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To RODVIK - Request meeting with Merchants on CommerceTeam concerns


Toysoldier Thor
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Dear Rodvik - CEO of Linden Lab,

This SL Merchant thread is a formal request for an Open Forum Discussion / Meeting between yourself and the SL Marketplace Merchant community. 

There are many critical serious issues with Marketplace & the team you have in place to manage this vital service for Secondlife.  To-date you have remained completely silent and dismissive to any of these problems even though countless Merchants have tried to bring these serious issues and mismanagement to your attention.  

Therefore, the Merchants of SL that CREATE ALL YOUR COMPANY'S CONTENT that makes your flagship product success formally request that you come forward, listen to our concerns, and either explain why you refuse to address these concerns or tell us how you will fix this long and growing list of critical concerns.

I will provide an initial short list of some of these concerns that have gone un-answered by neither anyone from the LL Commerce Team (aka LLCT) or yourself - but I am sure this thread will grow with Merchant posting of other serious concerns we expect you to explain to one of the most important populations of your Secondlife customer base:

 

  1. Unlike the other LL departments that have established and maintained a healthy strong two-way communications with their respective customer userbase, the LLCT has all but shut and locked their doors to the entire Merchant community that are the LLCT's primary userbase for the Marketplace.  Other LL staff / departments have created weekly interactive usergroup meetings inworld, and openly talk with their users that provide them with invaluable insight and knowledge of the SL technology they are responsible for, and participate actively in the community forums to discuss concerns and come up with solutions.  The LLCT basically does not exist.  The Merchant's ideas, concerns, fears, etc. are expressed in he forums and anywhere else they would hopefully be heard and yet the LLCT stays utterly silent - even when serious problems on the Marketplace rage.
  2. The stability and trust of the underlying ecommerce transaction processing & reporting of Marketplace is in serious question.  With a growing list of serious problems where Merchant earned revenue is not being received, charges are being applied for services not rendered (listing enhancements), lacking audit trails to properly show the entire financial transaction, and LLCT not compensating Merchants for problems this team caused that basically robs merchants of earned sales out of their accounts. 

    PS - contrary to your TOS... $Linden is a currency that directly attributes to RL currency based on formal exchange process LL provides.  As such, LL's improper handling / management of ecommerce based on $L as well as $US currency would make LL accountable for lost sales and unauthorized expenses to their customer's financial accounts.
  3. The LLCT's proven history of poor Marketplace service / features that were not even asked for by the community, poorly designed, and worst yet... Horribly developed & deployed into production.  The situation has become so bad that it is not a matter if IF a LLCT change will cause problems - its more so a matter that Merchant speculate how bad this change will be that will impact their sales.

    In many cases, the LLCT releases changes to Marketplace with ZERO notice to the merchants.  Many of these changes can have a serious impact to the operations of many Merchants and therefore we need to be made aware of ANY changes to MP no matter how small the LLCT feels the change is - but we often get no notice and then at times the change is secretly backed out if there is enough screaming on the forums.
  4. LLCT not following any form of priority of features, services, fixes to the MP service that the primary users of MP constantly ask the LLCT to address (i.e. restored sales reporting that xstreet had, removal or overhaul of the listing rating/review system that is known to be completely gamed, improved search, etc.).  The changes / improvements to MP seem to come from some LL internal secret list they believe are good for us.
  5. The proven complete lack of skill & knowledge the LLCT has on ecommerce systems and more importantly the unique requirements that SL Merchants require to effectively sell content into YOUR SL GRID!  This is proven by the LLCT priorities they set vs the ones they complete ignore.  They utter lack of concern on protecting the critical health of the underlying financial sales transaction system is more evidence of their complete misunderstanding of how to maintain and evolve a healthy Marketplace.

I could continue but I will stop here.  Other Merchants will express their concerns about your Commerce Team and the crumbling Marketplace service.

