Marina Ramer Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 I am builder for 3 years now in SL, I am member of Merchants protection alliance, and for me, my sl store its as well my RL income, and when I first started years ago all that you found for free was really ugly or useless.Right now due to many people who “for fun” creates freebies or very low price products, I mean ridiculous low prices, it is hurting our business more and more everyday, as you well said we spend time training for years to know about scripting, sculpting, texturing, animating, we spend hours learning, hours working, of our rl lives a lot of investment on costs too, many times, time and money, both and we have not only to deal with the competence who is also more and more everytime and low their prices more and more to compite, but also with this people that offers dollarbies or freebies, not only ingame but also on Marketplace.I also participate in lot of hunts and as they are only ingame and for a limited time I think they are not the big deal, or a gift that you offer to your group form time to time, for me the biggest damage its made on marketplace, where they allow all free stuff to come first in search, so people “buyers” has to pass trough 15/20 pages of freebies and dollarbies or more to actually get to see your product.So yes I ask to that people that “for fun” gives away all what they make, at leats give to their friends or relatives, or if you really need the feel to give away make it ingame on your own space, but do not put into marketplace, hurting other people who really needs to get an income to live! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 Although I do agree that the Marketplace has recently been a big factor to the overall erosion of SL's economy and product valuation model, I do disagree with your belief that Hunts and Midnight Mania and magic seats were / are not a factor. In fact, I strongly believe and many fellow merchant agree that Midnight Mania was the Mothership inworld store advertising scheme that started the erosion of SL's economy. Moreso the massive abuse and addiction of concepts like MM by Merchants that either didnt know or didnt care about the long term impacts of giving away more and more high quality / expensive items in order to keep MM hunters interested. This issue was brought up way back in 2009 - well be Marketplace was the huge overwhelming success it is now (as MP continues to destroy the inworld store economy). I wrote a blog on this topic. You can read about this... http://toytalks.weebly.com/1/post/2011/03/ll-releases-their-own-slm-kraken-with-dash-deal.html Just my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marina Ramer Posted January 6, 2012 Author Share Posted January 6, 2012 Yep toysolider I agree with you about that too, in the past when MM started and was on the top of the "boom" two year ago it did started all this, and you are right on that. But I think right now on this moment people is not the way they used to be with that, you call a mm and maybe 2, 3 persons show up at your store and not 100 like it happened years ago when it started, you agree? Thats why I talk about the present, if you sell on Marketplace like I do you will notice that maybe the 90% of more of your sales comes form there, so thats why my point focuses on that... for me is still the biggest damage against us currently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alicia Sautereau Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 No offense, but all i can say is "lol" I bought a walkway that wasn`t cheap, but very cool. 1 week later, i learned blender, sculpties, fractionals the ins&outs with possibilities and improved it. You know what? when my house is finished, again (thanks asset server), that i will put on the market place for l$0 , i will be putting some time again to make some sculpty stuff and give it out for free aswell. While we are on the whiny tour, some will remember i had a tier system for estates 3 years ago for wich people now pay alot of money, i`m in the early stages of recoding it from scratch and make it free for every one to host it them selfs... And then i`m going to add some additional modules, like a rental box, overal accounting overview, vendors and security system tied to the user`s land in the tier/rental module... Who evers remembers me from the old days, *waves*, i`m back with a vengence against overpriced stuff :matte-motes-evil: /end rant, see you in a couple of months again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Toshi Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 Well All I gotta say is the really good freebies is from really good stores that actually have income other then you. Instead of pointing a finger I would maybe try to build better things... Sorry I had to say it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alicia Sautereau Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 I`m with you on that aswell Toshi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ganelon Darkfold Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 I'll start off by saying that I am not an SL vendor, but I am a customer/consumer. I think that part of the problem you're talking about (or perhaps "difference from rl business" would be a better way to say it) is that in SL there are no costs for raw materials or labour. In rl, those factors result in a cost