Hey everyone! So, I'm sure most people have been following this popular thread giving the site feedback on how to improve/attract new players/keep current players. I've found it super interesting to read through, and have noticed quite a few mentions of CWs (and tried to talk a bit about them myself).

One issue that's come up (that seems to come up in every site discussion about CWs), is their exclusivity/how difficult they are to obtain, and how that feels unfair for users. There's the usual criticism about private items, but I've also seen some comments just about how it's impossible to buy items because once they're sold out, they're gone for good unless someone happens to put a copy up for sale in the r200 forums. Putting aside private/friends-only items, I've been thinking a lot about batch limits and why most items still only have 10-30 copies on site since reading some of the commentary on that thread. I have very rarely released private items, but I still tend to submit only 10-20 copies of everything...but why do I do that? Why does anyone?

I think for me, it's mostly out of habit, since back in the day it was extremely difficult to get more than 10 or 20 copies paid for via slots. Now, we have the option of submitting as unlimited even if we can only fill 5 slots, and we can release an item in our CW Shops at no extra cost for any copies that aren't immediately slotted on in threads. Or, we have the option to forgo slotting on a thread at all and submit directly to shops as unlimited. Even today, I still find it difficult to drum up more than 10 or 15 copies worth of interest on most items via my shop thread. But, as I recently discussed with , many users avoid the CW forums entirely and ONLY purchase items via the CW Shops, so I could be missing out on potential sales.

brought up a good point in the feedback thread that submitting as unlimited can take the "urgency" off of buying an item, so that some people that might have slotted on a limited release end up waiting to buy later, in shops - if that ever happens. I'm sure there are other reasons as well. I'd really like to discuss with everyone what their experience with submitting at different batch limits has been!

[edit] If you don't release CWs, I'd still love to hear your thoughts too! ^_^

Anyone up for a discussion?

I think a lot of the reason things are so lowly capped is kind of what you said - user's don't want their item to be TOO readily available, or TOO densely available to user's, because then the resale value is low, it ends up in the pawn, people don't slot because they feel they can get it later.

For my more popular releases, I slot 20-40, and for less popular 10-20.

I've never really done anything unlimited except for the occasional 24-28 hour release, or black friday sales, and mostly those go okay. It's a weird balance. The days of like 60-80 slots are long past mostly. Every once in awhile I'll get this high with an event release. I'm not sure what the fix is to this. I think that even 20-30 copies makes an item fairly obtainable down the road. I've made the blunder of doing 10 copies on the black pumpkin strands... and that is one of the most elusive items for a lot of my friends. So in that instance, I could have definitely gone way higher - but didn't guess the interest would be so great.

So far I have not put any batch limits on my cws. HOWEVER like you said I haven't sold more than 20 copies of any of them. However, speaking of putting them in your shop. I had someone recently reach out to me, who bought all of my sweater kitties from my shop all at once, because they were there and she had not seen them on the forum. She said it was one of her new favorite cws and was so happy I had the option in my shop. So I mean, I feel like trying to slot on the forum and then moving it to shop after is a good idea? I typically only put 1 or 2 copies in the shop though at a time.

As one who buys CWs, of course I'm sad if I miss a great design, that said, I can't get them all and I'm okay with that. I don't buy second hand too often unless they are selling it for slot price, because that is not fair to the releaser or the artist. I especially like the 24 hour releases/slotting because one can't be on the site every minute of the day. I think that works the best, especially if you are in the ping group and I'm usually going through my pings daily. It's my bad if I don't get a chance in 24 hours to pick it up... but I also am bad with the bathhouse. LOL. I think with 24 hours releases on a first item, you can get a feel for the demand of the first design and then plan accordingly. Then you don't have to worry about friends getting it/reserving for them, they will get it if they want. Just rambling on... sorry. I do release some items, still not the best at that, I tend to forget things, how to do it. LOL.

I was also just thinking, I often gauge how many copies to do based on previous releases of the same type (lolita bows, pumpkins, heliums etc), and also how many copies based on how many friend preclaims.

There's some sort of embedded fear that more copies or unlimited or IN shop will make a thing tank.

Perhaps I will try a few releases coming up straight to shop. Perhaps not unlimited, but not necessarily the traditional slotting route.

« but I still tend to submit only 10-20 copies of everything...but why do I do that? Why does anyone? »

To me, it feels like it is a community problem that lead to that!

