KittyCatS! Market Improvement Suggestions

[Ziyal Ochs]

I agree that many people expect too many lindens for their low traited kitten. I think one of the problems is, that there is no education out there on which trait is worth what. Maybe the Co-Op could make it their responibilty to make a chart for each trait. Yes I know, no-one wants that responsibility... neither do I. But what can you expect from an uneducated breeder. We as the marketplace owners can do more as well, no doubt about that.

As for changing the nature of KittyCatS!... Yes that may help for a while or it will completely kill KittyCatS! I don't beleive any of us want that.

I am very much for retiring traits and new menagerie rewards. Seems like it could help.

I also see a general problem with auction clients. Many fear to go to an auction, but that's really what they should do... if not to buy a cat then at least to learn how much what sells for. I know I am probably upsetting many auctioneers now, because no-one wants a none-paying audience. But how else will they learn? I do not believe that the many auctions are a problem either, however we should arrange for some more classes. Yes it is hard to get people to go to your classes, but if you are a sim owner, approach your new renters, personally and make them aware. Advertise in groups and you have many more options like FB or blogs! Let's pull together and make for example 3-5 classes a week, make a shedule board and offer the 1 prim for a sign with the class schedule on each of our sims.... again I send these thoughts to the co-op. If we want to work together this could be a place to start.

I don't believe anyone is saying that you can't make money with KittyCatS! What we are saying is that we are concerned about the way things are. And let me say this (I am probably wrong but it is what my gut tells me). When you are a breeder with many cats, you most likely also buy A LOT of LE cats when they come out. Why do you do this? A. you want to increase your chance at getting the rare one. B. You want to increase your chance of getting the new traits. Maybe there is even a C. you want to keep some to sell in a few years when their value has gone up. This is all good and well but please understand that small breeders only have a few cats. and when I buy LE, I buy a few. So my chances of getting a new trait is much slimmer then yours. What I most often am stuck with are 3 year old traits that should have been retired a long time ago. I won't make any money unless I get lucky... I have been breeding for almost 3 years and I have NEVER gotten a new trait. And it's not like I don't know how to breed. I just don't open that many of my LE. I need to feed them, I need to living partners which I can breed them with (they also need food and milk) and I cannot just only have one partner to breed out what is in the starter, unless I am lucky. Bottom line: There is a huge differnce between big breeders and small breeders. I believe that there are more small breeders then there are real big breeders, so KittyCatS! needs the small breeders as well as the big ones.

I still think that this needs to be an effort on both parts. No doubt that KC has the final say, however we need to do our part too

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And another little thing is, that we as marketplace owners see people leaving left and right not only new ones who never really got started because it is so hard getting iformation on breeding and prices, but also the the old breeders disappear. I was very sad when Kitty Cottage closed. I was happy that Liriel still did classes at scratch, but that is also a thing in the past.

There is no doubt in my mind that we need to pull together, however that does include KittyCatS! Don't just leave the bug with us. You do need to get involved in the market, cause guess what... You already are!

[fabioazevedo Oh]

(10-07-2014 10:11 AM)jwenting Resident Wrote:  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.

hello jwenting.

I loved your idea of ??reducing the term of the kitten. I would not be radical to the point of diminishing to 60 days, maybe something like 90 days, you are already reducing 25% of cats produced.

The second idea would be so frustrating. OMG, wait 7 days for a cat birth, and leaving it wrong, then 14 days, 21 days, 28 days. Test of patience.


LIONS, PANTHERS, BEARS, ANYTHING NEW TO THE MENAGERIE, THE LOVE OF GOD !, THIS IS FOR YESTERDAY!


Thus, the market does not need to drink all this poison "American Summer", bitter, and having to kill 75% of all cats, to begin the cycle again on halloween.

Also support the idea of a new summer collection, between Easter and, haloween.

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(10-07-2014 08:08 AM)Tad Carlucci Wrote:  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

Hey Tad ,

Perfect view of the market.

American Summer = Bitter remedy to market, return to normalcy. Few not quit, but those who understand this flow, going prepare, in advance, not to break halfway.

Some even say that this is just a hobby, and do not call market. omg. hahah

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(10-07-2014 04:06 AM)doubledareme Resident Wrote:  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)

Hey Dei,

Fantastic idea. All traits of 2011 and early 2012, all to retire.

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(10-07-2014 04:06 AM)doubledareme Resident Wrote:  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!

Explaining the Menagerie.

Market view:
When we send the cat to the Menagerie, is the same as selling the cat for $ 20L.
We need 300 cats, to get 15.000K$ to exchange for a megapuss.

Let's do some calculations:
300 cats x 20L = KC is paying for you, 6000L$.
A megapuss sold in the secondary market for 15000L$.

So you had a profit of 9000L$.

Now, if you, do the reverse calculation. 15000L$, divided by 300 cats, the menagerie you paid for 50L$ each cat.

It's a big job to do this, do not be lazy.


