Direct Delivery tips & tricks

[Dirtnap Mumfuzz]

I firmly oppose changing over to Direct Delivery. From the start.

The ol' spidey senses warned that it was fraught with problems. Possibly assembled with bubblegum fetched from the mouths of sleeping hobos by the Montgomery Street BART station, and rusted baling wire retrieved from the depths of the buffalo pen in Golden Gate Park; rushed out before its time and at the ultimate cost of those it was meant to serve. Though no one would probably really know or care except those who have had the rare displeasure of rubbing up against me on the topic. And I'm sure they anti-care, if I properly performed my duties.

That being said, I converted a store of several hundred products to Direct Delivery under the pressure of Corporate passive aggressive duress. It only took a portion of an afternoon and I survived the experience. So far. The jury is still out on whether or not it was a rational thing to do, but I can attest that it can in fact be done, and without the need to ask the neighbors to borrow their infant child to use in a satanic blood ritual. I hate when they give me that look every time.

On my journey I gathered a few seemingly pertinent tips, tricks, and theories clutched in the bony fingers of the withered corpses that marked the unfortunate who had fallen on the path before me; which I am posting here like a virtual message in a low- poly bottle, so that they may hopefully reach you on your own island of merchant despair and help ease you as well into your cozy cog space in the machinery. Isn't conformity FUN!

 

<pertinence>:

Stand ON the solid ground during the process, preferably in a quiet-ish place, for best results. It seems being up off the ground can have adverse effects, exponential to height.

-Some viewers can access the Merchant Outbox and others cannot, and I cannot tell you which are which with certainty, so for simplicity sake use the Linden Labs viewer that is compatible with your machine, just for the purpose of accomplishing the Direct Delivery process. It can be downloaded from the SecondLife homepage, used, then set aside for any future need. Bonus tip: having a variety of spare viewers can be very handy!

-The Merchant Outbox folder technically should not have been an inventory folder, so on some viewers you might have to hunt for it. The Linden Labs viewer should have the Merchant Outbox under the [me] tab.

-PHOENIX USERS: Despite having a Merchant Outbox folder in plain sight, there is no option to send the items to marketplace in the viewer, it just doesn't exist. I know, right!? So just adding your goodies to the Merchant Outbox will not work. You will need a different viewer to set up your Direct Delivery. Leave that folder alone!

-Be careful when dropping folders into the Merchant Outbox because you CAN add content to another folder accidentally, and it will be sold as one package unless you delete it. Try to drop your selections on the lower bar that is indicated in the window, or use the [copy to Merchant Outbox] option from your right-click menu.

-Shoot for 50-70 items at a time, to avoid errors. Expect them anyways.

-When I mean if you do get an error, DON'T immediately try to re-add the products to the Merchant Outbox; give it some time, because the items might actually show up in your Marketplace after all, despite the error indicating otherwise.

-I am fairly sure that if you are cleaning out Magic Boxes, you MUST go to Xstreet to remove them there manually. Tutorials in forums you will find, young Jedi. Guide you on your way they will.

-If you moved or deleted the Merchant Outbox, slap yourself in the forehead for being made of derp, and go use the viewer you used (apparently probably Phoenix)  to do the derping to un-derp it.

-If you get some random items hanging around in your Merchant Outbox after a send despite an 'all clear partner' from the server cops, you should be able to delete those lingering items from your Merchant Outbox, and if the listing did not properly refresh after ten or so minutes, try re-adding and sending them again.

-Closing and reopening the Merchant Outbox seems to have the effect of clearing its 'cache' or refreshing it in some fashion, so try it if something zags when you try to zig. Relogs and reboots never hurt.

-Occasionally hitting the resynch magic boxes to marketplace button seems to help induce a sort of reset.

-During the transition, several other listings may suddenly become unavailable or otherwise act up. Just be patient and give it a few minutes, and they should come back online, provided you have done everything you need to do. Tutorials on the whole process can be found in many places at this time, so I won't go into what has thoroughly been covered already.

-Rather than rely on the [unlisted] and [unavailable] button options on your manage inventory page, go through and manually check that all of your listings display a green 'active' check mark; these listings don't appear to self-sort and display as unlisted OR unavailable.

-It would seem that because of the load represented, you should expect functions on the website to be delayed or to react somewhat unexpectedly. Don't go click-crazy, you will increase the odds of only making things worse.
Sometimes a log out and a relog into the web page can help clear your current data.

-If you are changing over a large quantity of products, the response from the Marketplace will need time to chew through it all, so if things seem off, grab a cup o' Joe or a toke of your choice; rub a puppy or strum a few chords, and come back in a few minutes. Provided you followed your chosen tutorial to the letter, everything should be giggity.