Rodvik, what you need to understand but it seems you are oblivious to is that many of the Merchant of SecondLife use their sales of content into SL as a primary source of REAL LIFE INCOME for them and their families. This is not a sideline hobby for many Merchants - especially during these tough economic times.  As such, the utter mis-management and complete disregard / respect for the importance of a healthy, effective and secured/trusted Marketplace is a black mark on LL and to you personally as the CEO of this company.

We - the Merchants of Secondlife - feel we are deserved to get even an hour of your attention to listen to our concerns and to explain how you will address this on-going growing mess.

I leave it to you Rodvik to provide options on how you would like to engage with the Merchant Community.

 

PS - to the Merchants of SL, if you are going to post to this thread, please provide the concerns you would like to see Rodvik address. 

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Just a note, I agree with you 100%.

The only thing that needs highest priority is that we had office hours, two closed beta programs and the result is "this".

Priority must be on doing, not talking.

What good is an office hour if they can't handle implementing any of it for instance?

A good faith effort would be to get people who "can" handle any of the suggestions and feedback that they get and to implement stronger policy, such as reasonable refund and transaction assurances. They're just hiding behind an untested TOS and arbitration clauses while developing other products with our money.

Then maybe they can begin to build better reporting tools so that people actually know what's going on with their transactions and funds and deliveries like all other commerce out there.

Just saying that personally I think we're beyond words and token gestures at this point.

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Sadly it has become the only effective position for anything related to LL and the commerce team - even up to the level of Rodvik - that in order to get the Commerce Team or Rodvik to engage at all you need to have all of LL's customers scream and yell and stomp your feet everywhere until Rodvik is forced to take notice (its a PR thing for LL).

So, if you want to LIKE this thread and you really want Rodvik to respond to us... ALL MERCHANTS need to use every social media they have access to... Blog, Twitter, Facebook, emails/IMs to Rodvik, etc. to mention this thread and to repeat the request for Rodvik to take responsibility as CEO of LL of the out of control Commerce Team in his company.

He should make it a priority to FIX this deep rooted problem as a priority as opposed to focusing on figuring out new sources of revenue to SL before SL slides away as LL's flagship.

Its clear Rodvik is not cut from the cloth of Business operations and priorities... he would rather let stinky issues grow and just focus on new cool products and technologies.

What we need to do is make Rodvik take notice that the Marketplace and its management team need to be overhauled.

So... if you wanna LIKE this thread.... promote the thread through what ever means you have to make rodvik see it every where he turns.

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Emma's little wish list:

1. Please continue to inform us about changes to Marketplace - as you are now doing regarding the magic boxes.

2. I'd like the direct delivery system to include delivery notifications please.

3. Notification of when a review on a product is written would be most welcome.

4. A review of Marketplace Categories would, in my opinion, improve Marketplace for customers and merchants alike.

5. Please give information on how Marketplace Search can be made more efficient, e.g. excluding demo's from search.

6. On Listing Items, please make the image preview a little larger so duplicated images can be more easily spotted.

 

 

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I think at the top of everyone list is the apalling failure to communicate consistently and clearly, or give much of a sign where information should be posted. A recent example:

1. Sales notification email address changed with a only notification in the Merchant Home that few check regularly (because there is nothing there), despite a long-ago announcement that information would be posted IN THIS FORUM. Someone discovers the emails are going to spam folders, so everyone redoes spam filters.

 

2. Email address change rolled back,someone notices and everyone redoes spam filters.

 

3. Email address reversed again, someone notices and everyone redoes spam filters.

 

Most important are bugs that may be only affecting a minority of merchants but are crippling:

 

1. Messed up listings with wrong photos, etc.

2. Merchant Outbox either will not work at all or is stuck Initializing.

3. Magic Boxes start delivering merchandise that merchants do not get paid for and are labeled Failed Delivery. (LL response: Sucks to be you.)

