Market Place -- Changes in Sales

[JoJo Aurelia]

I used to do very well on MP. I always made sales. I've improved as a designer and would love for some of my newer items to make the grid. The strange thing is, only my older items sell. I have no idea why, and price isn't an issue, other than I have a few 10 Linden items, and that has not changed, those sell. Innworld, sales are even. No issues.

Until they started messing with MP my sales were evenly based on MP, old or new and pricing not an issue. Not now. Only the oldest listed sell the most, those older than 1 year with a  rare occasion of newer items selling.

Does anyone else have this issue?

Also, does LL fool with the search of MP or is it fair game? I really don't know these answers. I don't pay for listing. Everyone seems to think this is a waste of money. I used to list a long time ago, but those items didn't do any better and the fees are really high.

Just gathering information here. Thanks.

[JoJo Aurelia]

FYI... the reports show newer items not viewed much, I think this might be related to how I list the actual box, and NOT what I call it on MP.They must use the object name as the search base. I might change the way the object is titled and see if that helps. Just an idea. I might have answered my own question.

[Paula001 Goldschein]

the only thing i can contribute is that i have a strong feeling that the 'age' of a listing is a very big deal. from my experience the older the listing is, the better it 'sticks' in search after being purchased.

i thought i would let you know what i have experienced since you said you noticed that your older items sell better.

[JoJo Aurelia]

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Paula001 Goldschein wrote:

the only thing i can contribute is that i have a strong feeling that the 'age' of a listing is a very big deal. from my experience the older the listing is, the better it 'sticks' in search after being purchased.

i thought i would let you know what i have experienced since you said you noticed that your older items sell better.

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I think you're right. Good reason not to unlist something! Just buy viewing reports, I see one dress has 3500 views, and a new one 2. LOL There you have it!

 

 

[Polenth Yue]

In the past, if an item was going to be a good seller, it'd start selling immediately. Now, it's a few weeks before it starts selling. It gets there in the end, but it does seem like it's harder for customers to find new things.

[Rene Erlanger]

Over 2 millions items listed....Ladies Fashion being the biggest sector. Over time it won't get any easier especially with no growth in the userbase!

Paying for Enhancements with questionable performance....just leaves the Marketplace Search engine. Maybe buy a lottery ticket instead!

[JoJo Aurelia]

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Rene Erlanger wrote:

Over 2 millions items listed....Ladies Fashion being the biggest sector. Over time it won't get any easier especially with no growth in the userbase!

Paying for Enhancements with questionable performance....just leaves the Marketplace Search engine. Maybe buy a lottery ticket instead!

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LOL. Guess I'll keep joining hunts!

[Pamela Galli]

I was pretty prominent on Xstreet, but not on the Markeplace map. If I did not have a lot of enhancements, I don't think I would sell as much as I do -- I can't say for sure because they have removed any data we could use.  However, the more enhancements the more likely someone is to click on something, and then even if they don't buy that thing, they will look around my store, and maybe buy something else.

[Paula001 Goldschein]

ufff, your post should come with a warning.

you are playing in different fields, a pamela enhancement could pay back triple with a single sale a month, while our op girl would have to sell a lot of dresses to even roll back the costs. i think that is the profit death of many merchants.

faye keep your costs as low as possible, marketplace enhancements are not worth anything in my opinion unless you sell exclusive items for a fashionable price.

edited: my opinion was different in xstreet times, enhancements were worth it

 

and @ faye, yes i also try to avoid creating new listings after an update or such

[Pamela Galli]

Yes, for me one sale will pay for the enhancement.  However, the concept of investing in your business is not just for those with high ticket items.  Let's say everything you sell is 250L; then you would need 4 sales to cover the cost. BUT that is 4 sales total more per month, not necessarily 4 sales of the item with the enhancment. (And as I said, there is no way to actually account for where sales are coming from.) Because if someone likes your stuff, they will browse your store and maybe buy something else. Also, you have just gotten a new customer, who may make repeat purchases over time. If you don't have confidence that increased visibility will result in enough increased sales to cover the expense, then you need to look at either your ads or your merchandise and figure out why.