which would make giving away items for free or very low prices prohibitive. It would just be too expensive for most people to be that generous. That being said, people who create an item can sell it for whatever they like in SL. Logically, the price will reflect the ingenuity, time and effort they put into it. But if they feel they want to sell it for a bargain price, for whatever reason they might have, isn't that their decision to make? I don't sell on the marketplace or have a shop, but I've sometimes sold copies of items I've made myself if a visitor asked to buy them. I've usually sold them for little or given them for nothing, since I don't have much interest in business in SL. I can understand where some people are trying to make an income, but I am not, and so I don't even check to see what the item might be going for on the marketplace. Some people are here for business and some just like making stuff. If the marketplace forbid 0L$ items, then they'd end up becoming 1L$ items. Bar the 1L$ items and they'd become 2L$ items. It would take a lot of little steps like that before the problem as you explain it would be "fixed". And what about the many things that are minor items that are very reasonable to sell for 1L$ or so? Trying to eliminate first freebies and dollarbies and then "2dollarbies" and then "3dollarbies" and so on isn't likely to actually solve the problem you're seeing. It would cut out an awful lot of the marketplace before it adequately "protected" say, 500L$ items that someone might actually make a relaible rl income from. But the discerning shopper is still going to be willing to pay a reasonable price for quality goods. So long as quality goods aren't something the average "hobby level" builder can put together, they'll still command the better price. But if an 800L$ items isn't better than a 1L$ item, then it's going to fail with shoppers, and that's kind of unavoidable. I'd seriously question whether that principle should be "fixed". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 Alicia Sautereau wrote: No offense, but all i can say is "lol" I bought a walkway that wasn`t cheap, but very cool. 1 week later, i learned blender, sculpties, fractionals the ins&outs with possibilities and improved it. You know what? when my house is finished, again (thanks asset server), that i will put on the market place for l$0 , i will be putting some time again to make some sculpty stuff and give it out for free aswell. While we are on the whiny tour, some will remember i had a tier system for estates 3 years ago for wich people now pay alot of money, i`m in the early stages of recoding it from scratch and make it free for every one to host it them selfs... And then i`m going to add some additional modules, like a rental box, overal accounting overview, vendors and security system tied to the user`s land in the tier/rental module... Who evers remembers me from the old days, *waves*, i`m back with a vengence against overpriced stuff :matte-motes-evil: /end rant, see you in a couple of months again And this is the reason why the SL Economy has always been a fragile and flawed model that it was only a matter of time before it would begin to fail. Ganelon in a later post explained the details of my point as well. In a Virtual world where the only significant RL cost is the actual creator's grey matter in their skull... (i.e. the inginuity, drive to learn, smarts & creativity to create content in SL) then its only a matter of time when a certain percentage of these amazing creators dont value their own creative talents nor time to create and give away creations that had significant value. Alicia is the Poster Child of the issue. To Alicia, she does not have any appreciated value for her time, talents, and efforts. As such, the cost of what she creates - in her mind - is FREE. It has no value. As such, she feels compelled for what ever her reasons (i.e. to be philanthropic, to help and support other residents with no money, to promote her own ego, or what ever other reasons personal to her) to give away content that actually does have value. As soon as Alicia does this and a few others do this and combined with the fact that she places on an ecommerce Media (Marketplace) with an effective search tool that favors promoting the cheap / free items over the more expensive items, its only natural that this content with value will lose its value. Im not saying that this is a global ALL CONTENT issue since unless Alicia has the creative talent (i.e. technical and artistic) to match / outmatch a creator that is charging fair value for their talents, Customers will still be willing to pay for the creations from these Fair Value Creators. My products are a good example. I make sculpted landscape materials. People like Alicia do have the technical talents to make sculpties. But until a large enough number of Alicia's also have the artistic creative talents to make sculpty landscapes packs that blend nicely (since I hand sculpt each of my landscape terrains), I will continue to generate the healthy weekly revenue I currently make on my landscape packs. But... sadly a lot of content has a large # of these creators who do not appreciate a $ value to their talents. The clothing market and prefab home builds and structured sculpties are examples of markets that have been badly hurt by these no-valued-talents creators. Alicia... I am not