Brooke Linden Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 Hi all,Here is the promised April Update for the Marketplace. Please read and submit questions at the end--or bring your questions to the April User Group.Month in Review: MetricsMarch experienced an expected seasonal dip and some shift in purchase dynamics resulting from the maturity related changes. Here’s high level what we’ve seen: A downward seasonal trend in the growth of General and overall GMV -- common during this time of year. An increase in Adult sales. Daily GMV in adult products nearly doubled over the course of the month. A decrease in Moderate sales. Since inception, Moderate goods have accounted for less than 5% of GMV, so while the net effect is minor, we have seen a decrease--nearly 30% in daily Moderate goods GMV (please note that this decrease has not been normalized against the seasonality). The Marketplace is still on track to exceed last month’s GMV (excluding money raised for Japanese tsunami donations). Especially in light of the expected seasonal changes, the Marketplace continues to grow at a rapid pace. In addition to these overall metrics, we have seen comments on the forums about outlying merchant drops in revenue. For some, we expect to see this level out more for merchants who have been affected by a bug we discovered last week: preferred viewer maturity is not correctly pulled into the Marketplace for a small percentage of users. We plan to deploy the fix the week of April 4, 2011. As you’ll see below, we are spending time improving search (a common merchant request) as well as writing up some additional documentation to help guide merchants when listing items in relation to Marketplace Search. (Similar to the search Second Life Search Guidelines.) Please do note that the only changes in search and ranking behavior made during the month of March were related to Maturity. What’s next on Marketplace?We have two objectives driving how we prioritize work on the marketplace and overall merchant experience: Ensure quick and reliable delivery of items purchased on the Marketplace (Direct Delivery, which is what we will be calling AIS delivery moving forward) Increase the number of shoppers (and GMV) through improved discoverability (search and promotions) and a simple, intuitive experience Any urgent issues will change prioritization, so I’ll only be communicating target time frames. If, for example, some percentage of new users are not able to log in to Marketplace, other items will get delayed due to this urgent need for a fix. As development work continues on Direct Delivery, the first objective above, we will be working on the Beta Plan and more detailed documentation on what exactly Direct Delivery is (including an FAQ--which will include answers to common questions). Feedback points will be identified as part of the Beta plan. Expect to hear more about this in mid to late April. As for the second objective, increasing the number of shoppers (and GMV), here’s what the development team is planning to work on over the next 2 to 3 months: Search related work: Evaluation of best selling sort order to determine what changes may need to occur and when. Additional search options (search within a store, search by merchant/store name). Continued work to ensure search has minimal downtime if a failure occurs (so people can always find Merchant products), as well as improving logging for future search evaluation. Usability and Conversion Improvements: we recently completed some usability tests on Marketplace, and we will review those findings to identify simple changes which will help shoppers successfully complete their purchases. Update on Marketplace PromotionsWhat are typical Marketplace Promotions and why run them? Promotions typically highlight one or more product listings on Marketplace with a goal of acquiring new shoppers on Marketplace and re-engaging previous shoppers on Marketplace. The overall goals, both of which grow GMV, are as follows: increase the number of shoppers on the Marketplace increase the amount of money those shoppers spend on Marketplace For example, with the Valentine’s Day Linden Bears, we saw many first time buyers purchase a bear. In addition, shoppers who purchased a bear spent more money on Marketplace in the few weeks after the promotion than they had prior to the promotion. We’ve got a new test promotion coming up soon, the Dash Deal. We’re trying this out to determine if this model makes sense for the Marketplace. We have high hopes that it will. If the program is successful, we will consider adding this functionality to the Marketplace. If it isn’t successful, that is good information as well; it will help us when identifying future promotional models to increase the number of shoppers and shopper-spend. Our engineering resources are not involved in this test and remain focused on higher priority issues, as indicated above. User requested topics will follow in a response to this post. Thank you all for reading. Please submit questions as responses to this thread or bring them with you to the April User Group. The User Group will focus on a topic at a time with time left at the end for general questions. Responses and the transcript will be posted back to this thread.Thanks and hope to see you all at the User Group!Brooke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brooke Linden Posted April 1, 2011 Author Share Posted April 1, 2011 Here are the updates on top items form the User Group Survey : Inventory Delivery/Sync: Direct Delivery is the area of primary work by the development team. As indicated in the above post, work on documentation, a Beta Plan, and implementation