Why opening a store in Kitely makes more sense now than ever before!

Its probably no secret by now that I am a bit of a Kitely fanboy.

At the recent OSCC2014 (OpenSim Community Conference, for the uninitiated) Ilan Tochner, CEO of Kitely laid out his case for the Kitely Hypergrid Market 1 year on from its opening. Besides this presentation containing a quote from a rather hansome, rooty looking green fellow, it also made some fantastic points that I think it is valuable to distill somewhere for reference.

You can see the full presentation here:

Ilan Tochner - Kitely Hypergrid Market - one year later....

My main take-away points:

1. Growth on all fronts - Listings, sales and interest are all on the increase. 3000+ unique items, 6000+ variations, serving 49 of the 204 "known" grids. Its pretty impressive.

As Ilan noted in his presentation, my sales have eclipsed my SL takings twice now once in May and more recently, last month. Obviously, not every month is that strong, and in the long run, my main income still comes from SL. But I have made close to 2500USD in my first year, and that's not counting takings in KC, which I use to pay my featured item fees, membership and land fees, and sales are not slowing down. They are growing. Slowly. But steadily. Which brings us to.....

2. Export = Win! - My export sales account for over 50% of my trade in OS, and contrary to what may be expected by most, I have plenty of repeat sales. In fact, some of my "older" items are still my strongest sellers. It has always been my opinion that DRM is not beneficial for sellers or consumers, and it feels good to be vindicated somewhat in this regard by the facts. I also have many repeat customers, and new ones turning up weekly.

3. Kitely and High Fidelity - I am very excited by this. Kitely market can and will deliver to HiFi and possibly many other virtual platforms as they come online. Anyone thinking that a store in Opensim means taking a step backward should think again. Kitely Market is poised and ready to take advantage of new virtual worlds and potential markets in a way that nobody else out there is.