saying what you are doing is wrong. If you feel your skills and talents have no $ value and you want to take the time and effort to give away your creations that have value. You have full rights to. Just dont be surprised when the SL economy conitnues to erode which directly impact's LL's RL profitability (as well as the countless merchants) to the point that it risks the virtual world's existance. You are just an example of a flaw in the virtual world that was bound to appear sooner or later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sassy Romano Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 Good news! SL is a level playing field Bad news! SL is a level playing field With reference to their being no labour or materials costs in SL. Try buying software to make content, try buying food from the supermarket with $0 if SL is your RL income. Of course there are costs to some for whom SL is their RL income and to believe otherwise is naive. On the other hand, students with educational copies of legal software, illegal software or whatever used by someone who doesn't have to pay their mortgage (mom and dad are doing that thanks) or for those whom SL is a toy, they can afford to spend time and give away competing items for L$0. The whole free economy though is an interesting one to watch it crumble, not just in SL but RL too as people realise that the "land grab" of user sign ups to grow their user base is little more than a shiny thing to wave at advertisers. With everything that is "free" now being infected with adverts all over it, I know i'd rather pay for some of these services and remove the ads and of course that's an option too on some but not all. As to fighting back against over priced things, it's all relative. For anyone who feels that everything should be free (they're usually sitting nice and comfortable with another job supporting them), I challenge them to take that to their RL and really spend nothing and see how far that lasts. Bartering was the predecessor to currency which was adopted to make a universal object that could be exchanged in return for labour or goods. Seems to have worked for quite a while now. With every "free" there is always something else behind supporting it financially in a different revenue model. So that's my challenge, let the person who feels that everything should be free, tell me about their free house, their free food, their free energy, free internet, free education, free healthcare, free transport etc. etc. Not just "I cycle to work, that's free". I'm talking about EVERYTHING. Zero money, ever and you'd better be living in a house with all utilities connected and online to tell me how. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 I knew there was a reason I secretly loved you Sassy! As Dr Evil once said : "We are not all the different - you and me" <place pinky in side of my mouth> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 Happy Toshi wrote: Well All I gotta say is the really good freebies is from really good stores that actually have income other then you. Instead of pointing a finger I would maybe try to build better things... Sorry I had to say it... Its not a matter of "Building better things" Happy.... The VALUE CREATORS are the ones that have to stay ahead of the curve and keep building the NEW THINGS... until the copy-cat creators take their ideas and use their talents to make the same things for free. Example.... and sorry but since Alicia put up her hand as the ZERO VALUE CREATOR..... when is Alicia planning to release a whole suite of MESH products? Mesh is the new technology that the Value Merchants will be building and putting out to the market. When Mesh technology become a more simply and easy to use technology... that is when the Alicia's will start entering this new market and flooding it with the free versions of the same products. Then... the VALUE CREATORS will have to move onto the nex NEW content ... not BETTER. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tari Landar Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 I like the free market we have. You can find anything, in any price range. Those who want to pay more, will. Those who don't, won't. Eliminating freebies, dollarbies or any other price level from the marketplace won't change this one little bit. I don't charge high prices for what I make. I charge what I find them worth based on what went into making them or putting them together. Some might not agree with my methods. I suppose it's a good thing it's not their work, their product, or their income to worry about in that case. It's not that I don't value my stuff, my time, my work, my skills or myself in any way. Whether the items are free for $5k. I get told all the time some of the things I price too low, and others I price too high. There is simply no way to win. While I appreciate any and all commentary from folks, in fact I encourage it and will often take it into consideration, I still feel like I should be free to price at whatever level I so desire. I don't believe another should be able to dictate this for me, based on their own ideals. I'm not hurting anyone else by giving some things away. In fact I wouldn't be hurting anyone else if I gave all my stuff away, if I so chose to. Anyone that tells me I am "hurting" them, is probably looking in the mirror. I understand why some get frustrated when their income is