Continuing on our slight economic “SL Fashion downturn”, Fashion Mode is closing its doors after exactly four months of operation.
This leaves one to wonder — how do you keep interest in a sim? Given all the hype Fashion Mode had upon opening, and it shuts down so quickly… someone on Plurk coined the term “Drive-Thru Sim”, and I can’t say it’s far from the truth, given the short development life span.
I never went…….
Obviously you are singlehandedly responsible for the failure of Fashion Mode. Shame on you.
I’ve not been either, it’s not just you *goes and sits in the corner with Darkley, hanging her head in shame*
Fashion Mode was an incredible build with a huge amount of support from the designer community, it was exciting to see it spring up out of nothing and it is so sad to see it close.
I hope everyone who rented or shopped there enjoyed it, and I hope everyone who never went decides to head over to check out how incredible it was before it closes on August 31st =)
*loves FM*
I hate shopping centers. I prefer popping in and out of the main store.
*hangs head in shame*
Great build, great merchants – was a good effort..
Whatever drugs you on, please share, otherwise, let's cut the bullshit here, shall we?
Fashion Mode, Hope Valley, CC.. how many others have closed in record time?
FM was a hot mess from day one – someone got the BRILLIANT idea to open a shopping sim – someone woke up one morning, "oh I think today I will start a shopping sim, and i know my friends will come, and people will LOVE it"
Did we all forget the lack of advertising? The bots in the sky? How many designers seen sales? Hmm, I am guessing outside of that opening week, few, if any.
There were no events, no classifieds, a shitload of lag, and sure as hell a ton of promises made, and none kept.
There are only a FEW successful shopping malls/sims/districts that succeed – why? Due to the phenomenal efforts of the owners/management, and the brutal force to make it work do they keep their doors open. More energy, effort and time than myself would care to invest, but many do, and do it right.
So for the "great job" and the "will be missed" .. stop bullshitting, see the spade for the spade, and call it what it is – a failure.
never went either. it looked laggy just from the ad.
Since people fail to check their facts. FM has been around for years housing some of the best shops in sl past and present. Unfortunately it was time to close the doors… it isn’t easy owning or running a mall now adays and its also hard when you try to do things for sales and traffic with the lack of participation from over half the vendors. It was great..I loved having my shop there. 2 years ago my very first shop in sl was at the first installment of FM and ill never be able to thank Ashlin enough for giving me a chance to rent at her mall. She’s a smart person she’s kind and did her best and I thank her for that and anyone with anything rude or bitchy can eff off …let me see you do what she’s done for the past 3 years…doubt it. So shut your mouth and walk away . Incredible mall incredible build incredible people and shops… it will be missed. When you rent at a mall..its not ONLY up to the owner its your duty as a shop owner to do yourpart as well… if you are too lazy to do so..don’t own a shop.
Did you read anything of what I wrote? Seems I stated it was a lot of work, and never discredited that aspect.
I did question the ability to maintain, and operate such a venture when past proves no success. FM was a failure before, and then was resurrected!! To, gosh.. FAIL AGAIN – how is that NOT fact?
On a sidenote: Gosh, Kianna, aren't you the same the Kianna Noel who was in the Hope Valley bullshit?
Since people fail to check their facts. FM has been around for years housing some of the best shops in sl past and present.This was the revamped last generation of the mall.. Unfortunately it was time to close the doors… it isn’t easy owning or running a mall now adays and its also hard when you try to do things for sales and traffic with the lack of participation from over half the vendors. It was great..I loved having my shop there. 2 years ago my very first shop in sl was at the first installment of FM and ill never be able to thank Ashlin enough for giving me a chance to rent at her mall. She’s a smart person she’s kind and did her best and I thank her for that and anyone with anything rude or bitchy can eff off …let me see you do what she’s done for the past 3 years…doubt it. So shut your mouth and walk away . Incredible mall incredible build incredible people and shops… it will be missed. When you rent at a mall..its not ONLY up to the owner its your duty as a shop owner to do yourpart as well… if you are too lazy to do so..don’t own a shop…so whatever drugs YOU’RE on…how bout you share those instead
Actually it wasn’t a failure before…and hope valley had nothing to do with me I was offered to buy a sim…we did then the owner decided to sell the sim to another party and run off with our money….so again… get your facts straight
if you want to informed correctly and properly on what you THINK you know …grow a pair and im me in world
Yeah thats right, if your shopping mall fails, just blame the renters…
Hope valley closed cause the owner couldn’t hack it that’s a sim you can talk shit on … coulda been saved and was on its way to being awesome until she decided to make deals with two different people and sell the sim twice…. imade a transaction..with a promise of a sim… my partner and I spent a week puting the simback together then in the middle of the transfer the owner canceled(with our money already in her pocket) and sold it to another party that had no idea what she was doing so the fail of Hope Valley was the fault of one person and one person only… and that person wasn’t me =)so there’s your hope story in a nutshell…
There's now a reply button that threads comments.