-Above all, take your time, be patient, it takes a few minutes for things to regain their balance. Don't go adding and punching buttons, and getting yourself screwed up into a frantic freaking mess.

-And don't forget your puppy.

 

</pertinence> 

(I posted this as a service to the desperate masses being led to the consumer slaughter. If it is a duplicate effort or some other such federal offense, just sue me. No really, sue me; I get bored easy.)

 

(rev 2: edited for editing purposes)

(rev 3: edited to include editors edition for editorial editing)

(rev 4: edited Editorial Edition for Ed.)

(rev 5: chicken pot chicken pot chicken pot piiiiiie )

[Rya Nitely]

 

Yes, the point about ignoring error messages and just wait to see if it worked. I get the error message almost all the time but it always works.

and when you add an update and reassociate a listing it also takes a couple of minutes to show up in the search window.

I've been using DD for about a year. It's like anything new, you just have to get used to it. Once you get used to it you'll find it is at least as good as magic boxes. I find it better because I update my items often and it's easier to do that wherever I am instead of going to the magic box.

Another tip is to keep a copy of your MP items in a folder in your inventory and call it Marketplace Items. The Merchant Outbox creates a folder when I add items for one listing, and I drag this folder to my Marketplace items folder then copy it back to Merchant Outbox - this only if your items are unpacked. This duplicates what you have in MP and should be latest versions of the items. 

[Emma Krokus]

Good advice - and I love the way you wrote that.

Yeah Rya - I've had error messages too that the merchant outbox failed - and yet everything was uploaded properly to Marketplace. Maybe a bit of rusty baling wire snapped but the whole caboodle didn't fall after all...

LOL Dirtnap -  "ask the neighbors to borrow their infant child to use in a satanic blood ritual" - I'll sue you for yet another ruined keyboard...

[Dirtnap Mumfuzz]

Thanks Emma, please send it along to my PO box, I'll hang it on the wall with the rest of my collection:

Dirtfuzz Mumnap

inmate #OICU812

C/O Death Valley Sanitarium, Sanitation  and Meat Processing

PO Box 13

Hells Ham Sandwhich, Califiggity

91666

 

Yeah, the neighbors stopped finding it funny after the eighth or ninth request.

Don't know why they're so worked up about it, I did ask first. This time.

Maybe that's why they had I mean got chickens. 

 

Giggling instead of throwing your Big Gulp is a good way to avoid an ulcer and/or a monitor repair bill; and who doesn't enjoy a good chortle once they've settled into their new yoke.

Glad anyone is finding it useful, or at least disturbing I mean amusing.

Corrections/clarifications/contributions/donations and direct insults are always welcome.

If you feel you (or someone like you) have anything to add, please feel free.

[PhoebeDesmons]

Things also unsaid that need to get said:

1. If your merchant outbox is frozen or stuck initlizaing it needs a support ticket to be fixed. Send it in, wait 24 hours. Then you should be good. 

2. Do not keep your magic box listings running. Delete thme before you add the direct delivery because if you forget and leave one running they will ban the listing. 

 

[Dirtnap Mumfuzz]

I did not have the problem you describe in number two, or perhaps I'm just not understanding you.

I left my other three magic Boxes live in world, while I copied the content of the fourth, I deleted the references to that magic box,  and then started adding those items to the merchant outbox fifty at a time.

I allowed time for the system to sort and refresh, and all of my listings relisted, according to their old product listing, except for four, which had to be manually re-added by changing the associated item.

It's actually been said  already in the many tutorials (and really, does it need to be said?) that you must remove your magic box, and remove the reference to it in Xstreet. 

None of my listings were banned at any time, though some took up to fifteen minutes to become available again.

The only ones that seemed affected though were the ones I was working with, the rest of my 300+ listings (still packed in live magic boxes) remained active.

 

I did not need to delete magic box listings to make anything direct delivery related work, and deleting and re-creating entire listings is a lot of repetitive effort, so perhaps it would be a good idea to better define what you're trying to express.

Just deleting listings does not seem necessary.

[Dirtnap Mumfuzz]

Out of almost 400 listings, I have had to repopulate three that refused to cooperate.

I consider that a successful migration.

 

An additional advisory: SLOW DOWN. Especially if you are switching between one or more viewers at any time.

Trying to convert too fast WILL cause you problems, so just dial it back to first gear, alright turbo?

The web page WILL be slow to respond. Your listings WILL be slow to refresh. Expect it.

 

Also, avoid fast-swapping between Firestorm and Phoenix. The risk of anomalies born from packet loss and differences in viewer coding appear to increase dramatically.