Mickey Vandeverre

lol...you've not spent much time in the business world. this is not fighting. just discussion.

exactly on your suggestions to lead people toward their interests. was hoping the social network system would help with that. I was dropping in event times and locations all day from twitter, but it just seems that not many people are using it....and I suspect that is because they feel a threat about it, as indicated from some of the threads and jiras and reading comments. most of that threat I suspect...is because it wasn't explained properly that very first week, and you've got to explain properly right upfront before someone gets bad taste in mouth. but it also goes against the grain for a large # of people. a limitation on the social network tool is that when my residential sim owner posts an event....I've got to copy and paste that info into a separate submission....which is fine, but not everyone will do that step - needs to be a button to click and share that info. but unfortunately...it appears that the new social networking system was a complete fail. I'm not waiting any longer on them adding an affiliate vendor thing to our stores, and just going to make a new av and do business with it. it will have to be separate business....and that's kinda stupid since I already had a brand. but it could be another year before they allow more than one brand to be sorted in a store. it would not be feasible at all to mix the two styles - would totally cancel out built brand. the fact they can't do that....darn shame. creative people here with multi-dimensions that could bust it out in that aspect right this minute. my control panel is not working. the only report that will pull up is listing enhancements and transactions, but I need to see top sellers and hits. several reported that is not working for them either, so assumed that was a universal problem. your reports for top sellers and hits is working? eta: Dartagan....I really do think that people are going to miss sales of moderately priced items if they set the lower priced items and freebie items in another section. many times I need something cheap to set in a display for photo - and while scouting that out, add a moderate to higher priced item that appeared in search to favorites for later date. an example of that would be when I needed a hot dog stand real cheap and ran across a fish and chips van that I saved for a while, then purchased last night...you can click on my pic tab below to see it. I doubt that I would have typed fish and chips van into a search.....ever. that happens all the time on textures, when only need one real quick...but the larger selections appear right there with the low priced ones...those get added to favorites and purchased at another time. I don't think that people are thinking that through.

I get the drift that people have fun being merchants. on any scale. it's one of the few actual participation-type draws that they have not totally thwarted with hurdles. (although they are doing a pretty good job in that direction) I think that perhaps you are trying to make one of the last participation-type draws that they have left even more difficult for the majority of people participating, and particularly more difficult for new people participating. Going beyond very very limited tools...and into territory where people's creations shall be judged and prices to be set (which is impossible, by the way, and that's not the way a market works) You are way off base calling people's stuff "junk." And it's annoying (or pathetic) that you don't have manliness enough to do it under a real business avatar name. If you don't have the guts to post as your business name....then you don't have the guts to compete fair and square. In my neck of the woods they call that a sissy boy. It almost sounds as if you are trying to clear some folks out....since you are not being clear on examples. I suspect that you offer higher end product, and might be getting squeezed out simply by volume. volume happens regardless of what price range you are in. I seriously doubt that many people left because they could not find the perfect leather jacket on marketplace, on a blog, from a hunt, from a friend's suggestion, or at a newcomer center...for free or at a price that was comfortable to them. I really, really doubt that LL can move freebies to another section at this very moment.....if they cannot supply even the simplest of tools for a merchant to manage with and keep those funcioning. I really don't want freebies moved...I like being mixed in with all price ranges. Sounds like a shot in the foot to me. Those tools that are absent and have been absent for what is it...a year now? that's your problem. those tools can correct the situations you are having difficulty with. Problem is not the people who want to have a store and create cute stuff and dabble. It's marketed as 2nd life...yes, people will dabble. it ain't their 1st life. they should not have to come in and check on it every day and meet your standards for product design. and they should be able to roleplay it even....if that is their choice. Make that difficult and no longer fun....and you lost some more people that are already here. I was willing to pay listing fees a while back. not now. no way. the tools aren't there, and the ones that are there don't work half the time. and I get a wee bit of indication that they do not even have the slightest clue as to what tools will make it work, which is not a great foundation for any of us to build a business on. If people walked away from their shops and they've got stale content....maybe they got bored and tired of waiting for the tools too.

