Today, I had a terribly difficult decision to make. I’ve been thinking about it for a few weeks now and I’ve decided to down size Jolly Farm. Over time in the almost 9 months I have been a resident at Lionheart Estate, I have picked up a total of 6 touching parcels and merged them into 1.

Once upon a time, I made fantastic sales. I made more than enough money from Jolly Farm alone to sustain the costs of my land and my satellite locations. But I have to face reality. I have to be honest with myself. Nearly every penny I make from my sales goes to pay for tier and bunny food – and this includes the money I am making from working at Lionheart.

It’s not entirely my fault. A lot of things changed in the last several months that really hurt my business…

1. The XStreet to SLMarketplace change
   • I lost my placement in the search based on sales
   • The final migration apparently erased all of my keywords that I’d set at the start of the migration
2. New breedables flooded the market
   • Horses in particular hit Ozimals breeders pretty hard.  So-called bunny ad groups are now flooded with horse stuff.
   • As if horses weren’t bad enough, there’s now cats and even dogs. Blah.
3. My computer broke back in late July
   • I haven’t been able to make new products as easily so it’s taken far longer to produce anything decent
   • I can’t update any products that require updating which leads to disgruntled customers and lack of new sales.
   • I can’t even attend the weekly Ozimals meeting anymore so I’ve lost a lot of my reader base on JollyFarmOnline.info

I’m so sadend by all of this. I really wish there was another way. While I can still technically afford the land costs, I had to ask myself… Should I? I mean… I love Jolly Farm as it is. It’s not just my business… it’s my home. But I could really use the money and I just can’t see spending $25.00 USD per week on land any more. I can’t complain and worry over my real life finances knowing all of my profit is going to virtual land. It’s sadly a matter of priority.

I am dropping 3 of the 6 parcels that once made Jolly Farm. This includes the ‘all breedables’ portion of Jolly Market which will now be closed. The ‘bunnies only’ section will remain in tact. Basically I’m dropping two parcels to the left of the main Jolly Farm store and the parcel behind it.

The parcels will be available for sale sometime in the next few days I imagine. So if you are interested in owning a bit of Jolly Farm history or being my neighbor, feel free to hit me up and I’d be happy to offer information to you about the parcels once they are available.

Jolly Farm is not defeated. I’m doing what I feel is best for me and my business. Hopefully when the new computer gets here on December 1st and I am able to start working on a wider range of products, things will pick up for me once again. I’m confident that things will get better again. But in the mean time, I don’t want to dig myself into a hole.