Mickey Vandeverre Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Topic:Anticipating the implementation of the Direct Delivery change-over during peak selling season - Holiday shopping.During past change-overs there has been considerable interruption to daily sales.For some, who rely on the holiday season for a boost in yearly sales, this might be frustrating or cause anxiety.In anticipation, I've scaled down on land costs, by turning in some parcels, and have also laid groundwork for an outside network, in which I can direct my own traffic, without relying too heavily on marketplace functions.Using your blog, you can arrange your product neatly into categories quite easily. Adding social networking using Twitter, Google+ , Facebook, Tumblr, etc.....you can direct traffic toward your blog, hence specific products.For a traffic disruption or service disruption to the marketplace...you can place slurls directly to your inworld store on your blog to try to solve that problem.If you do not already have a blog...now, or during the down-time you may easily set one up on Blogspot, Wordpress or Posterous for free - and those are easy to use, with many bells and whistles available.To use Facebook and Google+ you are required to use a real name. This might be a problem for most. Twitter works very well for your avatar and business name.You will also need to set up a bitly url shortener acct. so that you can track hits from the above to your blog. Wordpress has very good Stats that will identify what keywords were used to get to your blog and what links were hit at sites connecting to your blog and will also tell you whether they clicked on a marketplace product link or clicked on a slurl. That implies whether they chose to shop via marketplace or take a trip inworld, and is hand info (again, "implies")The above blog sites work very well with SEO. All you do is type in your keywords, then promote traffic from another source - twitter is very easy. Good traffic will rank your blog page even higher in a google search than the SL marketplace listing.By working that traffic....you can take control over what might seem like an awkward time period.You cannot make a tool like twitter function overnight. You have to build your network for maximum hits. There are many tutorials on how to do so.Last couple of months...while waiting on tools to be delivered....I've set up some stores (physical product - not related to virtual) and have learned many new ways of marketing and networking and have enjoyed the perks of well-functioning sites. This keeps the mind active for merchandising in the virtual world, and keeps you from giving up on the virtual world aspects that are still in beta. Much of what is learned there, will be transferable to the virtual world marketplace once functioning tools are in place.Financially, make sure you have back-up plan now, and don't wait until last minute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 it was for exactly the reasons you are trying to make contingency plans for what we all are pretty sure LL Commerce Team will do to us during the peak of the shopping season (since they do not care that if they deploy DD right in the middle of this season) that I have for the past year tried to reduce my dependency on MP. Read the other thread on how to offer discounts on MP and my idea of offering MP rebates to my customers if they buy my products inworld instead of MP. I ran a REBATE promo on MP that was awarded to any of my customers that bought my MP free demo box and ended up buying my landscape packs inworld. This marketing strategy reduce my customer's buying habbit of 90% sales on mp to only 70%. 20% more of my customers now window shop on MP and buy at my inworld store. Over the past 16 months I have established myself as a known SL inworld artist and beome pretty well known in that SL community. I use the traffic generated from there to get sales directed to my inworld store. I have also over the past 12 months established my sales on competing Grids to SL where I have now about 15% of all my sales coming from non LL SL grids. But... at the end - what I cant do to much about is that the most effective product search tool for selling in SL comes from the MP. If LL screws up MP during the busiest shopping season - as many of us fully expect they will..... my sales will still be dramatically impacted. Only so much you can do when LL has the monopoly on SL market presence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 I read that thread, and might be confused on what the goal is. You are suggesting offering two different prices, depending upon where they shop? If that's the case....I'm not comfortable with that. My customers shop both inworld and marketplace. The marketplace is for their own convenience, and do not want to charge higher price for that. Maybe I read it wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ann Otoole Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 if worried about it just continue to use the magic box until LL disables them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 My suggestion was based on the assumption that there would be glitches throughout the system. There was a glitch when they tweaked around the first of August. Best sellers were down for almost two weeks. Don't recall the next glitch date, but