I'm not an accumulator boxes. I use the menagerie, conscious of the results in numbers.

I traded 4 Tigers Normal size, and about 9 megapuss Tigers, in the last 10 months.

Is a tip!

[Kayleigh McMillan]

I'd love for cats to keep breeding for 121 days sometimes starters/ projects are so stubborn I really need those days also considering same gender sequences.
For my hobby feel with breeding I feel more chill by the current breeding time a cat has.

EDIT KC could increase the price of food, milk and other vita's and ask monthly fees based on the amount of cats for use of the Online Cattery to make people breed less and as such reduce the cats that people breed and make them more picky in what is worthwhile enough to feed and as such to reach the market
Not sure if I want that LOL but I am sure this is the easiest and fastest way for KC to help us: just changing price tags.

[LyricaBlues Resident]

(10-07-2014 07:06 PM)Kayleigh McMillan Wrote:  KC could increase the price of food, milk and other vita's and ask monthly fees based on the amount of cats for use of the Online Cattery to make people breed less and as such reduce the cats that people breed and make them more picky in what is worthwhile enough to feed and as such to reach the market

Hi Kay! I kinda chuckled when i read this...it is actually something similar to what many states/counties did in RL in response to pet overpopulation - Breeding Moratoriums and Requiring Licenses to breed pets. They charged for the licenses and it was not successful because ironically Commercial Breeders were exempt.

But you touched the common point in both rl and sl: what is breedworthy. It costs the same to feed excellent cats as it does to feed mediocre ones. The problem is that mediocrity does not sell well and the ones who made the boxes get upset because the cats are not selling. Buyers want a cat, often with the notion of "making back their money" and buy the "box'o'kitties" for a few lindens thinking they will make a few boxes but then are disgruntled because no one buys. Yes, there are too many selling events, but there are many factors in the problems we face now: Too many auctions, Too many cats on the grid, Too many disgruntled box makers dragging the same cats from auction to auction all week long as their frustration grows.

That old expression comes to mind (the one I named my store after): Build a Better Mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. So, make a better cat, one that stands out and the buyers will buy it. Just my two cents...

[Unicorn Blackburn]

AND the next THANK YOU for all the responses.

AND AGAIN

I hope EVERY marketplace and KittyCatS! and every Breeder
will respond to this thread.

WHAT you thinking ???

[Rala Huckleberry]

Hello all,
Thank you for this thread, which touches a very basic problem of the Kittycats markets an with this also of the breeders, which in short or longer terms will fall back on KC itself as well. And to be honest, I am very much astonished, how few people are participating in this discussion. I hear the complaints every day by so many people.....where are they when there is to talk openly and in public? Even if we , who write here, don't have all the same opinion, thanks to ALL who are not afraid to tell it!
Some of you know, that I am a Co Owner of UKF, but today I write in first line as a breeder, and I am sure, that there are many breeders who are going through the same situation.
I am breeding since Xmas 2012, started with a starterpack and learned most of how to breed from other breeders in the secondary markets. It was a bit of work, but it was fun, and how happy I was, when I started out to get nice kitties, and people came and bought them. It was not so much the money, but a sale is always the appreciation of the "work" or/and the ideas. This motivates to get better cats and to invest in good traits, which keeps the economy moving, and encourages others to get into breeding as well. They will have cats and BUY FOOD AND MILK......so we do something good for KC as well.
All went well until approximately May-June this year, the period when the traits of the LEs of Valentines Day and Easter were about to be bred out well.... and there are still some people who say that the situation has nothing to do with the number of the sold LE kitties...which is so high, that the "limited" is to justify only with the fact, that they are not available anymore, after having made sure, that all have had the possibility to buy as many as possible....On my opinion this is a point worth to think about a bit.
Since this time the kittyboxes stay in the shops like rocks. And what beautiful boxes I see!!!! The only way to sell something is...no, WAS!....to go to auctions. Who wonders why the number of the auctions increased?
I will not talk about this viscious circle....we all know how it is going. I just say, that I am at a point, that I often look at my cattery and am thinking about sending all to the menagery, taking a Tiger as a nice souvenir in memory of KittyCats. And I never had so good kitties as I do at the moment. For now my heart has been bleeding strong enough that I did not do this step....but how long? I know several good breeders who have given up....what a pity.
Some cynical fellows might say now : OK....BETTER!! So there is one breeder less who is spamming the market with his/her cats.....and KC does not seem to be interested to hold the experienced breeders......the starterpacks, LEs and food keeps the business going.This is right! But only until the frustration is so big, that nobody is motivated to breed anymore.
We all will stay healthy if we work together. So I think we should really but REALLY collaborate and not just enter a group and hope in silence that there will be one or two who will find the miracoulous solution and save the KC-world
There are some very nice suggestions:
Re-limitation of the Limited Editions
Promotional periods for food and milk
A new Menagery Tiger
More Kitty Dollars for a sent in box or cat
What about marketwide hunts which go over all the marketplaces
Restrictive auction rules which look on quality!
And much more.....
I come to an end now......but I really hope that KittyCatS! will not end so soon.....let us work on it TOGETHER!
Rala Huckleberry

[Ivy Norsk]

Rala Wrote:Re-limitation of the Limited Editions
Promotional periods for food and milk
A new Menagery Tiger
More Kitty Dollars for a sent in box or cat
What about marketwide hunts which go over all the marketplaces
Restrictive auction rules which look on quality!

