Inworld stores, do we need them?

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Amiryu Hosoi
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Inworld stores, do we need them?

Post by Amiryu Hosoi »

heya,

I was thinking to build an inworld store or demo area where people can actually see and investigate my products. But, considdering the limited population in Kitely, I am not sure if I should go throug all the trouble building. I know we will have hypergrid but will that bring more people to Kitely and maybe to our inworld stores? I am not convinced yet. So far I have mede some sales but all from people I know in Kitely. I hear there is a great demand for good items but why don't I see the results of that demands in my sales or visits?

Why does Kitely have so much regions and so little population. Compared to other worlds like OSgrid, Avination or in worlds?
Kitely has 4,730 regions and only 606 active users!

Any thoughts about this?

Ami
Now delivering to hypergrid http://www.kitely.com/market?store=2570982
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Constance Peregrine
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Re: Inworld stores, do we need them?

Post by Constance Peregrine »

not sure if my opinion is wanted here, but, here it is anyways!!! yippeeee

First off, osgrid is primarily a test grid, and is a free metaverse grid, the opposite of what Kitely is...tho I guess the plan is to sell from the MP here to those there who want to buy here.

osgrid also does not clean it's regions out...they used to do something like a monthly cleanup but instead initiated a DIY process that is not well known, and some folx leave and don't care to clean up their region location....their activity is very low now.

Generally speaking, commercial grids do regular cleanings, tho some leave more up to falsely show more regions than they actually have paying them. [the numbers game]

All the other os based grids are not actually doing all that well, despite the hype...it is more an example of marketing in saying all sorts of good things about a grid knowing some will buy into that...negative marketing.

Kitely, due to it's different business model than all others, and the fact it is fairly new compared to some who have been around 4 or 5 years, has less activity overall in total numbers and concurrency....for now.

Even so, such grids as 3rd Rock have been around 5 years and have little activity.

If I was much into content I would just get ready for the opening up to HG, well, I am anyways, but not content-wise. I think when it does ppl will be coming in to look at it a lot, and some will rent regions as the costs are within current costings of such, and they will buy.

inwz and avn both have seen spurts in growth, and then declines....the downside to this is that neither one has much retention compared to overall numbers of accounts....you can easily see this with inwz....87k or so accounts but only their reported active users of 7k or so a month....most leave.

I see Kitely as retaining more ppl who come here.

Then there is percentage of active users to accounts...Kitely has been running around 3.5% for some months now, not great, but not bad either.

I could go into more of this but I am not sure it would be helpful, but I do think having a shopping district on a region here is a good idea...especially for HG visitors when that happens.
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Re: Inworld stores, do we need them?

Post by Jean Swashbuckler »

My two cents for what it's worth...our shopping in SL is to use the SL MP to identify prospects and then go to the store to look at it in world. Personal experience taught me how to get the lighting just right for our rental properties (refurbished yachts) but you had to walk in one to understand it. 2D pictures can only do so much.

I'll use Nikita as an example. I saw her avatar skins and clothes in the SL MP. One of our avi's will probably purchase a couple of her skins or boots to see what they are like since we know Nikita is moving her content to the Kitely MP. There is no substitution to trying it out before buying and my personal take is a store is needed. For some things like poker tables, boats, etc. you really do need to see the objects in 3D and walk around them.

If we think back to the times before the SL MP was created, SL stores were the only way to see what things looked like. We may be seeing that with Kitely and OS hypergrid connectivity, especially with the Kitely Market's ability to deliver content that can be used on Kitely or other grids. That alone may be one reason to think about the store again.
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Re: Inworld stores, do we need them?

Post by Deuce Halsey »

I'm still very new to Kitely, within my first month of residency. I'm an SL merchant who has chosen to leave that grid because of the recent TOS debacle over there.
I'm currently setting up my stores/showrooms in Kitely that will act as my outpost for the entire OpenSim metaverse after HG is enabled. Like you, Ami, I have a real life
business that my virtual world efforts are intended to promote/support. With that in mind, I've always looked at my virtual stores as showrooms for my designs, rather
than a major profit center on their own.