there was another one after that. Again...bread and butter sales took nosedive. Also...you have a tech oriented background, and are able to figure out what they are saying about boxing, putting into folders, this and that. I don't. And it will require some serious down time trying to grasp it all. Maybe everyone using the marketplace has a tech background. I'm not sure, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Exactly what Mickey says. LL Commerce Team has already on two occassions impacted MP operations and disrupted sales because of DD preparation changes - the other major MP disrupting change that LL is still trying to recover from was Sept 13th. Based on that, one would be pretty stupid to believe that the next round of LL Commerce DD related changes wont somehow screw up MP operations - regardless if the Merchant stays or moves over to DD. Finally, knowing how LL Commerce is on a specific DD deployment date regardless of how ready DD is for production, how long do you actually think LL Commerce is going to allow the Magicbox service to stay in operation? LL Commerce has made promises already that they have not kept regarding DD. They promised on a few occassions that they would be open and transparent about the details of DD - we still have seen nothing. They promised (Brooke's presentation at SLCC on video) that because DD involves actual financial transaction that they will be extra careful and fully test DD prior to it ever going into production - and we saw what happened on Sept 13th. As such, why would anyone believe that LL Commerce would leave Magicbox use for several months? Good chance that LL Commerce will likely force magicbox decommissioning very shortly after DD folders are made available. And seeing that these recent sim upgrades involved even more DD changes (when they have still not cleaned up their Sep 13th bugs), its seems clear that LL Commerce plans to deploy DD right in the middle of the busiest sales period of SL Merchant's sales year. So... staying on Magicboxes provides ZERO protection from LL Commerce's upcoming deployment flubs and the disruption of MP. Mickey, as for my strategy on encouraging my customers to shop more inworld by using rebates... I am not sure why you think that is confusing or not a good strategy. 90% of my total sales were coming from MP. That is dangerous for ANY busines - sl or rl - and even more dangerous when my 90% of sales are relient on LL's MP that has only seen service levels continue to drop and bugs continue to increase. My rebate strategy confused no customer. For those MP customers that saw and wanted to leverage my inworld buying rebate - they used it. For those that did not want to leverage my rebate - they simply continued to shop on MP. The good news is that I have now divert 20% of my customer sales to inworld sales! That protects me more against the anticipated LL DD upgrade disruptions on MP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Couldbe Yue Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 I'd say that the most effective thing to do (as has been demonstrated by many others in the past) is to diversify to other games platforms plus Renderosity, Turbosquid etc. Common sense would dictate that past performance from the owners of this platform is a good indication of how seriously they don't treat those who are trying to make an income from here and can be considered a good guide to future performance. Bit by bit, from both LL behaviour and the real life economy, retailers in here are finding their incomes reducing. If this is your sole income you do need to start diversifying now. As for everyone else, I'd suggest it's time to review whether the outcome you get from this constant dancing around trying to work out what LL has done to damage your income this time is worth it. Are you really happy with experiencing the Stockholm Syndrome? The reality is that working a couple hours a month flipping burgers would probably get you more money than you turn over in here and for a lot less effort. That's just me though and if you get your kicks from trying to outwit their latest roadblock to sucess then have fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 Toy, if 90% of your sales are coming from a venue that has almost zero overhead....why would you toy with that and direct those folks back to a venue that has major overhead? no, that doesn't make sense. I was talking about two different prices on products. I'm not comfortable having two different prices - - to me, that's not right. Basically, that's what you're doing with a rebate toward only one sampling of people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Mickey Vandeverre wrote: Toy, if 90% of your sales are coming from a venue that has almost zero overhead....why would you toy with that and direct those folks back to a venue that has major overhead? no, that doesn't make sense. I was talking about two different prices on products. I'm not comfortable having two different prices - - to me, that's not right. Basically, that's what you're doing with a rebate toward only one sampling of people. Why?? This is Business 101 on why. But let me explain why. Why would you think MP has almost zero overhead? Unless you are not paying any commissions, I pay 5% commissions on ALL my sales. This 5% is the same if I sell 1 item or 100 items