work are all in progress. Expect more detail mid to late April. This project is still on target to deploy during Q2. Marketplace Search: As can be seen above, search is the main priority besides Direct Delivery. Reporting/History: While we believe analytics and reporting are a critical add to the system, we’d rather approach it more holistically with your input vs. piecemeal at the cost of the priorities. As a result, we will be revisiting this once Direct Delivery has been rolled out. Store Management: Along with Reporting/History, store management is a way that we can help you run your Marketplace businesses more efficiently and effectively. We will revisit along with Reporting/History. Store Customization: Some store customizations may contribute to improving discoverability--those will be addressed in the short term. For example, the ability for merchants to sort listings in their stores has a high priority on our backlog of feature requests. Brooke Hi all, Here is the additional data from the User Group Meeting today. Questions in this thread were addressed, and you can see them in the User Group transcript. One thing of note that I announced during the User Group, is that I am putting these meetings on hold for the time being. I think that using the forums is a more effective way to reach a broader group of people. The data is consolidated into one spot, time zone is not an issue, and no one has to wait for me to type. :-) We'll be trying this out and see how it goes. I'll solicit feedback after a couple of months have passed. Brooke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kardargo Adamczyk Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 When do we get the option to add an extra manager to the store? (remember the "coming soon" option to do so in beta)??? When are you going to start sending delivery emails again to the shared profit partners? When can we finally expect an inworld vendor connected to the store? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ishtara Rothschild Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 What merchants still badly need are the options to turn off automatic sales notification emails and enable item review notifications. As for the customer side: Customers need to be educated about what to do in case of a delivery failure. Right now, the preferred course of action is to leave a negative rating along with a review that says "they took my money and I did not get my item" (which, as mentioned above, merchants are not being informed of). The worst thing is that these are the pretty much the only ratings and reviews we're currently getting. Unlike XStreet, the Marketplace does not remind buyers to rate their purchases, which means that only disgruntled customers bother to find out how to leave a review. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 Ishtara Rothschild wrote: As for the customer side: Customers need to be educated about what to do in case of a delivery failure. Right now, the preferred course of action is to leave a negative rating along with a review that says "they took my money and I did not get my item" (which, as mentioned above, merchants are not being informed of). The worst thing is that these are the pretty much the only ratings and reviews we're currently getting. Unlike XStreet, the Marketplace does not remind buyers to rate their purchases, which means that only disgruntled customers bother to find out how to leave a review. These are both very excellent suggestions IMO .. and should be easily implemented. The Purchase Confirmation Email sent to the customer could include a section titled "What to do if you don't get your purchase" with links to a Wiki article and/or some stock verbiage that gives the basics. (Personally I vote for a combination of both.) The Email could also include a direct link to the Add Review for the items purchased.as an addition to each line item listed. That way the customer could simply click the link and go directly to the proper place for the proper product on the Marketplace site. But we really DO need email notifications and options for the events Ishtara mentions first .. namely: Ishtara Rothschild wrote: What merchants still badly need are the options to turn off automatic sales notification emails and enable item review notifications. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sephy McCaw Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 what will you be doing about the lack of https on the marketplace site? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paulyta Miles Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 why when you search for example "earrings" in the marketplace you see alot of freebies?... the freebies just help to destroy the sl economy... the old marketplace never give priority to the freebies.... the freebies need a unic category very apart to the results searchs and very very hide... just check the old marketplace, its perfect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TriloByte Zanzibar Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 I'm a bit confused. You stated that growth was down for general and overall gross merchandise volume in your first point, but then later say that the Marketplace is on track to exceed last month. Those two statements seem to be at odds with each other, can you please clarify? It's extremely disappointing that, while you at least acknowledge the importance of reporting and having some visibility on what's happening, you have no intentions of giving merchants that functionality (either the basic functionality that was lost when the old site was closed, or the expanded reporting capabilities that