Help Improve Market Place Search!

[Perrie Juran]

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/Help-Improve-Marketplace-Search-with-Your-Opinions/ba-p/2384033

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NM7CTTM

[Medhue Simoni]

Aw crap! This can't be good!

 

Some1 should tell them they can't have Land Impact as an option in Search, cause we don't even have an option for that in the listings.

 

I'd also like to see them redo the inworld search, rather than the MP search.

[Madeliefste Oh]

I asked for:

- filter by user lisenced
- filter by item boxed or in folder
- exclude store name and merchant name in search results for items
- show creator name(s). A merchant doesn't have to be the (only) creator of an object. Make it possible for the customer to see the original creator(s) of several components of a product
- land impact low to high, include only items where the land impact is indicated
- What is new since my last visit?
This must function for keywords and for stores. Keywords: when I look for 'black boots', I can choose to only see the ones listed since my last search for black boots. Stores: when I visit a store, I can choose to get only the new listings since I last visited this store.
- Make it possible to list the real land impact of an item; an item can have 0,5 or 1,5 land impact, but this cannot be indicated in the current marketplace

 

 

 

 

[Perrie Juran]

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

Aw crap! This can't be good!

 

Some1 should tell them they can't have Land Impact as an option in Search, cause we don't even have an option for that in the listings.

 

I'd also like to see them redo the inworld search, rather than the MP search.

---

Some of the things they ask about almost amazed me. 

Maybe they think that we are just a tiny minority who's opinions don't reflect those of the SL populous. 

But seriously, being able to filter demos is such a no brainer I'm stunned they  would even think it needed asking!

[Inara Pey]

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

Aw crap! This can't be good!

 

Some1 should tell them they can't have Land Impact as an option in Search, cause we don't even have an option for that in the listings.

 

I'd also like to see them redo the inworld search, rather than the MP search.

---

Ummm...

You can indicate prim count in a listing, which is equitable to LI. So the search option is possible; so surely it's more a case of inconsistent (outdated) terminology used within parts of the MP.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Couldn't find the option for new management, common sense, or prioritizing things like an ad system that still over-bills customers after a couple of years.

So I clicked a bunch of things that seemed like they should have been there all along and went my merry way.

[Pamela Galli]

There was not much room to say what I wanted about the role of BOTH # of sales and price (a 1L item may have  1000 sales but if a similar 500L item has half as many, that is 1000L vs 250,000L, so to me the latter is much more relevant , but I included these:

 

 Make the words in the NAME of the item have greater relevance than the keyword box. If the NAME of the item is TABLE then it is more likely to actually be a table.

 

Do not include avatar or store name in item search. A shoe business called Paula's House will always show up on search.

 

Limit the length of the keyword box so the merchant will only have room to put the most relevant words. One line is plenty.

[Medhue Simoni]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

There was not much room to say what I wanted about the role of BOTH # of sales and price (a 1L item may have  1000 sales but if a similar 500L item has half as many, that is 1000L vs 250,000L, so to me the latter is much more relevant , but I included these:

 

---

I made a similar point about lower cost items. My point had more to do with merchants using the cheap scheme as advertisements. If we all did this, the first page of every results would be cheap crappy items, instead of real products that creators are proud of. I didn't make the profits argument, tho is is glaringly obvious that LL is massively lossing money by the tactics, or lack of tactics in their MP results. I'd be willing to bet that Xstreet had a much higher average profit per items sold. The fact that LL can't figure this stuff out really says something about their business skills. I attribute it all to their Cali socialist mindset that free items somehow helps LL. Despite their massive decline in profits, they continue down this road of promoting free, or cheap items.

The other point about this that they seem to fail to understand, is that free and cheap items can already be easily found by just limiting the price in the options. There is no reason to put those items in the top of the results, other than if they think it benefits them, or the consumers. I'd say it doesn't benefit the consumers at all, because now they have junk in their inventory that they will never use again.

