Io Zeno

I'm kinda talking to myself here this is my last post.

Things like jewelry are tough because they really are the last thing most people will spend on their avatars. And there is a lot of cheap jewelry out there that "will do" as just an accessory.

Of course then you have those who charge outrageous prices, and I mean 100 times more than the 1k I was talking about based on some kind of faux superiority and those who really think they are special because they own it, I can't even talk to that.

It really depends on your market. I'm getting used to paying more for sculpty shoes, something I balked at, at first. But they do look better so I will pay 100L more than usual. People buy a lot of shoes and women go gaga over awesome shoes, so it's a sellers market to a certain extent but they can't push it too far. Other things, like clothing, I also have my limits. The most I've paid is around 1k for an entire outfit with many attachments and will often include shoes or boots. I can't imagine paying more unless someone makes something no one else is capable of.

That said, I'm also a bargain hunter and love finding new creators starting out who are good but still cheap, heh. Of course, I wind up spending the same amount but I get more bang for my buck.

I have no problem spending more for something that is special or clearly top of the line. I just won't buy it as much, though.

Tya

i go on spending sprees. i will go for 2 months not buying anything,i mean nothing. iwill see some items, poses, furniture.. etc and well if i go " omg that is so cool" then i will buy it. unfortunately my spending sprees range for 10-20k with in 2 hours. o.O

on another note, i was cleaning my inventory and i think i deleted my "attachments n goodies" folder. jewelry watches, starx wand, fun stuff, sex stuff. lol i cant find anything that was in there. i am "hoping is just sl"

Io Zeno

Yikes, I hope you find it Tya.

I do that too, go on spending sprees and then won't spend a dime. I'm in a frugal head right now, a lot of looking and then, meh, I don't need it.

I'm going to have Io shop at your store because she needs an update, lol.

I'm also going to have Esma buy some jewelry at Miriels. She has given my alt more jewelry than she will ever need.

Io Zeno

For instance, I was looking at this dress:

http://uncensored.slexchange.com/mod...&ItemID=688665

Now in a normal head I would buy it. Now I'm like... what if it's not as good as it looks in the photo? What about that linkrez thing you wanted? heh.

Io Zeno

Now I don't even know why I wanted it, lol.

The older I get in SL the less I spend, I'm afraid, unless it's an alt I get enthused about. I know Io has an inventory full of shit she never wore more than once.

Tya

for 200 i would not 300

if you do go to my store, dont mind the mess i just finished rebuilding it and now putting all the stuff back together. you may need a hard hat going in

Freyja Nemeth

I've definitely come to expect that prices can vary a lot more in SL than in RL, but there's still a range that has established itself as a 'normal' variation for me. Beyond that, I start wondering what the person was thinking to price their item like that.

For female skins, I have paid 1200 for single makeups several times. Above that, I start to expect several options (packs of several makeups or several brow colours). For example, I've bought the Pixel Deep skin in several tones, but at 1600 or so (I think) I consider it a bargain for what you get in that pack.

(I continue to wish that more skin creators would adopt that method or another reduced-cost method of selling add-on makeups -- like a scripted system where the first purchase of a skin is at a higher cost, and additional purchases are priced as add-on makeups.)

For clothing, I think I have paid up to 1500 once or twice, and certainly over 1000 a few times. With clothes, it depends so much on what it is and what you get, so I think its much harder to price than skins. Skins, unless they're speciality skins and novelty skins, have a fairly expected usage pattern. With clothing, you might be buying something for a special event and not expect to be using it much again. There may also be a lot more very similar items out there.

I am more likely to pay higher prices for fancy ballgowns and historical or fantastical costumes than for modern clothing, because there's less to choose from so it doesn't drown in a sea of things. For modern clothing, I think PixelDolls is extremely well-priced (plus its full of stuff I'd actually want to wear IRL -- one of the few stores I shop regularly at more 'for myself' than for my 'character'), but I can also see the prices being higher than that for most people since they'll prioritize modern clothing higher than I do.

Accessories (jewellery, masks, etc) are similar to clothes for me, but with an even more hard-to-predict usage pattern. Part of the problem is also that they usually come in such a variety of colours, metals, jewels, etc that I can't make my mind up. ;P That's why I buy just about every set that Tekeli-li puts out -- its a single purchase (usually in the 300-400 range) for everything (since its scripted), so I don't have to feel afterwards that 'darn, I really should have gotten the whole pack'.