Speaking as a person who is a fan of virtual architecture in general, and your builds in particular, I will say that I would never buy a virtual prefab building that I had not
actually seen rezzed in-world somewhere. Nice pictures in an online marketplace are all well and good, but they can never give you the same feeling about a build as actually
walking around inside of it. I view buying a virtual residential or commercial structure after only seeing a few pictures the same way I would view buying a real life home or
commercial building after only seeing a few pictures. Only by walking around inside a structure, whether real or virtual, can a potential buyer imagine what it would be like
to actually occupy that space and make use of it as intended.

One of the nicest things about hosting a virtual showroom on the Kitely grid is the flexibility of hosting/access accounts. Right now I'm on the Silver Plan, which gives me
120 hrs personal access to free regions and up to 10 free regions, split up as needed between 1 to 10 worlds. I actually have a 4-region main world, Donnybrook Beach, where
I am building my showrooms and supporting content. I also have a couple of single region worlds I'm using for testing and archiving. Donnybrook Beach is already open to the
public, although access is not currently free. I plan to have the grand opening of my Kitely showrooms on or about December 1, 2013. At that point I will switch Donnybrook
Beach to free access, but I will just pay the per minute of access fees for my visitors until the amount of visitor minutes per month gets to the point where it will be cheaper
to pay the $60/month to make Donnybrook Beach unlimited access.

I'm also looking at the idea of eventually renting out space in Donnybrook Beach to other Kitely members who would like unlimited access and don't need anywhere near a full
region for their builds. The idea is to rent out a few quarter-region lots that I don't need and to have this rental income offset the $60/month I will be paying to Kitely for
unlimited access. Of course I can only consider this option since I don't need all the space and prims available in a Kitely 4-region world.

In any event my point is that Kitely is an extremely cost effective place to host virtual world showrooms. While residency/concurrency remains low, merchants can get away
with paying the per-minute rates for their occasional visitor. Once Kitely reaches "critical mass" and the number of visitors soars, it will be simple to change to the
unlimited access fixed-rate plan for hosting your showroom world(s).
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Re: Inworld stores, do we need them?

Post by Sherrie Melody »

Amiryu Hosoi 2 wrote:I hear there is a great demand for good items but why don't I see the results of that demands in my sales or visits?
Minethere makes a good point. When the hypergrid opens up, that will increase your customer base. The question then will be a matter of figuring out the price point that works for your products.

As a customer:
The textures you make for your builds are awesome. The buildings look like they are put together great too. I am just not in the market for Japanese themed buildings at the moment. If I were, realistically though, it would take me a while before I could afford to buy even one. I would only be interested in exportable builds. My budget for virtual world products is limited. And right now, I'm saving money for good landscaping. :(

Just a thought. Maybe you could get more people at least buying your furniture pieces if you made them functional? Like this piece: http://www.kitely.com/market/product/26 ... ar=2605609, could be a lot of fun if it had doors and drawers that opened and closed, so you could put trinkets inside. Or the bath, if it could fill up with water. Or the target props, if you could shoot arrows at it. Stuff like that.
Amiryu Hosoi 2 wrote:Why does Kitely have so much regions and so little population. Compared to other worlds like OSgrid, Avination or in worlds?
Kitely has 4,730 regions and only 606 active users! Any thoughts about this?
That ones easy, LOL. There are probably a lot of users that are now inactive, but still created a 1-region world that still exists even though they don't log in. And, I'm guessing a lot of those 606 active users have more than one region setup. I think a lot of us have the Silver plan that allows for 9 regions. One thing I noticed about the active users though, is that it has jumped significantly percentage wise, month over month. Didn't active users jump something like 20% since October? If that keeps up, you should see even your Kitely-only customer base grow significantly month over month. If I were to guess, I'd say just give it time.
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Re: Inworld stores, do we need them?

