Why Are So Many SL Fashion Designers Without a Web Marketplace Presence?

The official SL forum has a new post, "Iris Ophelia's Foolproof Guide to Getting What You Want", written of course by NWN's longtime style columnist, and it's a noobly-friendly guide for the virtual fashionista just starting out. She also makes an important point relevant to the broader economy:

The Second Life Marketplace [website] is a great starting point [to find stuff], but many designers haven’t listed all the creations there yet and some don’t have Marketplace storefronts at all [emph mine].

That's seriously astounding. An in-world store isn't exposed to or easily shared with the rest of the Internet, they're hard to find even when you're in SL, and above all, a virtual store requires paying someone for land. Whattup widdat, land-locked fashion entrepreneurs?

Comments

[Vaki]

As a blogger, that kills me. There are so many times that I get to a location to take pictures, spend a while setting up my poses and lighting and whatnot, and then remember one accessory or whatever I really wanted to blog. It'd screw everything up to teleport to someone's in-world store to go get it, so I run to the Marketplace.......only to find the designer doesn't have a Marketplace presence. AUGH.

So...I search around on Marketplace until I can find something else that'll do. End result: a lost sale for the designer, less blog exposure for the designer, and a sale for the designer's competitor and blog exposure for the designer's competitor. Smart.

['Kota Buck]

Listing things to Marketplace is incredibly time consuming and tedious. Especially for stores with a large inventory it can be quite an overwhelming task. I'm doing my best to get all of my things up onto marketplace but as the listing system isn't really all that intuitive it's hard to find both motivation and time for this task.

[Washu]

I don't currently have a store up under this SL name. So, when I go to Marketplace, and click on "My store" (Which I think is a good place to go to start), it just shows a blank page. No instructions. So I go to "My Account" and there's nothing there on how to open a Marketplace store. So I go to "Merchant Home" and hmm... I see a list of what you can and cannot sell, and info about the prices. No instructions. I accept these rules, and get to the main merchant home page. Huh. No instructions. Funny.

I do know you need a magic box, because I had a store before. But all of this will put off all but the most dedicated that are able to find either the Wiki page that has the instructions, or a patient friend who will go through it with them.

Plus.. it takes me HOURS to put up on the marketplace. Much much longer than it takes me to set up in an SL store.

I'd really just love like... a tab that I can click when I edit an in-world item that says "put item on marketplace".

[Ignaitus Onomatopoeia]

Maybe a better question would be "why the heck can't we find things in-world?"

I dislike Marketplace because it dilutes the metaphor of a virtual world. Yet I've used it in a pinch to find something, but actually going shopping is far superior. In-world one can often get demos or see the items far better than on the 2D Web.

If we had something as effective as Marketplace's search engine in-world, it would be worth an in-world transaction fee. And a few teleports would not be all that onerous.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

It's really grueling when you've got a dozen minor variations of each item (with different colors or patterns, for example) and you have to list each seperately.

It would be so much better to be able to create a single listing with a drop-down menu to choose color/style/whatever.

[Jackal Ennui]

I do have a marketplace presence, but with all the delivery issues lately, sometimes I wonder why I bother with it at all. Direct delivery can't come fast enough!

[bongo]

Cause beyond all the meta hype, all that makes sense to do in SL is make and sell shoes...

[moo Money]

The other day, I had 2/3 delivery attempts fail on Marketplace. I still have a ton of products to list, but with all the issues, it seems like a lot of wasted effort. :(

[Danielle]

At the moment, I cannot even log in to the Marketplace.

[Sphynx Soleil]

I'm not a clothing designer, but I did have a marketplace presence - until yesterday.

At the moment, Marketplace is so screwed up that transactions are not being recorded properly - IF they're recorded at all.

They're "working on it" last I heard, with no ETA for a fix.

Getting *found* inworld is a hassle, but at least payments work right.

So far.

[SoLikeWhatsThePoint?]

Simple as the fact that you as the designer can control the user experience of your product with an in-world presence, and be sure they get it when they try to buy it.

You can track who visits, where they go in your shop, what they buy, and so on all with simple scripts if you so desire.

You can give them visuals and audio cues designed to build brand identity and thus loyalty.

You can connect them to a community of like shoppers. The value of having people shopping in your store become friends with -each other- cannot be understated. This is something lucky large shops have gained - but I'm not sure if any of them are aware of it, at least publicly.
- Nothing builds a brand more than 'me and my friends go there to hang out and shop.'

If you get a successful inworld presence going, it is vastly more powerful that a Marketplace presence.

A Marketplace presence beats a low-traffic shop anyday, but it can't even hope to compete the power of something such as owning 'Bare Rose' or 'Tokushi', or even the sim 'Roo'.

Its much harder to build an inworld presence, but once you do, much more rewarding for both sides of the transaction.

[Harper Beresford]

There are an equal number of Marketplace creators who have low profiles in world. Sometimes it gives me pause to purchase creations that are not shown at an SL shop and I don't feel secure purchasing because I can't "see" their work or believe they are invested in SL as a space. It's hard to articulate but I distrust Marketplace vendors without SL locations than SL vendors without Marketplace listings.

[Jjccc]

This is why I don't sell on Market place you have to have land to drop the market box on to. I don't have land any more,so I cant sell any thing. OK Rodvik are you listening. Make it so market place keeps the box not the land. box the item in world then send it boxed in an im to your account and the item goes on sale automatically job done Simple

[Nightbird Glineux]

As a buyer, I usually prefer to go to an in-world store than the Marketplace. What matters is the question of how do I find things? These days I find stuff be reading blogs like Ophelia's posts here, where the items are reviewed.

The only time I use the Marketplace is when I want to find something obscure, like Mexican folk dresses. Otherwise I ignore Marketplace-only sellers.