As the old TV show said 'Well, we're movin' on up!!!' The Always Eclectic Blog will be on the DesigningSL blog feed!!! Read that 'Riendra has more incentive to blog more often!' Today, it's not a problem - I have a topic to vent a bit on. Don't worry - vent is a long way from a rant!
The other day, I found myself at the SL-Hunt headquarter's housed with the Cookie Jar store and shopping area. I thought I'd go take a look for December hunts related to the holidays, since I KNOW I want to do the Renaissance Hunt again and the attached Faire!
I was astounded to see that 3 (okay, 2 3/4) of the walls were covered with October hunts!! I realize people like their hunts, but I was reminded about something Kat Alderson said at a seminar. With so many hunts, it's no wonder that people don't want to pay for anything in SL. If they wait long enough, something they like just as well will come out as a freebie in a hunt.
I have no idea how this situation can get turned around, but Kat had one piece of advice for merchants: stop being in so many hunts! Some stores are in 10 or more hunts a month. Does that really increase your sales? Or is it just bringing people that stop by, grab a freebie and leave?
When I moved to my new store location, I put visitor counters at three different locations: landing point, front entrance to the shop, and rear of the shop. Nearly everyday there are some people at the landing point. Once in a while there is traffic at the entrance although a much smaller number. There is rarely any traffic that reaches the back of the store.
That tells me that people are landing and scanning for the freebie, then leaving for the most part. Obviously not everyone does that, but there is a significant number that do.
I realize I don't have the huge inventories that other stores do, so there is less to look at so far. Still, it's rather discouraging. I would be very curious to know what other people, merchants and non-merchants, or even merchants when they aren't being merchants and are just shoppers or hunters, think about this. SL seems to be mimicing RL in that mega-retailers are the only ones that survive long. Or perhaps independently wealthy people in RL that can afford to subsidize their SL businesses forever. It just seems that smaller retailers go out and in frequently, but the big hitters, perhaps those that got big near the beginning of SL, have the advantage at the moment.
I love having my store. I really do. I can't subsidize things forever though. Sooner or later having to spend real money to subsidize my fun will get old. Darn.
Riendra
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