we were promised just under a year ago) for several more months. I understand the importance and value of newer post-launch functionality like DIrect Delivery, but it's unfair and unprofessional to put it and 'slash-and-burn' sales programs like Dash Deal ahead of providing merchants with basic reporting and functionality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TriloByte Zanzibar Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Notification emails were yet another issue that was to have been resolved prior to the closure of XStreet, got sidetracked because of the problems the Marketplace team encountered with data migration last summer, and never got back to. While Brooke was not a part of Linden Lab at that time, surely she had access to a copy of the Marketplace backlog at the time, and I can only assume that she's chosen to ignore it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allie Ree Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 I subscribe to the Merchants forum but missed the Dash Deal blog post either due to it being posted before I subscribed or it being posted in commerce. Either would do it. Point is, I would like to be part of that beta but the link you provided, and the link within that to apply, indicate that the application to participate is closed. Is there still an opportunity to get involved in this market test? I have mixed feelings about it. I think it might be splendidly successful, or it might cause shoppers to shop only Dash Deals. I think though, that it is more likely than not a potentially successful. Please let me know if it is still possible to apply and if so how. I gave some thought to the metrics you posted and wonder if the surge in Adult item sales is due to some merchants rating more items as Adult. My initial reaction to the maturity changes was to just rate everything Adult and not have to worry about it. I figure the shoppers will eventually figure out the best selection of items will be found with Adult settings on and the more of us that list our items as Adult the sooner that will happen. I haven't taken that pludge completely yet but have experimented some. Based on your metrics and my results I am giving it renewed consideration Allie Ree VGS Black Market Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arwen Serpente Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Thanks for the update Brooke. Just a quick comment/reminder on the "Dash Deal" - before it gets implemented, the issue of shopping carts not being cleared needs to be addressed. I had one lonely free item offered last October for one month only. It was deactivated and no longer visible on the marketplace since November 1st. However, I've still got shoppers who put it in their cart during the promo period but never actually "ordered" it/completed the transaction at that time - even now, if they still have it in the shopping cart, it will deliver to them. For an item that is a regular priced item, marked down to whatever level of discount, if the promotion ends, it needs to be cleared out of all carts. Otherwise, people will be able to get it at the reduced price long after the promo is done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Arwen Serpente wrote: Thanks for the update Brooke. Just a quick comment/reminder on the "Dash Deal" - before it gets implemented, the issue of shopping carts not being cleared needs to be addressed. I had one lonely free item offered last October for one month only. It was deactivated and no longer visible on the marketplace since November 1st. However, I've still got shoppers who put it in their cart during the promo period but never actually "ordered" it/completed the transaction at that time - even now, if they still have it in the shopping cart, it will deliver to them. For an item that is a regular priced item, marked down to whatever level of discount, if the promotion ends, it needs to be cleared out of all carts. Otherwise, people will be able to get it at the reduced price long after the promo is done. Ohhh ... damn. VERY good point Arwen. If the Dash Deal has the Merchant price a regular item at a lower price for the one-day sale, that flaw in the Cart system will allow anyone to buy it at virtually any future time for that same low price. OUCH! Yo Brooke! That bug needs to be fixed STAT anyway. I strongly suggest you fix it before you roll out the Dash Deal or it's gonna detonate in a very bad way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Darrius Gothly wrote: Arwen Serpente wrote: Thanks for the update Brooke. Just a quick comment/reminder on the "Dash Deal" - before it gets implemented, the issue of shopping carts not being cleared needs to be addressed. I had one lonely free item offered last October for one month only. It was deactivated and no longer visible on the marketplace since November 1st. However, I've still got shoppers who put it in their cart during the promo period but never actually "ordered" it/completed the transaction at that time - even now, if they still have it in the shopping cart, it will deliver to them. For an item that is a regular priced item, marked down to whatever level of discount, if the promotion ends, it needs to be cleared out of all carts. Otherwise, people will be able to get it at the reduced price long after the promo is done. Ohhh ... damn. VERY good point Arwen. If the Dash Deal has the Merchant price a regular item at a lower price for the one-day sale, that flaw in the Cart system will allow anyone to buy it at virtually any future time for that same low price. OUCH! Yo Brooke! That bug needs to be fixed STAT anyway. I strongly suggest you fix it before you