Shake things up a bit, at least move things around....A Rant :(

[Kylie Jaxxon]

This is such a pet peeve of mine!  As a consumer, you would think they would want to entice me more, but no...the same stuff :(

It is the beginning of spring, people are out and about redoing their parcels. In garden centers, they should take advantage of this.  I have seen quite a few times where the merchants aren't fast enough for me...I like to start early.  But today took the cake.  I went to a very popular garden center and couldn't believe my eyes.  Not only is there nothing new, but the central theme of the region was still Autumn....fall colors and tree, pumpkins lying about, etc.   The same old displays and setups. 

As my title says, at least move things around a bit, give the illusion that you at least check in once every few months and give a crap.  Put a little time and effort into it, FFS.

Rant over....

[Thinkerer Melville]

Good rant.  People could use Second Life to learn how to sell.  

TKR

[Kylie Jaxxon]

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Thinkerer Melville wrote:

Good rant.  People could use Second Life to learn how to sell.  

TKR

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Thanks, Think

I guess I should add, that he/she is popular enough to still make money on the old items, I suppose...and they have a right to run their business anyway they see fit, but I don't have to patronize them any longer

 

[Heart Brimmer]

I so agree with this, I went to this one garden shop about a week ago and they STILL had Christmas crap up. It's March, geeze, even if you don't put up new items at least take the Christmas crap down!

[Kylie Jaxxon]

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Heart Brimmer wrote:

I so agree with this, I went to this one garden shop about a week ago and they STILL had Christmas crap up. It's March, geeze, even if you don't put up new items at least take the Christmas crap down!

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Agree!!! 

Most of the larger places have managers to run everyday worries and problems...makes me wonder how long it's been since the creator has even been inworld :smileysurprised:

[Harlow Heslop]

If you are looking for some great up to date gardening places check out Forest Floor and Organica.  Both are absolutely fantastic  

[Kylie Jaxxon]

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Harlow Heslop wrote:

If you are looking for some great up to date gardening places check out Forest Floor and Organica.  Both are absolutely fantastic

 

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Thanks, Harlow...yeah, got a lot of their stuff too :heart:

[Heart Brimmer]

I know! If you're gonna have a store at least come in once a week and see what needs to be done to get the customers coming back. 

[Maureen Boccaccio]

Ooooh, I don't think I've been to Forest Floor...thanks for the suggestion!

 

And  *waves to Kylie*  yes, I agree with you - if the shop owner goes to the trouble of seasonally decorating...it would be great if they would continue that throughout the year! 

 

(I would note that some could argue that since it's Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere...the store/sim is now welcoming to SL'ers from that neck of the woods.... *grins*)

[PeterCanessa Oh]

While your point is a good one I want to be pedantic, again, and make the point, again, that SL is an international environment, still, and marketing can/should be to an international audience, still.

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Kylie Jaxxon wrote:

...It is the beginning of spring....

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Not in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, most of South America, half of Africa and everywhere else South of the equator it's not!  The autumn features would be bang-on for them :-) (bet the species of flora are wrong though!)

[Kylie Jaxxon]

Hi, Mo

You & Peter raise a good point :smileytongue:

 

[Tamara Artis]

Well... Pookey's dashboard still says "Valentine's Day, Send them your love, Find gifts"

[Chelsea Malibu]

In whoever garden stores this is' defense, I think a lot of people have just sort of thrown in the towel and given up on innovation.  We where once so excited and a lot of that was driven by making money. Today it just enough to pay your tier and have some money to have fun in SL but this is where a bad economy really has impact on the user experience.

We where all once so motivated and many of us do it out of our joy of creating but at some point, with the MP issues, lower traffic counts, cost of doing business and threats from intellectual property rights, it makes it hard to get excited about seasonal items.

Also consider that many content creators are in poor health which is why they do this.  There could be issues there as well.

[Perrie Juran]

I will agree with the OP that it is a little late in the year to have Xmas decor up though if I stumbled on something really nice I might still buy it in anticipation of next year.

