My report on the state of the Second Life economy in 2025 is almost ready to read on my Patreon, but meantime, here's an equally important report from my anonymous survey of SL merchants. One of my open questions to them was:
If you could tell your SL customers one thing, what would it be?
A deluge of heart-felt answers followed! Most of them shared common themes. Here they are:
Buy in our Stores, And Not Just on Weekend Sales
"Please support your favorite vendors by making purchases that are also outside weekend sales, as all profits go towards creating more new and exciting things to enjoy.
"We can't exist on weekend sales only. It's not worth the effort.
"Buy in stores where they have the in-world stores and contact the creator in case of problems."
Demo, Demo, Demo Before You Buy -- and Please Read the User Manual/Marketplace Info Carefully!
"Demo, demo, demo… demo responsibly!
"Always try the demo. Please support ORIGINAL creators who work hard.
"Please learn to navigate in the platform you use and try DEMOS.
"Read the Marketplace description before buying. No, seriously, read it. Be more critical in your purchase decisions.
"Read at least the 'quick start' [notecard] before contacting me for support."
Seven more after the break!
Understand the Effort We’re Making
“Everything you request of a merchant is likely 100x harder than you assume it is. This all takes much longer than it looks like it does. Every added fit or feature can add hours of work with no return. Just because it seems like a small request does not mean it actually is.
“Behind each of my products is someone doing ten jobs at once—designer, rigger, texture artist, packager, updater, support team, photographer, marketer, and occasional emotional support human when your demo glitches mid-try-on. So if something’s off, just message kindly. I’m here, I care, and I want you to love what you wear.”
Understand the Difficulty of Making Mesh
"Please... Respect that I don't... Make content.. For every mesh body out there.
"Supporting all the third party avatars is a lot of work and requires re-doing things each time. It's not an easy lift and shift to support a new third party mesh body or head.
"The 'Original Mesh' movement is an elitist, creator driven campaign, and does not automatically mean superior product, factually or morally. If you like something in SL, it should not matter if the mesh was made and rigged by the creator, just like it doesn't matter if every component in your laptop was handcrafted by the CEO of Apple or HP, as long as it was not acquired unethically. Granted, nobody likes things that are too common or overused templates, but not all who use them make cookie-cutter designs. Some put a lot of effort to make their work unique, which would have been appreciated by customers if it weren't for the elitists calling them 'template users' like it's a bad thing. Customers don't even care about that, until they are 'taught' to discriminate. The day you expect 100% handcrafted in-house products in real life, the same rule could be justified in SL. Not making your own mesh is not laziness as some creators would have you believe. Support smaller creators and you support the SL economy."
Respect the Reasons for Our Item Prices
"Original creations take time. Expecting original items for less than L$300 won’t support original work.
"L$300 is not as much as you think it is.
"Expect prices to go up as Linden value drops.
"It's a lot of work to create a product. It makes me very sad when Customers complain if [an SL item] costs more than L$50.
"Fair compensation is essential for all work. Support creators in making a living from their SL work, or they risk gradually fading away.
"We work for pennies, so be kind. We are struggling solo artists."
Talk to Us -- And Tell Others About Us!
"Don't hesitate to reach out to employees and brand owners for help
"Give me feedback on what you would like, I love it.
"Don't be afraid to contact creators if you have questions or issues. We can't fix it if we don't know about it.
"Balanced feedback would be nice!
"Leave reviews, and tell a friend about your favorite merchants, word of the mouth is the best advertising!"
Please Beware Gen AI-Altered Content
"Please do not use my content in AI… Be cautious with creators who use AI on their ads.
"Stop running other creator’s products through AI and then getting mad they ban you."
Please Don’t Blame Us for Second Life’s Platform Problems
"Most issues are platform-based, not the fault of merchants.
"A lot of the issues that seem to be the designers fault are a fault with SL’s system itself. Linden Lab just benefits from not clarifying how bad their tooling is, so the designers get blamed for it.
"Socialize, share, explore, create experiences for others. This is the only way SL can keep on going, if we collectively create things ourselves. People just shop and [hang out in] their skyboxes nowadays and we're losing entertainment because of the cost of operations."
Thank You. We Love You.
"Thank you.
"Thank you for your loyalty.
"Thanks so much for supporting my store for so many years!
"[Tell our customers] that we love them and all the support we get.
"I love you."
This last point was the most commonly repeated by far. Given the chance to tell their customers anything, it's notable that the most repeated message merchants made was gratitude.
Any other messages you think SL customers need to read?
Comments