Zhoie Zimermann

Do you think that each time you guys change your minds (how many times in the last month?) it affects our sales. First default was general, then general and moderate, now back to general again. Brooke, go take a look at my sales this morning in comparison to that of yesterday and all days prior. Each time you make a change like this my (and probably everyone elses) die. When is your next change? When is your next change after that? Why in the world would you want to make the default starting out option as general for people who are age verified. I am age verified and my tab was set to general until i changed it. For the time it takes everyone to change that button do you care that my sales on marketplace died totally? Do you care that for a week or 2 or 3 my sales will be dead and i rely on this money now for my rl income? Probably not, you probably are just rolling your eyes at yet another angry resident. I have an idea why dont you change things back next week, then change it back the week after, why do anything different from how you have been. All i do as a merchant in SL is sit and wait to see how my sales will be based on the changes you decided to make on any given week, i ride the LL decision wave each week and cross my fingers my sales will last a little longer till your next change that affects the economy, sigh

I see once again LL has changed the features in marketplace for the ??? time in the last month or so. Each time they make a change sales take a dive into the toilet and the economy suffers. Wish they would make up their minds, don't they realize people make a RL living from this game and it's not just for fun for a lot of people. I knew as soon as I saw their message that marketplace would be down for software upgrade that I would wake up to no sales the following day, and sure enough....i was 100% right. Once again I've lost the browsers sales because the default search has reverted to only general. First it was only general, then they chaned it to general and moderate, now back to general again. For a company that affects so many people's rl income they fail to think out their decisions before they do them, obviously. For a world that has always centred mostly around adult products it's such a joy (not) to see default searches catering to non adult products. I don't know why i continue to complain about this, i should just start my own rl business like i keep saying I am going to do and leave behind running a business under the control of people that can't make up their minds from one day to the next of which every decision affects how much money I have in my pocket that day.

I would like to say something I strongly believe is a huge key of importance in addition to the other issues that have been discussed already. If someone wants to search for highly sexual items I think most would agree they would probably check the 18+ button. What IS a concern is the people that WERE NOT looking for my items. A HUGE portion of my sales come from browsers. People wanting to just browse through say the "Home and Garden" Category and see all the cool furniture ( I do this all the time in many categories). Well they were not looking for a bedroom set but they come across my products and say wow i like these. A HUGE % of my sales come from people that were window shopping with lindens burning in their pockets. Because most people forget to click that 18+ button (I forget most times too and I am a HUGE consumer) anyone with items in the adult section will never get those sales, never get the window shopper people that forget to click that 18+ button. Without these people we can all expect the revenue to stay as low as it has been since the new maturity rating was implemented. I suggest why not make all categories viewed by default for all AGE VERIFIED shoppers. I mean after all, if they are a teen they should NOT have age verified. ALSO...For those people who are 18+ and offended by sexual content have a button (at the top of screen how the current one is now) that says "click here if you wish to disable 18+) OR Have a pop up at the beginning of each shopping commencement that makes the shopper click the YES or NO to 18+ instead of how it is now which is to have it sitting there and easily forgotten. I personally would prefer the first option as far as sales staying up. I hope LL will consider these options because the way things are going now we are all going to continue to suffer very badly from the drop in sales.

perfectly put, perfect !

Just curious, if someone has age verified why wouldn't they also be able to see the adult stuff. Just because they see it doesn't mean they have to buy it. I see rare few ads on marketplace that have vulgar pictures of sorts, if any that is. How about making the adult content default for anyone that is age verified and offering a filter that can filter OUT the adult content should they wish to not view it. Brooke, my sales have dropped in half and all the other merchants I have talked to say same, some say worse than that, some say gone to nothing. Surely something can be done about this because like another merchant said, if we are not making money then you are not making money. The adults are the ones with the money, not so much the teens.

I have to say I agree. And besides discrimination who do you think has more money to spend? Teens...or Adults? So teens get the first more visible level of shopping on marketplace while the more hidden level belongs to the adults with the bigger pocketbooks. Can we says sales are going to suffer BIG TIME...um too late, my sales have taken a toilet flush, my once thriving business is sad, and I seriously want to cry. So my question is...why would LL want to do this? I mean, if people are spending less, they are buying less lindens, which means LL is making less money. Why would they want to do this? Couldn't there have been an easier way to integrate the teens etc without making the adults suffer. Oh, and is this blog really going to do any good? I hate to say but, I doubt it . I have talked to a lot of merchants about things over the last year and the feeling is all the same, ready to leave SL and do business in the RL. Yes we have the economy to tend with but we can take measures against that, work harder, promote harder, etc. In this world we are totally at the mercy of someone else that can do something that would affect our sales and we cannot do a thing about it. If I am smart enough to start a business here, I can do it in RL, it's something i have to think long and hard about now.