Todays Contest!! What will LL mess up in the update!!

[Toysoldier Thor]

So Darrius....

If this USER LICENSE is exactly what you say it is.... then where on the listing do I offer the actual USER AGREEMENT note that is currently in my boxed item? 

How can a user agree to a USER LICENSE that they cannot read ahead of time?

Maybe this is why the USER LICENSE permission joy buzzer makes no sense.

As a customer I can click "I AGREE" and since there was nothing to agree to... I am legally safe from any agreed to terms.

This joy buzzer does nothing but add another click to my customers.

[Darrius Gothly]

As I mention in my comment to the JIRA (in response to CTL's comment):

"@CT Linden - I see the option on the Edit Item page, but we really need more information on what it's supposed to do. I don't see any place to enter the License Agreement that the Customer must agree to before being allowed to purchase the product. Where is that entered? If the License Agreement is not entered (which is isn't cuz I can't find where to enter it) but the User Licensed option is selected, is there any harm to the product listing and/or that might prevent customers from purchasing?"

As of yet, no response.

[Toysoldier Thor]

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

I don't believe Toy is talking about actual errors in the displayed value, I believe he is referring to the downturn in expected revenues after each update. While it's not possible to calculate the difference exactly, anyone with some historical data and a bit of chart making expertise can point to clear dips in actual income versus what would have been statistically predicted.

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So Darrius, as per your request and without taking days to create, here is a chart of my profit taking from SecondLife from as far back as Oct 2010 (that is as far back as my PayPal payout to $US transaction go on the SL history logs). 

Since I generally liquidate my SL account to $0L when my balance reaches about $100US, the best way to represent my running tab of profits over time was to convert each event to a AVG $ PROFITS / DAY PER EVENT.  Each bar you see on the chart is an actual Paypal withdraw event and its Avg$/Day on that event.

So a few things to note on the chart.

-  The trend prior to this chart's 1st event was about the same.  It was quite stable since late fall 2009.  What you are seeing is how my long stable trend begins to end shortly after Brooke's arrival at LL Commerce.

-  Notice the frequency of withdraws to Paypal and how they radically shift from almost a weekly event to event not happening for 2 to 3 weeks at a time.

-  Notice the major decline that began almost on AUG 1 when LL executed some not fully known changes which caused a lot of grief to merchants - including me - andof which my sales never recovered from.

-  Notice the Sep 13th disaster changes to SLM that Commerce deployed and how it even further collapsed my sales.  It has now flattened out to this new low level.

-  I am sure the LL CheerLeaders will come up with countless non-LL related excuses / reasons why my sales have noticably declined since summer of this year when Brooke's team began executing some of their changes to SLM.  But in my opinion these changes are primarily related to the current LL commerce team's handling of the SLM.

 

[Josh Susanto]

You know I'm no cheerleader.

But one more thing to consider is your degree of participation or nonparticipation in the transition to mesh.

When the release of mesh to the main grid came to be considered imminent, a lot of competing stuff probably stopped being purchased at established frequency, as people were instead waiting to buy meshes.

And then when mesh was deployed, people either shifted buying habits toward mesh, or continued to wait for mesh to become a better-established norm before making certain types of decisions.

You also know that I haven't always had positive things to say about Brooke. 

But the only way the problems you're having can be blamed on one person, at least in a prolonged pattern as shown, is if the person to blame is at the top of the organization.

To put it another way, if Brooke hasn't been fired, that's not her own fault because it's someone else's decision.

As for me, I don't have any graphs for you, but my own sales have just been way, way up for a couple of months now... at least until today, when I suddenly can't list anything new. 

To be fair, though, I'm not at all shocked; I was totally expecting ANY update to mess up my total process, since they always have done so before. 

OTOH, LL hasn't done anything I can see to thwart the sale of existing items, so this update is at least better than previous ones. 

[Toysoldier Thor]

good thoughts but for a population to shift toward not buying sculpties and wait for mesh ... this would not be a shift that happens iwithin 1 week.  I had a major collapse on Aug 1.

