State of the marketplace

[Flea Yatsenko]

So, the threads complaining about marketplace seem to have died out recently. Is it fixed for a lot of people now? How has everyone's sales been? These last few days have been slowing down for me but the weekend was strong.

[Flea Yatsenko]

If you're getting sales like that after two weeks and you're selling clothes you're doing well. Keep up the good work.

[Zanara Zenovka]

No - it's just as broken as it was a month ago. For example, many merchants have a heap of old deleted listings reappearing in their storefronts with photos from other people's products (and to add to the amusement, these can't be deleted).

There's just been nothing new for merchants to add and no updates from the commerce mob, or even an acknowledgment of the latest issues.

The whole thing's horrifically embarrassing, really.

[Dark Larkspur]

I have a small MP Store; the weekend had no sales for me; had a little jump at the beginning of the week. There are still issues, besides the deleted items still showing up and pictures from other merchants mixed into each other's stores; we are also still waiting to be able to sell 1 off no copy items such as the breedables are. It might be that everybody blew off steam in the blogs and are now concentrating on voting on and paying attention to the JIRAs that have been filed...

[Flea Yatsenko]

Well, the entire grid just blew up and it's been exploded for most of the morning. I haven't seen anything like this happen in a long time.

It's been really quiet in here and things were starting to improve for me, I wasn't sure if things were fixed or if something else was going on. I guess this week with things slowing down for me it had to do with the grid blowing up today and all the things that built up to it.

It just seemed odd that it got so quiet in here. This forum has been lacking the usual doom and gloom end of the grid theorizing that's been going on since 2007.

Maybe people are just getting tired of all of this and are doing other things?

[Canis Baxton]

I'm sorry I wasn't paying attention as I was off doing other things. Could you please repeeat that?

[Dartagan Shepherd]

They updated the sticky post today, aside from this:

"The most significant issue that has been addressed over the past week was slowness on the Marketplace website, which occurred intermittently between April 18 and April 21. Page loads should be much faster now."

Which doesn't appear to be true since slowness has been experienced since the 21st, every other issue listed there is still being worked on.

Basically nothing is changed as yet.

[Kampu Oyen]

>Page loads should be much faster now

More subjunctive solutions from LL.

I'm also still delighted that so many other things also would work better if they could work at all.

[WADE1 Jya]

Marketplace is more busted now then its ever been before, truly this must be huge embarrassment for Linden Lab.

At least the CEO tweeted that it was "unacceptable"   -----   but since then no action.

The only new development is Lindens seem completely incapable of repairs or moving forward!

Maybe they just need to hire more brainpower? Smart people tend to cost more money so that might be part of the issue if they are trying to use only the cheapest labor the overall capabilities of the team will suffer.

Whatever.... I think Lindens painted themselves into a corner.... I have no faith anymore that they will ever move marketplace forward in functionality & only expect performance to deteriorate at an ever quickening pace.

[Paula001 Goldschein]

hi flea, glad your sales were good again at the weekend!

mine have been normal even tho and since switching to dd. my store is pretty messed up listing wise but not complainging too much cuz i have the feeling to just sit it out .. getting pretty tired of it though you know. always think they probably fix it anytime soon! week after week!

[Czari Zenovka]

Small store here - sales have been sporadic but a bit slower than the "norm."  Still have listings in my store with my items and other merchant images.

Will be giving up my residential parcel that I love due to not enough sales to cover rent.  If I want to continue to sell on the MP after June 1 I have to purchase a new PC (or make a trip to a relative's home each time I want to list something), although my current PC is fine for everything else I do, including playing two very graphics-intensive MMORPGs.

Basically I don't expect much from LL anymore after this fiasco and the general laissez-faire attitude in addressing it.

[Pamela Galli]

---

WADE1 Jya wrote:

 

Whatever.... I think Lindens painted themselves into a corner.... I have no faith anymore that they will ever move marketplace forward in functionality & only expect performance to deteriorate at an ever quickening pace.

---

I am afraid that this is the conclusion I have drawn -- unless they hire ppl who can get it done; this team evidently cannot by themselves.

And the cost to many of us is going to be huge.

 

[HoneyBear Lovely]

My products still don't show. I have no access to them. I basically do not exist on the marketplace anymore.

*sigh*

[Flea Yatsenko]

I have been doing research as to who seems to be affected by odd sales and bugs and who hasn't and I've found something pretty interesting.

My store ID is in the 80,000s, and I made it a while before the XStreetSL migration to SLMP. I've had problems for a long time with my magic box, primarily with only two or three items selling succesfully until I resetup the magic boxes. I have no idea why it was like that, but it didn't matter when I reset them, whether it was on a sunday, friday, wednesday, whatever. The next day or day after would see record breaking sales after resetting my boxes. But that's a different story altogether.

The point I'm trying to make is that I've had issues with SLMP and I was here before the migration. I looked you up on SLMP to see your store ID and it is lower than mine. You too were a part of the XStreet to SLMP migration, and you're having issues.

Take a look at the JIRAs for people who are having problems with marketplace, and every one I've seen has been below 90,000.

You can find a store ID by searching for a merchant on marketplace, going to it, and looking at the URL.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/15155

That is your store and your ID is 15,155. Definitely before the merger of XStreet and SLMP, and you're having issues.

To further test this theory, I have made an alt account where I plan on selling things I originally sold under the FYI brand name as a new name with a new store on a new account. I have a few things I know sell, and I will put them up with the same product pictures (with the vendor name changed, that's it), same title, same text and same price. Make it identical to the other one except for different seller and new store created after the XStreet to SLMP migration.

