Socially|Mundane

Linden Lab has given a head's up that they recognize how screwed-up XStreet SL really is. How it's 'gamed' and a complete mess, with some merchants taking advantage of unsuspecting shoppers (such as selling stolen content or bundling freebies and calling it a "business in a box" and so on,) and how it is full of absolute junk.

So the roadmap mentions that all listings will incur a L$10 per month charge each. Good. "Freebie" items will end-up in their own category. Good. L$0-based items will be removed from search. Good. Commissions will be a minimum if L$3 per sale. Good. The forces all the freebies and into some other corner of the showroom floor so they will no longer be a distraction from my own listings. L$10 per listing is good so that people who sell shoes won;t list the same shoe 50-times, once for each color of the rainbow.

So the surname Lindens say you will now have to "pay-to-stay' and that's a good thing because it will help remove the junks at least through attrition and only the serious merchants will end-up remaining. But of course there are the usual suspects who will overreact with knee-jerk whining and crybaby shrill screaming about it. There are many emotionally unstable who are "pulling out everything" in sheer hysterical panic mode and others who are pulling out those items that aren't selling.

Why? nothing of the policies mentioned in the roadmap are anywhere near implementation
It does nothing but make you look the emotional clown and you only hurt yourself the same way the "merchant boycott" only hurt those creators who participated. I am quite often amused and amazed how simple-minded so many of these 'mature adults' can be. Well, more power to me (and the rest of you) because of it.

If you are a creator and are reacting negatively to this new roadmap of the XStreet SL, then you are making your own bed. Your business flounders because you are not really qualified to be a good business person for business' sake. You don't know how to adapt as all good business people do. The sky is not falling and the earth will remain solid under your feet.

Those who react in a knee-jerk way at the announcement of plans for XSL are in a hysterical fantasy doom-and-gloom world that doesn't really exist except inside their own heads.

The roadmap as defined is a good thing for everyone who continues to participate in XStreet SL (XSL).

The primary goal, as mentioned, in part, by the announcement:

"Our goals are as follows:

1)  Enable shoppers to quickly find the type of item they want, at the quality they want, and at the price that makes sense to them.

2)  Enable merchants to find these customers and put their products in front of them."

I say hurray!

Those merchants bailing now are losing out. No fees or anything else mentioned in the roadmap are in effect yet. It's the same as the Openspace fiasco earlier this year. The instant it was announced tier prices were being raised (twice), people started abandoning their Openspace sims immediately. Their loss. The wise thing would have been to hold-on to it while rates remained status-quo and only abandon at the last minute if no further news or information came through. Which some did: all those who remained are now grandfathered at the second tier level and will not have to pay the third. They were the smart ones.

The same thing here with regard to SXL - if you bail now, good for me. it means my products will now be even easier to find as your clutter won't bog-down my ability to be seen. Your leaving is really a good riddance for me.

The issue comes down to the entitlement attitude: too many merchants and creators, who spend no money to create and sell their creations (read: 100% pure unadulterated platinum profit) expect to continue doing that without any of the normal costs of doing business. They want everything for nothing.

No, don't bother bringing-up the commissions on sales, don't bother bringing-up how you have 50 private sims in your estate and pay Linden Lab $500,000,000 United States Legal tender Dollars every three days and all that crap.

You doing "business" in SL:

Costs.
You.
NOTHING.

You have business expenses in SL only because you choose to do so. The fact of the matter is you can attach a sign over your avatar's head and sell person to person (in which case you'd probably make a lot more sales.) Renting virtual land or mall space or owning private sims are all elective options you are choosing to take.

It's about time Linden Lab cleans-up XSL and charges money just to list there. 

It's a wretched mess, a junkyard with a few ounces of gold-dust mixed-in with tons of mucky-muddy-clay garbage. It used to be relatively easy to search for products in-world and find what you were looking for. Then it became all mucked-up as the gamers started ruining the experience and mucking-up classified adverts and the like with crap keyword spam and irrelevant information.

That's when XSL became the preferred way to shop: easier to search for what you are looking for. Then XSL became a refuse tip as people started gaming it the same way as they do in-world. It is actually easier to search in-world to find what you want than it is on XSL - except XSL is faster to browse and compare products.

The Linden Lab roadmap is a good thing.

You simply need to change your perspective on what XSL really is and should be: a newspaper. Except there isn't any news - it is really more of a "Sears Wishbook Catalog" than a newspaper, come to think of it. Except that like a newspaper, it is full of advertising my 'third-parties'.

To place an advertisement in any real world newspaper or magazine or catalog costs money, per advertisement, per issue. XSL is simply moving to the same model - as it should. This will cause a lot of the garbage chaff to fall away and leave only the serious merchants who, hopefully, actually produce quality.

Don't bother bringing-up the nonsense about "double-charging" by Linden lab. In the real world, can you flip through your favorite catalog and push a button and magically your purchase ends-up at your front door? Obviously not. Don't bother bringing-up web site catalogs by saying "oh, but you can do that at Amazon.com and other web-stores".

True - and you pay a shipping and handling fee.

On XSL, you will pay a listing fee. it's an advertisement, so this is fair and right. When you make a sale, you pay a commission on that sale - Linden's "handling" fee. That's fair, too. So what are you whiners and crybabies whining and crying about? If you are a serious merchant then take the costs of business seriously and stop expecting everything for nothing. You and your damned entitlement attitudes.

If you'd only stop panicking in a hysterical fashion and actually think logically, there are many work-arounds to the changes that are coming - and these will actually increase potential sales by making it easier for me the shopper.

All you whiners and crybabies: stop whining and crying and try being a little creative in how you do business the same way in how you dream-up your creations: be creative. In the long-run, as a shopper, this XSL roadmap will make it better for me. As a merchant, it will make it better for me.

So, if you actually put real logic into what is going on, you will see how this roadmap and these changes will actually give you better visibility and possibly help improve sales (on XSL or In-world or both) - what exactly is there to cry about?

My next post: How to sell multiple items on XStreet SL with only one, single listing.

Sheesh.

Source announcement by Colossus Linden:

Second Life Blogs: Commerce Forums: Roadmap - Managing Freebies on Xstreet SL

art: BadJonni