I see a bunch of items sold as TBD batches and they only end up selling 1-2 batches. That’s because over the years, we’ve learned that unlimited/tbd/can be re-released/anyone can get it means that it retains no value and will be highly difficult to resale later on. If you buy an item that isn’t capped, you’re pretty much conceding to keeping the item forever or selling it at super low cost / pawning it (that’s how I’ve always seen it anyway!) or waiting forever to sell it for what you paid for it initially.

For a long time, the pawn shop really hindered any chance to sell an item that wasn’t private or exclusive because it was so easy to revert to that option. Even though the situation has improved, I still find that unless an item is really valuable, it’s just going to gather dust, which brings us back to the same issue of « if i buy a cw, I’m kind of stuck with it for a long time afterwards ».

Ironically though, a lot of low capped items also don’t sell out either, but my guess is just that there arent enough users willing to take the risk with cws, given how expensive they are to begin with. It’s been discussed for a long time and staff never seems to want to lower the cost of cws in general which would, in my opinion, greatly benefit everyone.

The most recurrent "rant" I hear is "of course it was going to sell more than 20 copies, so why didn't you?". The truth is, if every item and every recolor could sell for more than 20, we'd sell it for more than 20. I mean, if we're going to be practical and honest, you want to not miss out on any item you like and I want to make some profit so I can keep selling more cws. I'm sure none of the releasers are happy about only capping at 10 because that means minimal profit - it's not sustainable in the long run. I tested this out once - i released several high batches/unlimited one after the other and it did not work out. at. all. People started picking their "favorite" because they didn't actually want all the recolors, or didnt want to take the risk getting several recolors that wouldn't resell later. They didnt feel confident enough that the market and the cw economy in place would allow them the flexibility of keeping or selling an item without it being a big struggle.

Because despite the pool of buyers being rather thin, there’s still a bunch of users active. Two days ago I posted a giveaway and 120+ people entered within the span of 12ish hours - that’s huge! But when I release items, this will thin out to 2-4 batches max, depending on the item. It’s the same group, the same ping. It means a lot of users are interested but, for different reasons, don’t want to spend money on cws. I’ll repeat over and over again that if we want more active users who contribute to the community, it needs to be more affordable. We had a bigger community who took bigger risks back in the days, but for the past 3+ years it’s really changed. The economy never followed this curb and to this day it’s never been the same.

I also want to echo that cw shops actually do really well too! Most of my unlimited 24h through my shop have netted 40+ copies sold (highest ever being like.. 109 i think?) - it’s a whole lot more than I could hope for if I took slots on my thread. But I also know that if all my releases were unlimited 24h, this would die out very quickly. I don’t think there’s a secret miracle recipe on our side. In the end, it’s the price of a cw and the risk that a user is willing to take that decides whether an item will sell or not.

Resale value is a really good point, people like the assurance that they'll be able to recoup some of their CSC down the line if they decide they no longer want an item, and if everything was unlimited/available all the time, it would be difficult to sell. Now that you bring that up, I think that was the main problem we had with the Pawn Shop back when it was open all the time.

Yes, I agree, the CW community just isn't large or active enough to support vast releases anymore. Can I ask what you think about making CWs more widely available to people outside of the CW community (meaning, people who don't slot directly)?

Haha, yeahhh...I think we've all accidentally put a limit too low. It doesn't feel good! I do the same thing as you and try to gauge interest based on previous releases/friend group interest - which does help! I have been releasing my batch extras to my CW shop, and do get a few sales that way, too. Other than 24 hour releases, I don't recall ever doing any unlimited releases....same as you, I think the concern is there that no one will be interested, because that's how it used to be years back. That's a big reason why I was hoping to get some feedback on this thread, because I'm kind of interested in releasing more copies to get more users on the whole interested in buying CWs, but if it hurts my relationship with people that are actually active in the community, I'm conflicted...

That's really interesting! So, you're releasing as unlimited, but still getting around 20 slots? Do you mention upfront that your item is unlimited? Also, that story of the person that reached out to you is so sweet!!

I feel the same way as you - if I can get something, great, if not, I try not to sweat it. That's why I've struggled to understand over the years when some users complain about not being able to buy certain items. I like your idea about using a 24 hour release to gauge the first item, that's a really interesting concept!

