KittyCatS! Market Improvement Suggestions

[LibGwen Resident]

(10-06-2014 11:30 PM)Shamu077 Resident Wrote:  You should keep reading through Page 4. I offered a "radical" solution, and so far no one has commented on it. It would ruffle too many feathers to actually force the removal of the excess kittycat boxes on the market, even with a good incentive to do so, I guess.

It's interesting to turn it over in my mind, but for many aspects of it I keep running up against "That wouldn't be much fun." One thing I like about KittyCatS (and much of Second Life, actually), is I can do it for pleasure and at my own pace.

Also, a couple of proposals there would prevent newcomers from exploring then putting together a few specialties. The breedables market thrives on specialties, not sameness.

It's a bit off-target in one aspect as well, and is apt have unintended consequences. I don't recall seeing anyone here complaining that retired traits were spoiling the market for new traits. The market that is interested in a retired trait is a separate pool from the market that is interested in new rares, which is itself a separate pool from the market that is interested in attractive cats. They sell among themselves. So although increasing rarity of boxes with retired traits might drive up prices of those particular cats, it would also radically shrink the market of people interested in those traits at all, because they'd either never seen them (so had no reason to care) or because they were concentrating their time-limited resources on the traits they cared about even more. That would have the effect of removing those people from that pool. Worst case: They end up in the new traits market, which would increase saturation there.

[LyricaBlues Resident]

(10-06-2014 12:02 PM)Beryl Landar Wrote:  Here are some specific suggestions that I would like to see:

~Ability to transfer food in world that we purchased when we were breeding on land, back into the online cattery if we want to, and maybe vice versa. That would be VERY useful.

~That the cats eat food slower (food lasts longer). as well as milk. Food and milk prices can stay the same.

~More KittyCats Main store events.

Yes! Yes! and Yessss!! How many times I have filled the cattery with kibble and milk then wished i could transfer inworld!! There are some direct, and less direct ways KC can support the secondary market and they Do want to know our suggestions. I know this because we have discussed these things. So since they do want to hear what we think, not what we think they want to hear, this Is a good thread that can yield valuable suggestions and insights so they can better serve those whose work supports them ?

[doubledareme Resident]

(10-05-2014 08:57 AM)phoenixfire01 Resident Wrote:  Try to find a way of how to say this and say it right without getting shot.

The sheer amount of Auctions is causing a vicious circle. Person A puts their kitty in Auction > Kitty goes Future Sale > Person A then doesn't have the Linden from that Sale to buy kitty from Person B, C, D etc. At each Auction you only get one shot at bring a kitty someone will need/want. In stores you have 10+ plus chances to offer that kitty. We need to move more of the market back into the market (stores) and out of the Auctions but I do think there is a place for Auctions, just not so many.

The Auctions provide a way to make a sale based on exposure and the ability of the auctioneer to sell. I know that in my auctions unless it is a very very very slow day 70 to 100% of the cats I auction sell. You are only required to pay for the panel usually 75L and under and to tip the auctioneer 10% of the proceeds. If the cat does not sell, its is 50% due to the starting price...people thinking they can ask more than the current 'value" of the cat, and due to the saturation of the market of that particular type of cat.

There are a lot of auctions out there but there are way more people and cats out there. I think the situation is that people are unaware of the auctions or unafraid to use them. It is a very very good way to bring attention to your cats and I have heard of many people selling cats to the people who were at the auction out of their cattery. The problem is not the amount of auctions its the exposure these auctions have. Only a certain percentage...and its very very small actually utilize this service as compared to the people actually selling their cats in the secondary market.

The other thing to consider is this. The secondary market is flooded with clones Many people have cats in their stores that look like every other cat in their store...same fur same traits...OLD traits...and expect to get a huge amount of cash from them. What one is not thinking of is that if you have 25 of that cat in your own cattery what is to say that others do not have the same amount of that cat. It is unrealistic to bring a standard cat to auction and expect it to sell for prices way over what one might charge in a store. And it is a waste of time and money for sure. Auctions over the ages have largely been due to supply and demand. There is a demand for a certain item...lets say antiques or expensive cars or even art and jewelry. These items are not run of the mill. They are exquisite and much sought after. If you want to put a cat in auction make sure it is exceptional.
I am not underrating the breeding out there but with as many traits as there are out there you are not going to see many cats that have myst tails eyes ears and whiskers sell as often as something that has a mixture of beautiful traits such as dreamy whiskers and a fantastic puff tail or and exotic breeze eye.