[Butch Daddy]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

There was not much room to say what I wanted about the role of BOTH # of sales and price (a 1L item may have  1000 sales but if a similar 500L item has half as many, that is 1000L vs 250,000L, so to me the latter is much more relevant , but I included these:

 

 Make the words in the NAME of the item have greater relevance than the keyword box. If the NAME of the item is TABLE then it is more likely to actually be a table.

 

Do not include avatar or store name in item search. A shoe business called Paula's House will always show up on search.

 

Limit the length of the keyword box so the merchant will only have room to put the most relevant words. One line is plenty.

---

All good ideas and I agree with you.

 

 

Keyword spam is the biggest thing I see that is ngatively affecting the Marketplace and making search horrible. 

1. The store name should not be included in Item Searches.

2. The avatar name should not be included in Item Searches

3. The store description should not be included in Item Searches.

4. Keywords should be limited to a specific number of fields, like 10.

 

If I only had 10 keyword fields to describe my item, I certainly wouldn't be wasting that space trying to add a bunch of junk or brand names to try to game the system.

[Motoko Oanomochi]

Hello,

The goal of this survey is really not clear. And totally useless, except to improve, perhaps, how LL influence marketplace.

A simple software robot with minimal statistics brings enough clues how MP works. The goal is very easy, it is the same for Estate agency, kill the smaller and average Estates to keep only the biggest. It is the same for merchants.

So create noise with bad products with very low price or free is a perfect strategy, big merchants (LL merchant ? :matte-motes-big-grin: ) will not suffer too much and the other merchants even they are good will just win enough to survive or die, no matter for LL.

Best Regards,

Motoko Oanomochi

 

[Perrie Juran]

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Motoko Oanomochi wrote:

Hello,

The goal of this survey is really not clear. And totally useless, except to improve, perhaps, how LL influence marketplace.

A simple software robot with minimal statistics brings enough clues how MP works. The goal is very easy, it is the same for Estate agency, kill the smaller and average Estates to keep only the biggest. It is the same for merchants.

So create noise with bad products with very low price or free is a perfect strategy, big merchants (LL merchant ? :matte-motes-big-grin: ) will not suffer too much and the other merchants even they are good will just win enough to survive or die, no matter for LL.

Best Regards,

Motoko Oanomochi

 

---

I wonder if you really understand the illogic of your logic.

While I don't doubt that LL does things that favor larger Merchants (and Land Owners), there is a lot simpler way for LL to accomplish what you are claiming they are trying to do.  Make SL "pay to play" and charge Merchants to list on the Market Place.

What you are claiming LL is trying to do would drive away the very source of money that LL wants.

I will still however repeat what I have said previously.  Much of what they are asking are 'no brainer' questions.

[Knowl Paine]

I'm not an avid shopper. I only visit MP when I need something for a build project. I have made significant purchases in the past and I started as an Xstreet customer.

I cannot recall all of my suggestions. Some of the features may already exist. 

 

Sort by average price, Mid.

Default relevance should be... by relevance. Did I miss something there?

Create a verified Merchants program.

Limit the number of items Residents less than 30 days old can list.

Prohibit listings wherein the only significant difference is the Color.

Walmart, Kmart, Target, Sears, Ebay, these are good examples of sites that work.

Create a program like the Linden Homes and offer Merchants a Linden Office Suite.

Create a Merchant Icon to be used in a Merchant's Inworld profile.

 

I tried to avoid suggesting for anything to be fixed. You don't need a survey to tell you what you already know. I consider myself a buyer and not a seller.

 

 

 

Outside of SL, MP, LL, Paypal, and the banks, is me and my money. I am the source of the funds.

Sincerely,

The Customer

[Motoko Oanomochi]

the logic is cost reduction, no more.

[Pamela Galli]

---

Jacob Cagney wrote:

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Pamela Galli wrote:

There was not much room to say what I wanted about the role of BOTH # of sales and price (a 1L item may have  1000 sales but if a similar 500L item has half as many, that is 1000L vs 250,000L, so to me the latter is much more relevant , but I included these:

 

 Make the words in the NAME of the item have greater relevance than the keyword box. If the NAME of the item is TABLE then it is more likely to actually be a table.