 

Other bugs:

 

1. Enhancements stuck in Charging, Cannot Edit (see recent thread) for many months and cannot be canceled, so merchants keep being charged. Then some are refunded. Then they are charged again. Some are charged again without being refunded. This has cost some hundreds of dollars in unwanted enhancements, with no end in site.

2. Default search -- called Relevance -- seems to be "what has sold in the last day or so". NO ONE THINKS THIS IS THE SAME AS RELEVANCE.  Call it Recently Sold.

 

3. Last I looked there were 281 JIRAS, take your pick. 

 

Missing Functionality

 

Oh where to begin? This needs a thread of its own. Maybe I will make one. We have been on our knees begging for restored functionality for years now.

 

 

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100% in favour of your proposition. Rodvik's acknowledgement of the importance of the merchant community is waaaay over due and I would like to see a series of 'brown bag' type meetings with full transcripts made available for ongoing community discussion.

The  current commerce team have proven themselves to be a secretive cabal with their behind the scenes meetings with favoured merchants, completely uncommunicative with the greater volume of merchants, incompetent when implementing upgrades and changes and it would  seem totally incapable of  adding any merchants reporting tools that are even half way as useful as we had with good old old xstreet and onrez NOR can they fix the pathetic broken facilities they forced on us at launch 2 years back.

One of the first rules of marketing is to find out what your customers want and then give it to them. However the LL commerce team seem to  have their heads stuck up their collective coding backsides and have forgotten to actually find out what their customers really need and have chosen to give us what they want instead whether it is of practical use or not. In short they seem to have forgotten who ultimately pays their wages.

Come on Rod - lets talk!

 

^L^

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Ela Talaj wrote:

Some concerns listed are certainly valid though I could've argued about others but I don't remember voting for you as Merchants representative to issue demands in anyone's name except for in your own. Did I miss the election day?

Well if you are a Merchant that does not wish to have Rodvik step and listen to Merchant's concerns (what ever list the merchants wish to bring up) and have him explain why or explain how he will start addressing them... then I guess you are right -  one cant assume ALL merchants would want this.

I did believe I stated that I was just providing a small list and that if any other merchants wanted to throw up their own concerns they could.

The idea of the request was to ask Rodvik to sit with us.  But sorry if that is not something you wanted Merchants to do.

 

Notice to Rodvik..... Not every Merchant wishes to sit with you and have you explain the conduct of your commerce team or the list of concerns. 

 

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

PS - to the Merchants of SL, if you are going to post to this thread, please provide the concerns you would like to see Rodvik address. 

Only just noticed your PS. Some of it has already been said, and some of it shouldn't have to be said, however ...

1) Whether Magic Boxes or Direct Delivery, there are multiple notifications that should go out at the users choice. Some of these can be consolidated.

Notification of reviews.

Notification of shopping cart additions, and/or shopping cart items that update to the current price of the item, not the price it was when put into the cart.

Sales notifications, especially for Direct Delivery (embarassing to mention to any commerce provider).

And one often neglected, a delivery confirmation notification. This one is important because notification of sale is NOT notification that the customer actually got the product so far as the system knows. Surely under the hood Direct Delivery already indicates a success/fail event when it attempts a hit on the customers inventory.

Purchasing a real world item for instance, even though the delivery is handled by a third party to get the product to your doorstep, the buyer and seller can almost always check where that item is, what state it's in (whether pre or post delivery) and exactly where it's at and why.

This should be the case across the board. Any merchant should know the EXACT state of the item at all times. Is it pending, locked, is it in an error state (if so what kind). Aside from notification this data should be available on the buyer/seller account pages. The seller should know mostly the same information from the moment they put it in their cart or click "buy".

2) Finance and reporting.

You guys need to consolidate all of this into a more centralized system. General transactions and Marketplace transactions are decoupled. This is one root of a problem providing separate sets of records that will not reconcile.

Which brings me to another point. Everything should reconcile. If it doesn't you're not doing it right, period.