No … not blaming only the renters…but you cant sit there and complain that it was solely one persons fault when it was a joint effort…. when it comes to fault.. So if you are a renter…its part of your responsibility to promote where your stores are etc….as well as the owner . Its not right to blame the owner for everything when I say and watched her attempt to advertise and hold event after events without any cooporation from most of the renters…even though the renters there were awesome and amazing… its our job as store owners to help … its a team effort. That’s all im saying
I remember the previous incarnations of FM and yes, they were cool places. But, y’know, I only went there because they had events on that drew me there. I don’t recall hearing of any events at the newest FM mall other than it’s opening, which was too much of a lagfest for me to be willing to go to.
As a store owner now, whilst I do have a few satellite stores at various places, I don’t have TIME amongst designing, building, scripting, photographing, boxing, setting up vendors, blogging, sending notices, dealing with customers, accounting, planning, marketing my own store/releases and more to spend oodles of time and effort promoting a mall someone else is getting the profit for. Sure, I’ll make a freebie for a hunt, or mark stuff down for a sale and let my groups know/blog it, if THEY are putting in the legwork AND if it doesn’t coincide with other things (RL and SL). I consider promotion of the mall/sim by it’s owners/managers as part of what I pay rent for. So sorry, but I don’t think you are right blaming the renters for any mall’s demise.
While I agree that I would expect anywhere I rent at to do their bit in promoting their mall in exchange for my rent money, I would also just like to interject that as one of the first renters at the new incarnation of FM, there were regular sales done and a lot of events were planned but never got any support from the designers.
To name a few, a photo contest, a fashion show, themed parties… All were planned, none got enough help from the tenants.
It is NOT the renters fault, but it is NOT the owner of FM's fault either. There is a multitude of reasons and the closure of this mall is really sad. It was my favourite mall to shop at
Skinkie you hit the nail on head here – if sim owners/managerment is doing their part – then yes, please do yours – it's a team effort.
I do ask for my merchants to consider doing a SIM Exclusive – it's not a requirement – but it is a guaranteed marketing tool. Not only does it bring in revenue for the designer, but also the visibility for the sim/shopping area
There's now a reply button that threads comments.
Moo is on reply duty.. juz sayin :p
It’s a really neat feature – thanks for adding it Moo/Tenshi. More should use it…
I never actually shopped at FM, because I could find all the stores there just fine elsewhere. I disagree with Kianna in that as a sim owner it is your responsibility to make sure the stores and renters stay with you and rent from you, so if you didn't put in the hours, you won't get the renewed/continued subscriptions. You can't just lump it on the store renters and say it's up to them. Yeah it's a shame it's shut down, but yaknow, another one just like it will pop up soon enough.
From my experience a mall only works if at least one mainstore is there which is bloged regularly. Or the mall regularly organizes events (best with freebies involved) = blog coverage. The built is almost secondary. It's the constant presence in the blogs that keeps a place alive and successfull. Dependances of good shops also mean nothing if not regularly special items are released only at that mall ( = blog coverage). So without a comitment of the vendors to 'work' for their location (other than their main-store) everything will go under.
I strongly belief that in the future only 'malls' like drowsy that offer something beyond what is available at the individual mainstores will survive. So new concepts are needed not great buildings.
Reading the post on this mall and the comments from 4 months ago … 15 minutes of fame … death was already creeping through the mall from the very beginning.
15 minutes of fame was just the title of a column written by a very short lived blogger who thought attaching her name to something would give it 15 minutes of fame
Just clarifying!
