do that, and it doesn't happen overnight.  The larger the group, the larger the blog following, the larger the twitter following...gives it that extra push.  If you get a lower prim pavilion made, let me know...I'll do some plugs for you...but I think those are wasted on the higher prim version.  Most of my customers are into low prims.  And the push has to come daily and keep momentum.  Not really something someone can do for you with just a few mentions. 

Great advice from others on getting some more product available. At least get that first page full.  I ran a few new featured listings yesterday, and a few of those sold right away...but other sales tripled for the day, so might assume that some of those sales came from featured listing clicks to main store page....

but I couldn't really tell this week...the measurement functions on my merchant page are not working at the moment.  Those would be your report features, and you can get a wee bit of info from those by watching hits.  I emphasize "wee bit"...

beyond that we have to guess and assume a bit.  But I do believe that there is huge impact on overall sales from a featured listing if you have other product ready to go.  And I believe that trickles into the inworld store, as the inworld sales were up yesterday too.

[Mickey Vandeverre]

the Valentine's thing was a not so subtle hint. 

here's one for Toy....that is not so subtle.  (we seem to be struggling here)

he can click on those featured listings...look at the merchant's first page of product (best sellers)...

is that featured item on their first page?  second page?

Voila! or Duh!

one of those.

 

 

[Rya Nitely]

I can only go on my own experience. I've tried listing enhancements. I even took out a listing enhancement because some people here swore by them. They didn't work for me. I experienced no significant increase in sales for that item or overall.

My partner, who was very pro-listing enhancements, finally gave up on them as a useless waste of money. He hated to admit that I was right.

I tend to lean towards Toy's argument here. People looking at the enhancements probably are more interested in clothes, skins and other eye catching pretty things.. And in my case, I really don't think it's product presentation, because we are doing well enough with our marketplace sales. 

 

I do remember though that listing enhancements were more effective in Xstreet, and that probably had to do with seeing 8 images at once, which made it more interesting to watch.

[Josh Susanto]

But if 1 listing enhancement actually works, it's harder for anyone to persuade you that you'll need more than one to really accomplish anything.

This is just one of about eleventy-billion things that should lead us to think that SLM is intentionally less efficient than Xstreet.

Someone does not want SLM to work for others if it does not work for him, and probably has both personal interest and personal influence in its imminent failure.

What sincere Lindens should look for as a lead on their malicious insider's alts:

1) In world store is administered by person other than renter, and transaction history does not demonstrate normal sub-tenant relationship (yet).

2) Product in store correlates to SLM product in category or categories proportionately most flagged for more than one flagging type. They will also be underperforming items that would benefit from having search rankings reversed, at least temporarily. When you look for your own ad, you will see this person's same ad at least twice before you see yours.

3) Store administrator repeatedly BUYS overpriced items from other merchant, and is the only buyer, or almost the only buyer for such items. Both these items and the other items will have abnormally low flag rates, as a whole (until at least  today, anyway). The overpriced items will not have been advertised as of today.

4) Avatars of renter, store administrator and merchant are all similar in age, if not the same age. If the cash-out merchant is older, he will either be at least a year older than the others, or his date of birth will correspond closely (before or after) the birth of one of the Lindens. This Linden will be intimately involved with SLM decisions, and possibly in-world variables affecting box function on a region-by-region basis.