You make some really good points! I do think a big problem is that the size of the CW community has shrunk drastically from the early days (though we still have a core group of active people that I <3), and people are probably less willing to sink huge amounts of cash on them. I think the high price of CWs is probably a big reason why more users on the site in general aren't into buying CWs/joining the CW community...I've seen lots of comments on newsposts and the like about wasting money on CWs when you could buy multiple Cash Shop items, or even whining about the resale price of items in shops/pawn shop. I do wonder if some kind of discount/lowing of submission price would help, but I suppose the site might be hesitant to mess with a big source of its income.

I'm definitely open to experimenting more with CW shops and 24 hour releases! As we've talked about before, I realllllllly want to find ways to make the CW community more open to newcomers and CWs more available/welcoming to non-community users. :)

I actually used to submit mostly everything as unlimited to try to be fair to everyone. I struggled to slot not just some, but ALL of my items. Most of my releases filled a max of three slots. I've had unlimited releases where literally the only copy that ever 'went out' was my own after years of having them in my CW shop before I retired them. (I own the only copy of that will ever exist, for example.)

At this point the main reason I keep limited releases is because the CW shops can become so incredibly cluttered and difficult to manage that I like to try to minimize the amount of items I have available so that it's easier for me to maintain. I know people like who sometimes have hundreds of items to deal with, and it's... incredibly tiring from what I've seen and experienced on a small scale by myself.

I would love to do unlimited releases for everything, but... I'm not a popular enough artist / releaser to garner even 5 slots of interest on even some of my 10 slot items. If I made those unlimited I don't think anyone would show up at all, and I'd like to release things I like. :C I know I do have some items planned in the very near future that will be unlimited release (Makeup that works for dark bases specifically) and I feel that having them unlimited would be more beneficial for the community over time, so it doesn't matter to me if no one initially slots on those.

Unfortunately though... unless something changes about the way shops work, and people's interest to slot on items... I don't think I could keep up with having to pay in to each release to keep all things unlimited for people. (I think a real big problem is pricing at this point, but I doubt that staff can afford to change it, so the point is moot.)

As cathii mentioned above I list my items as TBD and may end up deciding to cap it later I suppose but that gives me the freedom if an item is persay more popular

as per usual, I kept editing my post afterwards and ended up adding a new paragraph, im sorry haha x3

I really think that a lower cost of submission would help. I'm against "discounts" in general (like submit 2, get 10% off. Recolors are 30% off etc.), because the implication of it is that you can't do well enough as-is, so it needs to be lower. Not necessarily even true, but it's the perception that really counts. Lowering the initial cost would help to bring in new cw users (peolpe that are there already! They're just not buying!)

From experience, unlimited 24h is awesome but it has to be used sparingly. Every time I've done too many in a small timeframe, the buying rate has gone down drastically. The upside of unlimited is that you aren't afraid to miss out, the downside is running out of funds too quickly (and not being able to resell other items to fund your newer ones)

this is just my personal opinion but.. "if an item is more popular than i thought" is a great thinking for a releaser but a terrible one for a buyer. In the better world, people wouldnt mind an item being unlimited because they'd still have the option to resell at same cost later on (I wish). As it is now, more copies usually means it's going to tank and you'll be stuck with it for a long time (unless it's that kind of really really crazy popular item). I find that most buyers don't want to take this risk nowadays, which is why so many of the TBD releases ive seen around have struggled a lot.

I usually counter popular sold out items by simply making new recolors. Gives people who didnt catch a release to find an alternative - which seems to work out pretty well most of the time.

Really thank you for the advice. One of the skirts I release I haven't gotten 5 slotters on a single one, maybe its just not anyone's style but maybe its because its unlimited? I may try a limited on the next one I release and see if it goes better

I was also thinking putting a set number of something - ie: 30, in my shop at a specified time would be interesting, but then some user's buy up copies for resale trade. I think the reason that shop unlimited for 24 hours or whatever works is because people can't see how many are being sold.

It's that weird gut feeling I was talking about - not wanting an item with 100 copies because if I don't want it later it's gonna be pawn at best. However, I've had a few items with 60-100 copies and they're generally resold for slot, which is a rarity haha.