I'd say that's definitely the most efficient way of getting me to buy accessories. I hardly ever think twice about those purchases, unless my funds are looking a little low. And that just means a little wait. It beats fat-packs hands-down not just because its a lower price than most fatpacks but because I don't actually feel like I am buying colours I don't want since I won't have a pile of pink jewellery sitting in my inventory unless I change it to pink. So even if I do pay for something I won't use, it doesn't feel that way.

A couple of things always affect what I am willing to pay and how likely I am to purchase something: permissions and demos. I'll pay a lot more for copy & mod than for anything that lacks either of those permissions. Bare Rose is the only trans & mod place I shop at regularly, and that's because the prices are so low. I won't even consider hair or boots that aren't copy and mod, because I know I will need to edit it 9 times out of 10.

Demos are a necessity for skins, hair, boots and certain accessories (like masks, and some jewellery), and they are very, very nice to have for shoes and for clothes. I saved up for my first big purchase (the Venetia gown from Adam n Eve) when I was a newbie because there was a demo available. I doubt I would have gotten that gown without being able to demo it.

So, if anyone wants my money in particular (unfortunately, it is not a limitless supply, though, so I daresay I don't make a great market by myself), you make historical or fantasy items, you provide fatpacks (via scripting is very nice), you keep the items copy and mod and you provide demos.

Eirik

As far as business model, I'm definitely a fan of Bare Rose's.

Doesn't mean I shop there though. I used to spend tons of money there. And I got an uncountable amount of their old outfits. But somehow, not a single one of their newer outfits fits me, even with resizing of prims. The viking outfit I tried to fit editing every single prim separately using edit linked parts - and it still doesn't fit properly. I wonder what man shape June bases her stuff of and if they changed to a new shape lately, because I never had this problem with their older outfits - but I do have it with EVERY of their newer outfits.

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Ran Garrigus

The most I've ever paid for something I actually wear is about L$2000 for a skin from the Abyss. I don't suppose I'd ever pay more for that for any item of fashion/clothing/so on. Mostly, I realize that impulse buys are <L$200, which is of course why most impulse buys end up being Bare Rose outfits while browsing the store with Freyja. Over that, a little bit of thought goes into it, but not necessarily a lot -- I didn't hesitate to buy an Elizabethean costume from Adam n Eve for L$1200, or a 17th century cavalier outfit from Medieval Designs for L$800, or one of Silent Sparrow's creations for L$800, because historical/historical-flavored fantasy wear is a favorite thing of mine and finding quality items in that area is not that easy when you're a guy and aren't interested in wearing massive shoulder pads attached to massive capes and so on.

It's all pretty difficult to sort out, really, just what pricing is the "sweet spot". Annyka Bekkers of Blowpop has some interesting discussion of her pricing experiments here, which I think provides some food for thought.

Here's something that crossed my mind while chatting with Freyja:

Japanese designers often have very low prices for some really quite good designs. Japan is not a cheap place to live. Is this a sign that it's more of a game/hobby for many Japanese designers and residents, or are they selling enough volume to make it worthwhile monetarily? SL has a significant Japanese community, as evidenced by SLMaMe.com, so I've always wondered what cultural differences (if any) there are in terms of purchasing and creating, and whether any lessons can be taken out of that.

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Bams

I try to price my things in accordance with what I would be willing to shell out for a similar item from another creator. My philosophy has always been to provide quality stuff but not to charge extreme prices. Knowing the work involved in creating clothing and items for Second Life and similar 3d environments, I cannot justify to myself charging super high prices for anything, because it just doesn't make sense to me. Sure there's alot of work involved sometimes, but I'm in this more for the pleasure of making things and the experience of creating in a 3d virtual environment.

That being said I've never been one who expected to make a living off Second Life, and although I know there are some that do, I think it's foolhardy to put all of your financial eggs into the SL basket. If I can make enough to pay for my expenses (land, shop fees, adverts and material uploads, etc), then I am a happy person. As long as I don't have to pay money into the system, I'm having a good month.

From my perspective, it appears as though the days of generating living type capitol from the game are well beyond over and I don't ever expect to make any sort of real money at it. After all it's supposed to be a game and a break from reality, what good is it if you have to spend all your time working and stressing as if it were real life? I say charge what you think is fair and don't worry about everyone else's stuff. There are no experts at making money in SL.

Carthalis

Just having a look at Acedia now, first I thought am I in the right place and then I saw the price tags and issued some expletives lol. Just found the men's range and holy cow at the prices of the coats 3,100 lindens. I'll pass on them.

Carthalis

Carthalis

Thanks for this place. Just there now and the complete opposite to Acedia. I could quite happily spend a small fortune there and agree the men's bomber jackets look great along with the rest of the men's clothing. Some nice clothing there.