being affected negatively, in any way. But there is an awful lot more folks could do for themselves to fix that. Spending all your time looking over the fence at your neighbor's uncut grass while yours grows into a jungle is probably not the wisest choice. It's good to take notice...rarely ever good to stare for lengthy periods of time. It certainly won't fix your income issues. And yes I do know that it's not just an sl income for at least some folks. That's when you need to buckle down and work even harder at maintaining your income, isn't it? Freebies and dollarbies on the MP, while you may find them annoying, are not killing your business(or any other person's) all on their lonesome. In fact, they're not even the biggest issue. They've been around since day one in sl and they aren't going anywhere. Taking them off MP won't take them out of the retail market in sl. Proposing their elimination would be like sticking a cotton ball over a huge crack in the Hoover Dam. Sucker ain't gonna hold very long and most definitely won't solve your problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alicia Sautereau Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 Oh, i do value my time when i`m working, but as i`m working real life and just do here for waking up old braincells and fun, i hold my spent time "hobbying" at l$0 On the other hand, i have spent a fortune raiding several shops to a point i even got money returnd as discount with a thank you I support creators, don`t get me wrong, but there are things that are overpriced and see it used at alot of places, to bad for them it`s in my expirience corner. Take for example Tartessos Arts where i spent more money then i can remember, cause of him i won`t bother hitting the furniture market with free stuff, would rather refer people to him and say it`s worth the money, while making for myself maybe a custom sofa if needed I`ve bought clothing that i threw out immidiatly cause of texture align errors, seams that were messed up, oh so pretty foto`s that after an inworld inspection appeared to be a ripoff. I would name a shop where a simple but nice looking dress costs l$980 with a photoshopped picture, going inworld and i laughed about 70% of their so called "exclusive" overpriced items. I will be going to learn myself alot more after the main project will be done... btw, forgot to say, opensource so that every one can make their own custom version from the backend (scripts&website) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marina Ramer Posted January 6, 2012 Author Share Posted January 6, 2012 Happy toshi, I am on top 100 merchants of Marketplace, please have at least an idea of who I am, before you make a comment? Alicia: I dont loose time with brainless responses no sense, pointless! Toysoldier yes the people who sadly thinks like her are the start of all this, agree again To the rest I have 100% of good reviews I cannot complain but I work a lot on the after sales service and try to leave always the customer happy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tari Landar Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Marina Ramer wrote: Happy toshi, I am on top 100 merchants of Marketplace, please have at least an idea of who I am, before you make a comment? Alicia: I dont loose time with brainless responses no sense, pointless! Toysoldier yes the people who sadly thinks like her are the start of all this, agree again To the rest I have 100% of good reviews I cannot complain but I work a lot on the after sales service and try to leave always the customer happy If you're seriously going to sit here and toot your own horn like that (hey, whatever tickles your pickle if you enjoy doing so, haha), then you are either doing something terribly wrong, or you are fibbing about your "status" as a merchant on MP. Freebies and dollarbies are NOT hurting most merchants on MP or inworld, certainly not those who consider themselves top anything. But I can see from your responses what this thread is really about. You really don't get to decide who does and does not get to comment. You may not like their comments, or agree with them, but we've all the same rights to comment as you do. I don't think being rude to other posters is going to help your bottom line any. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marina Ramer Posted January 7, 2012 Author Share Posted January 7, 2012 Oh didnt meant being rude at all, and I do respects opinions of everyone, but is still my choice to reply or not to a comment Maybe I would just had to make clear at the start that I am actually interested on opinions of collegues merchants and really not on customers " I love freebies" , was actually just trying to make clear my position as merchant and I would really like to hear what other merchants have to say, as you may know, this is in the end the Merchants thread But I understamd why your comments anyway as you are one of the persons who offers this freebies In the end I hope that LL charges a fee to all persons like you who offer 100 freebies or more in marketplace, like they planned to do when it was the migration form xstreet to Marketplace, in the understanding that actually the people who pays to them are, I guess, as mayority the merchants who pays for more land and premium accounts and not the freebie collectors/offerents Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 I predicted