This is not an endorsement per se of enhancements, but I have no visibility in search now, so other than word of mouth, I can't think of any other way people find my stuff. And they do find it.

I do watch expenses, but I also know the value of investing in marketing my business.

 

 

[Rene Erlanger]

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Faye Feldragonne wrote:

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Rene Erlanger wrote:

Over 2 millions items listed....Ladies Fashion being the biggest sector. Over time it won't get any easier especially with no growth in the userbase!

Paying for Enhancements with questionable performance....just leaves the Marketplace Search engine. Maybe buy a lottery ticket instead!

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LOL. Guess I'll keep joining hunts!

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Yep, even there....not any old Hunt, make sure you join the quality ones...the ones that are marketed & well organised..

[Rene Erlanger]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

I was pretty prominent on Xstreet, but not on the Markeplace map. If I did not have a lot of enhancements, I don't think I would sell as much as I do -- I can't say for sure because they have removed any data we could use.  However, the more enhancements the more likely someone is to click on

something

, and then even if they don't buy that thing, they will look around my store, and maybe buy something else.

---

Apples and oranges....yours are in a smaller sector to begin with. 1 house sale and you'll cover the cost of most expensive enhancement listing for the month. Ladies fashion, with gradual price dumping over the years...the "popular" garments are generally priced from 10 L to 250 L.....they are going to have to sell plenty of units to cover that same listing enhancement (Home page - L2899 per 30 days). Some Merchants take the gamble ...some don't.

My own take is, that if i were selling high priced quality products...in a niche market, i'd probably purchase the Enhancements as i know I just need 1 sale to cover that cost.  It's worth it! (I hope).....if i were selling 50L or 100L items I probably wouldn't.

 

Edit> Just read Paula001's comment above....I fully agree and more or less stated the same in my posting. Note to self...should read other people's replies first!:smileytongue:

[Darrius Gothly]

Pamela, people that buy a LOT of enhancements have a much higher probability of any of their enhancements appearing in the scroller. If you only purchase a few of them then your ad will appear in the first few items on the scroller about once every 100 views. But if you purchase many enhancements (like 10 or more) then your ad will show up in the first few scroller slots about every 1 out of 3-5 views. (Those are rough guesstimates based on empirical evidence btw)

So yes, while it only takes four sales of a L$250 item to pay for one enhancement, unless you purchase 10 or more enhancements then they won't ever be seen. In short, yes investing in advertising is a good idea, but only if you can afford the advertising. As it stands now, the "Buy In" is so high that very few people can actually afford the upfront cost.

[Pamela Galli]

You have to decide what % of sales you want to spend on advertising.  I always based my business model on RL, so decided on 5-10% to begin with. So let's say someone sells $100 a week -- or anticipates selling $100 a week; that would be $5-10 a week on advertising, which would be 5-10 category enhancements per month. (There are other places to buy advertising, of course.)

Now, if your business is not pulling in $100 a week in sales, and you have confidence in the quality of your merchandise, then I would forget about profit and spend as much as you can afford on advertising, even if it is out of pocket, at least for a while.

Whatever metric you use, saying that the only Marketplace advertising is too expensive, and the key to building your business is keeping expenses low -- that makes no sense to me.

 

 

 

[Darrius Gothly]

I agree, in a typical business model spending money to make money is absolutely crucial. But that only applies in a real-world model where you can get some sense of how and why your sales have changed and with a dependable business model that is somewhat linear.

For example, if you put money into one of any number of "typical" advertising method in RL then you can know that your investment will net you some number of eyeballs to see your ad. But in SL the relationship is vastly non-linear and even worse has a knee that is very high. In order to get any guarantee of eyeballs seeing your ad, you must purchase a very large number of them. Below that knee you can count on your ads never appearing in front of any eyeballs at all.