a month. My inworld store cost overhead is fixed. I have to pay the same costs regardless if I sell 0, 1 or 100 items in my store. But, outside of the inworld store costs that are incurred regardless of where my product is sold, there are no product specific cost of sale. So lets use this knowledge on a couple examples: Scenario #1 : I sell 1 item @ 1000L > On MP: Total Revenue: 1000L / Cost of Sale: 50L / Profit to me: 950L > Inworld: Total Revenue: 1000L / Cost of Sale: 0L / Profit to me: 1000L Scenario #2: I sell 100 items @ 1000L > On MP: Total Revenue: 100,000L / Cost of Sale: 5,000L / Profit to me: 95,000L > Inworld: Total Revenue: 100,000L / Cost of Sale: 0L / Profit to me: 100,000L So now, if I could wave a magic wand on scenario #2 and redirect all my MP sales to inworld sales, I now have 5,000L more in my pocket that I could use to pay my fixed inworld store costs. Since my monthly rent for my store inworld is 1200L, I have just generated enough added profit to pay for 4 months of inworld rent. Not to mention the added benefit of my customers that visit my store inworld have entered a capture market of lots and only my products. When they look around they see all my landscape products and advertising and demos. This cant happen in MP. This means - very likely - more sales that I would not have got in MP. PS... if you are a merchant that is new and only makes 5 or 10 sales a month then you are right in that it would be more wise to just sell in MP since the overhead costs are lower in MP than inworld. BUT, my scenario is much closer to Scenario #2 and so its much more worth my while if I could get as much MP sales moved to inworld as possible. So.... exactly why do you think it makes no sense again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Mickey Vandeverre wrote: ... I was talking about two different prices on products. I'm not comfortable having two different prices - - to me, that's not right. Basically, that's what you're doing with a rebate toward only one sampling of people. And this price difference on the same product depending on the target customer doesnt happen in RL?? You havent gone to a store where they have a "WEB PRICE" for their product that says this price is only good if you buy from our online store? I sure have! You havent had a scenario where you get a special pricing on a product or service if you are a potential customer of a competing service and offered a deal to switch over? A price/deal that the current customers dont get? Happens to me all the time on my internet cable service. I could go on and on regarding RL examples. That being said, if an inworld customer of mine bring ups the offer that I have only on MP, I still honor the rebate to them. (I did - not do since I ended this promotional campaign in august). The promo campaign worked for me as now 70% of my sales are from MP. A year ago and for a long time prior to a year ago, 90% of my sales came from Xstreet/MP. I have been able to shift 20% of my MP sales to inworld. MORE PROFIT NOW IN MY HANDS and not LL. If I make about $100K L a month and if this trend holds, I now am making $1000L more profit a month. This almost pays my entire month's rent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Ohh Mickey, I should add one more thing about my BUY INWORLD promo..... the Rebate Campaign almost cost me nothing compared to other MP advertising marketing costs... My rebate value was around the cost of the 5% commission I would have had to pay LL anyway if the customer bought my product on MP. Instead of paying LL the 5% commission, I payed it to the customer as a rebate if they bought the same product inworld. Made sense to me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 Well...I think that a lot has to do with how many prims are required to set out a display. With my items, it requires a lot of prim cost inworld to set out one boxed offering. Not because the items are prim heavy, but because I pack a ton of stuff into one box. I'm not sure how to explain this. There was a cute guy sat in front of me during my college Econ classes and did not focus well on the subject matter.... I think that it has something to do with the concept of the Law of Diminishing Returns. (or something like that) Plus - you have to consider that not everything sitting on the shop floor is going to sell this week. You are paying prim cost for something that did not sell at all, On marketplace - you paid nothing. To continue to set out each offering would be massive amounts of prim cost. On marketplace I still consider it virtually free - that 5% is very close to zero in my head. (but that's because I've been paying top dollar for brick and mortar space and functional web shopping spaces/services - that are really crunching right now due to economy) The other thing is....I consider every purchase a customer makes as a message. If 90% purchase on marketplace - I would consider that a message that is the venue in which they prefer to shop in. Say that the marketplace functions normally each day....I don't understand why one would disregard that message, and direct efforts toward changing their minds. That doesn't make sense to me. As far as marketing time/efforts....