And the boots I referred to earlier are by Mai Runo of Zero Number, I have three sets of them and love the detail on them.

Carth

Tati

For the stuff I make, I don't charge more than 3 digits, except for a custom Wasp Prison from the Spider Garden series that someone happily paid me more than I think it was worth.

If I make something, I look at other similar things inworld, compare prices and price it somewhere in the median. Not too expensive so as to make it out of reach for most people, and not too cheap that everyone and their mom will be wearing it. Prices are usually 299-799

As for shopping.. well, I hate going to the Bare Rose sim, because by the time I am thru, I usually would've spent 1-2k without knowing it because it's like "oooh pretty! click, buy." "ooh,, this one looks nice. buy." "ohh... nice hat! buy whole outfit." For dresses, my limit is still three digits. L999 at the most, and it better be copy/mod, or the creator is willing to give you a copy/mod version. Skins, the most I will pay is 800. (yay nomine!) Hair, 350 at the most.

For my other guilty pleasures, full body avatars, I usually will pay upwards of 2000 if it looks really, really good, or if it has unique features like being able to breath fire/ice/rainbows or if it's something i have not seen on anyone else before. The most expensive this I've ever bought was a 3500 dragon, and I wanted it so bad I saved up for 3 whole months for it back when i was new.

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Darkley

just went over to acedia

these were both 3800!!!!! *falls over in shock

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Cindy Claveau

Tekeli-li charges about half what most of the better jewelers do, and his complex prim stuff is all scripted for color change. I can get a really well done fantasy bracelet there for 115L, or a complete set (headpiece, earrings, bracelets, necklace) for 400L.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hollow%20Earth/70/210/2

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Cindy Claveau

Oh, and here's one of BareRose's astrology avatars I mentioned earlier. I've seen similar prim sets for over $1000L, and she charges $180.

Darkley

ooh im going right over to buy my star sign



ARGGGHHH cant find them, where where where?????



edit - found it - phew!

Miriel Enfield

Aww, thank you. (And congrats on finding the stuff!)

A lot of the comments about the fine jewelry ("fine jewelry" here is just referring to my line of fancy jewelry, not a comment about how awesome I am) was that it was just a bit too expensive, especially for something they wouldn't be wearing every day. Which is exactly the kind of feedback I did the survey for the in the first place. I actually use a similar rule myself ("L$300? Do I really need this? No, not really.") so I can't complain.

Miriel Enfield

Seriously, the hell?

Freyja Nemeth

Personally, I think your prices were great before and are extra-great now. My only issue is all the darn variety.

I am hopelessly, hopelessly indecisive. I like all the metals you offer, and quite a few of the gemstone colours, but since I can't quite justify getting the fatpack of each metal I often end up not managing to decide at all. ;P And then Ran sighs at me again.

For my own part, I would quite like packs of a single stone in all metals as opposed to a single metal with all stones, but I quite understand that its not possible to satisfy every strange craving customers might have. Your scripted vendors are very lovely for offering a choice between copy and trans as it is.

Miriel Enfield

I'd script all the pieces to be color changing, but I'd have to charge more per piece, and then I'm back to my previous problem of people not wanting to shell out that much for jewelry.

I actually considered doing it that way. However, I've been working under the assumption that more people are picky about metal color (e.g., not wanting to wear gold) than about stone color.

Freyja Nemeth

Yes, its definitely a tricky balance. I suspect that it may work for Tekeli-li because the jewellery he offers is in a niche that he's fairly alone in. So people who buy it may prioritize it higher than the customers who generally buy your jewellery.

That's very probable. I am pickier about stone color than metal color, but I wouldn't take myself as typical.

Mourna Biziou

Crack is a horrible drug.

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Cindy Claveau

You make great stuff at a good price, Miriel, so I don't mean this to sound critical in the least. But have you pondered the actual hourly rate you're getting for your labor? You'd probably have to charge 5 figures in $L to come up to a decent pay scale per item if you scripted color change -- but the other option for SL merchants is to rely on volume to fill their bank vault. I think that's where BR is -- her store is huge, and it's rare that I find anything there for over 300L, but I also know that it's one of the few stores I frequent in SL where there are always customers. So she's making up in volume what she might be losing per item.

Just a thought

Isablan Neva

I'll second that. A nicely done piece that you can change the stone color is a great idea. You don't have to script ALL of the prims, just the stones. That was the way I went with scripting on my houses, only the windows change texture. Otherwise, scripting every single piece would be a nightmare.