Rya Nitely

I spend way too much time trying to please customers. And I haven't got to the point of saying no, which I should. An example is a customer this weekend who didn't like the animation in the boat because it was too feminine and could I change it please? Yes, of course. 'Oh now this one is good but I don't like the way it .......' 'OK I will try try again with another animation.' This took a couple of hours. For a boat that cost L$450. Now I usually do these small mods for free, but they take a lot of time. Stupid way to run a business when I have a list of things that I planned to do, left undone because I'm spending the time trying to please one customer.

you look stupid :smileytongue: sorry I couldn't help that. No, you look great, really, honest. off topic bye *runs away*

Chelsea Malibu wrote: Business is good so I want to pass this along by lowering prices where it is actually more important to me to be able to share my hobby with those who appreciate what I do. An affordable SL is a much more attractive and happier place to which more people will come and stay. More people -> more customers -> more business. A major reason people leave is because it's too expensive. More people -> more customers -> more business. We've been going since late 2008 and our prices are about the same as then. I want people to be able to buy our things without it being a huge financial decision. Some people think that when you convert the currency to RL money it's such a small amount, but these small amounts add up. We know this as merchants, so of course it does for customers too. Many people are addicted to SL and will spend beyond capacity. I'm just glad I can keep this as an enjoyable hobby and not out to grab every cent I can. I know for others the situation is different.

Dakota Linden wrote: The old owners of the Xstreet SL web site were completely free to make any rules they wanted, enforce any rules they wanted and ban people at will. This is no longer the case. The banning was a bit tyrannical. I remember when SL took over, the banned people were allowed back in again. We heard their horror stories in forums, and many cases sounded very unfair. I'm much more comfortable with the Marketplace under Linden control. :smileyhappy:

Dakota Linden wrote: Reporting a positive review just because it might be from an alt or friend isn't sufficient cause. People were banned for this in the old Xstreet. It was such a huge problem that they prevented it by not allowing more than one rating per IP, and none from the seller's IP. Thinking back, the people who ran the old SLX were a bit tyrannical when it came to enforcing the rules and banning people. And they had very strict rules, but good ones. These were relaxed when SL took over, and disappeared almost completely with the new marketplace and forums. Now unscrupulous people can run amuck without much fear of consequence.

Thanks Zanara, I'll give it a go. Edit: Yes! it worked, now I must remember this at the end of the month,

This is what I would love to see - A filter in Transaction History where you can filter out, not only L$0 sales, but also all the Marketplace Linden sales, upload fees and debits etc. leaving behind only the inworld sales and other credits to download. This would save me a lot of time going through the spreadsheet manually and deleting these to make it useful. It takes a good part of the day now to do end of month sales and it's an exhausting task. For me the SLM reporting problem is nothing compared to this, although it can be improved. Maybe others have an easier method of filtering or maybe I'm just not utilizing some Excel tool. Any advice?

Mickey Vandeverre wrote: Holy Cow. you're telling people not to advertise? for real? No offense, but that's not super good advice. No offense taken, Mickey :matte-motes-smile: I tried advertising and got no joy out of it. My partner loved buying enhancements (while I rolled my eyes back) and now he also says forget that waste of money crap. I would love it if advertising worked. I wish it did pay off, especially when I finish creating a new item that I think is good, and if only people could see it. But I've been there done that and nothing. Given time the new item takes off without any help. People find it. So now I rely on this. Maybe advertising works better for clothes, and not so well for boats and the type of things I sell. People must be in the market for a boat and search for it.

