Maybe somebody could consider this from the shopper's point of view. My entertainment in SL isn't time spent in an exercise of futility searching in-world for hours or days for an item that can be found in the MP in minutes. Now... having said that I generally still want to the object inworld, to be certain it's the quality I'm looking for. I use the MP "See item in SL" to do that.

I'm thinking as a resident and also as a creator... I have a MP store, 80% of my sales are from the MP store. However I also have an inworld store, and unlike many inworld stores, mine isn't just populated with Caspervend boards, the full products are on display in a realistic setting. I have the in-world store so that residence can see, in world, what they are interested in buying. (and it takes a 2048x2048 parcel to have enough prims to do that). They can buy it at the in-world store or return to the MP and purchase it there.

Each store compliments the other. I doubt even 5% of my in-world sales are a result of walk-in traffic. I suspect around 15-20% are made by MP shoppers that came to see and purchased and purchased while there. These suppositions are based on Caspervend metrics.

By the way, I think it was an incorrect statement that LL purchased Caspervend, as far as I know LL is supporting the Caspervent servers. And that is a great thing for the SL residents.

This is an interesting view idea. My first reaction when I saw the title "Do away with marketplace" was yeah ok never gonna happen. But after reading ParkerFinley's reasoning, he makes a lot of sense.

To add to conversation, what would become of the MP and all of the revenue from it that LL receives? It has to be one of their primary revenue sources.

As many of you know, LL recently bought Casper Tech, who sold the most common vendors used by stores everywhere. I use CasperVend to sell houses, although most are bought on the MP by far.

What if the MP changed to allow vendors to have stores and list products but not sell them? Instead of every product having a link to an SL location there would be one TP link to an inworld store. If the store moves, the link moves with it. Purchases would be made there, and LL would take their 10% cut from the vendors.

As we RL retailers know fully well, a trip to a store often results in many impulse purchases. Both the seller and LL would see increased revenue.

The obvious problem goes back to the issue I posted to LL a week or so ago about long gone vendors. Those stores would have to be removed from the MP. To those who bemoan the fact that they still want to purchase that merchandise, I can only point to RL stores that go out of business and the void that creates. It creates an opening for a new business..

This idea has merit and needs to be discussed more and details worked out, but I think ParkerFinley has an interesting proposition. LL needs to consider this new business model. As a decades long manufacturer and retailer in RL, I have some experience here.

As a prefab builder and myself as an example, I know that there are 35,000 homes on the MP. At an average of 20 active homes per builder (large builders might have 50, the little guys have a handful), that would equal 1,750 prefab builders in SL. In reality, there are perhaps 100 at the most who are actually active, have places to showcase their homes, and offer service and support to their customers.

To those who point out that they can't afford to pay tier or rent, well, that is just the cost of doing business. Use your freebie parcel to showcase your product. When that sells, buy a 2048, then a 4096, and so on. If your products don't sell, find a new product that does.

Thank you ParkerFinley for thinking outside of the box. That is what makes a successful entrepreneur.

Let me start with: not gonna happen. MP is as essential to SL as Amazon (who all hate to love) now is to RL. It has the same benefits (it's incredibly convenient even though the search is awful), has an absolutely massive selection all in one place, and it's so easy to refer a friend to exactly what you just found by sending them the URL.

MP also has the same destructive impact on inworld shopping as Amazon does to our RL downtowns and malls. Why wander from store to store, sim to sim, when it's all right there in your browser?

BUT the sim owners make this worse by the weekly rents they charge. I MIGHT be able to afford a small shop somewhere, but I really doubt I would sell enough in that shop to cover the cost. They need to make some money, but fixed weekly rent locks out many (I think nearly all) small creators.

And yet I have a Mainstore and 8 small shops inworld. I do that by paying COMMISSION, not fixed rent. If I do well, the sim does well. If there's a music venue, the hosts announce that part of every purchase from the ¡En YO! Shop is given right back to support the venue. The street is more interesting, there's a reason to explore, and you see fewer depressing empty storefronts.

(By the way, this is really different from the Affiliate stores that fill up some spaces. The Sim Owner has a direct relationship with the Seller--it's a team effort and the Seller has a genuine vested interest in the success of the Sim, becoming a part of the community.)

So that's my answer: more Sim Owners should be willing (and even encouraging) commission-based rentals, and Sellers should be offering to rent their shop space that way. Casper and other shop vendors allow for a percentage of each sale to go to someone else, so there is no additional work on the Seller's part. You make sales and not go broke doing it, the Sim Owner gets more traffic and a much better-looking environment, and Shoppers enjoy streets with shops that are OPEN! Seems like a win-win-win to me.

Just this week I was thinking about this, MP is a cash cow although LL still needs to sell regions too to make money. Malls and clubs and the like, started going south a few years ago when someone started selling a system that purportedly detected alts, bots, copybotters and whatever, the system had a 40% accuracy nonetheless all the little adolfs started installing it, most of the business that did install it went belly up, even alts had to buy shoes, hair and whatever. So, what to do? From the LL side, a message system, like the one that lets you know who changed their name, across the grid with no subscription, that would allow (LL controlled obvious), messages such as, mall "such and such", 30% off for the next 2 hours or today and tomorrow and a SLURL, from the merchants side, a note in Capital letters on the MP page "this product sells with 4 extra colours inworld", and also cheaper inworld and other marketing incentives, real hard to keep up, can't just sit back and wait for the L$ to flow, takes real work, also make navigating a mall easier, I had a system that worked similar to area search (given free) and covered the whole region, was fast, and accurate, limited results to 15 and offered TP direct to the products. Many big name merchants in SL basically sell in store (hair, clothing, etc) using their groups, giving out loads of free stuff and killing it, people prefer to buy at their stores rather than MP. Instead of every mall with a group, unite, make one group for malls, forget your little adolf, press LL to have a diffusion msg system for malls, like the name change msg's. make customers a priority, help and communicate with them, make prices affordable for stores and try and get a big name merchant (make it free) to put a vendor at your place for a week, make it so every week a different big name merchant comes there. Think outside the box.

> However, it has had significant negative impacts on in-world malls

Can I have access to the source database and extensive marketing survey that provided you with this assertion?

Also, even if it was true: it seems that web-based stores then seem to be preferential to customers over in-world malls. This begs the question: why would you want to go against the preference of the consumer?

Removing marketplace for individuals would force them to have an inworld store to 'participate' or 'compete', and therefore most taken out of the entire economy.

Many inworld stores don't offer much more than pictures on boxes, to save on Li and such, and do not offer anything over the MP - and at the added cost of time walking around looking at, downloading texture sets for, and all the bandwidth to load the world that perhaps the user does not care about.

Nothing beats the convenience of the MP, as the same model reflected in RL as people want to find what they need and get it ASAP with the least hassle as possible.

Efforts could be focused instead, on providing more affordable lands so more users can try it out, higher Li allowances as the platform optimizes, and encouraging creators to actually have a reason to visit their parcels, other than for shopping.

I do understand your concern and agree with it somewhat, but we can't force people to do things, but perhaps we can lure them with good content.