Phil, I totally understand your frustration regarding all the changes that cause in-world stores to have less visibility. I love the store I worked so hard creating, with the gardens below, and to have the Marketplace shoved down my throat (if I wanted my store to survive) wasn't what I wanted....another huge task...it takes mega amounts of time to make those listings and get them up on the web. But the fact is, I don't think many stores will survive in the future that don't have a MP presence.
The good news is that since I started getting more listing onto the MP my sales are finally improving, so ironically my best in-world marketing at this time is to have a good MP presence. And I"m looking at how it's beneficial in other ways too - for example, all these photos I take of my content and all the descriptions I write - all of this packaging can be taken to other grids. Who knows, maybe SL will even be connected to other grids one day and deliveries will go to multiple grids.
So get that stuff packaged up Phil !
One best business practice I'd like to share regards how I make the connection between the MP @ my in-world store. I've started putting out an info cube with an URL giver in it next to my in-world store items so that shoppers can click this and go directly to the item at my MP store. I know, at first I thought this might be stupid since I'd be getting less money if they purchased it on the MP, but I believe it actually increases sales overall - you can see all the details of the item so much better on the MP - so much more detail than a note card can provide (and note cards often don't open). Plus, there is a certain percentage of people that seem to trust purchasing @ the MP store more than in-world.
But back to the changes SL forces on us, it is very hard to keep going sometimes with so many changes. Many of them seem like errors in judgement, and probably some are and some aren't, but what can we do but keep adapting as best we can. This recent plan...the march to Sesame Street/Disneyland...seems like a big error to me at this time (I hope I'm wrong though). We are pretty much dragged along as SL tries to find fame and fortune, and most of the time they don't seem to see that the people already in the world are the ones they should be focusing on (well, the ones that are still left anyway). In other words, it's a niche market...but it's a big world and could create a big niche - can't this be enough?