Chose your cats carefully for auction and you may find you sell them every time you participate.

There are not too many auctions...as I said before...just too few people using them and utilizing the opportunity in a way that benefits them the most.

[doubledareme Resident]

(10-05-2014 08:36 AM)phoenixfire01 Resident Wrote:  I think she was just coming up with suggestions. What would you suggest we do to improve the market?

Cut down on Auctions for one. Some sims are having Daily Auctions if not more. So many Auctions are killing the Market and talking with other people, most agree.
[/quote]

Its not the auction that is killing the market ...its the run of the mill cats saturating the market that is killing it. How can promoting the sale of your cat kill the market? There are only ever 12 to 16 panels on an auction per auction 60 to 80% sell on average which means about 10 cats per auction. HOW is that killing the market. We are selling your cats not our own...Try using one once or twice a week to supplement your sales in your store.

The problem with the markets is largely to do with people trying to sell cats that are not valuable anymore.
I have 1200 cats in my cattery...boxes...this is after I have culled so many that there are nothing but good cats in there. So many people ...2 and 3 years later want to be able to sell cats that
1. are not relevant (except to a very few) in the market ie. triple myst/old overly bred furs and at prices that just are not current
2. They are trying to sell cats to people who already have cats that are identical to every one else that is in the same market.
3. NOT utilizing the markets to the full potential with services such as bid boards and love shacks and auctions which the sims offer to help you market and network your selves and your cats.

Look, there is no reason to be putting 20 cats in your store that are out of date by todays standards and then expecting them to sell at a price that does not reflect the value of the cat.
I personally do not want to buy a cat I bred a year before, or one that has ancient traits that are not attractive to anyone but you. No one likes all cats. And many breeders breed far to many of certain cats that just won't sell then blame the market and auctions for being the problem. You have to be a smart breeder. Triple myst cats are not going to sell as fast as a cat that has a new trait or a special quality about it. Its unfair to say its the auctions or the sim owners problem for that. STOP breeding cats whose boxes are not selling. Its that simple.
Look i don't know about anyone else but i personally don't want a chateau pink that has changing leaf eye , flair shade frisky tails mysterious ears and white mysterious whiskers.
I HAVE THAT CAT OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER again and I'm just not going to buy it...auction or store.

HOWEVER. If that pink cat has grotto eyes and a twinkle, flash or blush shade...and a posh tail and rounded boo boo ears and dusky swanky whiskers. NOW that cat i would love to purchase and would pay the value of it because so much work has gone into breeding it.

There are MANY things kittyCats.biz could change to help the secondary market. For Instance... allowing us to decide when we want to breed the cat without having to be charged for turning the cats breeding on again or paying to break a breeding pair up ( which in the REAL world would be a split second decision that would not cost a penny) or not charing us for permapetting which would allow more people to feel they can keep their cats WITHOUT having to be charged for that too. (lots keep cats breeding to avoid having to inventory it because they just CANNOT bring themselves to menagerie it. In my opinion Permapet essentially is a way for us to pay for our cats twice! plus pay for feeding them the entire time we own them even when they are hundreds of days old or having to starve them in inventory which is an upsetting thing for many people.
KittyCats should be retiring more traits such as mysterious ears and whiskers for instance...and some of the old furs and eyes so that actually owning a cat with them makes it valuable only because its harder to find. (like the shorty tail which is still holding its own because it is a retired trait)
The other thing that KittyCats could be doing is making it more desirable to menagerie cats. Giving incentive to send them to heaven with more options other than one of 3 tigers or a better price than 20l for that cat that is going to menagerie. That is one thing that bothers me so much. We all get upset about the 100l cats but what is KittyCats promoting ...? its this..that at the end of the day your cat...if you don't pay KittyCats more for keeping it as a pet, is worth 20l . I might spend thousands of lindens to purchase a cat...even a starter is worth 200. I feed it for 120 days at least and all the milk vitamins and what not that I purchase form them to breed but at the end of the day instead of making it worth our while to menagerie cats...they put a value of 20l on a cat that is sent there. This makes people keep them rather than sending them into the great beyond. Especially since there is never anything new as an incentive to do so. They could be creating new menagerie cats every year and making them like LE's I mean come on, the tigers aren't even selling on secondary markets very well anymore. Give us options!

Personally speaking...what is needed is fresh eyes in kittyCats.biz and the way they are marketing the cats. There is much dissent in this breedable. Its never like this in biopets and others I have seen. And in fact many of their markets are still thriving and have settled in to steady pace because they are taking a more customer friendly approach to the breedable.