(mine are limited with 4 different type stores right now - maybe you have more time)....but it doesn't make a ton of sense to me to use that time to redirect customers you already have, who have spoken on how they prefer to shop (and in addition possibly losing some for herding like sheep).... ....would rather spend those efforts going after new customers, or spend those efforts supplying new product, new discounts, new packaging to loyal customers.... rather than "herding." They've spoken where they prefer to shop and what is convenient for them. Offering convenience is as much of a perk as a discounted price often. My prices are already discounted big time anyway when I offer something on marketplace - it's almost always a promotional item now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ann Otoole Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Didn't you forget to factor in the tier you must pay for an in world store? If Marketplace accounts for 90% of my sales on average and most of my money goes to LL in tier then I stand to reap a lot more profit by dumping the in world stores and tiering down. And I can concentrate on making my Marketplace store better. When DD rolls and is found to be working properly then I don't even need the prims in world for magic boxes anymore. A 10% drop in revenue that results in a 100% increase in profit is worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 Yeah that, in a nutshell. Have often wanted to actually break it down by room settings, and attach a prim cost (tier cost) to each setting. per week. what it actually costs inworld to keep that set on the floor. Then compare that to marketplace 5% what it cost to offer that on marketplace. Then compare sales. Without going to all that trouble - can simply eyeball it by scanning sales per week. Don't really need to go to all that effort in computing - it's very very clear from eyeballing it. It also became very very clear when I turned in half a sim. "IF" they get marketplace functioning properly during/after change-over am probably going to turn more land in. To me (and my product)....it's a No Brainer. Yes....LOVE inworld store. LOVE inworld shopping, personally. LOVE having a massive store to play with and make cute settings with cute props. But it's not cost-effective if most prefer to shop in marketplace. Kinda reminds me of when I had a really cute high-priced retail store space downtown and everyone started shopping in the Burbs at the mall. Hated admitting that I could no longer have the cute store with atmosphere. Wasn't doable. Wasn't good business sense. Same here. But depends on whether you're here to play with a cute shop/atmosphere or whether you are here to have a real life business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 I don't care if they do it in RL or not. I think here....that it will piss people off by offering two different prices. People pay attention to that stuff. Even if they did not pay attention....I am not comfortable with it. And again.... you are herding them to what is convenient for you. And not on what is convenient for them. If your figure is 90% (I think that mine might be 75%)... That's a very loud message on what is convenient for your customer. I should probably compute that figure better for myself, rather than eyeball it... but in my explanation to Ann... I wish that I could accomodate that 25% or 10% to a glorious inworld shopping experience with cutesy props and atmosphere. But I'm not rich enough to do that. I also wish that 50% or more would continue to shop inworld, so that I could justify the above, or that they would adjust tier fees to the economy.... But they aren't going to do that. And it ain't gonna happen. Seems that you are bucking a trend that may not reverse itself....and may turn into 95% or 100%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Mickey Vandeverre wrote: Have often wanted to actually break it down by room settings, and attach a prim cost (tier cost) to each setting. per week. what it actually costs inworld to keep that set on the floor. I did that with my dining rooms, because when people go around rezzing a place setting for 8 or 6 on each table, the prims skyrocket. So I estimated the prim count for each, plugged it into a formula I made on excel, and each one that was not earning significantly more than just to cover the prim cost, I deleted and just have it on the marketplace. I keep track of kitchen, living, and bedroom sets and if something is not selling enough to make the prims worthwhile, it loses its inworld place. Before I did this I just kept making more stuff and buying more land, but I am not going to do that anymore -- I will reduce the rezzed prims rather than just get more prims. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Mickey Vandeverre wrote: I don't care if they do it in RL or not. I think here....that it will piss people off by offering two different prices. People pay attention to that stuff. Even if they did not pay attention....I am not comfortable with it. And again.... you are herding them to what is convenient for you. And not on what is convenient for them. If your figure is 90% (I think that mine might be 75%)... That's a very loud message on what is convenient for your customer. I should probably compute that figure better for myself, rather than eyeball it... but in my explanation to Ann... I wish that I could accomodate that 25% or 10% to a glorious inworld shopping experience with cutesy props and atmosphere. But I'm not rich enough to do that. I also wish that 50% or more would continue to shop inworld, so that I could justify the above, or that they would adjust tier fees to the economy.... But they aren't going to do that. And it ain't gonna happen. Seems that you are bucking a trend that may not reverse itself....and may turn into 95% or 100%. OK Mickey.... "YOU THINK" they would be pissed off? See there is a difference between you "thinking" or "speculating" and me that has "experienced" and "know" that they wont and DIDNT get pissed. You are debating your assumption to my 9 month actual execution of the promo. No one got pissed. In fact, the vast majority of my customers that are in MP and noticed the rebate offer were double happy because not only did they find the product they wanted - they were excited to get an actual cash refund from me when they contacted me. And... if there was any customer inworld that knew of the offer because a friend that bought the product via the rebate - I fully honored the rebate to this customer too. The customer that simply went to my inworld store and bought as they always planned to buy and were not aware of the MP rebate - how could they be mad about a deal they didnt know about in the first place. So... let me remove your "THINK" and "ASSUMPTION".... they did not get pissed. I gained more sales... FACT! What both you and even Ann are missing is that you are not a merchant in SL to see how many sales you can make. If that is your measure of success - you wont be in business long. You are in business to maximize PROFITS! Its all about PROFITS.... not # of sale transactions. As such, you need to assess your fixed costs (which is generally what your inworld store generates and which is fixed regardless of the number of sales) and the variable per-sale costs which MP hits you with. Ann, I thought I made myself very clear in two of my examples. I PAY RENT. A merchant that pays rent does not pay a teir. To repeat myself... I pay a monthly rent of $1200L. Thats it. I dont pay a teir on top of my rent. You are being duped if your inworld store is charing you both rent and a teir. lol I am a bit surprised how this is such a complex topic of simple basics of business operations. My fixed costs on my store are... FIXED. that means that the number of sales do not impact it. What that does also mean that since inworld costs are FIXED then the greater the number of sales inworld... the lower the per/sale fixed costs are. Therefore, if my fixed costs are $1200L/month then if I can generate a culture of convincing more MP customers to only use MP as a search engine... then a "herding" of about 25% of my monthly MP sales to inworld ... PAYS MY RENT... PAYS MY FIXED COSTS. And Ann... I already said in another post, if you are a merchant that only make about 10 or 20 sales a month... then dont have an inworld store since the fixed costs of an inworld store will be greater than the 5% commision you pay LL in MP. I generate about 80-100K L per month. Redirecting a percent of these sales to inworld is a huge advantage for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 The fact of the matter is that you can believe my strategy on rebate promo to "herd" sales inworld, or you can not believe what I have said, or you can make your own assumptions if it might or might not work. That is fully your choice. I did it most of 2011 and it proved very successful for me. I had customers that were even more happy than before. I redirected about 20% of my sales inworld that seems to be holding for now. I know I made additional sales by convincing the MP customer to buy inworld... when they saw my other products, were forced to talk to me, and saw my live product demos. If you dont believe me or hate the strategy.... thats fine. Doesnt bother me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcus Hancroft Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Mickey Vandeverre wrote: I don't care if they do it in RL or not. I think here....that it will piss people off by offering two different prices. People pay attention to that stuff. Even if they did not pay attention....I am not comfortable with it. And again.... you are herding them to what is convenient for you. And not on what is convenient for them. If your figure is 90% (I think that mine might be 75%)... That's a very loud message on what is convenient for your customer. I should probably compute that figure better for myself, rather than eyeball it... but in my explanation to Ann... I wish that I could accomodate that 25% or 10% to a glorious inworld shopping experience with cutesy props and atmosphere. But I'm not rich enough to do that. I also wish that 50% or more would continue to shop inworld, so that I could justify the above, or that they would adjust tier fees to the economy.... But they aren't going to do that. And it ain't gonna happen. Seems that you are bucking a trend that may not reverse itself....and may turn into 95% or 100%. I have seen SO many shopping malls and stores close in my 3 years of SL. Inworld shopping is definitely suffering now because of the Marketplace. Store owners can't afford to keep paying tier fees (or rent) on a parcel (or sim) that isn't generating traffic and sales and so the store (or mall) shuts down. I MUCH prefer to shop inworld so I can