But as someone pointed out, it is almost autumn in the southern hemisphere now. 

Some landscape merchants such as Creative Fantasy maintain several SIMS each for a different season.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Shadow%20Brook/187/230/26

Even if you are not buying, a beautiful place to wander and relax.

[Kylie Jaxxon]

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Tamara Artis wrote:

Well... Pookey's dashboard still says "Valentine's Day, Send them your love, Find gifts"

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omg :smileysurprised:

[Kylie Jaxxon]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

I will agree with the OP that it is a little late in the year to have Xmas decor up though if I stumbled on something really nice I might still buy it in anticipation of next year.

But as someone pointed out, it is almost autumn in the southern hemisphere now. 

Some landscape merchants such as Creative Fantasy maintain several SIMS each for a different season.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Shadow%20Brook/187/230/26

Even if you are not buying, a beautiful place to wander and relax.

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Perrie, I love the sims of Creative Fantasy...but I can't move there, I literally freeze up  

I think I might try to go again and see, she does a beautiful job with those sims.

[Perrie Juran]

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Kylie Jaxxon wrote:

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Perrie Juran wrote:

I will agree with the OP that it is a little late in the year to have Xmas decor up though if I stumbled on something really nice I might still buy it in anticipation of next year.

But as someone pointed out, it is almost autumn in the southern hemisphere now. 

Some landscape merchants such as Creative Fantasy maintain several SIMS each for a different season.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Shadow%20Brook/187/230/26

Even if you are not buying, a beautiful place to wander and relax.

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Perrie, I love the sims of Creative Fantasy...but I can't move there, I literally freeze up

 

I think I might try to go again and see, she does a beautiful job with those sims.

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I don't know what the story is there.  Sometimes it's like hitting the biggest Lag Bomb in SL, other times it's smooth sailing.  Has never made sense to me.   But yes, she has done a beautiful job. 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

There are designers I love and when if I first discover them I have a great time going to their shop and buying multiple items.  Eventually though I have gotten everything I like.  Its pretty sad when I return to the shop every once in a while looking for something new and with money to spend and nothing is new.  There are a few I rarely if ever check out anymore because its just a waste of time going there.

When  they are new to the market they put out a lot of new stuff all the time.  As their popularity grows they slow down a bit.  But a lot of them get to the point that your lucky to get a new release once or twice a season, and some once or twice a  year. They just rest on their laurels so to speak.  Maybe they still sell a lot to people new to SL, but they don't get any of my money anymore.

I've noticed this long ago before the economy went into the can.  I take the point about not having as much motivation lately, but how can you expect repeat customers when all you have is the same old same old?  Any marketing expert will tell you that repeat customers are generally the biggest spenders, and I know that those of us who have been in SL a while generally are more willing to spend money than the newbs.

Although shopping is not entertaining to me, I've spent a good deal of time looking for new clothes lately simply because I've gotten bored with some of the things I have.  I've been out several times the last few weeks and have found nothing that excites me enough to buy.  (Yeah there is mesh, but until we get a deformer I'm not interested in it and frankly I haven't seen any that really excites me)

[Melita Magic]

Yes. I mostly do outdoor spaces and it's always been a chore to try to find the items by season. I would especially like flowers to be grouped by season. I really don't know which ones bloom in which season other than a vague notion of roses in early summer. Trees are easier to figure out - bare in winter, colorful in autumn, light green in spring, very green in summer, etc. But flowers? I end up going by color. It's very hit and miss.

It would be great if the parcels were separated so that I could teleport directly to each season and in there would be everything I needed. If every garden store did that, I could even mix it up a bit so that it didn't look like I just bought a kit and spent five minutes on it from purchase to rez.

I have a lot of stuff by now, though, so I mostly just pull out things at random and go for it.  It's about time to change seasons right now actually, but first will come St Patty's Day.

[Kylie Jaxxon]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

There are designers I love and when if I first discover them I have a great time going to their shop and buying multiple items.  Eventually though I have gotten everything I like.  Its pretty sad when I return to the shop every once in a while looking for something new and with money to spend and nothing is new.  There are a few I rarely if ever check out anymore because its just a waste of time going there.