The end result of reporting is that it should be able to be imported into accounting software and be at least sophisticated enough to set up multiple general ledger accounts with the data. You provided transactions, splits, SKUs, etc. and yet do not provide the kind of simple accounting data that would satisfy any bookkeeper.

3) Overall business.

The disconnect here is that Merchants are not treated as business partners, they're treated as game/virtual world users..

Regardless of how virtual or "real" the money and the goods are, the reality is that it is copyrightable material bought and sold.

You need more than lip service here, with a commerce team that has substantial prior experience in commerce, accounting and general business practices, or more preferable ONE manager of the product that can help filter product requirements to the developers.

I don't need to tell you guys about the amounts of money translated to USD that you're moving in sinks and advertising, etc. If you didn't know this, you wouldn't have wanted to acquire it in the first place. You need to buck up here and stop treating this like toy items from "residents". Except when it comes to your internal discussions, then you're the masters of the universe.

The conversations you have internally about goods and monetization are not always the same conversations we have, thus the disconnect. You know what I mean.

It is not your responsiblity to influence sales, or optimize sales, it is your responsibility to provide the technical framework to enable your business partners to sell effectively.

Simply put, it is your world, but these are not your items. And that needs to be understood, "really" understood. Being an enabler means being proficient enough to provide the stable technology. We don't need "business development" from LL, we need technicians that understand the challenges and know how to implement them, nothing more.

There's more, and this input has been with you for years, but you need to quit with the clever bits and prove that your loyalty lies with your partners, not your teams dreams of how to manipulate monetization of virtual goods and the people that create them for the company. The rest will take care of itself. If you make a little less because you're letting the market run organically then so be it.

A clear example of misguided wisdom shows when people try to tell you relevance means relevance, not sales history.

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

... ... ... ALL MERCHANTS need to use every social media they have access to... s.

Not only merchants, also consumers :)

As a merchant I have only some silly freebies in the Marketplace. But as a consumer and SL's Resident I am keenly interested in the good development of the MP. I'm notstrictly  a merchant . But a good market is in the interest of all SL (and vice versa).

Congratulations for the request :)

 

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Dartagan Shepherd wrote:


Toysoldier Thor wrote:

PS - to the Merchants of SL, if you are going to post to this thread, please provide the concerns you would like to see Rodvik address. 

Only just noticed your PS. Some of it has already been said, and some of it shouldn't have to be said, however ...

1) Whether Magic Boxes or Direct Delivery, there are multiple notifications that should go out at the users choice. Some of these can be consolidated.

Notification of reviews.

Notification of shopping cart additions, and/or shopping cart items that update to the current price of the item, not the price it was when put into the cart.

Sales notifications, especially for Direct Delivery (embarassing to mention to any commerce provider).

And one often neglected, a delivery confirmation notification. This one is important because notification of sale is NOT notification that the customer actually got the product so far as the system knows. Surely under the hood Direct Delivery already indicates a success/fail event when it attempts a hit on the customers inventory.

Purchasing a real world item for instance, even though the delivery is handled by a third party to get the product to your doorstep, the buyer and seller can almost always check where that item is, what state it's in (whether pre or post delivery) and exactly where it's at and why.

This should be the case across the board. Any merchant should know the EXACT state of the item at all times. Is it pending, locked, is it in an error state (if so what kind). Aside from notification this data should be available on the buyer/seller account pages. The seller should know mostly the same information from the moment they put it in their cart or click "buy".

2) Finance and reporting.

You guys need to consolidate all of this into a more centralized system. General transactions and Marketplace transactions are decoupled. This is one root of a problem providing separate sets of records that will not reconcile.

Which brings me to another point. Everything should reconcile. If it doesn't you're not doing it right, period.

The end result of reporting is that it should be able to be imported into accounting software and be at least sophisticated enough to set up multiple general ledger accounts with the data. You provided transactions, splits, SKUs, etc. and yet do not provide the kind of simple accounting data that would satisfy any bookkeeper.