see the products first hand before I buy. I might use the marketplace to find exactly what I'm looking for, but if there's an inworld store, I go there to purchase. I see nothing wrong with offering an inworld shopping rebate to customers. They can either take advantage of the offer or not as they decide and I am currently considering implementing Toy's idea myself to see if I can get more traffic into my store. I just hate to see all the inworld stores closing. I hate it, hate it, hate it. It's like a Wal-Mart Supercenter opened next to a bunch of Mom and Pop stores and took away their business. (Speaking of the Marketplace here) I know, I know...people complain...waiting for things to rez, lag, on and on. But we complain when we go shopping in RL also. No parking spaces, rude employees, on and on. And yet we still go to the grocery stores, malls and stuff to get our needs. I, too, see special offers for web only or store only sales. I guess I just need to shut up now. I'm rambling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 Marcus Hancroft wrote: Mickey Vandeverre wrote: I don't care if they do it in RL or not. I think here....that it will piss people off by offering two different prices. People pay attention to that stuff. Even if they did not pay attention....I am not comfortable with it. And again.... you are herding them to what is convenient for you. And not on what is convenient for them. If your figure is 90% (I think that mine might be 75%)... That's a very loud message on what is convenient for your customer. I should probably compute that figure better for myself, rather than eyeball it... but in my explanation to Ann... I wish that I could accomodate that 25% or 10% to a glorious inworld shopping experience with cutesy props and atmosphere. But I'm not rich enough to do that. I also wish that 50% or more would continue to shop inworld, so that I could justify the above, or that they would adjust tier fees to the economy.... But they aren't going to do that. And it ain't gonna happen. Seems that you are bucking a trend that may not reverse itself....and may turn into 95% or 100%. I have seen SO many shopping malls and stores close in my 3 years of SL. Inworld shopping is definitely suffering now because of the Marketplace. Store owners can't afford to keep paying tier fees (or rent) on a parcel (or sim) that isn't generating traffic and sales and so the store (or mall) shuts down. I MUCH prefer to shop inworld so I can see the products first hand before I buy. I might use the marketplace to find exactly what I'm looking for, but if there's an inworld store, I go there to purchase. I see nothing wrong with offering an inworld shopping rebate to customers. They can either take advantage of the offer or not as they decide and I am currently considering implementing Toy's idea myself to see if I can get more traffic into my store. I just hate to see all the inworld stores closing. I hate it, hate it, hate it. It's like a Wal-Mart Supercenter opened next to a bunch of Mom and Pop stores and took away their business. (Speaking of the Marketplace here) I know, I know...people complain...waiting for things to rez, lag, on and on. But we complain when we go shopping in RL also. No parking spaces, rude employees, on and on. And yet we still go to the grocery stores, malls and stuff to get our needs. I, too, see special offers for web only or store only sales. I guess I just need to shut up now. I'm rambling. I don't like penalizing someone on price depending upon which venue they want to shop in. That's what it boils down to, to me. No biggie. If it works for you great. The message that I get from Toy on that is that....you go out of your way to come inworld and shop to support my inworld store and I'll give you a kick-back. Plus - it sounds like he is choosing who gets a kick-back on whims - and I don't care much for that practice. I think that I noticed that back when I used to give special deals to group members - because they have supported me through the years, and want to reward that. First day an item hit the floor - group members were able to purchase it a deep discount before I ran it on marketplace. But while people were shopping in the store (not group members) - they noticed the deep discount price one day, then saw another price later in the week and asked about that. I remember having to explain that many times - and it became uncomfortable to explain. I explained that if they joined the group - then they could get the deep discounts - but then they explained to me that they were out of group slots - also explained that they only drop in once a week and cannot always get there on a one day promotion - - so I reconsidered some things. Now....anyone gets the deep discount first day. Because my marketing/promotion efforts have changed from heavy group activity to more of a social networking/blog activity....it is open to anyone now. When I set a promotional price on something....I offer it in 2 venues. They may choose. I wish there were a 3rd or 4th legitimate venue to choose from. I do not charge extra because they chose convenience and never will. eta: ooops, have to adjust that - never is not good word to use! and do in fact offer the deep discount inworld only for a few days, but once I get it up on marketplace it is at regular promotional price - that's