Vahn Delvalle wrote: and my vehicles are in the correct category Are they? I had a look at your 2 newest items which are cars. Perhaps putting them under cars and trucks would be better than just under vehicles.

yes, monthly sales report is coming up and I already have a headache thinking about it. SLM isn't as bad as doing inworld sales from Transaction History where you have to take out all the Marketplace Linden sales and other crap.:smileymad::smileysad:

Best way to solve the problem is don't buy listing enhancements. Here's another option. Work hard at creating high quality items that stand out or create items that just can't be found in the marketplace, or if they can be found it's low quality rubbish. Now there are many many examples of this. Create these items in high quality and people will find you, and once they do others will follow. Then they will shop and search right there in your store. The mistake so many people make is to create items in oversaturated markets. They see something and think 'I can make that'. If you do this then make sure your item is twice as good.Or make something that isn't out there in abundance already. SL is still very young, and many things are lacking - so fill the void. The best enhancement is the quality of your product and the demand for it. No need to buy advertising. SL is still small enough for word of mouth to do a very efffective job.

Thank you for the link. i now see that there are things I am unaware of. I haven't been keeping up with the forums, having an ri job takes away the precious time I should be here keeping track of things.

Darrius Gothly wrote: . A visible Linden that is made to shovel misleading statements on us? Sorry but there's nothing good in that at all. Dakota has been misleading us? Can you give an example please. To me she has always seemed brutally honest.

Are you stuck on which category to list your item under, and need advice? After we've created our wonderfully original thingybobs we get to the category selecting stage. And here we sit pondering, hunting and then finally with fingers crossed we choose one, but was it the right one? I've made this thread so that people could ask for advice from others (and maybe Dakota too when she has time). There are so many threads on category confusion, so it would be useful to have a place to ask advice in choosing the best and most accurate category. Hopefully it will take off, and to kick start here are a few of mine: Gravestones - a set of 6 old decaying gravestones Off sim island with lighthouse, dock and boat - a collection of items, linked and pushed out to sea over sim edge Off sim shipwreck - a shipwreck that is pushed out to sea over the sim edge fishing dock accessories - a collection of items for a fishing dock Most of these items I've put under home and gardens - decor - exterior decor, but this might not be the best one. Advice please :) Do you have any items you're not sure about? Please ask here as well.

Or lets just start over. Clean slate. Make everyone relist everything :smileyvery-happy: Now that would be fun :smileyvery-happy:

Fornicola, interesting points. But here's something you overlooked - You can apply your theories when posting in these forums too. Saturation also occurs when you say the same thing over and over again. A point is a lot stronger and more valuable when it is made concisely and clearly. Repeating yourself only diminishes its value.

Yes, there needs to be some regular effort from merchants to keep their listings active, not the 'list and forget' method that exists. Now to kick things off towards a cleaner, fresher marketplace we should have a one off compulsory clean up. Make everyone do it, and then the 3 month thing.

Fornicola Butuzova wrote: Those who say "I never ask for reviews", thats a perfectly vaild position. But if you do this as a career, and ratings are not just an occasional pleasant ego stroke, you have to, and there is no shame in it. If you are doing your job right, building relationships with your customers, truly serving them, not just "selling" them, and they love you, ask for the help If your customers are strangers and you dont care about serving them, sure you cant ask for help from somebody you have not served. But if somebody who knows you, likes you and believes in you asked you to take a few seconds to help them, why wouldnt you. There is acertain relativiity in play, if your best friend asked for 20 bucks the day before payday that is not an impostion, but a stangero n the street asking for a quater is. I am not saying that the "I never ask for reviws" position is nieve, it is a fine position to take if you are just here for fun and creativity. If you are here to make a living, and asking a pretty good buck for your pruducts, products that reqire very careful consideration you have to. If you follow up with a customer, most do not but you should, and they are just GLOWING, you have served them. You have not taken advantage of them. If they love you, love your products, love that you took the time to follow up, as most are simply shocked to see that, you are not imposing on them to ask them to help you. You have earned it, they are happy to help, they feel like a paert of your success. 'Those who say "I never ask for reviews", thats a perfectly vaild position.' It is a valid position. I provide good customer support to the point where people almost always offer friendship. I don't take advantage of these friendships by asking them for help. Customers have already helped me enough by buying my items. If you don't see it that way then it's simply a personality or a cultural difference. 'Ego stroke' is not a nice way of describing the appreciation I feel for a compliment about my work, especially a compliment that is genuine and unsolicited. 'Ego stroke' is not the same as being thankful or grateful. I put myself in the customer's shoes, and then imagine how I'd feel. Firstly, I'd feel as if a 5 star rating and glowing review was expected...but what if I was only being polite. Secondly, I'd be wondering if this merchant was only being so nice and friendly because he/she was working towards getting that 5 star rating. I'd be looking at my friendship offer and wanting to retract it. But hey, it might just be a personality or cultural difference.

