Beth Macbain

Isn't that the risk every small business owner faces, though? If an item doesn't sell, that sucks for the creator. If an item sells, but they're selling it below whatever their cost is to make it, that also sucks. If a creator raises their prices and things don't sell, they always have the option of marking them back down. If a creator keeps prices the same as their costs rise, they're just screwed because they aren't even testing the waters to see what the market will bear.

I haven't, and that's a very good idea! Thank you!

I've been in SL for around 13 years and I've had issues with merchants before, and almost always they've helped as soon as possible. In this case, the merchant has two CSRs so even if they are involved with something in the real world that is keeping them from responding to my requests, someone should still be available, and certainly in under 2 weeks. And when I say contacted multiple times, I mean I've sent all three of them a notecard twice, so none of them have been contacted more than once a week. This is a case where they messed up, and with it being at an event, I can't imagine that I'm the only one who purchased it and got the wrong item. I would be happy to exchange the incorrect item I received with the correct one, but it's, of course, no transfer. I just want the thing I paid for. People talk about many things that could possibly kill LL. When, and this is certainly already happening, unscrupulous people find out that they can basically steal money from people because LL doesn't get involved in 'resident disputes', it could topple the entire economy when people start getting really gun-shy about buying things because they've been stung so many times. What's to stop someone from setting up a shop selling, I dunno, a thing that people want for L$300 and sending them something utterly worthless? Does LL really not step in there and say, "hey, you're in our world scamming people"? It's beyond me that LL doesn't have a procedure for dealing with these type of issues between buyer and seller. But there's nothing stopping someone from creating a little website where items that are bought in SL can be reviewed? In order for it to be governed well, there would need to be some strict rules about reviews, and certainly a chance for merchants to respond... hmmm...

Okay, but what does that have to do with what I said?

If a creator that I love refuses to raise their prices in order to counter increases in fees, etc., and ultimately goes out of business due to that stubbornness, yes, it displeases me that they wouldn't trust enough in me as a customer (or, perhaps, in the quality of their work) to think they could survive a small price increase. As a matter of fact, Linden Lab creates a product that I adore, and I'm perfectly willing to pay this increased premium price in order to keep them in business so I can keep getting this product I love.

I understand that the Lab stays out of issues between merchants and customers, but is there any recourse whatsoever for a customer who gets ripped off? About two weeks ago, I purchased a fatpack of an item from an extremely well known merchant at a large shopping event. The item that was delivered was the wrong product. I provided the transaction information showing that the item that was delivered was indeed not the item advertised (or demo'ed) at the event. I've sent multiple notecards to the merchant, and her two CSRs, and haven't received a single reply from any of them and I'm livid. They don't sell on the MP so there are no reviews of items or customer service. Do I put them on blast here? On FB? On my blog? How long is a reasonable amount of time to expect some sort of response? I know that any purchase in SL is essentially buyer-beware, but I also don't believe in just rolling over and accepting it when a merchant behaves badly. I'm also angry enough about this right now, as well as two other recent experiences I've had with large merchants with crappy attitudes and just ignoring notecards or inquiries, that I've thought about creating the SL version of a Better Business Bureau, or Yelp, maybe, where consumers can submit their reviews or experiences, and merchants have a chance to respond if they wish. I mean I probably won't do it because I don't want the hassle but, damn. Merchants should have to answer for providing bad products, wrong products, and bad customer service.

It's almost as if some people want LL to pay them to play Second Life. Nothing is every going to be enough for some of you.

I was out of town for a couple of days, and yes, I love it!

I turn away for one bloody minute to be a cranky broad on another part of the forums and suddenly Bellisseria is the Golden Village Girl Peoples?! Well, sign me up! Please let me be Sophia as the Leather Daddy Cop...

@Sylvia Tamalyn

What? They're small business owners. Quite a few take home nothing, especially if they have an employee to pay. There's no minimum wage for a small business owner... at least, not in the US.