If I bought one ad and there were 10,000 other ads purchased, I should be able to depend on being seen 1/10,000th of the time. But in MP that ratio is way lower ... WAY lower. I may only get 1 view out of 1,000,000 views. On the other hand, someone that purchases 10 ads per month will be seen much more than 10 out of 10,000 views ... something more like 40 or 50 out of that 10,000. The ratio is not linear and is a demonstrably poor investment unless you are willing to (and able to) purchase the number of ads to get you over the knee.

The ratio of views should be linear, but it is not. Which is why I won't purchase enhancements any more ... the table is tilted and they seem to have no intention of making it level anytime soon.

[Pamela Galli]

I understand -- but you set a target of 10 ads to be seen at all (I have no clue how you got that but doesn't matter), and I am saying, if your sales are $100 a week, 10 ads is a reasonable number to budget for. Ten dollars a week for advertising is not much if you are trying to build a business that will produce significant income.

However, as I mentioned, you have to be pretty confident that your merchandise and ads are eye-catching, or it is a waste of money. For gadgets and scripts, that would be harder, I would think.

ETA:  It takes a while to see effects. Sales of something have a snowball effect, because you best advertising is when something is out in the world.  People will notice it and click on it, their friends will see it, buy it, and then the friends of friends do the same, etc.

But nothing happens until you get your stuff out there in the first place.

 

[Josh Susanto]

I also don't buy listing enhancements. 

My own experience is that some items sell decently right away and then gradually sell less and less, while other items don't sell at all in the beginning, but eventually pass what is probably some kind of in-world distribution threshold where people suddenly start buying them more. 

My disembodied arms and legs didn't sell much until Halloween, but then suddenly became my most profitable items, and have remained so.

2 other product lines, the 512 seamless kludge rocks and the Selena Wells stuff, I had begun to think had been a huge waste of my time and effort, but after months of practically no sales of these things, people have inexplicably started to buy them. Lots of different people, too. 

With the 1-prim items I've boiled down with the prim generator, I've had a hard time guessing what people will want. It seems like they mostly just want pipes with rotary valves that don't eat up the region's prim count. 

I guess I could say that the over-all implied pattern is that people buy what they have already seen in-world, and/or they buy what they perceive to be closely related products.

So if your new stuff isn't selling, you might try giving away a few copies of it in-world.  It has worked for me pretty well, anyway.

 

[Rene Erlanger]

The power of Marketplace!

My SL partner has never been very good at marketing her own creations. She created a line of products that had been doing pretty well with in-world sales since March 2011 (a niche sector)...though sales in last few months were declining slightly ...but still enough to help cover Sim tiers! (just about!)

She had never listed any of her products on Marketplace (or XStreet or SLEX before that)....it's as if she had some kind of administration phobia, despite my constant nagging.

In the end i took charge of her In-World marketing and finally got her to list on Marketplace too....yay!!. I helped with her descriptions & features and tried various 1 week trial runs with Listing Enhancements switching between different products. For her products it seemed that Homepage Enhancements worked best!  Anyway ...after 7 weeks of having her products listed on Marketplace her sales are now a 50/ 50 split...matching her in-world sales. She now makes a decent monthly profit, to which she can re-invest (in building tools) or cash-out.

I could not believe how quickly MP sales could match her in-world sales ( my own personal experience, that was never the case with any of the previous shopping sites)

 

Note** Her top selling product is not the one with the Enhancement advert....but i guess it does the job of attracting users to her MP Store.

 

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[Madeliefste Oh]

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Rene Erlanger wrote:

 

I could not believe how quickly MP sales could match her in-world sales ( my own personal experience, that was never the case with any of the previous shopping sites).

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For cYo there has not much changed compared to previous shopping sites. Builders and creators were always heavy 'website buyers', also in the old days when xstreet was still slexchange. 80% of my sales came from there. Nowadays it is about the same number, maybe 85% now, but still about the same quantity.

My other two brands aim for the more general customer. For both sales shifted a bit more to marketplace then before. In the past is was about 5% on website and 95 in world. Now it is more like 25% on marketplace and 75% in world.