3) Overall business.

The disconnect here is that Merchants are not treated as business partners, they're treated as game/virtual world users..

Regardless of how virtual or "real" the money and the goods are, the reality is that it is copyrightable material bought and sold.

You need more than lip service here, with a commerce team that has substantial prior experience in commerce, accounting and general business practices, or more preferable ONE manager of the product that can help filter product requirements to the developers.

I don't need to tell you guys about the amounts of money translated to USD that you're moving in sinks and advertising, etc. If you didn't know this, you wouldn't have wanted to acquire it in the first place. You need to buck up here and stop treating this like toy items from "residents". Except when it comes to your internal discussions, then you're the masters of the universe.

The conversations you have internally about goods and monetization are not always the same conversations we have, thus the disconnect. You know what I mean.

It is not your responsiblity to influence sales, or optimize sales, it is your responsibility to provide the technical framework to enable your business partners to sell effectively.

Simply put, it is your world, but these are not your items. And that needs to be understood, "really" understood. Being an enabler means being proficient enough to provide the stable technology. We don't need "business development" from LL, we need technicians that understand the challenges and know how to implement them, nothing more.

There's more, and this input has been with you for years, but you need to quit with the clever bits and prove that your loyalty lies with your partners, not your teams dreams of how to manipulate monetization of virtual goods and the people that create them for the company. The rest will take care of itself. If you make a little less because you're letting the market run organically then so be it.

A clear example of misguided wisdom shows when people try to tell you relevance means relevance, not sales history.

I've read and re-read this post several times now Dart .. and I have to hand you a hearty compliment. Your points are right-on and very well spoken. Thank you for taking the time to construct these most crucial issues in such a clear and concise manner.

'Nuff said.

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Ela, I notice you have been posting a number of "push back" comments on various threads in the past day. As a serious question, may I ask why you are so anxious to downplay the many concerns of others? I can certainly understand that you may not share the same concerns, but why are you so worried about others raising their voices in protest?

Please understand, I am not asking in a snide or snarky manner, I am genuinely curious. It strikes me that if you wish others to stop discussing their problems then you must be concerned that their actions will have some larger more damaging side-effect. If I am correct, please help me understand what concerns you have and how you feel the complaints and issues voiced by others may be a problem?

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Actually Darrius, Ela's response to this thread was not a surprise to me at all.  And as you have already noticed about her attitude on the other threads, she has taken more of a "Sympathetic to the Commerce Team" position.  This has been Ela for as long as I have watched her postings here on the forum as well as inworld Merchant User Group chats. 

I do not know exactly why she has such a strong almost unwavering loyalty to the Commerce Team even during events where clearly the Commerce Team has royally screwed up.  Its extremely rare if she is openly critical of them.  I was told quietly the reason but I wont say.

Anyway, because of her deep consistent position of defending Commerce Team at almost all cost and of course as you know I am the strongest YING to her YANG as an open critical of the team's many failings.... she dont like me too much and this thread was her opportunity to throw a dart at my initiative as well as defend the commerce team where possible.

I dont mind... if Ela has her private reasons to make sure the right people see shes defending LL that is fine by me.  And she is correct in that although it was pretty much a safe assumption that the vast majority of Merchants (and yes even Customers) of Marketplace would fully endorse the need for Rodvik to step forward and listen to our concerns about MP and the Commerce Team, I do not "officially" speak on behalf of all Merchant. 

So technically she is correct.  Just thought it was a no-brainer assumption that all Merchants would like answers from Rodvik.

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Dartagan Shepherd wrote:


Toysoldier Thor wrote:

PS - to the Merchants of SL, if you are going to post to this thread, please provide the concerns you would like to see Rodvik address. 

Only just noticed your PS. Some of it has already been said, and some of it shouldn't have to be said, however ...