over 3 years ago that SL creators/ Merchants will end up killing their own economy....it was easy to predict---> price dumping, freebies on XStreet, Hunts, Midnight Mania, in-world Freebie groups, whole Sims giving out freebie items etc etc etc Nowadays very few Merchants make a decent amount from creating & selling content on SL....one might be fortunate by being a top recognized SL Brand that can command those asking prices (LAQ , Stilletto Moody), or an innovator that's able to introduce something completely new to SL ..or being a merchant in a very popular niche sector, or a creator of Breedables....or a creator of SL games. Its easy to see why commerical lands are being abandoned at the rate of knots....i.e unsustainable lack of in-world sales. Freebies & the prominance of Marketplace has kind of killed off in-world shopping in most sectors....but not all! Second Life will become a poorer place for it....with less would-be Creators willing to take the plunge. If i were new to SL, i wouldn't bother, unless I enjoyed creating and giving out my creations as Freebies. I'd hate to see how the SL landscape will look like in a year or 2 time. My guess, it will primarily be residential sims or Roleplay ones and possibily Gaming sims (not gambling). Then again this could all be a market correction as we might have had far too many in-world commerical locations & businesses....which leads to the most successful or best managed businesses surviving this fall out. The SL Real Estate business is pretty much going in the same direction...with Estates trying to undercut each other through price wars. A mugs game when there are real costs involved i.e LL Tiers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nefertiti Nefarious Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 I am builder for 3 years now in SL, I am member of Merchants protection alliance, and for me, my sl store its as well my RL income, and when I first started years ago all that you found for free was really ugly or useless. This complaint comes up at least ever month, when some builder decides that they deserve to get paid more and that if they could only get rid of the freebies they could make oodles of money. I've been a builder since 9/26/2006 (over 5 years) and I don't remember that "all that I found for free was really ugly and useless". I still have some stunning things from then that were free or almost free. If you choose to put all your income hopes into the shaky world of on-line gaming, you are being foolish. we spend time training for years to know about scripting, sculpting, texturing, animating, we spend hours learning, hours working, of our rl lives a lot of investment on costs too, many times, time and money, So what! Do you think that someone who takes 10 years to learn something deserves to be paid 10 times as much as the person who learned it in a year? If you choose to pay $700 for Photoshop instead of using the GIMP for free, why do you think that entitles you to tell me to get out of the marketplace? I sell inexpensive things, and I have freebies. If anyone wants to make me leave the Marketplace so they won't have to compete with me, they will not have an easy task. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nefertiti Nefarious Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Ganelon Darkfold wrote: And what about the many things that are minor items that are very reasonable to sell for 1L$ or so? Trying to eliminate first freebies and dollarbies and then "2dollarbies" and then "3dollarbies" and so on isn't likely to actually solve the problem you're seeing. It would cut out an awful lot of the marketplace before it adequately "protected" say, 500L$ items that someone might actually make a relaible rl income from. What they want is price supports and a guaranteed income for their work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ziggy21 Slade Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Alicia Sautereau wrote: No offense, but all i can say is "lol" I bought a walkway that wasn`t cheap, but very cool. 1 week later, i learned blender, sculpties, fractionals the ins&outs with possibilities and improved it. You know what? when my house is finished, again (thanks asset server), that i will put on the market place for l$0 , i will be putting some time again to make some sculpty stuff and give it out for free aswell. While we are on the whiny tour, some will remember i had a tier system for estates 3 years ago for wich people now pay alot of money, i`m in the early stages of recoding it from scratch and make it free for every one to host it them selfs... And then i`m going to add some additional modules, like a rental box, overal accounting overview, vendors and security system tied to the user`s land in the tier/rental module... Who evers remembers me from the old days, *waves*, i`m back with a vengence against overpriced stuff :matte-motes-evil: /end rant, see you in a couple of months again What a really lousy attitude. You write with what seems to be smug pleasure at the idea that you are going to maliciously undercut others with freebies, as Toy points out this seems to be more about feeding your own ego than the delusion that you are doing something for the community. What possible justification can there be for producing a commercial product like a tier system for estates, i.e. used by other residents to make money, and