Do not blame auctions for the problems of selling outdated and old cats. KittyCats needs to keep current. Current with retiring furs/traits...make them valuable in that way. They need to rethink food/permapetting costs especially KNOWING there are many many people out there that have hundreds of cats.

KittyCats COULD recoup those costs of say free permapetting by giving us a reason to buy new starters. Traits should not be coming out in bunches but rather trickling one or two every month so there is a reason to buy starters every month rather than saturating the market twice a year with traits (which i think is FOOLISH) causing these extreme price fluctuations and upheaval in what could otherwise be a steady market. KittyCats could be making more money on starters which would offset something like free permapetting or lower food costs which would in the long run profit the market by giving people a chance to earn more which in turn means more cash flow and and incentive to buy more cats directly from KittyCats.

One thing that absolutely should be done is giving a definite length of time that any trait will be available. For instance...after its been in circulation a year...let it retire...make it valuable...keep the movement ...the flow. I mean for heaven sakes why are some of these three year old traits still available now. How dumb is that. THAT is what is killing the market...not the sim owners or the auctioneers.

The bottom line is always cash. And as much as that is important in any business. You have to remember that you need to honour your customers by giving them a product that works for them as well as makes money for you...
That goes for KittyCats and the secondary market.

Don't blame the auctions...we are promoting sales...which is more than a lot of people are doing...

And KittyCats...get yourselves a marketing specialist. It may help you see how you can help your CLIENTS which is the reason you exist to begin with. Quit making it so hard for us...Your business could flourish and prosper all the more for making some of the above changes mentioned...rather than milking the consumer dry.

[Whispers Magic]

You should keep reading through Page 4. I offered a "radical" solution, and so far no one has commented on it. It would ruffle too many feathers to actually force the removal of the excess kittycat boxes on the market, even with a good incentive to do so, I guess.



I was/am involved with another breedable that tried once to put time limits on the offspring. It was a disaster!!!! People were angry etc. Just speaking from experience and I believe Calli was there at the time...it was not a good idea!

[doubledareme Resident]

(10-07-2014 06:28 AM)Whispers Magic Wrote:  You should keep reading through Page 4. I offered a "radical" solution, and so far no one has commented on it. It would ruffle too many feathers to actually force the removal of the excess kittycat boxes on the market, even with a good incentive to do so, I guess.



I was/am involved with another breedable that tried once to put time limits on the offspring. It was a disaster!!!! People were angry etc. Just speaking from experience and I believe Calli was there at the time...it was not a good idea!

Its not a time limit on offspring. Any trait can be bred back into a cat when it is retired but it is not offered in the new starters. If the traits were retired and newer ones were offered regularly there would be more people buying starters...less of the same cats over and over. There would be no difference then there is now with the retired traits. It would just be harder to get them and retain them which makes them more valuable. I have used this analogy before... In the art world once the print is gone out of original issue it is then bought and sold for way more than the original price . It is the same with retired traits. Those worth saving and having ...even if its to the individual will be bred back in. Case in point. Twinkle Flash and Blush...Shorty tail...Plush whiskers.... its not about limiting the breeding its about evening out the market by retiring traits that are holding the progress of KittyCats from moving forward. Triple myst does NOTHING for the secondary market and the KittyCats starters are saturated with it. It hurts the market by keeping those traits available in starters. To get rid of the myst we have to breed and breed and breed and we get box upon box upon box of what we do not want.

The other problem that would arise from expiry dates on boxes would be less effective breeding. Some times it takes months to breed the cat you want because of the outdated traits Most are looking for newer traits or specific traits to breed into their cats. I have boxes I am waiting to open until I have the right combination in the ones I am breeding now. The stress on people to get the breeding done in three months would be enormous and just not practical. I have Ben snows sitting in my cattery for 6 months now ...just waiting for some of the newer traits to be put on them but I don't have time nor the energy to do it right now...some of these are projects for people and they spend much time planning them out.