I think the problem is all of these well done shopping centre type places have the same quality merchants in them. Most of the time, the people who visit these malls, already own stuff by the merchants, or know their name. Where are the "noobs" being exposed to this great content? I think thats the main problem. Who is going to keep buying the same product over and over? No one. Get the mall exposed to people OUTSIDE of your world of people in SL and maybe itll last longer.
Btw, a friend took me there and they were all saying how "cute" the build was. Maybe sell it as a prefab
I agree totally. I went shopping at a certain designer's mainstore the other day, and I was thrilled and surprised to see a bunch of stores I had never heard of on the sim…most of the time when I'm in a shopping area I have been to all the stores already. Malls work in RL because it's convenient to have all the shops in one place. But in SL it's just as convenient to tp to the mainstore, and you'll get a much greater election of products. The only point to a mall is to expose the designers to new groups of people.
Unfair to blame the renters. I agree with blahblahblahwhatever that sims with a mainstore on it tend to attract more traffic. Maybe the sim management could have got some new mainstores in, or make their own freebie to give out rather than sitting on their laurels.
The onus of this falls to the management. I work with over 100 merchants – and there are A LOT of issues, and tasks that need to be handled – monthly, weekly – and often.. DAILY.
I work with my team, Beu and Gabby, they are main points of contact – we are scheduling events weekly, hunts/sales and designer showcases. It IS a ton of work – but why do we do it? To offer something unique.
Cross marketing, and merchant participation IS NEEDED – as it brings attention to the sim/sims as well as the designer. Sim Exclusives – which my merchants have found to work amazingly well – as well as the venue sponorship – that offers the merchant a place to hold an event and give back to their group.
I could go on and on about the NEED for involvement, and engaging not only the staff/management, the merchants, and the shoppers – but I feel that if more would step out of the blame game, you would see a difference.
The onus of this falls to the management. I work with over 100 merchants – and there are A LOT of issues, and tasks that need to be handled – monthly, weekly – and often.. DAILY.
I work with my team, Beu and Gabby, they are main points of contact – we are scheduling events weekly, hunts/sales and designer showcases. It IS a ton of work – but why do we do it? To offer something unique.
Cross marketing, and merchant participation IS NEEDED – as it brings attention to the sim/sims as well as the designer. Sim Exclusives – which my merchants have found to work amazingly well – as well as the venue sponorship – that offers the merchant a place to hold an event and give back to their group.
I could go on and on about the NEED for involvement, and engaging not only the staff/management, the merchants, but also the shoppers – WHY? They keep the sims alive.. the working pays off – trust me.
I feel that if more would step out of the blame game, you would see a difference.
The onus of this falls to the management. I work with over 100 merchants – and there are A LOT of issues, and tasks that need to be handled – monthly, weekly – and often.. DAILY.
I work with my team, Beu and Gabby, they are main points of contact – we are scheduling events weekly, hunts/sales and designer showcases. It IS a ton of work – but why do we do it? To offer something unique.
Cross marketing, and merchant participation IS NEEDED – as it brings attention to the sim/sims as well as the designer. Sim Exclusives – which my merchants have found to work amazingly well – as well as the venue sponorship – that offers the merchant a place to hold an event and give back to their group.
I could go on and on about the NEED for involvement, and engaging not only the staff/management, the merchants, and the shoppers – but I feel that if more would step outside of the blame game, you would see a difference.
Ashlin is known for starting something then moving on a few months later. She's had kid malls a couple of times, a school for kids, a kid's adoption agency, Fashion Mode a few times, as well as a few of her own business ventures. I'm not surprised to see this one coming to an end, as well. She'll have something else that's the next best thing ever soon, so don't hold your breath.
Seriously, I never even heard of this place. Sorry it's going under for those it matters to, but this isn't even a blip on my radar.
this was a great build, but so many of the stores already have shops in every other mall on the grid. i think that's the issue. every new mall is just the same old shops over and over again. either use the mall to cater to a new audience (noobs, rp-ers, niche groups, w/e) or find new talent. the only reason these days to hit 'the hot new mall of the week' is to grab the opening gifts & never return.
even malls w/ a big name mainstore – people just go to the big name shop & never venture out to see the rest of the stores. so many sims w/ this style of build are struggling now too.
seems to me, the more successful or stable shopping sims, have a balance of mainstores & satellites, and are visually interesting enough to not feel just like every other strip mall.