roll out the Dash Deal or it's gonna detonate in a very bad way. Actually I don think its a bug if you read the DEAL DASH wiki fine details. I believe LL will require the participating Marchant's firesale item to be made as a seperate duplicate item that will be exclusively used for the 24 hour sale. When the sale is over the item would just be delisted. The regular priced item is not participating in the sale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Toysoldier Thor wrote: Actually I don think its a bug if you read the DEAL DASH wiki fine details. I believe LL will require the participating Marchant's firesale item to be made as a seperate duplicate item that will be exclusively used for the 24 hour sale. When the sale is over the item would just be delisted. The regular priced item is not participating in the sale. Ahhh .. I see what you mean. I just now read this part of the Dash Deal Wiki page: Dash Deal Test Program - What happens if a Merchant gets selected? It states as follows: "A new listing must be created and displayed ONLY during the period specified by Linden Lab. The Dash Deal item must be from among the Merchant’s current Marketplace inventory, but it must be re-listed at the discounted rate (at least 50% off regular price)." Thank you Toy. I'd missed that. But in order to make sure it isn't accidentally delivered later, a separate item must be put into our Magic Boxes and then DELETED after the sale is done. If someone puts a Dash Deal item into their cart, then doesn't check out for several weeks, they WILL get a "Delivery Failed" notice for that item when they attempt to check out. It would make much more sense if the Marketplace "Verified" both the price and availability of the Cart's contents prior to checking out. That way the funds won't be debited from the customer for a purchase that is guaranteed to fail. Since the Marketplace already knows the current price and the product availability, it really makes much more sense to prevent the failure than to allow it to occur. "A stitch in time ..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Wow, all this information is much appreciated Brooke! I do agree with the points made by the other posters, but just knowing what is being worked on and the priorities, whether or not we completely agree with them, is pure gold. It is the first ever I have felt hopeful and positive about the MP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damara Robonaught Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Thank you for the updates, Brooke! I think, as mentioned before, it is really important you guys give us options to turn off automatic sales notification emails on certain items, specially freebies, I only have one freebie at my Marketplace Store and I am considering seriously to take it off cause it is spamming me badly. :smileysad: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catwise Yoshikawa Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Ishtara Rothschild wrote: What merchants still badly need are the options to turn off automatic sales notification emails and enable item review notifications. As for the customer side: Customers need to be educated about what to do in case of a delivery failure. Right now, the preferred course of action is to leave a negative rating along with a review that says "they took my money and I did not get my item" (which, as mentioned above, merchants are not being informed of). The worst thing is that these are the pretty much the only ratings and reviews we're currently getting. Unlike XStreet, the Marketplace does not remind buyers to rate their purchases, which means that only disgruntled customers bother to find out how to leave a review. This should be the most important thing to do right now. I agree with everything you say here ^^ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catwise Yoshikawa Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Darrius Gothly wrote: Arwen Serpente wrote: Thanks for the update Brooke. Just a quick comment/reminder on the "Dash Deal" - before it gets implemented, the issue of shopping carts not being cleared needs to be addressed. I had one lonely free item offered last October for one month only. It was deactivated and no longer visible on the marketplace since November 1st. However, I've still got shoppers who put it in their cart during the promo period but never actually "ordered" it/completed the transaction at that time - even now, if they still have it in the shopping cart, it will deliver to them. For an item that is a regular priced item, marked down to whatever level of discount, if the promotion ends, it needs to be cleared out of all carts. Otherwise, people will be able to get it at the reduced price long after the promo is done. Ohhh ... damn. VERY good point Arwen. If the Dash Deal has the Merchant price a regular item at a lower price for the one-day sale, that flaw in the Cart system will allow anyone to buy it at virtually any future time for that same low price. OUCH! Yo Brooke! That bug needs to be fixed STAT anyway. I strongly suggest you fix it before you roll out the Dash Deal or it's gonna detonate in a very bad way. O_O didn't think about this. Hope they fix this bug as soon as possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Catwise Yoshikawa wrote: Darrius Gothly wrote: Arwen Serpente wrote: Thanks for the update Brooke. Just a quick comment/reminder on the "Dash Deal" - before it gets implemented, the issue of shopping carts not being cleared needs to be addressed. I had one lonely free item offered last October for one month only. It was deactivated and no longer visible on the marketplace since November 