[JoJo Aurelia]

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Rene Erlanger wrote:

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Pamela Galli wrote:

I was pretty prominent on Xstreet, but not on the Markeplace map. If I did not have a lot of enhancements, I don't think I would sell as much as I do -- I can't say for sure because they have removed any data we could use.  However, the more enhancements the more likely someone is to click on

something

, and then even if they don't buy that thing, they will look around my store, and maybe buy something else.

---

Apples and oranges....yours are in a smaller sector to begin with. 1 house sale and you'll cover the cost of most expensive enhancement listing for the month. Ladies fashion, with gradual price dumping over the years...the "popular" garments are generally priced from 10 L to 250 L.....they are going to have to sell plenty of units to cover that same listing enhancement (Home page - L2899 per 30 days). Some Merchants take the gamble ...some don't.

My own take is, that if i were selling high priced quality products...in a niche market, i'd probably purchase the Enhancements as i know I just need 1 sale to cover that cost.  It's worth it! (I hope).....if i were selling 50L or 100L items I probably wouldn't.

 

Edit> Just read Paula001's comment above....I fully agree and more or less stated the same in my posting. Note to self...should read other people's replies first!:smileytongue:

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I only do hunts that have bloggers, I'm also part of Fashion for Life.

[JoJo Aurelia]

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Rene Erlanger wrote:

The power of Marketplace!

My SL partner has never been very good at marketing her own creations. She created a line of products that had been doing pretty well with in-world sales since March 2011 (a niche sector)...though sales in last few months were declining slightly ...but still enough to help cover Sim tiers! (just about!)

She had never listed any of her products on Marketplace (or XStreet or SLEX before that)....it's as if she had some kind of administration phobia, despite my constant nagging.

In the end i took charge of her In-World marketing and finally got her to list on Marketplace too....yay!!. I helped with her descriptions & features and tried various 1 week trial runs with Listing Enhancements switching between different products. For her products it seemed that Homepage Enhancements worked best!  Anyway ...after 7 weeks of having her products listed on Marketplace her sales are now a 50/ 50 split...matching her in-world sales. She now makes a decent monthly profit, to which she can re-invest (in building tools) or cash-out.

I could not believe how quickly MP sales could match her in-world sales ( my own personal experience, that was never the case with any of the previous shopping sites)

 

Note** Her top selling product is not the one with the Enhancement advert....but i guess it does the job of attracting users to her MP Store.

 

.

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You and your partner are in a more limited market, childen's sales.

It would be nice to have real stats to work with, but everything is unknown.  In real life, say if you want to run an ad in a magazine or a website, or a cable TV show, those advertisers show you their target markets and some numbers. I know, b/c I bought ad time for my employer for paper and TV. LL doesn't give us any numbers. They don't give us anything at all to base our decisions.

 

[Rene Erlanger]

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Faye Feldragonne wrote:

You and your partner are in a more limited market, childen's sales.

It would be nice to have real stats to work with, but everything is unknown.  In real life, say if you want to run an ad in a magazine or a website, or a cable TV show, those advertisers show you their target markets and some numbers. I know, b/c I bought ad time for my employer for paper and TV. LL doesn't give us any numbers. They don't give us anything at all to base our decisions.

 

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My partner's product line that i was referring to above....were Meeroo Interactive Toys. They seem to be selling like hot cakes in-world and now on Marketplace. It's her only line of products she has listed onto MP.

Under separate accounts, my partner and i have several other product lines that we haven't even listed on Marketplace.....stuff like textures, scripts, Furniture, kids clothing, poses and animations. All of those type of products we haven't listed......we'll probably end up dumping everything into Marketplace (for our sins).....if you can't beat them....join them! :smileytongue:

 

Yep, I've worked in Marketing & Advertising sector for over 20 years RL...and later on with Organic Inc (website designs, Internet advertising and Keyword Search optimisation)....all I can say is that SL's marketing tools are generally p!ss poor. The audience reach is very poor too.

I'm still a big advocate of In-world commerce......and prefer if  that were the hive of activity as oppose to using an off-world shopping site. I signed up to a 3D virtual world environment and prefer to be immersed within the Grid.

 

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