I agree with all of these suggestions except the last. I think that not only are restrictive auction rules bound to fail because who is to enforce them, and trying to do so will lead to bad-blood and drama, but it is unnecessary. In such a market, with such lovely cats that are not selling, a cat that isn't up to snuff simply doesn't sell at auction. Yes, I know some auctioneers put pressure on the audience to bid, and it must be hard not to, but really when people go to auctions they know what they want and how many lindens they have available to spend. Not bidding IS the correction. Sadly many cats who Are of quality are also not bought because available lindens are tied up in catfood.

Most of those suggestions devolve to KittyCatS HQ. I think they should take all of them. So the next thing is what We as breeders Do, in very practical terms, to Collaborate? And the main thing I can think of is to menagerie cats, a certain percentage of a cattery. There's no way to enforce it. But it's the only thing that hits at supply. Certainly not everyone will do it... a really large percentage of breeders don't even read the forum or realize that this conversation is happening. Most only check the forum when they have to file a support ticket on a cat. It is up to the Market Owners to get any word out.

One of the more interesting suggestions (and I'm sorry I forget who made it, I think several did in different forms) is a far more radical retirement of traits. Again KittyCatS has to do this unless we collaborate with a mass menagerieing of all things mysterious (but it takes time to breed all our cats away from there - I know I've been trying to get many of my myst-tailed cats to throw other things but progress is slow because cats are stubborn). I have often wondered why the Mysterious traits stay in the LEs. I've come to the conclusion that the LE lottery is meant to be a kind of a gumball game and KittyCatS has come to rely on Myst as a kind of default, i.e., they only have so many traits to pack the kittie boxes with. It may not be all that easy coming up with new traits (though eyes and whisker colors would seem to be easier than different whisker shapes and we could use more whisker colors). Also, it is not true now, but will be true later, that KC HQ will have to spend time doing whatever research and development they need to to get the cats into SL2. I suspect the whole market may be holding its breath at that point.

Quick edit to add: Promotional periods of food and milk only work if the spare money thus gained is spent on buying other people's cats, not on doubling down on the food. The point would be to get money circulating in the market again. If people just use it to open more cat boxes, any benefit is lost.

[Dimpz Morane]

(10-07-2014 10:11 AM)jwenting Resident Wrote:  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.

I STRONGLY disagree with increasing the time span between births!! its bad enough for me, an addict to wait 7 days and now you are saying wait even longer - Not my favourite idea!!

I for one would definately leave KC if they chose that kinda of option

[Tad Carlucci]

Changing factors such as the frequency or duration of offspring production will have NO effect! In fact, it can have an effect opposite of the desire: populations can actually INCREASE.

Changing food costs works by encouraging players to leave the game altogether, and, to have the desired effect, would be a huge public-relations problem for the company. But it would model, in a sorta back-handed way, the way it works in Nature. The idea, to work, would be for food prices to INCREASE and DECREASE in some direct relationship to total population. Lowing populations would lead to lower prices, and higher populations would mean higher prices. Workable? Definitely. Marketable? Most definitely NOT.

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The real question which has not been addressed so far is why does the annual cycle of complaints about market conditions seem so much worse this year?

One of the suggestions, above, is to actually DO something. Introduce a new Menagerie Tiger, for example.

To my mind, that is EXACTLY why it's so bad this year. Last year, we had the Firestorm KITTIES. This year it was STATUES. That was a huge mistake. Sure, it was a bow to Firestorm, and got the company name out, but it ignored the existing customers and did nothing to bring in new customers.

Luckily, we're about to the end of this phase of the market.

Soon, we'll be seeing the start of the Winter tidal wave of new Specials and new trait values, and the complaints will shift back to how the company is introducing too much, to quickly.

Of course, that presumes that the lame Firestorm Statues is not a harbinger of things to come.

[Kayleigh McMillan]

(10-08-2014 08:25 AM)Tad Carlucci Wrote:  ...

Changing food costs works by encouraging players to leave the game altogether, and, to have the desired effect, would be a huge public-relations problem for the company.
...

Survival of the fittest?

I know it is not a good idea because many breed souly for their hobby others a bit of both and then there are people who stricktly have a business angle and everything in between.
The variety of reasons people breed makes it unworkable indeed.
Should breeding KittyCatS only be something that is handled as a marketable product it would be a great solution I think to limit the amount of cats on the markets; basically what this thread is all about.

The odd thing is I am never worried about the yearly downtime in sales it is like running a beachbar in reverse: good times during the summer and putting some in your piggybank for the winter.