1) Whether Magic Boxes or Direct Delivery, there are multiple notifications that should go out at the users choice. Some of these can be consolidated.

Notification of reviews.

Notification of shopping cart additions, and/or shopping cart items that update to the current price of the item, not the price it was when put into the cart.

Sales notifications, especially for Direct Delivery (embarassing to mention to any commerce provider).

And one often neglected, a delivery confirmation notification. This one is important because notification of sale is NOT notification that the customer actually got the product so far as the system knows. Surely under the hood Direct Delivery already indicates a success/fail event when it attempts a hit on the customers inventory.

Purchasing a real world item for instance, even though the delivery is handled by a third party to get the product to your doorstep, the buyer and seller can almost always check where that item is, what state it's in (whether pre or post delivery) and exactly where it's at and why.

This should be the case across the board. Any merchant should know the EXACT state of the item at all times. Is it pending, locked, is it in an error state (if so what kind). Aside from notification this data should be available on the buyer/seller account pages. The seller should know mostly the same information from the moment they put it in their cart or click "buy".

2) Finance and reporting.

You guys need to consolidate all of this into a more centralized system. General transactions and Marketplace transactions are decoupled. This is one root of a problem providing separate sets of records that will not reconcile.

Which brings me to another point. Everything should reconcile. If it doesn't you're not doing it right, period.

The end result of reporting is that it should be able to be imported into accounting software and be at least sophisticated enough to set up multiple general ledger accounts with the data. You provided transactions, splits, SKUs, etc. and yet do not provide the kind of simple accounting data that would satisfy any bookkeeper.

3) Overall business.

The disconnect here is that Merchants are not treated as business partners, they're treated as game/virtual world users..

Regardless of how virtual or "real" the money and the goods are, the reality is that it is copyrightable material bought and sold.

You need more than lip service here, with a commerce team that has substantial prior experience in commerce, accounting and general business practices, or more preferable ONE manager of the product that can help filter product requirements to the developers.

I don't need to tell you guys about the amounts of money translated to USD that you're moving in sinks and advertising, etc. If you didn't know this, you wouldn't have wanted to acquire it in the first place. You need to buck up here and stop treating this like toy items from "residents". Except when it comes to your internal discussions, then you're the masters of the universe.

The conversations you have internally about goods and monetization are not always the same conversations we have, thus the disconnect. You know what I mean.

It is not your responsiblity to influence sales, or optimize sales, it is your responsibility to provide the technical framework to enable your business partners to sell effectively.

Simply put, it is your world, but these are not your items. And that needs to be understood, "really" understood. Being an enabler means being proficient enough to provide the stable technology. We don't need "business development" from LL, we need technicians that understand the challenges and know how to implement them, nothing more.

There's more, and this input has been with you for years, but you need to quit with the clever bits and prove that your loyalty lies with your partners, not your teams dreams of how to manipulate monetization of virtual goods and the people that create them for the company. The rest will take care of itself. If you make a little less because you're letting the market run organically then so be it.

A clear example of misguided wisdom shows when people try to tell you relevance means relevance, not sales history.

Thanks for taking the time to list these things (yet again) Dart.

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Rod, you could just fix all the Marketplace problems with one simple action. The solution is simple, just turn the MP off, pull the plug. No more MP. No more MP related problems.

It would mean we would have to sell and purchase our virtual products in an actual virtual world....which I know is a radical concept to some LL employees and merchants and consumers alike, but our virtual world would be a better place for it. It would also mean that you only need to focus on one system that is failing virtual commerce (inworld) rather the 2 failing systems that you are currently supporting.

So come on Rod, make an impact on SL and do something notable, drive the commerce back inworld and away from this dysfunctional 2D cancerous website that is helping to destroy land ownership and inworld business 

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Pamela Galli wrote:

As I have said many times:  A horribly botched marketplace is better than no marketplace.