a function of expressing importance of following blog and twitter posts and group posts. on a regular basis, day to day product offerings..... I do not want to give the impression that I prefer a shopper to shop online or inworld. Different people prefer different settings. I do not want to influence their choices on that. It is up to them which is more convenient to them. It's nice to still be able to offer both. Different strokes for different folks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 uh oh - capital letters! in trouble now. Your way is working for you - that's great. Not sure how you have your items set up inworld....boxed only? 1200L a month? my tier is 3 or 4k a day. We're on two different tangents here. Doubt we can compare effectively. If you don't have to set your product out - then we can't make a comparison. Even with boxed sets out only - still no comparison - your product line is much smaller. I ran business from a different philosophy. #1 is Customer not profits Most mentors I had stressed that and it just feels right. I know that many here have the same philosophy by listening to them. Add #2 Love what you do. then profits will come from that. Never got rich doing that...but it worked pretty well for a few businesses that I loved. Not so well with those that were not loved. (if we don't get some good tools - one is headed that direction) I'm not really debating anything - just expressing some points. Take it or leave it. Personally....appears you are behind the times and headed wrong direction. oh...and you will not always know if they got pissed or not - they simply won't come back. your comment: "The customer that simply went to my inworld store and bought as they always planned to buy and were not aware of the MP rebate - how could they be mad about a deal they didnt know about in the first place." gosh....that's awkward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ann Otoole Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 How do you advertise your rebate promo? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 OK so you are playing with semantics. So if you are a merchant in SL to be philanthropic since your #1 objective is to do whatever satisfies the customer beyond any other priority - inlcuding profits - then we are comparing apples to oranges. Most business RL and SL I know are in business to make a PROFIT. You are playing games in wording on how you portray it. To make a profit, you need to accomplish two primary critical goals of which #1 better be higher than #2: 1) You need to generate Sales / Revenue 2) You need to manage and reduce costs to as effective as possible So how do you generate revenue? > Offer an awesome product that is in demand in the market (i have seemed to lock that for my landscape packs) > Offer the best Pre & Post sales service to your customers (here is where I excel in my business) > Find effective innovative means to market, advertise your product - get your product known in the market So how do you reduce costs? > Know your business costs! Know how costs impact sales and operations. Understand it ! > Find ways to reduce no/low value costs to the business (i.e. costs that if removed would not impact business) > Think outside the box and dont do business practices just because others do. Run your business to fit your business So since keeping my customers happy in order to have them as repeat customers is a critical aspect of generating revenue, I do see that my Customer is very important to me. BUT, unlike you where you say your #1 priority is Customer before Profit. If I ran my business based on your priority, then why dont I give my products away? A customer of yours would be the most happy if you gave your products away for free. Afterall, profits is not a priority to you. I shake my head when I hear ppl fling buzzword business phrases like "the customer is the 1st priority" when its profit that is the first priority for a business. If not - then you are not a business. Tell your shareholders that "our #1 priority is to do whatever it takes to keep our customers happy - so dont worry about the losses we will make.". I dont know your business Mickey. If you truly do believe you need an entire sim to run your inworld business, that is a HUGEEE fixed internal cost. If you dont want to leverage it to its fullest by trying to get your customers to shop in it and generate even more costs on MP commissions, then thats your call. From what your are saying about your business, you can call me behind the times, but my profit margins on my total sales in SL every month is about 93%. Just to help you on this... that means that for every $100L in sales I make each month, and after ALL much MP and inworld costs are added up, $93L goes in my pocket and are cashed out into my RL! Ohh and I accomplish this now and have accomplished this for over 2 years straight with amazingly happy customers selling primarily 6 major products and about a dozen supporting products and a few old legacy products. Ohhh and I do this with the ability to run both an MP and an inworld store where I can use my rented parcel of land to also host my 6 story art gallery and my SL home. So yeah I must be really behind the times but I guess I dont mind being behind the times if this is the situation I am in. I dont know what your margins