sighs You👏get👏what👏you👏pay👏for. Non premium account holders don't want to lose the already-free benefits they're receiving, thus not only not paying the Lab more money, but costing them as well. Consumers don't want to pay more money to the Lab through their premium account, or lack of. Creators don't want to pay more money to the Lab through transaction fees. Anyone else see a problem here? A bit of a catch-22 perhaps? Is the Lab that provides this platform supposed to make net zero off anyone other than the land barons? And why should the land barons have to carry the burden for all of us? So... who should LL make angry? The consumers or the creators? They split it down the middle. They didn't get rid of free accounts, but yes, they took away some of the benefits. You want more group slots? Pay for them. The price increase for premium members is, I'm sorry, but seriously, it's negligible for something that is essentially a luxury entertainment item. It's an increase of 7 cents per day for those who pay annually, 8 cents a day for those who pay monthly. If that is beyond your budget, and I completely understand that for some of you it is, then I'm really sorry, but perhaps having a premium membership isn't the best option for you at this time. You still have the free membership option. I still haven't gotten a good answer about what percentage of fees LL takes from creators and I'm too lazy to figure it out, but I'm going to be generous and say LL takes 30% of your sales? No? More? Less? It's less, isn't it? The average profit margin for a small retail store is anywhere from 1%-3%, and whether or not that is enough profit to live on hinges on volume of inventory moved. If you're not moving enough inventory, that's hardly LL's fault. Oh, and your profit margin is WAY more than 3%, isn't it? No one wants things to cost more. That's human nature. We want to keep what is ours, especially when we feel we've earned it. There is a cost for doing business and there is a cost for the type of entertainment SL provides. I'm sure I'm going to be told, again, to shut up by someone but... this is the ugly truth. LL has to make money. LL has to make more money than they currently are. Someone has to pay for Sansar and there is no one else to do that but us. It sucks. I think Sansar should be shut down and be written off. I hated the idea of Sansar from day 1. But... bills still have to be paid and the parent company of Sansar is LL. They could choose to not pay, and go into the red... file bankruptcy, shut off the servers, and the employees can all go get other jobs in Silicon Valley that probably pay them considerably more than LL pays them, and we'd all lose SL. I'm not willing to do that. People seem to think the Lab made a bunch of flippant decisions and decided to screw over their user base just for fun. I don't think that's true in the slightest. I think no one wanted to charge anyone more money or take anything away from anyone, but it's necessary, and in my opinion, fair. Go ahead and tell me to shut up if it makes you feel better.

Ah, okay, sorry! I shouldn't keep trying to do four things at once and not paying full attention to any of them... lol!

I mean, in general, yeah, I completely agree with you. I don't feel like I'm being screwed over by anything, though. At least not in SL... lol.

You aren't reading what anyone else is saying so what's the point? You've got your mind made up that you're being screwed and nothing is going to change that.

Someone that is an international creator help me out with this, please. Let's say you sell an item for L$100, just to make it easy. What percentage do you pay in fees and taxes, etc., and how much to you actually make in profit?

The bumpers may come in handy as well...

Would you like instructions on how to block me? It's really very simple... I'm sure you could figure it out.

I have no idea what ***** was that got censored, but if Nike and Sony don't want to advertise in a world where adult activities exist, they should probably just close up shop. Sex hasn't always been a taboo subject. Those naughty Romans certainly didn't shy away from it. There are pornographic cave paintings. The Victorians were filthy. There is nothing wrong with BDSM, consensual rape fantasies (which is what SL allows) and, hmmm... five letters... yeah, still not sure. Could be any number of things. There was a time not so long ago that a brand wouldn't want to be associated with anything LGBTQ. Times changes. Don't come to my adult world... fine. I'm cool with that. But don't even consider segregating me from your PG world. I have a right to be there just as much as anyone. I do own clothes and have the common sense to know how to dress and behave appropriately according to my surroundings.

Um... what store is that? If telling people to shut up is indicative of your customer service, I doubt increasing your prices will be what hurts your sales... Edit: Never mind... found it. Live in bliss!

Yes, we will. i'm happy to pay them another 7 cents per day. I'm also happy to pay the creator's 2.5% more for their creations to cover the increase. Hell, I'll be generous and offer to pay 5% more. My L$300 hair will now cost L$315? Okay! 10%? Sure, I'm good with that, too. SL is a luxury item and my entertainment. I expect to pay for it, and I expect the prices to increase over time. I'm far more upset about my rising healthcare premiums, rising gas prices, groceries, utilities... the things I can't live without. If I get to the point I can't pay those, I'll start making cuts in SL. No, actually, I'd start those cuts with Amazon Prime or Spotify or something else first. My cost of living hasn't really changed in the decade I've been in SL. I'm okay with it increasing.

The people that "I" have talked PERSONALLY don't give a damn. See how that works? I'm sure the responses we're getting depend entirely on the sort of people we hang out with. The ones I know... well, we're less about creating things and more about creating O's. We don't have alts with premium accounts, nor do we care about large land holdings. We shop and we play. The creators of the types of things we buy already know that we will buy whatever they create at whatever price they set because we trust the quality. We trust LL to keep providing us a place to get our freak on. The price increased a couple bucks? Cool. We're good with that. Merchant fees going up? Okay... we'll pay the creators a bit extra to cover it. Ten more group slots? Hell yes! Ten more swingers groups! Decreased groups for non-premium. Okay, cool, we pay for the groups we have, they can pay for them, too. Different strokes and all that... literally and figuratively.