Post by Sherrie Melody »

I forgot about your question about having an inworld store. I would say that if you don't provide demos for your products, you probably want to display them inworld. At least for me, I like to inspect stuff inworld before I buy.
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Re: Inworld stores, do we need them?

Post by Deuce Halsey »

Sherrie Melody wrote:
Amiryu Hosoi 2 wrote:Why does Kitely have so much regions and so little population. Compared to other worlds like OSgrid, Avination or in worlds?
Kitely has 4,730 regions and only 606 active users! Any thoughts about this?
That ones easy, LOL. There are probably a lot of users that are now inactive, but still created a 1-region world that still exists even though they don't log in. And, I'm guessing a lot of those 606 active users have more than one region setup. I think a lot of us have the Silver plan that allows for 9 regions. One thing I noticed about the active users though, is that it has jumped significantly percentage wise, month over month. Didn't active users jump something like 20% since October? If that keeps up, you should see even your Kitely-only customer base grow significantly month over month. If I were to guess, I'd say just give it time.
The statistics are a bit confusing. There are 4,730 regions and 14,724 members. Even if every single Kitely region was a single region that had been included free with a basic membership, that would mean that only about 32% of Kitely members had ever activated their free region. In reality the percentage of Kitely members who have activated at least one region has to be much lower since there are definitely active users who manage multiple regions. I'd be surprised if the number of Kitely members with at least one activated region was much more than about 10%.

The growth numbers are impressive, and I suspect those numbers will just get better as the months roll by.

I agree completely, Sherrie. Just give it time.
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Re: Inworld stores, do we need them?

Post by Sherrie Melody »

Deuce Halsey wrote:There are 4,730 regions and 14,724 members.
I had no idea about the total number of members. Thanks!
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Re: Inworld stores, do we need them?

Post by Constance Peregrine »

ok, now he is getting into higher math!! [grumbles and goes off to find simpler 1+1 stuffs]
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Re: Inworld stores, do we need them?

Post by Constance Peregrine »

ok, I went to the extra effort to find more specific answers for ya.

As Maria pointed out here:

http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2013/1 ... ts-report/

"The top 40 OpenSim grids have reached 28,705 regions, a new record high and an increase of 578 regions since this time last month. They also reported 316,197 total registered users and 18,475 active users this month, a total of 6,405 new registered users and 33 new active users."

So, aside from the vast potential audience you will have, there was actually only 33 new active users reported. This is important when getting down to the reality, rather than the hype.

The prior month's report:

http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2013/0 ... m-traffic/

"The top 40 OpenSim grids have reached 28,186 regions, a new record high and an increase of 578 regions since this time last month. They also reported 309,792 total registered users and 18,442 active users this month, a total of 281 new registered users and 520 new active users.

Some of the activity may have been due to the first annual OpenSimulator Community Conference. While many attendees teleported from other grids with their existing avatars, some created new avatars for the event because they were new to OpenSim, because their home grids were not hypergrid-enabled, or to get some local functionality."

And she is right that the majority of new active users were for the Convention.

Then going back further:

http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2013/0 ... nd-record/

"The top 40 OpenSim grids have reached 27,608 regions, a new record high. They also reported 306,942 total registered users and 17,922 active users this month."

and

"However, all the public grids combined reported a total of just 20,526 active monthly users.

The biggest gainers this month were OSgrid, which grew by 623 regions, Kitely, which gained 200 regions, and Metropolis, which gained 120 regions. Fifty five other grids gained 90 regions or less."

She did not show the net gain in overall active users, that I could find, in that month's report.

And osg and metro are free opensim grids on a different paradigm not related to Kitely other than seeing where some content can be sold.

But, overall, you can see a bit of real unhyped data here. In fairness, both Kitely and inwz report their monthly active user numbers to Maria themselves...it is not listed on the inwz splash and Kitely does not currently have a splash page.

anywho, now I am tired...
Laissez faire et laissez passer, le monde va de lui même!
My little sounds store https://www.kitely.com/market?store=2040306

Ephemeral wanderer...
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