 

Do not include avatar or store name in item search. A shoe business called Paula's House will always show up on search.

 

Limit the length of the keyword box so the merchant will only have room to put the most relevant words. One line is plenty.

---

All good ideas and I agree with you.

 

 

Keyword spam is the biggest thing I see that is ngatively affecting the Marketplace and making search horrible. 

1. The store name should not be included in Item Searches.

2. The avatar name should not be included in Item Searches

3. The store description should not be included in Item Searches.

4. Keywords should be limited to a specific number of fields, like 10.

 

If I only had 10 keyword fields to describe my item, I certainly wouldn't be wasting that space trying to add a bunch of junk or brand names to try to game the system.

---

The store description is not currently included in search.  

I sell some very feature rich things -- like interactive kitchens with tons of accessories and features -- and I never need more than five keywords.  Ten words gives most at least five words to devote to spam.  They whole key to eliminating keyword spam is eliminating all but the few essential keywords needed.

[OzwellWayfarer]

Anyone else get a dark sense of forbiding from LL actually asking us something for a change?

 

Its a bit creepy

 

 

[Tari Landar]

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Jacob Cagney wrote:

---

---

All good ideas and I agree with you.

 

 

Keyword spam is the biggest thing I see that is ngatively affecting the Marketplace and making search horrible. 

1. The store name should not be included in Item Searches.

2. The avatar name should not be included in Item Searches

3. The store description should not be included in Item Searches.

4. Keywords should be limited to a specific number of fields, like 10.

 

If I only had 10 keyword fields to describe my item, I certainly wouldn't be wasting that space trying to add a bunch of junk or brand names to try to game the system.

---

Keyword spam IS a PITA, but if they limited it to 10 slots, you'd see even more of it. I say that because we already know they don't police it, and want us to. Unless they start hiring more people to take care of those problems, it's going to stay the same way. Which means those who use only a couple of keywords that don't belong, will use ONLY keywords that don't belong. Of course not everyone follows that practice, but enough people do that it's already a problem that isn't going away.

Now IF they actually policed the keyword spam correctly, limiting it would be more beneficial. Then that change would work wonderfully. But it requires more than I honestly believe they're willing to put forth right now.

[Tari Landar]

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

Aw crap! This can't be good!

 

Some1 should tell them they can't have Land Impact as an option in Search, cause we don't even have an option for that in the listings.

 

I'd also like to see them redo the inworld search, rather than the MP search.

---

I am hoping, and I know this is extremely optomistic of me to hoppe, that by asking what search term options people would like, they plan to incorporate thsoe options for the merchants listing too. So if they see people want land impact, or mesh, or whatever other search term, perhaps they'll add that option/flag for merchants(and require it be filled out/checked).

I know, it really is terribly optomistic of me, considering I'm not even confident that any of these changes will ever actually be made in the first place, lol

[Nalates Urriah]

We can hope they improve things. But, in the past they have been more interested in making things 'fair' over making them useful. Fear of having the system gamed seems to have resulted in an unusuable search.

If I want to find something in the MP, I use Google: site:marketplace.secondlife.com [searcher terms here].

Example: site:marketplace.secondlife.com mesh swimsuit

I can limit results by date. Google's search has many options I can use to cotrol the results. 

[Czari Zenovka]

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OzwellWayfarer wrote:

Anyone else get a dark sense of forbiding from LL actually asking us something for a change?

 

Its a bit creepy

 

 

---

Based on the way SL has gone since Rod became the CEO (aka "The Game Man") plus the info in the letter sent by Peter Grey in response to the letter sent by the United Content Creators (I can't remember the entire name atm) - I agree.  My guess would be the info will be used in one of their other games, or something to do with Desura, etc.