then giving it away for free. Anyone purchasing such a product, by defintion has already spent hundreds of dollars getting an estate to rent out, they are not some broke newbie who needs a few free clothes to wear. It has no marketing value since they are hardly likely to pop back a week later to see if you made a more fashionable tier system for them to add to their collection. I think you should re examine your motivation for this and double check that there is a positive idea at the heart of it. If you dislike overpriced stuff, make and sell reasonably priced stuff, you don't have to instantly jump to freebies. I would also be interested to know how you determine what is overpriced stuff, have you surveyed any customers and discovered them to be dissatisfied with pricing?, in who's name are you waging this campaign? and to what end? are you hoping for a day when all stuff is free?, because when that day comes it's all over. no more ego trip, no more SL, and no more old friends to wave to. It's also worth remembering who is behind some of the avatars here, there are disabled people who dont have the employment choices many people enjoy, single mothers trying to scrape together a few extra dollars to keep their kids happy, older unemployed people who can't get job offers, students having their first attempt at entrepreneurship. A healthy vibrant marketplace where people can make fair money is a great thing for many people and without it SL would not exist, anyone who sets out with malicious intent to destroy this is a..... expletive deleted!! In answer to the OP, yes please kick out this freebie rubbish and the numskulls who inflict it upon us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Toysoldier Thor wrote: Example.... and sorry but since Alicia put up her hand as the ZERO VALUE CREATOR..... when is Alicia planning to release a whole suite of MESH products? Mesh is the new technology that the Value Merchants will be building and putting out to the market. When Mesh technology become a more simply and easy to use technology... that is when the Alicia's will start entering this new market and flooding it with the free versions of the same products. Then... the VALUE CREATORS will have to move onto the nex NEW content ... not BETTER. Once MESH products are released into the wild as FREE....you know then that the SL model is truely screwed!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nefertiti Nefarious Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Ziggy21 Slade wrote: What possible justification can there be for producing a commercial product like a tier system for estates, i.e. used by other residents to make money, and then giving it away for free. Gee, I don't know. Ask Linus Torvalds and the rest of the developers how they justify producing Linux. And ask Linden Labs how they justify taking money out of the pockets of Bill Gates by running their servers on Linux instead of buying Microsoft. (LL runs Apache on F5 BIG-IP) Anyone purchasing such a product, by defintion has already spent hundreds of dollars getting an estate to rent out, they are not some broke newbie who needs a few free clothes to wear. And the less they spend on an estate tier system, the more they will have to buy other things from other merchants, maybe even you. It's also worth remembering who is behind some of the avatars here, there are disabled people who dont have the employment choices many people enjoy, single mothers trying to scrape together a few extra dollars to keep their kids happy, older unemployed people who can't get job offers, students having their first attempt at entrepreneurship. If you want disabled people to have decent jobs, better child care and support systems for single moms, and better job market for all of us, take it up with your politicians and get the system fixed. Don't try to put a guilt trip on me or Alicia because we are playing an on-line game for the fun of it. A healthy vibrant marketplace where people can make fair money is a great thing for many people and without it SL would not exist, anyone who sets out with malicious intent to destroy this is a..... expletive deleted!! This is a GAME. Don't get mad at people who treat it like one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Marketplace has over 1.5 Millions products listed......that is a hell of a large MEGA store to try and obtain any kind of visibility from. I wonder how many MP Merchants make monthly 6-figure sales i.e 100,000 L? It's still not a lot when you consider a SIM tiers are 78k p/mth ($295) as a comparison. 1.5 million products.....now that's a of lot of noise to wade through to be making regularly meaningful sales! It makes no odds on whether you offer Freebies or whether Alicia does......it's the fact there are 100's of Alicias on Marketplace listing Freebies! So if one's products can be seen past the Freebies, then one's at the mercy of the MP Search engine or from competitors with more expensive Feature listings. I wonder how many products are listed on Marketplace by avatars who have long since left Second Life? ..more noise! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer Boyle Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Others have said everything I'm going to say, but I wanted to put my $0.02 in. First, if someone is trying to make a RL living making things in a virtual world that others make for enjoyment and give away, perhaps some reflection on the wisdom of the career choice is in order. If you want better income, innovate instead of whining. Make things that are better than anyone else's. Make your products so good that people are happy to pay your price. It seems to me that if you are representing yourself as a professional, it is reasonable to expect better quality from you than from your amateur competition. And if you aren't professional, why do you think you deserve high prices? You need to keep improving your products to stay ahead of the competition and earn the high prices---just like RL. I don't see how purveyors of high-quality free and low-priced goods can kill the SL economy. Consumers like me, who buy Lindens with real money, are the people who support SL. If someone has a viable (at least breaking even) business, the money to pay from everything, like tier, comes from consumers. If a business fails because we can get the same products for less, we get the same products, and the merchant is no longer removing money from SL. We may bring in less, but the reduction in outflow will probably be greater than the reduction in inflow, so we spend more money with other merchants. We consumers get more stuff, other merchants sell more stuff. The only one worse off is the person who went bust---because he didn't make good enough stuff to stay in business. If I see something I really like, I usually buy it. Most of my purchases are clothing. I have to really like it to pay over L$300, and be absolutely smitten to pay over L$500, but within those limits it doesn't matter that much. Yes, I will buy things that are very low-priced more readily---because if it turns out to be $#!t, I can delete it without losing much. What I think is on of the worst things about SL shopping is the huge amount of mediocre, completely undistinguished stuff that is offered just because someone without outstanding talent or skill decided to start selling clothing. I hate having to sift through all of that stuff. For that reason, I tend to keep returning to favorite stores of whose quality I am confident. I also seldom shop at freebie and dollarbie places; it's just not worth sifting through all the mediocre stuff to find the occasional nice item. I tried to make some estimates of what someone would have to charge to be fairly paid. I would think that 30 USD per hour would be generous compensation, especially since the work can be done from home on one's own schedule. I also would think a skilled creator could make a nice garment in three hours. At L$250/USD, if they were priced at L$100, 225 would need to be sold. That seems like a number that would be easily attainable for a quality item at this price. I really would like for someone who actually knows something about how much time is needed and what sales volumes are likely to comment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madeliefste Oh Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Marina Ramer wrote: Right now due to many people who “for fun” creates freebies or very low price products, I mean ridiculous low prices, it is hurting our business more and more everyday How can you be so sure that freebies are the cause that your business is going slower nowadays, Marina? When you started three years ago, there were also a lot of freebies and cheap items. Not only in world, but also on Xstreet and OnRez. And you still were able to build up a business. How do you know that it is not the RL economy that is hurting your business? How do you know that is not the fact the there are twice as much sellers on the market nowadays then when you started, and still new ones joining? There is one big cake to eat from: that is the money that people want to spend on virtual goods. There was a time that this cake kept growing bigger and bigger and at that time it was not very hard to be able to get a piece of the cake. With the stagnation of SL in terms of growing, the cake didn't grow any longer, but kept about the same size for a while. But the number of people who want to have a piece of this cake is still growing. But freebie sellers are not the ones that are eating from the cake. Someone with 1000 L$ in the pockets to spend, will still have his 1000 to spend after a visit at the freebee marketplace seller. Freebie sellers or people who give away stuff for fun, simply don't eat from your piece of the cake. The money people used to spend in your shop, is not spend on freebies. It is spend at shops of competitors. It is spend at shops that sells comparable products, maybe at a lower price then you, that is eating from what used to be your piece of the cake. Or it are people that found out a smarter way to promote their products and therefore are pulling your target group to their stores. And I think also that, though the residents number are mainly flat, the cake itself is still reducing. I think in general people spend less on virtual goods, but that is not because you can get everything for free as well. That is because peoples income situation changed. Or because their avatar has already 306 red dresses and 120 pairs of red shoes to combine. Or people start to find joy in creating themselves in stead of buying. Whatever is in your way, it are not the filantropists who give away their stuff for free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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