Well seeing as you generate profit from the marketplace and it is a significant source of income for you then I can completely see why you hold that opinion. I generate sales from it too. In fact 2 of my businesses are run purely on the MP without any inworld presence.

But putting profits aside, I am very much apposed to the Marketplace in principle. Websites like SL Exchange and SL Boutique used to support the sale of inworld content. The focus for merchants back then was designing and developing engaging inworld shopping experiences with the web based sales interfaces playing a minor role in the majority of commercial enterprises. Today that philosophy has completely changed and it seems that inworld stores are just there to support the sales of virtual content on a 2d website, and not a very good website either. It is systematically diminishing the presence of commercial enterprise and ingenuity  inworld. There was a time when presentation was key in SL. The way you presented creations within your 3D space was key to success. It resulted in thousands of interesting and engaging plots and projects, all designed to draw the customer in and achieve a sale. This is something that the MP is destroying and LL are primarily to blame by driving business off of the grid and onto a website.

We have lost a huge chunk of what SL used to be thanks to the development of the marketplace. 

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Porky Gorky wrote:


Pamela Galli wrote:

As I have said many times:  A horribly botched marketplace is better than no marketplace.

Well seeing as you generate profit from the marketplace and it is a significant source of income for you then I can completely see why you hold that opinion. I generate sales from it too. In fact 2 of my businesses are run purely on the MP without any inworld presence.

But putting profits aside, I am very much apposed to the Marketplace in principle. Websites like SL Exchange and SL Boutique used to support the sale of inworld content. The focus for merchants back then was designing and developing engaging inworld shopping experiences with the web based sales interfaces playing a minor role in the majority of commercial enterprises. Today that philosophy has completely changed and it seems that inworld stores are just there to support the sales of virtual content on a 2d website, and not a very good website either. It is systematically diminishing the presence of commercial enterprise and ingenuity  inworld. There was a time when presentation was key in SL. The way you presented creations within your 3D space was key to success. It resulted in thousands of interesting and engaging plots and projects, all designed to draw the customer in and achieve a sale. This is something that the MP is destroying and LL are primarily to blame by driving business off of the grid and onto a website.

We have lost a huge chunk of what SL used to be thanks to the development of the marketplace. 

Yoru last post is a full thought to consider - I am not saying I agree that it would result in a strategic benefit - but its a model to consider. 

Like Porky said, I am in the exact position as him. I also do understand Pamela that if Rodvik resolved the problem by closing the MP it would hurt you and a lot of us Merchants immediately and in fact - some permanently. 

But, IF (this is a big IF) Rodvik were to consider closing MP to wash his hands of all the problems and grief and consumed LL resources, there is both positive and clear neegatives to this strategy.

ON THE PROS:

Yes, closing the MP would completely force all Merchants to move their sales inworld.  For those merchants that survive the mass migration back to inworld only sales, it would surely spike inworld land usage up significantly.  This in turn would possibly slow down the constant slide of abandoned sims inworld.  It wuold have to - at least short term.  It would also put 5% more sales volume back into the Merchant's hands since LL cannot collect commissions on inworld sales anymore.

NOW THE CONS:

But lets look at the big picture... first of all, if we could turn back the clock before LL decided to take over and massively grow xstreet to what it is now, then right now maybe SL's overall health would be far better now.  BUT.... shutting down MP would be akin to Pandora's Box. 

LL simply could not revert back to a no-MP solution.  Like it or not but the vast majority of SL residents have spoken with their $L wallets ... they want to buy on MP and not as much inworld.  Too many conveniences for the customer vs. inworld (we know all the reasons).  Taking that away from the SL residents would cause a HUGEEE backlash even if there was a magical way to get 10's of thousands of merchants to instantly revert back to inworld only sales.  It would likely further encourage residents to migrate to other grids.