are. Are you willing to tell me what your monthly proift Margins are while your #1 priority is to keep your customer happy? I would love to know your monthly Margins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 Well I'm not a teenager...and putting the Customer as #1 priority is not exactly a newfangled buzzword phrase. In fact...watching these tech companies operate - it's all gone out the window on that concept - except for Zappos - appears like they are grasping the old-fashioned way and doing pretty good with it. Generally - if you put the customer as #1 priority - all the rest of that stuff falls into place if you can add a good business head with it. Not discounting the importance of profit - as stated, not rich. Not sure how you come up with the concept that I can do Philanthropy in the virtual world while working 3 other jobs plus some other major stuff. Certainly never expressed that concept in any forum posts. Would be a blast though! one of these days, maybe. need a sugar daddy. You say you don't know my business. Click on the freakin' link and take a look. It's furniture and accessories. To make it look pretty - we have to set that stuff out, and add some pretty props here and there. Do you set your stuff out? Did you set out some cute halloween pumpkins and bales of hay and goblins in front of your store entrance this week? Do you do that stuff? That stuff that requires prims? Dang - the halloween cupcake tray and punch bowl serving set is going to take up about 60 prims - gonna have to remove the fish and chips van for a month. It's not even my own design - so can't sell it and make PROFIT. Ambiance! How much do you spend on ambiance? heck no, I'm not going to toss out numbers. Dang sure-fire way to lose your business. Sounds like you want to have a contest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 Mickey Vandeverre wrote: ... You say you don't know my business. Click on the freakin' link and take a look. It's furniture and accessories. To make it look pretty - we have to set that stuff out, and add some pretty props here and there. Do you set your stuff out? Did you set out some cute halloween pumpkins and bales of hay and goblins in front of your store entrance this week? Do you do that stuff? That stuff that requires prims? Dang - the halloween cupcake tray and punch bowl serving set is going to take up about 60 prims - gonna have to remove the fish and chips van for a month. It's not even my own design - so can't sell it and make PROFIT. Ambiance! How much do you spend on ambiance? heck no, I'm not going to toss out numbers. Dang sure-fire way to lose your business. Sounds like you want to have a contest. Well I guess there is where your SL business and mine differs. Considering the fact that my sales history has already proven that even with a prolonged effort to culture and redirect my customers to hopefully buy at my inworld - 70% of my customers still prefer to buy on MP, it already proves to me that live demos, and inworld spinning logos, and even seasonal halloween pretty bails of hay (which I would never do for my inworld store) have no value to my customers. i.e. 70% of my customers - even knowing that I have an inworld store with demo samples to see would rather just buy my product from the few photos I provide them on MP. As such, I have already long time ago decided that wasting prims in my inworld store to seasonally pretty it up has no value for my customers. And that I know for a fact. MY customer base is primarily the serious SL Builder of stuff that uses my products as inputs to what they are making to show to others or sell as a more complex build. My customers know exactly what they want and can see it simply from the descriptions and photos I provide on MP. 30% of the remaining customers do actually want to see samples of my landscape sculpty maps before buying or simply prefer to shop inworld. But they would buy inworld at my store if I have pretty bails of hay at my front door or not. This sounds like a different target customer than yours. Your customers need to see the "pretty". They want to be wowed by the finished preduct or the theme or the department store display settings. If they dont see it then it sounds like they would rather take their $L elsewhere. So I guess I am the more lucky merchant / creator in that I am working with a customer that knows what they want and is not swayed by the "pretty". They want to see facts, samples, good photos of the shapes, and they ocassionally ask me questions on which of my packs best suits they current build projects. This means my inworld store can be less prim loaded than yours. This means my inword store fixed costs can be lower. This means my over profit margins for my SL business would be greater. Lucky Me. As for tossing your numbers. Thats fine. No prob. I have a feeling about what your profit margins are simple based on your high inworld store overhead costs thaty ou say are a must to run your business successfully. I dont want a contest - I was just trying to prove a point when you said I seem to be "behind the times". But if your profit margins in SL are better than 93% then maybe your right. I suspect I am not behind the times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
YouTube
Flickr
Recommended Posts
Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now