I was actually thinking of slowly decreasing my CW buying and so I pass on a few recolors and if a new design comes out that peaks my interest I will usually buy that first color. Of course there are exceptions to releasers I favor. Lol. So it’s a fine line between item, number of slots and cost that I use to buy an item. I can be recolor crazy some times. My poor wallet.

I would use the 24 hour release sparingly. All things in moderation. ?

I agree with pretty much everything said in regards to perceived rarity and active users vs users wanting to spend money, but here's my individual/specific opinion on it in bullet form because I'm all over the place and these paragraphs don't really go together:

• 24h releases are indeed VERY powerful if used sparingly. I like to do these from time to time not only because they're easier, but because it creates some excitement around an item. Especially with things like my pullovers because they're a bit more coveted so this gives everyone a chance to get one. Make an event out of something! Make it fun! Make the item fit with a certain theme (season, holiday, etc)

• Compared to 3-4 years ago when I was the most active on the site I've ever been, new items are WAY harder to slot for. People whine about someone releasing 3482934 colors of the same CW, but in my experience as a seller AND a snoop/buyer, recolors sell WAY better than new items. I don't know when this changed, but it seems like people are overall WAY less into new items than they were a few years ago.

• In my frank opinion, Discord slotting in general is making the CW game seem (even) more exclusive than it really is, and is discouraging new members to the community. In reality, anyone can join peoples' discord groups to slot, but not everyone is AWARE of that fact. And some people might even not join out of pure spite. This means fewer sales and more stigma around CWs that you have to "know" someone to slot on their items. (I personally don't agree that CWs are terribly exclusive, but that's only my perspective; and as a CW artist who sells designs to a wide range of users, I have a slightly "privileged" take on it. A lot of users and prospective buyers still think that they are very exclusive, and when it comes down to it, off-site slotting REALLY doesn't help this perspective.)

• As a buyer, if I'm ever on the fence about an item and then I see "batches TBD," a hard 80% of the time, I end up not slotting on the item and just add it to my WL for "later" then forget about it. I really try NOT to do this, but something in my mind just tells me to if I'm not conscious about it. I understand why you'd want to say "TBD" because it would mean you could accommodate more people (and let's be real.... make more money. let's not pretend that's not a factor here) but in the end, it really can and does deter buyers.

• The re-sell market is VERY greedy atm. People in general aren't selling CWs to make cash to cover slots anymore; they're only trading rare items and selling things at a high price. I think we've all been guilty of doing this a couple times, but it seems like it's getting worse and worse. People are pinging for the same 5 items to trade over and over again and the economy is slowing down because of it. And then people need to save up massive amounts of CSC to make an offer, and to make that CSC up they need to put stuff on sale for super expensive. And the cycle continues!

• People are less excited about CW shops than when they first came out. I'm not entirely sure why, since I've found that they're easy to use and actually one of the smoother and smarter features on Subeta. But now there's this weird stigma almost against buying a CW in shops. Like, if I'm looking at a friend's WL and they have a category for CW shop items, I almost feel cheap shopping from that list? It's really weird and I can't quite explain it, but it definitely plays into the whole "rarity" of items. If an item is in a shop with no foreseeable retirement date, it's probably not going to get bought apart from once in a while.

• When it comes down to it, the bonus weekend stuff has really made the CW market take a hit. This was mentioned somewhere else, but I entirely agree with whoever it was that said that people ONLY shop on bonus weekend. It's understandable because of the price of CWs but it's also ridiculous. I think reducing the cost for submission/the cost for CWs would help with this obviously, but I won't even pretend to know what numbers do which things and how staff would go about doing that.

Anyway this was probably really rambly BUT that's my HOT TAKE™ on the matter :^)

edit: ONE MORE POINT:

• People complain about exclusivity and not being able to rebuy limited items, but they're forgetting that we call it the "CW COMMUNITY" for a reason. If you post on someone's thread, participate in their events, chat with them once in a while, join their ping group, etc - you won't miss their items!!! As a seller, I'm not just in this to make money (tho ofc CSC is always nice because it funds my CW addiction). I like making a community, I like making items people like to buy, I like getting to know people. People who could care less about myself or my life but want to be one of 30 people to own a pixel sweater will never get preferential pings. But someone who asks about my day, who takes the initiative to post a dumb little gif in a thread contest, or who says they like my HA will stick in my mind and if they miss a color or were looking forward to another recolor, 9/10 times I remember that and try to accommodate them. And I think a lot of other sellers have similar mindsets, too.

