Archive for the Category »Shopping «

New at My! Apparel – My! Sheer Catsuit!

This soft and silky sheer catsuit will go well under anything.
Tintable and copyable, create any number of different looks!
Underwear and pants/shirt layers included.

Counterpost, or Going Strong

In my last little rant I talked about how old, well-known shops disappear all of a sudden…

The total opposite seems to be Nyte’n'Day. Yesterday I saw a "new releases from Nyte’n'Day" on a blog, and went over there to have a look… and I have to say, I was awed.

Last time I went to N&D they had this small place in a skybox, and were doing a huge "everything 50% off" sale (which usually is the writing on the wall, as far as shops in SL go)…

Now, they have a full sim, and they didn’t "waste" store floor space for landscaping at all. The place is huge, and full of nice stuff, too!

=-=-=-=-=
Powered by Blogilo

Mainstream vs. USP

These days a lot of stores either disappear, or go mainstream…

An example for going mainstream is Curious Kitties Deviant Kitties. The owner now has a new shop called ploom, and with every product announcement comes this distinctive “Seen that already” feeling… What happened to the time when Curious Kitties was unique, and distinctive? The hairstyles from D:K were definitely identifiable as “typically DK”. The hairstyles that come out of ploom are more like “is that truth, or ploom, or maitreya, or whatever?”

An example for disappearing completely is Nadeshiko Soul. They used to sell absolutely amazing kimonos, and their mini kimonos were unique. Same was true for Samurai Soul, the men’s line from NS. Now the owner seems to concentrate on Bijoux, their “normal clothes” line. And while the designs from Bijoux are definitely pretty, and definitely worth their money, they are just “more of the same”…

why do shops give up their unique selling points so easily?

=-=-=-=-=
Powered by Blogilo

Category: Opinions, Shopping  Tags:  2 Comments

Creativity…

There is one thing that I really like most about Second Life…

There are so many creative and imaginative people around.

Here’s a picture of a place that I came across today, that totally speaks to the point.

=-=-=-=-=
Powered by Blogilo

The sorry state of men’s fashions in Second Life

I’ve been following seven different men’s fashion blogs for about two weeks now…

… and it has almost convinced me that “men’s fashion” in Second Life basically means “gay vampire teen elves”.

Someone prove me wrong please.

Seriously… there are so many awesome designers out there, making such awesome stuff for women in so many different styles… why does men’s fashion have to be uniformly ugly, with only a very few notable exceptions (and even those exceptions are becoming pretty boring by now since they are all just repetitions of the same thing)?

I mean… how many different tuxes and “good suits”, how many different sneakers and jeans, how many different t-shirts does a guy need?

In SL, where clothes don’t wear out? One of each, with the single exception of t-shirts from T Junction maybe ;)

And when a guy as those “one of each”, what is left?

Not much unless you want to look as if you’re wearing a costume.

=-=-=-=-=
Powered by Blogilo

“ADD” Animation Overriders

I just went and had a look at two AOs at akeyo, and while the technical quality of the animations is quite outstanding, they have one drawback…

they are what I’ve come to call "ADD AOs", "attention deficiency disorder animation overriders".

You know, the kind of AO where the stand poses carry you around further than a sine wave dance.

Makes me wonder what kind of social interaction the creator has… Making an AO that makes other people that you’re talking to want to grab you, slap you, and shout "Would you please stand still and pay attention???"

=-=-=-=-=
Powered by Blogilo

exemplary customer service

So the other day I got got this notecard about updated jewelry from Burroughs, something about optimized scripts and more features, and since two of my favorite earrings are from there I sent the owner an IM, asking about the upgrade procedure.

About an hour later I hear back from him, and he simply drops the new earrings on me…

Moriko has the same earrings, so I ask him if she would have to talk to him directly, and he just says "no, thats not necessary" and drops the new earrings on her, and another pair as a gift…

… why can’t all merchants in SL think like that about customer satisfaction?

=-=-=-=-=
Powered by Blogilo

Advertizing on the “Message of the day”…

Here’s a sort of interesting blog post from Linden Labs: New Advertising Opportunity in Second Life: MotD

My take on this is pretty simple.

4500$ for one block of ads on one day?

There is no business in SL that would be able to make a decent ROI on this.

DO THE MATH!

4500 us$ is roughly 1.15 MILLION L$, or in other words, a constant incoming cash flow of 100.000 L$ per hour during the time the ad runs. Now lets say you do have your own sim, and the sim can handle up to 40 concurrent avatars at a time before it totally lags out, and it takes the average person around ten minutes to come to your shop, decide on a product, and buy it. Let’s also say one out of five persons actually does buy something in those ten minutes.

The above numbers give us:

  • 240 different persons in the sim during an hour
  • 48 sales

That amounts to a minimum price of 2100L$ for whatever you sell, only to break even on the costs of the ad.

I don’t think there’s any shop in SL that could generate that kind of sales with any kind of mass market merchandise.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually think that some kind of paid advertizing in the viewer is a good idea… but:

  • the MotD is the wrong place, the start screen before you put in your password would be a better place… and that screen is HTML, it could actually have way more than one silly line of text.
  • The price is way too high for any in-world business; The ones that make enough sales to afford that price don’t even need advertizing… and any RL business can get better advertizing for the same money in other places.

Disclaimer: I am not a MBA, so I used common sense instead to arrive at those numbers.

=-=-=-=-=
Powered by Blogilo

Real Life…

It’s kind of fun to discover the Real World versions of things that you know from SL… and I’m not talking about the easy stuff, I mean who wouldn’t know a white Porsche 911 in RL?

But I just found this on the web:

Givenchy Pony Hair Gladiator Boot

Givenchy Pony Hair Gladiator Boot

and the other day I got me a pair of those from Aoharu/Anexx:

Anexx Gladiator Boot

Anexx Gladiator Boot

Looks familiar, doesn’t it?

=-=-=-=-=
Powered by Bilbo Blogger

Category: Fashion, Fun, Shopping  Tags: ,  One Comment

It’s hard to believe…

but true: every time you think “Those linden labs fools can’t do worse than that”, someone there raises his head and shouts a defiant “You wish!”.
Looks like by now, mentioning other online shops in XStreet listings can get your account suspended.
This was found on the slapt.me forum.

Dear ***,

This email is notification of action regarding your Second Life account,
Yevad Doobie, for violation of the Second Life Terms of Service or
Community Standards. The violation in question occurred on November 5, 2009
in the region of .

Violation: Community Standards: Rules of Conduct

Within Second Life we want to support residents in shaping
their specific experiences and making their own choices. Our
rules are simple: treat each other with respect and without
harassment, adhere to local standards as indicated by
simulator ratings, and refrain from any hate activity which
slurs a real-world individual or real-world community.

All of your item listings on the Marketplace are in violation of the
Marketplace Listing Guidelines, located here:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_ … guidelines -
Links to competitor Marketplace web sites are not permitted.

Action:
As a result of this violation, your Second Life account is
being temporarily suspended for a period of 3 days. It will
return to active status on Sunday, Nov 08, 2009.

In a related sidenote, I’m about to finish moving my wares from XStreet to slapt.me. Find me there.

Powered by ScribeFire.