When  they are new to the market they put out a lot of new stuff all the time.  As their popularity grows they slow down a bit.  But a lot of them get to the point that your lucky to get a new release once or twice a season, and some once or twice a  year. They just rest on their laurels so to speak.  Maybe they still sell a lot to people new to SL, but they don't get any of my money anymore.

I've noticed this long ago before the economy went into the can.  I take the point about not having as much motivation lately, but how can you expect repeat customers when all you have is the same old same old?  Any marketing expert will tell you that repeat customers are generally the biggest spenders, and I know that those of us who have been in SL a while generally are more willing to spend money than the newbs.

Although shopping is not entertaining to me, I've spent a good deal of time looking for new clothes lately simply because I've gotten bored with some of the things I have.  I've been out several times the last few weeks and have found nothing that excites me enough to buy.  (Yeah there is mesh, but until we get a deformer I'm not interested in it and frankly I haven't seen any that really excites me)

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Exactly!!!  I couldn't have said it better

 

[Kylie Jaxxon]

Agree, Melita...organized into sections would be great.

I too, cater to the outdoors and landscaping more then anything else when it comes to most of the seasons, other then winter.  The rest of the time, I have a very small house, prim wise,  with only one or two rooms to decorate....all other prim usage is for the outdoors

 

[Pussycat Catnap]

If product ain't moving in your shop, and your marketplace listings are down...

It's alway Linden Lab's fault, copy botters, and cheap trampy freebie freeloaders.

 

(Or maybe yeah, shops and content creators could consider working all the angles - and many do. But the ones that Linden Lab's personally had a vendetta against and caused to fail - they seem to have never done much to stay up with the times. Cuz timez iz fixed. :matte-motes-bored: )

 

[Pamela Galli]

Re: new merchandise -- SL is extremely competitive; what looked good a year or two ago can look dated when technology and artistry is constantly raising the bar for quality. Best sellers do not remain best sellers forever. If someone is not moving forward making new things or updating old, then they are moving backwards. There is no resting on laurels in SL. 

 

Good point about repeat customers. If you take care of your current customers, you don't have to beat the bushes for new ones -- your customers will bring their friends. And part of taking care of them is making sure when they drop by, there is something new to check out.

 

Re mesh:  It is huge. My mesh merchandise is light years more detailed and higher quality. Give ppl a little time and they will begin to get excited by the new mesh content they see.

[Crackers Horngold]

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PeterCanessa Oh wrote:

While your point is a good one I want to be pedantic, again, and make the point, again, that SL is an international environment, still, and marketing can/should be to an international audience, still.

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Kylie Jaxxon wrote:

...It is the beginning of spring....

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Not in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, most of South America, half of Africa and everywhere else South of the equator it's not!  The autumn features would be bang-on for them :-) (bet the species of flora are wrong though!)

 

 

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Hear Hear

[Melita Magic]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

Re: new merchandise -- SL is extremely competitive; what looked good a year or two ago can look dated when technology and artistry is constantly raising the bar for quality. Best sellers do not remain best sellers forever. If someone is not moving forward making new things or updating old, then they are moving backwards. There is no resting on laurels in SL. 

 

Good point about repeat customers. If you take care of your current customers, you don't have to beat the bushes for new ones -- your customers will bring their friends. And part of taking care of them is making sure when they drop by, there is something new to check out.

 

Re mesh:  It is huge. My mesh merchandise is light years more detailed and higher quality. Give ppl a little time and they will begin to get excited by the new mesh content they see.

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QFT.

People do have brand loyalty in SL. Merchants do well to find out what their customers love most, hate most, and are most annoyed by and adapt accordingly.

Mesh will leave a lot of creators in the dust, and some members too as their computers struggle to keep up, But, the future is inevitable and some would say, long overdue. I'm excited by the possibilities of mesh and other improvements as yet undiscovered but - I wish someone out there would make changing computers easier!  (...and cheaper.)