Then ther is the sheer logistics and tsunami sized impact closing MP would have on the SL economy.  A lot of merchants are MP only and their sales are not great enough these days with the massive drop over the past few years of content pricing to afford a parcel of land to sell from.  A good portion of Merchants wuold simply close up and abandon the idea of being a merchant anymore.  Then even for those that survived the mirgration, we all know that the Inworld search is an utter disaster.  Sales in MP are far more effective because as poor as search is in MP, its 100 fold better than inworld search for content to buy.

And then there is the small matter that for LL losing a significant SINK that makes them a profit both in 5% commission sales and the Listing Enhancement fees (even better sales recently with the Commerce Teams self administered picking of Merchant pockets).  I believe I read a recent blog posting that this is LL's 3rd largest SINK.  So, exactly why would Rodvik decide to wipe out LL's 3rd largest sink?

Soooooo Pamela, as much as it is a business strategy for Rodvik to consider and has some positives to breathing new life into the grid, I think the CONS far out-weigh the PROS and Rodvik would not seriously think of shutting it down.  You have nothing to fear on losing MP.

BUT  ( there is always a But).....

There are other options Rodvik could considered as a strategy to address all the problems plaguing the LL Commerce Team and MP.   Consider these options:

OPTION #1:  LL Partner with an External Vendor to outsource the MP operations & growth under LL's direction.

By outsourcing, LL would immediately replace the current Commerce Team with a team with proven experience in ecommerce and hopefully with mature systems support & management (including proper code development and deployment).  This team would be responsible for SLAs and customer service.  LL can then hopefully take the existing Commerce Team and divert them into some other LL initiative.... not ecommerce.  Maybe give them PATTERNS!

OPTION #2:  LL encourage 3rd Party ecommerce sites to return to SL - open the DD API - Gracefully slide out

This would be hard to transition to but I think it would have the best overall value to Merchants and Customers. If this transition could somehow be orchestrated, competition is what is missing now and competition is in bad need !  

Maybe - to add incentive for LL to gracefully bow out of the market, the agreement would be that LL get 1% of all sales transaction from all sales as compensation for the 3rd party vendors having usage access to the DD API or whatever delivery mechanism.

OPTION #3:  Rodvik could realize that MP poorly managed and decides to overhaul the commerce team.

The easiest option for Rodvik to execute on IF he want to fix all the problems and get the Merchants and Customer back on side and happy with MP.  It simply requires Rodvik wanting to clean up the team and address some of the fundamental concerns.... communications & deploying fixes and features that Merchant find important.

Sadly, as simple an option as this is... its one that we all know to date that Rodvik has shown no interest in.

OPTION #4:  Do nothing and leave the Team do what they can and disregard any Merchant & Customer concerns

The option that sadly we all should expect as we all have seen to date that Rodvik does not have ANY CARE about how the MP is operating or that merchants and customers are not happy.

Just let the MP flounder in its direction like an un-anchored boat.

 

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

(snip)

OPTION #2:  LL encourage 3rd Party ecommerce sites to return to SL - open the DD API - Gracefully slide out

This would be hard to transition to but I think it would have the best overall value to Merchants and Customers. If this transition could somehow be orchestrated, competition is what is missing now and competition is in bad need !  

Maybe - to add incentive for LL to gracefully bow out of the market, the agreement would be that LL get 1% of all sales transaction from all sales as compensation for the 3rd party vendors having usage access to the DD API or whatever delivery mechanism. (snip)

I've lobbied for this option since they first publicly announced Direct Delivery. It would maintain LL's income stream for offline sales, divorce them from the majority of support costs and result in several competing sites that could challenge each other to grow better than anything else we have now.

I also like to think one of the features they could experiment with are methods of linking in-world sales with offline sales .. but this would also require having connections with in-world vendor systems and/or the SL Search and "Sell from a Prim" API's.

All in all, this opens the whole segment BACK up to the wonder of End-User Creativity. That's a concept that SL grew strong from, that they then lost and have been suffering from since losing .. and should strive to regain .. especially based on Rodvik's statement that he wants to implement ways to increase.

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