Honestly, everyone else has pretty much covered all the points I'd make, so I'm just in to throw my added exprienfe for it.

Things are limited because they don't sell so I only put out the number of copies I have a chance of maybe unloading.

Stuff that is unlimited in my shop at this point tends to be things that are specific and don't really have alternate options, or have use for folks who like to use darker bases (like my coconut body oil, which was designed with darker bases since the site body oil looks...uh...very suspect on dark bases).

I have a heck of a time filling even just 5 slots on things sometimes, so to me it's not worth it to make something unlimited because then I won't fill any slots and I'll have to somehow front the entire submission myself (after paying for the design/recolor etc already).

I have never made a profit on CWs. I'm lucky when something lets me break even tbh, and I just cannot afford to put everything through myself.

I'd also agree with the assessment gave about the CW shop situation - it's extremely daunting to have hundreds of items in there and try to keep it organized and so on. I've been retiring things after dropping them to lowest possible pricing every few months just to declutter. I don't know what would encourage folks to actually slot or buy copies, but leaving things unlimited definitely doesn't do it for me.

And I'm with - while it's cool that folks have discords and invite folks to join....I can't even keep track of what's happening in them at this point. There are so many and they require me to actually have time to be on my computer, so even for the ones I'm part of, I'm still mostly missing things and having to hope there are slots still later. I don't think that's helping the ideas people who aren't super active have about the community as a whole, but I'm not about to tell folks how to do things, that's up to everyone individually.

I think a lot of the issue does still revolve around costs and us really not being sure where some things fit (and having a lot of issues with things like...tiny items still having to be in the top price because they're considered a mask or a mod even when they're like....itty bitty demon horns that are smaller than some pieces of jewelry). I really don't know the solution to this at this point though because I know the site relies on csc purchases which are in part fuelled by folks slotting/submitting items.

I personally try not to release TOO much on my discord exclusively, I still prefer to slot the majority of stuff onsite. I've been trying to beef up discord just for more of a sense of site camaraderie and helping people meet each other :O

Because we ultimately do want to keep people coming to Subeta and not just move slotting to discord entirely. Just musing on this thought.

Thank you so much for your perspective! Honestly, your experiences sound very frustrating and I can completely understand trying to garner as much interest as possible. Ultimately, it seems a lot of us releasers are just trying to squeak as many slots as possible, and releasing as unlimited, even if that were the ideal, just doesn't cut it in reality.

You bring up a good point about viability of unlimited releases in CW shops, too. For big releasers with hundreds of items, it must be endlessly painful to manage all of those. The CW shops have decent functionality, but the backend could use some work in this regard.

I tend to agree with Cathii, TBD does tend to turn people off. I try to use TBD sparingly, usually on my small friends group because that's how I gauge interest for the big public release. I have seen some people just not mention a release number at all, whether a set amount or TBD, and maybe that allows for some flexibility without setting off "alarm bells," haha.

That's an interesting strategy! I occasionally just put a few copies of a certain item up in my shop at time with an announcement, as an enticement to buy them up quickly rather than letting a full batch sit in my shop forever. You are right, though, there will always be a few people trying to snipe copies for resale. I don't see TOO much of it since I'm not active in the r200 forums, but I know it happens. I like the idea of doing different things here and there to make buying more exciting for buyers, but it can be a bit tiring trying to keep things interesting.

I think in a perfect world, we'd only be buying items that we 100% love and know we'd never part with - but if that were the case, the CW market would have died long ago from lack of releases! I can understand why trying to maintain resale value is important, that's why we asked to close the CW pawn shop, after all since it was making resales impossible for above pawn value. It's just unfortunate that the needs of the actual CW community (making a profit off of your own releases, making back your purchase cost when you resell) are in direct opposition to what non-community members seem to want in order to care about CWs (low prices and high availability for new releases, bargain basement prices for resold item).

Yeah I agree, low submission costs would be awesome for everyone involved - except the site itself, UNLESS submissions increased exponentially and made up for the lower profits per item. I do like the idea of some kind of discount (someone proposed a discounted submission or discount recolor submission for Gold Account users, for instance), might be HELPFUL, but it can't be something that turns into the new bonus weekend, where people ONLY submit items during the time the discount is available, or CWs will totally crash and burn.