Secondly, anyone that knows mesh knows that meshed landscapes are still not a viable competitor ro Sculpties.  but i am sure some customer / builders might think it is. 

I am not saying Brooke single handedly was to blame but as the new manager of the commerce group, her leadership on the team's direction and execution of plans is under her guidance.  The whole LL commerce and development team has flaws.

For me, thes sales from about late aug seems to be my new norm that i have to just accept.

[Mickey Vandeverre]

My chart is similar.  I quit charting back in September, but can eyeball it - the same.  Merely ...let's call it a "placeholder" until they get new management on the marketplace.  Not giving up several years worth of efforts and training because of one crew.  It will change.

I think a lot of decline has to do with not adding new product every day.  My theory from watching product positioning like a hawk, by the day, by the hour, for months, then seeing downturn.....is that August and September time period, when something happened pretty much overnight, and we talked about that.  Convinced it has to do with a change in algorithms.  Tricky to explain, but has to do with the kind of a nosedive that a product that places first page takes after a few days.

I think that the key to adjusting for that, is to list, list, list daily....like you're on a hamster wheel....and run the numbers like Josh does.

I like Josh's business model....but I want a more efficient approach than climbing on that wheel every day.  I want solid placement, based on past efforts....which I can get in any other venue.  You do the work, you make the right stuff, it places, and it's solid.  It does NOT nosedive on a whim overnight.

Efficiency-wise and good-business-wise...one should not have to get on that hamster wheel daily.  Your solid performers should keep you in business from day to day, without having to add 1000 more items to run a numbers game. 

There's no sense in running that type of show unless you're retired or independently wealthy and goofing off.  If that's the case, get out of my way.

NO OFFENSE to anyone.

But they call this thing a "market" place.  Let's "market."

Adding 50 products a week, while they jack with your best sellers and leave 100 perfectly fine and perfectly sale-worthy products sitting in the middle of your store, which you have NO tools to promote, such as CATEGORIES - THE MOST BASIC OF ANY ONLINE STORE'S TOOLS.....or at the very least the opportunity to adjust your front page listing orders.....

....that's just busy work.  It's not necessary.  Only a hamster would do that.

Unless you have a screwed up "market" place.

Then....some relatively smart people that can have a dang good biz going, based solely on product already designed and available (yet hidden).....decide whether or not to spin that hamster wheel....

.....while the current crew plays around in the office, and counts on that fact that there is a steady stream of wise hamsters and not-so-wise hamsters logging in every day to cloud that very clear chart that you have there, Toy....very similar to the chart that I have.

 

....

 

 

[Mickey Vandeverre]

I think that I shall expand a bit....if you don't mind.  Yes, I know...most mind.

But I just logged into another venue to wrap up biz for the day.

5 minutes, and I can tell the following:

the keywords, "purplish green thing-a-ma-bob" scored in the google search today.  the keywords "OMG it's stunning" scored big time in the site search today.

15 people checked out my "amazing magical golden egg" category today.  10 people looked at Golden Egg Model A  - 5 of those from noon and in the next 10 minutes.

at noon, when I tweeted one product....the graph shows an upswing off the chart practically.  It even indicates what type of device they read the tweet on.  Imagine that.

when a particular product was "featured" today....that chart shows how many exact hits it got from that page.

That chart shows which site page each hit came from. 

It updates in about 2 minutes.  You tweet - 2 minutes later - bingo, there's the count for you.

oh....I could go on forever. 

Tomorrow...those who read their charts for as little as five minutes tonight....can go in and do some serious business in the morning. Serious business that spreads across the site, then spreads via that trendy new buzz thing called "social media."  Maybe make some adjustments, maybe do some things different tomorrow or the next day.  (in other words....become efficient and profitable)

Maybe rearrange their CATEGORIES a bit.  Categories?  Categories you say?

Maybe redo their keywords a bit.  Keywords?  You know those things we slap on the page and wonder about?  Hit or miss?

oh....I could go on forever.