Have you given up?

In the last week or so, I decided that I needed to do something to jump start sales at my main store. Since the search bug has been in full effect, sales had dropped at my store significantly. I get no visits, teleports off my classifieds had fallen to zero. At first, I despaired. Then after a day or so of that AND a lot of hits on my blog, I thought well I have to push through this. I’d committed to several events in SL that I felt strongly about – Etheria, The Good Shit Hunt (which is almost here), and I had just opened new satelite stores in new locations. So I preceded to move forward with my original plans – promoting the event, working with my fellow jewelers, etc. Etheria was a success. I cannot begin to thank everyone involved – it was a joy and a reminder of the collaboration and creativity that exists in SL. All sales that I had the week of Etheria came from it and it alone. I attended Natalie’s memorial service, a reminder of the people in SL that I care about and log in for. But in any case, as of today, Dark Mouse still cannot be found using the ‘all’ tab in search and typing in the keyword, ‘jewelry.’

I could be depressed. Really I could. And at times, I wonder to myself, why not just give up? And the truth is, I know that I would miss it. I’m not the best designer in SL or the most skilled. But the joy of SL to me is that I ‘could’ be. Given time and effort on my part I can keep working at it. Learning more, improving, etc. Isn’t that what SL is all about?

So, I decided to try and do something. What could I do to improve the sales at my store try to change my luck and be found in search?

I took the following actions.

1) I looked through my merchandise and determined what was older and that I should probably put on mark down. I held a sale. I advertised the sale to in all the options I have available (blog/groups/etc).

2) I reviewed my key words in the store, and added the word “jewelry” to all my vendors as in, “dark mouse jewelry.” I changed up the key words in my land advertising and classified ads. I added new key words for some new stuff, like, “camisole.”

3) I looked at my current classified advertising. I determined that I cannot afford to pay 300002L to put my store at the top of the heap, under the key word ‘jewelry.’ The top advertiser under that key word is paying $1097 USD at current LL exchange rates for that top spot and while I wonder how that is affordable, I cannot judge.

4) I determined that I could pay to have my store appear in classifieds under the key words, ‘jewellery’ and ‘jewelery’, and upped my advertising ads there. I paid $1001L for ‘jewellery’ and $567L for ‘jewelery.’ If you search under ‘classifieds’ my store now appears under these categories. So I have to hope that people search this way. But to date, I’ve had 0 teleports from these ads.

Regarding the actual problem and trying to solve it at the root.

5) I’ve talked to the people in Live Chat at least 3 times to report my search issue because of I read in this blog post that it can be fixed if it is reported.

6) I’ve created 2 support tickets originally in mid may. The origin dates for both these tickets is lost – LL determined that they would update the support system, and imported all old and new support tickets so that they now have the SAME import date of 6/14/2010. Neither of these tickets has been responded to or acknowledged.

7) I searched for and have promoted the JIRA issue which identifies the possible bug that is affecting my store in search, and asked for everyone I know and don’t know to vote on it and bring it up in the rankings.

So, what more can I do? Should I give up on my business in SL and just log in to see my friends? Have you given up? Do you just continue to log in and deal with the issues and problems, develop personal work arounds and don’t bother to use any of the options that LL says that they provide to us for remedies? I guess I do. But I think it’s a shame. Kesseret Steeplechase wrote a blog post about JIRA and how the top 5 bugs voted on by residents have been virtually ignored by LL. Of note to me is that the 2nd highest issue voted on by residents (customers) is assigned to Babbage Linden, who was laid off in the recent round of layoffs as far as I can tell. I am surprised that there are no comments on Kess’s post, though Kess tells me that it’s been viewed a lot. So many people care so much about Second Life, and yes, about Linden Lab. I think that after trying to utilize the options offered by LL for fixing their issues, and being virtually ignored, they have given up. I actually think that there is a fear almost if we complain too much we could hurt SL, and I’m certain that some people will feel this way about my post to draw attention to these issues. There’s nothing that we can do, so we just keep muddling through – removing attachments in high lag situations, accepting constant crashes of our viewers, wondering if group chat is still broken, using alternate viewers because they work better for our systems or building styles or 2.0 just baffles us. It worries me, this apathy. It should worry you too.