1st. However, I've still got shoppers who put it in their cart during the promo period but never actually "ordered" it/completed the transaction at that time - even now, if they still have it in the shopping cart, it will deliver to them. For an item that is a regular priced item, marked down to whatever level of discount, if the promotion ends, it needs to be cleared out of all carts. Otherwise, people will be able to get it at the reduced price long after the promo is done. Ohhh ... damn. VERY good point Arwen. If the Dash Deal has the Merchant price a regular item at a lower price for the one-day sale, that flaw in the Cart system will allow anyone to buy it at virtually any future time for that same low price. OUCH! Yo Brooke! That bug needs to be fixed STAT anyway. I strongly suggest you fix it before you roll out the Dash Deal or it's gonna detonate in a very bad way. O_O didn't think about this. Hope they fix this bug as soon as possible. Again as I posted above.... this is not an issue for the few Merchants that will participate in the Dash Deal. The item offered to the deal is a seperate duplicated lowered price item to the main regular priced one. it is the one used for sale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catwise Yoshikawa Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Toysoldier Thor wrote: Again as I posted above.... this is not an issue for the few Merchants that will participate in the Dash Deal. The item offered to the deal is a seperate duplicated lowered price item to the main regular priced one. it is the one used for sale. But then you need not only to deactivate that item but remove it from inventory, or you will have that problem. So they should notice that ^^' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Catwise Yoshikawa wrote: Toysoldier Thor wrote: Again as I posted above.... this is not an issue for the few Merchants that will participate in the Dash Deal. The item offered to the deal is a seperate duplicated lowered price item to the main regular priced one. it is the one used for sale. But then you need not only to deactivate that item but remove it from inventory, or you will have that problem. So they should notice that ^^' And even though it's deactivated and removed from Magic Box inventory, if they put it in their Cart during the Dash Deal run .. they can still attempt to purchase it. Their account balance will be debited for the Dash Deal price, the line item will be listed on their Order Details .. and it will eventually fail. It still winds up in an error, and it shouldn't. If an item is deactivated, the price is changed, or it is unavailable .. the Cart should be edited to remove or reprice it .. period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arwen Serpente Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Agreed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medhue Simoni Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Please excuse me but I don't quite understand why you are comparing stats on something that started a month ago. Personally, I don't need some1 to explain the stats. What I'd like, is to see the metrics. Why don't we get to see the metrics? As far as moderate goes, why do we even have it? I mean, either your product is general or adult. The range for moderate is so narrow that nothing much even fits there. Pretty strange that everything I sell is general , but inworld, no1 that is general only can come to my store. LL should have created a program to change mainland sim ratings. Heck, that would make too much sense. If you would be so kind, I would also like to see where you are getting information on a seasonal decline. If there is 1, then it would be for specific products, not every market. I've been a merchant in SL for over 4 years, and I've never seen a seasonal decline, I've only heard of them. It is 1 thing for merchants to say there is some kind of seasonal decline, but from a Linden, I expect to see the metrics that prove this. Bottome line is, this is what we do as merchants, track things. What we need from LL is their metrics, and detailed, not some generalization of what you saw. I would like to have a list of the top markets by category, and detailed numbers on total volume and total sales figures for those categories. Having this and comparing it to my own metrics, actually means something to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 The "SEASONAL DECLINE" statement had to be the biggest SPIN from LL to explain how the SLM sales tanked right after their March changes to the SLM. Then Brooke follows up with an "ohh btw we also found a bug that we will be fixing". I have never seen a MARCH seasonal decline in my products - not one that hits me and takes hold in a couple days. There is no MARCH Seasonal decline I know of. I could have given her some credit if it was summer or even just before or after christmas (before christmas is where I do see a seasonal decline for my products). But MARCH?? Come on Brooke. As medhue said, if there really is a seasonal decline lets see the facts? Show us a graph that shows the same March collapse of Xstreet sales in 2010 and 2009 and 2008 that would correspond with 2011. I just hope this bug that the LL Commerce Team found will restore my sales in SLM back to normal pace - I am still at 50% of normal weekly sales since the LL Commerce changes in early march. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 Arwen Serpente wrote: Agreed. Guess this issue only matters to those merchants silly enough to take on the Dash Deal promo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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