I've never been really clear on what the OP wants, as he has never been willing to share his product line. Simply sharing that might make it more understandable, but have nothing to go on. but he will dang sure diss others' products and pricing whenever he gets a chance.

you might find one already open, but it's really easy to make your own. be careful on your permissions there, if you purchase a sculpty. to make your own: just hollow out a square box and you have your main box. copy that, pull it straight up...fill in the hollow...stretch it thin for the lid...then rotate to lift a little and attach. make sure you include a LM and a thank you note. yesterday I got a notecard in a package that included pics of other products....very good idea.

I did not refer to "tricks." if you want people who are interested in "free pet food" as you stated very clearly....then you offer free pet food. Attaching a 600L pet to a "free pet food" keyword is not what I intended in my suggestion. People want inexpensive items. That does not mean that they are freeloaders or junk collectors or whatever it is this thread thinks they are. You offer a mix of price ranges and you will get on the pages you want for sales and exposure, and you will gain some new customers that were looking for something inexpensive one day, and want to splurge for a deluxe model the next day. Any more marketing advice is wasted here. Completely wasted.

Amore - are you packing your product for the first time to sell? you might want to play around with an easy paint program to make a simple logo. or you can find really pretty wrapping paper in the texture search, and all you have to do is to texture a simple one prim box to pack in. I don't know anything about unpacker scripts. never used those. I pack about 30 items into a box at times, and people just click the open feature when they receive it.

depends on what kind of look you want. crate is usually a good term to type in. for a rustic warehouse look. gift box term doesn't work that well, because you get items that include a gift box in package, but wrapping paper term works better if you want something pretty. or type those into a specific texture search...to make your own. very easy to make.

I typed in Pet Cat. not a bad mix on first two pages. I told you what to do to get to first page...and you did not do it. Someone else did, and is on first page. Whose fault is that?

I gave several random examples. They did not look "infected" and the stuff looked cool on top of that. when I type in my own keywords...it does not look "infected." which categories and phrases are you talking about?

what kind of searches are you doing to find those? keywords?

what keywords are you typing in Ralph?

mine might have jumped back because they are featured listings and as soon as the marketplace was fixed they started selling again. Suppose that if you did not get the immediate action back on a few items, that they fell several pages. I think that I had some of those which are not featured listings fall pretty far. Not really sure explanation on that, except that they lost their momentum the day the market went down and have to start back up again. I'm covered up in 25L or less items halfway today on first page... Suppose that if you don't want that, you just remove them or raise price, so you can get your other good sellers back up. The cure for that without having to remove them...would be for them to fix whatever glitch there was in the system that allowed us to control our product offerings on the first pages. That feature lasted about 48 hours, and I tweaked and had great sales days. We have not heard a word on that function, and whether or not it will be back...and that is very valuable function. Crucial.

If you want to talk about retention rates.... let''s talk about the viewer that they get. I just had to load the new viewer to check on some keywords in inworld search. there was a nice little plug on front screen for places for newcomers to visit. I clicked on it, and nothing appeared, but found it on my main web screen after I logged out of SL. There are messages flashing, and I have to put on glasses to find them. I messed up, and missed a message from a customer. So I did what "might" be considered common sense and pulled up the people tab to find her, but plugging her name into people tab did not work. I think you have to use main search for that, higher up...but I saw People Symbols and tried that. Didn't work. More messages flashing again. Messed up again and hit wrong button. They are gone. Typed in keywords and blessed that store still makes somewhat of a showing...but when you click on MORE info for a store...you do not get MORE info. You still get a relatively small pic, with just a few words. You can not tell much at all about a place. Imagine same thing happens when looking for a venue. Suppose you have to tp to a dozen places and be disappointed with the first 10. I hear more dingy bells going off...probably messages...I don't know...can't find the dang things. Log off. I meet newcomers when I'm working on my house in Costa Rica. Fortunately they at least made it to a very pretty spot with things to do. Add them to friends list...see them once or twice...then they disappear forever. The one or two times that I do see them back on, they are wondering what to do. I can hand them LMs, but the stuff I like to do is entirely different than what they like to do. I can teach them how to use search, and type in keywords of their interests...but if I can't use the dang thing after 5 years...doubt they will have success with that. They never mention marketplace...got most of their stuff at a newcomer's help center. I don't really think they are ready to shop just yet....I think they want to meet people and do stuff. EXCITEMENT. granted...I betcha we get a ton of new joins from people who type in general terms to google....I certainly gets hits to blog from those, so know that marketplace gets a zillion more.... and those folks are probably intrigued when they get to the marketplace... but betcha they want to DO STUFF EXCITING once they get their leather jacket and motorcycle.