As far as people breeding 100's of cats and getting hundreds of boxes...well you can't really tell people what to spend their money on nor how to run their lives. It may not seem practical to you or to others but for them there is joy in it. There are many that love having their stores, and take pride in their breeding. WE pay for the cats. WE pay for the food. WE pay for everything to do with the cat WE purchase. WE should have the final say how many boxes we keep...what we toss to the menagerie. I for one would put more there if it was worth it. Sorry after months of breeding 20l per cat hardly makes sense. I would rather keep it just to have it for posterity. Now if the Menagerie were worth it...the value of a box/kitty up by a few lindens and the goal to sending them there more exciting you would probably see some doing that. I know there are many who cannot bare to send a cat/box to the menagerie...so what do you tell these people. Oh sorry you are poop outta luck ...we know its gonna break your heart and bother you endlessly but oh well get over it? Thats not fair to the hundreds of people breeding that want to keep what they have bred. And really the problem is not with unopened boxes that people want to keep. The problem is in selling them and expecting the same value you did when they were first a novelty. Case in point. Cheap cheap to find a VCR in a pawn shop but people spend thousands of dollars for the newest home system. What did i hear...the newest Iphone costs between 6 and 8oo dollars but i can buy an older model for less than a quarter of the price. There is no retail store that would even try to sell their old Iphones for the same price as the newest model.

All this needs to be considered. I still think one of the best ways is to retire many of the over bred old traits and keep them out of the starter kittys. I hate the fact that when I buy a starter I'm likely to get traits i could care less about...like the infamous myst.

But at the end of the day...we can discuss this till Jesus comes back but its not going to make a difference if KittyCats does nothing about it. These things have been mentioned before so many times in the threads of this forum. Its time for KittyCats to stop just letting us discuss this and like I said in my later post, get someone who is brilliant in marketing and try to fix these problems or what will happen is that KittyCats will go the way of the dodo. Many things need to be considered and I do not think anything we say here will do one damned bit of good if its not being taken to heart and some sort of solution offered. This problem has been ongoing for a long time. Its time for KittyCats to start hearing what we are saying and not just letting us chat endlessly about it till we get frustrated and angry about it...which is what is evidently happening.

This is directly to KittyCats. You have the ultimate decision here...not us. You created a product that was obviously going to lead to a secondary market... This market has existed since the beginning of KittyCats and its time you got involved in it. You can pass the buck for another year and find more and more of your clients angry and leaving KittyCats or getting frustrated and giving up or you can accept the responsibility that you have a HUGE part to play in this market and try to take some action to help rectify the problems.

I will say it a fourth time. HIRE A MARKETING GURU and figure this out. What ever is happening now is clearly NOT working and too many people are unhappy about it for you to ignore it forever.

[Tad Carlucci]

The problem with breedable pets, and this is NOT limited to KittyCatS, all breedables exhibit this, is that they are incomplete. You can talk all you want about adjusting offspring production rates, food costs and effectiveness, etc, and NO change you make will 'solve' the problem until the rest of the system is implemented.

What is missing?

What will actually solve the problem?

There is only one solution: disease and predation.

Why do rabbits reproduce like .. well .. rabbits?

What stops them from covering the world 2 meters deep?

Simple: they're so TASTY! Everybody eats them! Foxes, dogs, bobcats, you name it .. if it likes meat it LOVES bunny-meat.

And what happens when there are not enough predators? Sure, populations zoom upwards for a while. But, soon, you have a LOT of sick, starving rabbits. But that only lasts until the population sinks to a more sustainable level.

In KittyCats, at least, we DO have a 'predator' .. the MENAGERIE!

The problem is it is VOLUNTARY.

So, the simplest solution to the zooming populations (which leads to the annual complaints about markets failing) would be to make it MANDATORY.

[doubledareme Resident]

(10-06-2014 07:23 PM)Shamu077 Resident Wrote:  

(10-06-2014 12:59 PM)PrettyPoizen Resident Wrote:  

Quote:In general, it would help if the cats stop being able to make so many offsprings, somehow reduce the cats flooding the market.

This is something I totally understand in a very real sense...Overbreeding destroys any breedable market whether SL or RL. There are just so many "homes" to go around and even with most of us having hundreds of cats, that is not even a small percentage of the tens of thousands produced by just a few thousand breeders each month -Nevermind the total population of box makers! So it should not surprise anyone that the market is littered with kitties and causing many to sell fairly high quality cats for 50-75L and therefore further depressing an already depressed market.

So, I would think its in our best interest to apply some Real Life selective breeding strategies here on SL...I know these are just pixels, but the economic damage is real...i'm jus sayin....

Well the real solution lies in Real Life as well: Eliminate the "birthing" of KittyBoxes and ONLY allow live kittens to be born from breeding.

Now the cats get old and "die", or at least become pets. The tens of thousands of Kittyboxes being displayed as musuem pieces at the secondary market sims would be useless. Probably give the boxes a 3 month grace period before they no longer "Unpack".

