I am writing this to inform everyone that I will no longer be listing my items on XStreet. The reasons for this decision are primarily because of the forthcoming changes. You can read all about them here: Roadmap: Managing Freebies on XStreetSL, but please keep in mind that the title of this post is somewhat deceptive. It’s not just about managing freebies at all.
XStreet already charges a commission on every sale. Now, in addition to this, every item listed on XStreet will be subject to a L$10/mo fee. This is not a large fee, until you start listing hundreds of items. The truth is, my sales cover this fee, for me.
But, that’s not going to be the case for everyone.
My L$850/mo in listing charges would not break me. Nevertheless, I am all done playing along with a system where little guys get crushed, or the generous are punished. I’m all done playing along with a system where they want to charge me “rent” and a percentage of my sales. One or the other. Never both.
They have said that this is all about cleaning up XStreet, but I disagree. I don’t think that that is what it’s all about at all. If they really wanted to clean up XStreet, and they complain of the items that never make a sale but are listed in spite of that, why don’t they implement something like some of the other merchant sites out there, where, if an item doesn’t sell, it’s simply removed. (Sites like Renderosity do this, and it seems to work well for them.)
I do realize that there is a ton of things listed on XStreetSL that do need to be cleaned up. I do get that. I also get that there are many things of poor quality all over the place, and that that can be frustrating for shoppers. I understand that LL wants to improve these things, but I think they’re going about it the wrong way.
In any case, I’m sorry to those of you who enjoy shopping on XStreet, but I will no longer be participating. Thank you for reading this, if you’ve come this far.
Editor’s Note: I had misread the info about freebies, and that at least, is a relief. Nevertheless, I still refuse to participate in this big pile o’ steaming poo! :)
Posted in
Wow. I’m glad you brought this to my attention. I don’t know how I didn’t hear about this before, but yeah – I’ll be removing my stuff from Xstreet too. I think the 10L fee per item is outrageous. Yes, sure, it won’t break most people, but it’s the idea of it. They’re basically scoffing at the 80% of items on Xstreet that don’t make a sale each month. Well, every item in my store consistently sells at least once per month. If those same items are listed on Xstreet and don’t make a sale, I would say that’s a marketing flaw on their part, and the fact that they are charging us both “rent” and commission but fail to market the site in such a way to make those fees worthwhile – for everybody, because if established merchants are seeing fewer sales than in-world, I’m sure most everyone is – is absolutely ludicrous.
It feels like they bought Xstreet just to kill it.
Indeed, it does. :(