Yes, I think overusing 24 hour releases would be a mistakeeeeee. So far I've only planned mine around bonus weekends, when people have lots of csc (usually) and are feeling eager to spend. I'm not sure if they work as well during the rest of the month? I've been afraid to try it and end up with 3 copies sold, then half to retire that item haha.

OH and in regards to your edit from earlier, ughhh it's just impossible to please everyone. X_X Ideally, there'd be some way to attractive new active buyers to the market, but right now we only have a relatively small number of users that buy, and every CW releaser in the community is trying to attract their notice. I can see why you didn't have consistent buys on every single recolor you released during that short time, since people want to spend their money carefully. But really, for certain shop owners like you that release frequently, I'm sure you have a good idea of how many will be sold for every release. And if you can't expect to sell more copies than that, I can see why it would feel pointless to release as unlimited or with "extra" batches, especially if you think that might actually deter some buyers and make your overall sales less.

What I really wish is that there was some way we could attract more buyers to the CW community. You've got a lot of people interested, but only about 17% of your contest entries (assuming these are the active people in your group), buying on average. 17%!!! So small. D: Lower costs would definitely help. LOL I feel like we've discussed ways to invigorate the CW community so often, but I'm still at a loss.

To me, you're a big buyer and I really appreciate how often you've supported my shop! But I understand that it's hard to sink a lot of money into CWs every month, especially for things you don't love! You should buy what you really enjoy, don't sweat it if you can't get every recolor of something.

I think 24h releases are fun, but should be used sparingly. I do like your idea to use it for new items as a test of popularity! Maybe not every new item, but I'll definitely have to try that out sometime. ^_^

WHEW BOY I'm glad someone else is as longwinded as I am! XD Thank you for taking so much time to type up your thoughts!! I enjoyed reading through everything and I agree with most of it. I won't reply to everything individually since I'm already repeating myself a bit on the thread (so much good discussion!) But here are some remarks:

• I don't release a lot of new items, so I find it very interesting that new items are harder to get slots for than recolors! Maybe because people have a chance to see something in the wardrobe and decide they like the shape/use of it, so they go after recolors later? I can't always afford it, but I do like submitting things myself then releasing for slots later, just because I've wondered if seeing a new item in the wardrobe or in the NewCW thread can stimulate hype. But then, you run into the issue of how many copies to submit the item as. XD

• Ahh, Discord. I don't have it myself, but I am seeing more and more mentions of people using it for slotting and just general community activities off site. I wouldn't presume to tell people how to live their lives, but I have wondered if that's contributed to the lack of activity as a whole on the site forums. I assume Discord is easier and more fun to use than a dumb ol forum circa the internet dark ages, but I can see how discord slotting and whatnot contributes to that "exclusivity/cliquish" flavor that some negative people on site have assigned to the CW community.

-As for TBD, how do you feel about my first batch-y/friends group releases? I haven't been putting batches on their as I'm using that small core group of users to gauge popularity for items/as a way to give my core group first dibs, and I feel like slots have been okay. There's only 30ish members in the group, so I was thinking that 5-10 slots per release within that group was decent enough, but maybe I'm still turning people off by not announcing a limit.

-I need to pay more attention to the resell market tbh! I remember some drama from a few years back about some people acquiring items just for trade/high-priced resale, but I thought that had subsided. I don't have any super popular items, so maybe I've just been adjacent to the whole issue. XD

• I honestly feel like CW shops are so secondary to the CW experience? If that makes sense??? Maybe it's just because I haven't used mine all that much, but I wish there was more visibility or incentive to use them. And yeah, I feel ya on feeling cheap buying from shops for gifts. I guess because there is less perceived value because you didn't have to hunt for something??? idk

-I think it might have been me talking about bonus weekend somewhere?? haha I don't remember the specifics, but I am seriously concerned about the ramifications bonus weekend has had on the cw market. :|

-also YES community comes first! I am considering increasing my batch limits to try and appeal to the site as a whole and garner more sales from people who don't like to interact with the CW forums, but when it comes down to it, I don't want to alienate the people in the actual CW community that I've interacted with over the year and actually seem to care about my art and contributions to the site. IDK, it's tough because I know some people are naturally introverted or even suffering from social anxiety, but a big part of this site is the community aspect and the CW community doubly so!!