The only exception would be starter boxes which might contain new traits, including the SE Collection cat boxes. KittyCats could still compete with breeders by selling the collection cats for a Limited Time, meaning NOT an entire month.

The old unpackable kittyboxes not unpacked during some grace period could be sent to the menagerie for $K credits, which would also be able to purchase food for the Live cats.

Of course this does not fit the highly profitable business model for the KittycatS owners, and the secondary market owners would scream about losing the rent from their museum shops. Live cats as 2 prims would need to replace the kittybox business for them.

This will never happen, since it would solve the oversupply problem at the expense of the sim owners and kittycat owners, and make the real breeders think before breeding another kitten.

But think of the effects - old traits could truly become extinct unless some breeder keeps the line alive - by breeding live cats. Rare retired traits could still be gotten from older Special Cat Kittyboxes, which would retain the ability to be Unpacked. Now the special cat collectors might have a reason to birth their dusty boxes.

As far as the rest of the discussion - I take offence at anyone who claims breeding is only a hobby and you have to be stupid to think you can even break even. If you run your breeding business as a business, it is still possible. But remember that 90% of all small businesses fail anyway, in RL or SL.

Shamu

I think you have to be careful not to step on toes of people who pay for these cats to be bred. i pay for my boxes ...every one...by feeding my cats and breeding them so I can have the boxes. For some its not about selling every box. In fact I know many that actually get pleasure from hoarding boxes...and some never have the intent of selling them. Once someone purchases the right to breed a box it belongs to them you can't just say...oh sorry...that box no is not longer able to be opened. THAT would be a disaster as people would be rushing to open boxes rather than losing them. There are more practical ways to even out the market. And as I said in a later post on this thread one really good way would be to retire more traits...offer a couple new traits monthly even if its just two, that would increase the purchase of new starters. Also having better incentives to menagerie would be fantastic...i personally don't really care for the tigers except the ones that actually look like a tiger...These menagerie tigers should be new every year...or added to every year.

Also something to think about is the fact that people need to be more selective with breeding and realistic with prices. When KittyCats started there were not as many traits and one could realistically sell the cats for a better price. When I started several months back the Black Russian had not been retired yet and I saw doz of them EVERYwhere cheap cheap. Now that they are retired people are using them as specialty kittens...adding newer traits to a much loved fur increasing the value of them. I for one don't think keeping these ancient traits coming out of new starters is very smart. Wouldn't it be nice if at some point having these outdated traits actually meant your cat had value because they were not so readily available.

Telling people they just spent months of breeding and tonnes of money to get their boxes only to make them useless is asking for trouble. I own those boxes, not KittyCats and I paid for them but raising/feeding/breeding my cats. I do not see expiry dates on boxes as an option however expiry dates on traits would do the trick.

[Tad Carlucci]

And therein lies the problem.

It's natural that you work hard, produce a lot, and want to keep all your results.

But at the same time, everyone else does, too.

We don't want to upset people by imposing limits. But without limits, everything becomes worthless.

This will last until some system appears which limits TOTAL population, as opposed to individual populations.

But any system which does that won't be accepted by the players.

So we're stuck.

And we'll remain stuck until someone devises a population limiting feature which the players will accept.

---

It occurs to me that the present system does impose population limits, of a sort.

The way it works is this:

1) everyone gets to keep everything they produce.

2) Populations zoom upwards

3) Prices crash downwards

4) People complain until they're sick of it and give up

5) Enough people give up and delete their product that populations drop

6) Prices recover

7) Go back to step 1

There are those of us who have realized this, ignore it, and go merrily on our ways.

But, the idea that the only other solution is 'If you don't like it, quit' is what this thread is about.

It just feels like there should be a better solution. But, until one is devised, that's the one we're stuck with.

[jwenting Resident]

yes, having cats die unless they're permapets helps. And them stopping to breed at 4 months does much the same thing.
How many breeders keep their cats after 4 months rather than sending them to the menagerie for K$? Very few I think, except maybe some they've grown very attached to and those may well be turned into permapets.

Now, one way to limit the population explosion would be to limit the number of kittens each cat can produce. So either reduce those 120 days to say 60 (which halves the productive life of a cat) or increase the time span between births, reducing the rate at which they breed.
The second is more friendly towards new and small breeders, the first might benefit the big ones for whom having more cats to pump out the same number of kittens doesn't matter much. It will of course make it more expensive for them to keep up their current rate of production, which will cause at least some of them to slow down.

Both systems would cause a reduction in the number of kittens produced, which over time at least would increase market value and rarity.