Perhaps it should be up to each and every merchant to decide the value of their own listings. From the enthusiastic novice, who lists his first few items and then watches and waits for those sales to roll in, and it never happens so he forgets about it and moves on. To the accomplished merchant who has 100s of listings, and by their own admission, they would like to hide many of these on the last pages of their store, or they've never ever done that overdue inventory cleanup. And then we have the inactive merchants. Perhaps it should be up to merchants to decide which of their listings are still valuable to them. Now if this isn't done through imposing a listing fee, which I don't like because of the value of freebies, how else could we get them to do this, let me think?

Darrius, I fully agree that cheap isn't junk. I've bought some great freebies/dollarbies - some examples are a cave I bought from Josh Susanto (who is also posting in this thread) that I have out on display on my sims; I recently bought free, high quality plant sculptie maps, which saved me lots of time; and then there are the free megaprims etc. These items are not junk and they should never disappear. I said low quality items should die a natural death. Many of these items don't sell at all, and when they do they could only be met with disappointment from the unlucky, inexperienced purchaser. If you can imagine a very poorly made prim shirt that nobody would want to wear, except as a joke perhaps. And these items are not always cheap. In RL, even those Dollar Stores you refer to (and we have them in Australia too) sell good value items, and if these items were not good value those shops would disappear. Are you saying everything has a place in the market, no matter how badly made? I think these items drag the market down. Zanara puts it very well when she says ' A "relevance" algorithm that drags it up from the depths of obscurity doesn't help either...'

Typical case scenario - I use search all in marketplace, then refine it by category, I don't find what I want and give up. Plan B - My partner and I try to work out how we can make it ourselves.

Actually, Ralph has some good points. I tried to find the 'warped' but don't see it. I can see how a 'superabundance' of crap in the marketplace could turn new users off and mar the true capacity of SL. I think we all want an SL that is displayed at its best. The only way that this will happn is through competition and survival of the fittest. There has to be a way for the low quality items to die a natural death, and disappear.

Mickey Vandeverre wrote: just think that people don't have a ton of time now to go through a longer rating process. I don't ask them to leave a rating because it reminds me of when ebay sellers used to hound me for feedback ratings, and that kinda bugs me. But might be missing the boat by not asking them to rate the product. You probably should, if you have them chatting in IM. I would never ask a customer to rate my items. I'm proud of every good rating I have, and even more so under this new system because when customers take the time, after rezzing and using my items, to go back and give it a 5 star rating and review it shows how much they liked it. Nobody asked them to do it, they just wanted to. And that makes it special. Nothing else would mean as much. If customers were pressured into leaving ratings and did so because they felt obligated.....then no, leave my items alone, I don't want those ratings. I now see ratings and reviews as a feedback to me, not a way of getting more buyers. I'm not disputing anything here - it's just the way I see it. My unrated items sell well enough.

Zanara Zenovka wrote: People still leave good reviews spontaneously - nowhere near as many as they used to - but I still get a pleasant surprise now and then Yes, and when a 5 star rating and review does show up it means so much more now. I sit smiling at it for ages, like this :matte-motes-nerdy: ...hang on that's RL me. Ignore that :matte-motes-bashful-cute-2:

LoveAngeL Lyre wrote: The best you can do is to ask your partner if you look ok for him. If I appeared naked my partner would say I look great:smileytongue: Grey I don't mind. People understand grey, whereas naked you could be judged as just a weird sicko. And seeing this thread on the very day I experienced the same issue makes me think it might not be so rare.