The results are now available for the recent Virtual World Economic Situation #1 Survey that was released last week. There were 124 total responses for the survey and the graph visuals are pretty interesting to say the least.
Here is the breakdown of the results:
Sales
39.1% have said that sales lately have not been nothing special however 25.5% say they are having a hard time
SL Income
42.3% say that Second Life is a full-time job and it’s the main income source for them.
Current Economic Situation
The current economic situation results are a pretty mixed bag but most saying it’s struggling, it’s slowly declining and it could be better. There was just a small handful saying its getting better.
There were people saying there are too many events and the overall traffic has decreased. The marketplace seems to be making the most money for the most part.
SL Products
67.3% they make more of apparels, accessories, body parts products etc. Followed by houses, landscapes, decorations etc.
SL Events & Marketplace
- 38.1% say that sales from events are very important to them.
- 80.7% say they have a main store in-world, sales from MP are still very important to them.
Opinions on Events and Marketplace
- 61.2% say there are too many events now and 39.8% say events help their businesses advertise.
- 62% say they have got a lot of sales in Marketplace.
Monthly Average Incomes From SL
Sansar & Other Platforms
51.8% say they don’t think people in Second Life will give up their inventory and 37.3% say that there is a great deal of uncertainly about Sansar. They will stay with Second Life and look forward.
Most people’s opinions about other platforms is that they have no interest in them at the moment. Most are saying that Second Life is still their preferred virtual world and they are not moving over.
There were mentions of SineSpace, VRChat. InWorldz, High Fidelity and of course Sansar. I think give them more time and maybe more that will switch over to other platforms.
It’s worth reading the leave your questions area at the bottom of the results survey page. Some of the answers do go into a lot of detail.
Overall it’s a good snapshot of the current situation for merchants in Second Life. I think these sorts of surveys should be published every year to see if things are getting better or worse.
Daniel Voyager 