SL Merchants: Take This Pre-Holiday State of the Virtual Economy Survey

Note: Scroll down to take full survey

Click here or take this survey above if you're a virtual world merchant and want to share your perspective on the state of the Second Life economy, your place in it, and your thoughts on the economic potential of Sansar. (And please consider sharing with acquaintance merchants.) Deadline to take it, appropriately enough, is "Black Friday" this week. (I'll be posting the results on New World Notes next week.)

The survey was created by a long established Second Life merchant based in Japan who I'll call John Doe. And who tells me his performance in the virtual economy has taken a sharp, concerning turn in recent months:

"I've been making a living with my income from SL for 6 years," Doe tells me. "I got around 4,000 customers in my group, participated in many famous events, I make quality products that you can see in a lot of places in SL -- even Lindens buy my stuff and post about them on their webpage several times. My income was incredibly stable, until this year. This November I'm having the worst month. My income dropped more than 75%, it's unbelievably bad, and signs of downturn started in September. I know Autumn is a traditionally low season in almost every year, but I never thought things can be this bad. I asked a lot of friends who runs stores and create content, and they reported almost the same thing to me."

Whether your perspective is similar to Doe's or different, please participate!

Comments

[Ryan Schultz]

I'll be very interested to see the results of this survey, Wagner. From my perspective as a Second Life consumer, the popular in-world stores (like Scandalize) still seem to be as busy as they used to be. But perhaps I'm missing something. (I'm not a content creator in SL, although I do create and sell some avatar clothing in Sansar.)

[Chic Aeon]

Well I took the survey but what I would have checked was pretty much never there -- so I got as close as I could.

November is looking very average (over the last year) for me. October was one of my lowest months for a long time. I can confirm that EACH and EVERY SL creator I talked to has noticed a sharp downturn (most from summer and continuing ; I had a very good summer - who knows why).

Also events are really hurting -- pretty much across the board including the top ones. And then we have the Arcade DRA-MA (and COLLABOR88 by extension) of the last week. I used to do many events. I am keeping only ONE. I don't plan to work THAT hard for very little profit. Others of course just go to get seen but that doesn't work for me.

Hopefully things will improve. I think the best hope is the new Premium housing area.

And yes, I would concur that Sansar is not ready for the average merchant that wants to make money with not so much effort :D. Still having a very good time there though.

[Chic Aeon]

And an afterthought comment to Ryan -- there are a LOT of stores that have alts running around to make it look like they are busy. I am not picking on Scandalize (I like their stuff) but in GENERAL you can't tell anything from traffic or "bodies" wandering about.

Just saying LOL. And yes, except for October, my sales have been stable and normal. Not sure what is going to happen now that I have dropped so many events. But we'll see.

[Zandrae Pyreanor]

Shopping in Second Life is often tedious—There is often lots of stuff, lots of it is old and inefficient, and it's almost never what I actually want. It takes forever to find what I want in the marketplace and stores.

In a lot of situations it seems like there's actually a dearth of items for sale in some markets. Especially efficient, quality items in those markets. Just compare the number of male clothes items available to female clothes items available.

There are markets that are underserved and underutilized. This may be because other markets are more profitable but there are definitely niches that are pretty wide open.

[Clara Seller]

This was a good survey, but we all see the writing on wall. Much of what is happening in SL is just a reflection of what is happening in our real world. The saddest and most interesting thing is that we tend to make wide-eyed choices to support the temporary advantages of imminent destruction over the sacrifices of survival.

Remember how loudly the cheer-leading was a few years ago when when we were being sold this bill of goods? It would be nice to hear some of that reassuring condescension as we're circling the drain.