Hey, thank you for chiming in anyway, I know there's a lot of the same points being made, but it's really good to hear from everyone. And you're a cw veteran, for sure!!

It definitely seems like a cruel chicken and the egg situation. If more people would slot on items, more copies would get released, but if you release too many copies, people are put off of slotting. :/ I do appreciate your willingness to keep "basic" or widely useful items in your shop, though. You have a lot of unique releases, and I'm sure there have been plenty of users that have been grateful to find those things available when there's no other option.

Yes, Mesmer's point about backend management of CW shops really stood out! Someone on the Suggestions forum recently suggested custom items other than CWs, and the idea of making those items unlimited and always available for sale was suggested as well - and I couldn't help thinking, how many thousands of items would there be, and how would they be managed in the cash shop or individual shops?! It does sound like a lovely idea to have everything always available, but there are practical reasons to consider, as well, like trying to manage your shop without a headache.

I am glad to see some discussion on discord...as I said above to Dolli, I've wondered if the popularity of it has contributed to the decline of the forums in general, not just the CW market. I don't have it myself, and I'm a little afraid to get immersed in it. XD Maybe if subeta was able to improve the actual communication methods here on site, it would attract people back to the community.

I think the argument that CWs are exclusive and unfair is an out of date statement. There are thousands of CWs already released on site. If you missed slotting on an item, chances are there is another item that is very similar you could buy instead. The problem is older items that are no longer in circulation and people being hung up on wanting a very specific item, not accepting alternatives.

CWs are by default expensive. Some cost more than a whole official item set in the cash shop. That in itself makes it so that not everyone can afford to buy CWs. Increasing batch limits will not help. The cost to submit CWs is still the same high cost. No one is going to pay 700 CSC for a wig if there are 100 copies on site because the chances of someone selling the wig at less than slot price is much more likely.

Overall opinions:

1. as long as CWs are expensive to submit they will always be unobtainable for some people.

2. there will always be someone that complains, you can’t please everyone

3. 10-20 copies of an item is fine. If something is really popular, then maybe you release a little more or have a 24 hour release for people. Making recolors could help satisfy people that missed on the first items, but items start to not sell when too many recolors exist. It’s a balancing act

4. people will always want what they want. Even if you release 40 copies of an item and in every recolor, there will still be someone that missed on the color they wanted and will slot on something in hopes of trading for another color, potentially taking a slot from someone else that wanted the color

I don't think I explained myself properly, so I'll clarify!; I don't give a crap how many copies I sell, as long as the first batch fills. If I only fill five slots, awesome. The item made it onsite, I'm happy. That's literally the only thing I care about at this point as a releaser. The problem is that when you make something unlimited, it's a struggle to fill those five slots which means it costs extra to get it onsite. I don't care about the profit side when submitting anymore tbh. I just want the items I like onsite so I can actually use them.

If I could fill five slots AND keep items unlimited without my shop becoming complete madness, I would. I 100% would because it doesn't hurt me to make items unlimited other than the stress of managing a shop / begging people to slot the first batch.

[edit] I literally have an entire category in my vault dedicated to 'batch extras' that never sold. I'd like to stop having to do that.

yay you read it LMAO its hard being long winded like us OTL

I actually meant to add but forgot (and your reply reminded me), something I usually do in my private group is say "if y'all claim X or more copies, then the limit will be Y, if not it will be Z" as a way to gauge interest. (I think I stole this idea from )

Conversely, If I'm preslotting or private-slotting on an item, I usually don't even pay attention to the batch limit because it's usually something I really like and would want regardless! And I think that's most people who pre-slot because they're usually recolors of an item they already like/would buy anyway.

My TBD comment was more for the releases that every single recolor is "TBD" and ends up sitting in their CW shop so I feel like there's no urgency to buy. Which sounds mean, but its the truth and I think people who want to be more strategic with releases need to hear it even if it's a bit harsh!

And about Discord - I think it is easier for some people because of the push notifications and fast-paced reply system. But like said, I belong to a couple and I can't even manage to check them since they move so fast! I mostly stick to 1-2 small channels within the servers I'm on because it's more manageable to me. And I think it's definitely pulling traffic from the site, but I think at the same time that if the mobile experience on the site was a bit smoother (which, don't get me wrong, it has definitely improved) it would stop pulling people away. Repeat discussion on the original thread about a subeta app, but apps cost money to develop, and etc etc.