[Tamara Artis]

Big problem with the mp is the fact that anyone can become a merchant and open up a shop so basically doors are opened for all kinds of manipulations and not only that, people who list items for selling lack the education on how to make a good listing. One of my friends asked for help and showed me the text for his listing. It was a male shirt and basides few most relevant keywords he named tons of well-known brands and other random words. His reason was that he "heard" it will help him!

I remember ages ago I needed to scan my personal document in order to adult verify my account; same should be used for people who want to become merchants on the mp. Provide real life information if you want to sell stuff.

We should be able to filter the search results by "see the item in-world". 

 

[Perrie Juran]

 

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Nalates Urriah wrote:

We can hope they improve things. But, in the past they have been more interested in making things 'fair' over making them useful. Fear of having the system gamed seems to have resulted in an unusuable search.

If I want to find something in the MP, I use Google: site:marketplace.secondlife.com [searcher terms here].

Example: site:marketplace.secondlife.com mesh swimsuit

I can limit results by date. Google's search has many options I can use to cotrol the results. 

---

I know, I use Google constantly to find the SL infornation I am looking for.

[Spica Inventor]

I'll be repeating alot of suggestions many Posters have already mentioned....

1. Get rid of store name as a result in general relevance search.

2. Combine search categories as an option.

3. Filter demos as an option.

4. List total amount sold for public view.

5. List price/sell performance history.

6. List time/sell performance history. (by month perhaps).

6. Default to maximum search results items per page (96) or more.

7. Limit keywords to a much smaller amount (say 10 perhaps). Or characters( 50 perhaps)

8. Stop pumping higher priced (overpriced) stuff to the top of relevance search results (Contrary to the opposite what some here are erroneously claiming L.L.'s tactics are again as L.L. in reality is highly interested in causing price inflation to the detriment of all.) ;-)

 

[Spica Inventor]

I recognize that there is a spam causing problem with things being listed on the SL Marketplace and not ever selling even one of them sometimes over multiple years. Perhaps things that don't sell over a period of time (say 6 months) should be automatically unlisted as at least part of an anti-spam solution?

[Spica Inventor]

"Anyone else get a dark sense of foreboding from LL actually asking us something for a change?

 

Its a bit creepy **Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://secondlife.i.lithium.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif" border="0" alt=":smileyhappy:" title="Smiley Happy" />"

 

hehe. I think these rare customer feedback things are much more for public relation brownie points which equate to making more money for L.L.  then they are for anything else. (Controlling the way a customer thinks is priority number one when it comes to successfully marketing to them). ;-)

[Medhue Simoni]

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Spica Inventor wrote:

 

8. Stop pumping higher priced (overpriced) stuff to the top of relevance search results (Contrary to the opposite what some here are erroneously claiming L.L.'s tactics are again as L.L. in reality is highly interested in causing price inflation to the detriment of all.) ;-)

 

---

Overpriced is a subjective word. Few people would agree to what is overpriced. What I do, is compare how results work now to how results worked on Xstreet. No, Xstreet was not perfect, but I guarantee you that most made more money on Xstreet, even the owners of it. They listed results from highest to lowest price, and relevant to the search term. It makes sense to promote the most expensive, because you could easily find a cheap version by choosing a few options on the side. Plus, much like in RL, people who buy the best 1 out there, generally have less complaints than those that buy cheap, and the consumers are getting a much better experience than what they would get from something cheap.

Now, maybe just going highest price to lowest is not the best way to do it. I would contend that probably the best way would be for the top results to have the best profits. For instance, if a product is super cheap, like 10 lindens, and sells 1000 per day, then it's profits are 10k. If another product is 1000 lindens and only sells 11 per day, then it's total profits would be higher than the cheaper product, and hence ranked higher. If things were ranked in this way, then creators would better be able to see how much features and quality means to the consumers, and create their products more accordingly. It would also be a fair way for cheap products to compete directly with more expensive products. In the end, every1 wins because this system would maximize the profit to quality ratio and the creators make more, LL makes more, and the consumers get a good ranking system that compares the advantages of cheaper and higher priced products in 1 set of results.