The search was messed up the day the marketplace went down. Because they did not explain upfront in a timely fashion about what the glitches were....I flipped and boxed some under 25L items, ready for action. Not waiting around anymore when they do these flip-flops on us. Haven't loaded them just yet. However...they came in explained why the algorithm thingy was messed up for the day, and explained that they corrected it. Next day... Most of my sales were back to normal. So not really understanding the freebie problem. If I were a guy getting ready to play SL I might type in the following to marketplace, and this is what I just got on the first page without doing any kind of adjustments: leather jacket 0 to 1500L white t-shirt 0 to 350L ripped jeans 0 to 175L motorcycle 1 to 5000L bachelor pad 10 to 1500L sex bed 499 to 1599L beer 0 to 125L (left out the items that were obviously abusing keywords and not related at all) that's a pretty healthy mix of price ranges, so not sure what it is that everyone is seeing (on a normal functioning day) about all the freebies. Please explain.

What kind of stuff do you sell, Ralph? I never can find your stuff in the marketplace. Perhaps that in itself is why you've got some sales difficulties...maybe a search glitch that you should report.

Thank you Zanara! just used your tool for first time and shaved an hour off of one my store duties. awesome

I'm sorry. fish out of water here. raised in a mega-marketing environment, and in that environment you create EXCITEMENT every single day. If you don't feel it when you walk in the door in the morning, you dang well better feel it by 10am or you're out of business. Just can't grasp this tech industry. Boring as hell to watch people twiddle with buttons when they can create EXCITEMENT without a button. If you can't figure out how to give that "noob" (and I HATE that word - that in itself is a problem - people who log in are NOT noobs)......EXCITEMENT the first day.... I just don't get what the picture is. Don't see it. But one bonus is that I can go in and roleplay it. Thank god for that....because that "talk" I just watched was a complete downer. eta: even the smallest detail....supplying a decent video for your supporters to watch. The Smallest of Details.

was able to watch ceo address better here - not sure if merchant specific talk is there or not http://www.metaversejournal.com/2011/08/15/linden-lab-ceo-were-growing-but-were-not-sure-why/

Sorry...but if someone is still a noob 8 months into the game...that's scary and speaks volumes. They're makin' a ton of money evidently, and not under pressure to correct that situation anytime soon. Works for them. And that's all that counts.

caught 5 minutes of ceo address. No Big News. nope - you don't hold a convention once a year and report that you have "No Big News" still a noob? nope. don't wanna know mid-way into August that the ceo is still a noob. better not watch anymore of that. Island Time.

that keeps freezing up my screen - any suggestions? since it's about the only communication we'll get for months?

thanks Zanara - I'll grab one tonight when I go in and give it a whirl.

hi Boaz - that's their real name on the transaction list, but it's the new version of name that is a single name. to find them in your viewer you need to add Resident as a last name. like Suzy Resident

Here's a great article on the challenges of the single user name with "resident" and the use of the display names. by Avril Korman at Search Engine Watch http://bit.ly/oD5UAO there is a Jira link included, if you want to see comments on the challenges, and it's rather lengthy. Maybe I just can't get hip to a simple system on this...but it adds a bit of a dimension when looking people's names up for customer service. Imagine that as the sign-ups increase, it will become more difficult as folks will be using more #s in their names. And Darrius mentioned a flaw that I had not thought of....when delivering products as gifts. Non-merchant related: it just seems like a really limiting concept for people and their unique virtual world "identity." (actually, that is merchant related as well)