I have a feeling that sales will be more consistent doing this, although not entirely consistent. I am nearly certain there's more bugs than stores being closed and images getting mixed up, but they're extremely hard to find, let alone find proof that they're happening. It's sort of crazy and a little conspiracy theorist, but I see no other reason as to why I would have a product consistently sell multiple times a day for a few weeks, something happens to my magic box (I get the DEBUG_TRACKER reset box message), sales die, I reset up the magic boxes (delete them from in world, remove from XStreet website, rerez) and a new item would be the hot seller and the old one that was selling a few copies a day no now longer sells at all. I had played with that since september last year. I have almost half a year testing this and by the time I was done I had them figured out so that I could put my most expensive items in and get them to sell far more than the cheaper ones.

My theory is that LL really borked the migration. I would be extremely greatful if someone with a 14xxxx listing could tell me when that listing was created. I have a feeling it would be during the migration from XStreetSL to SLMP. A lot of things could have gone wrong.

HoneyBear, if you are interested, I would suggest opening up a new store on an alt account and seeing how much better you do. I imagine that would fix your issue. I have my new store logos all done up (I have to wait 5 days to create the store), and I'm explicitly stating that both stores are owned by me and one is a subsidiary so people don't think my new store copybotted or anything. If you do decide to do this and you think it's worth your time, please keep us updated. Maybe I will make a new thread about this if people are interested in trying. I wouldn't expect people to create their entire stores all over again, just their best selling items.

[nikita Jefferson]

I guess i am one of the lucky ones, my store ID is 23294.

I have had no issues at all, my migration to DD went well, i had a few issues getting rid of unassociated items but in the end i got rid of them all.

I don't sell a lot on MP, (most of my sales are inworld,) part of my items is full avatars and when i searched avatars i went through a few pages of 36000 odd  and did'nt see them so i decided to start from the back and found my avatars there.

Hopefully i won't have any issues, i check my store items every day and they stay constant.

Relevence must be corrected because i just sold a dress the other day and it showed up in first position in my store

[Flea Yatsenko]

I think this is why it's been around for so long and not fixed. It doesn't affect everyone, just a few people. Those are the hardest kinds of bugs to find and fix. If everyone had problems it would be fixed really quick (for Lindentime).

If you've ever programmed you know that you can have things work perfectly for 95% of the people you give your program to, and there's just a few people who do something that makes everything blow up or they're just unlucky. Plus, I never noticed the odd behavior until I moved my magic box, sales plummeted, and I looked at sale data.

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Flea Yatsenko wrote:

I have been doing research as to who seems to be affected by odd sales and bugs and who hasn't and I've found something pretty interesting.

My store ID is in the 80,000s, and I made it a while before the XStreetSL migration to SLMP.

The point I'm trying to make is that I've had issues with SLMP and I was here before the migration. I looked you up on SLMP to see your store ID and it is lower than mine. You too were a part of the XStreet to SLMP migration, and you're having issues.

 

Take a look at the JIRAs for people who are having problems with marketplace, and every one I've seen has been below 90,000.

That is your store and your ID is 15,155. Definitely before the merger of XStreet and SLMP, and you're having issues.

My theory is that LL really borked the migration. I would be extremely greatful if someone with a 14xxxx listing could tell me when that listing was created. I have a feeling it would be during the migration from XStreetSL to SLMP. A lot of things could have gone wrong.

---

My store ID is 13,510.  I was here for the migration (and prior to that).  To the best of my recollection, my 14xxxx listings were listed sometime in late 2008/early 2009.

I really don't want to create an alternate account store, but it is an interesting theory.  Please keep us posted if you see a difference in yours.

[Spica Inventor]

Unusually warm weather and Spring is having an impact. That damn global warming! Combined with L.L. cheapness. hehe ;-)

[Myrylyn]

Here are my latest weekly figures, for what it is worth, as well as a graph of my historical records all the way back to selling my first product:

EOW - Earnings

4/8 - $US 208.33

4/15 - $US 162.58

4/22 - $US 91.40

4/29 - $(US 45.26

 

Make of it what you will. My store number is 95818 and I never suffered any sort of problems with my store. For me the conversion to DD was very smooth and painless. Nonetheless, I cannot explain the areas below that I've highlighted.

Perhaps someone else has some theories.

 

[Myrylyn]

I hasten to add that I try not to use keyword spamming and none of my work falls under the 60's-70's theme of "madstyle." That could account, perhaps, for the week-over-week 50% dropoff in sales I suffered in April.

 

You can bet that the next time the Marketplace has a promotion, I'm going to do a very nasty Frenemy-Style interpretation on it. Within the TOS, of course.

 

:matte-motes-big-grin-evil:

[Spica Inventor]

Well you had a big spike in sales around 4/8. Did you just release some new products about that time? I know that when I put new products on the market they usuall;y seem to sell alot more at first, and then drop off not too long after. Probably has to do with the available customers in S.L. being mostly 'old timers' and then you have to rely heavily on noobs for sales afterwords. If you have a fan base, that could have an effect on the new product spikes as well. However, a few of my products seem to be more 'consistent' with sales volume thoughout their existance. My store number is above 200k.

[mtwtfss71]

---

Flea Yatsenko wrote:

To further test this theory, I have made an alt account where I plan on selling things I originally sold under the FYI brand name as a new name with a new store on a new account. I have a few things I know sell, and I will put them up with the same product pictures (with the vendor name changed, that's it), same title, same text and same price. Make it identical to the other one except for different seller and new store created after the XStreet to SLMP migration.

 

---

But isn't this against TOS, Flea? You aren't supposed to put the same products up more than once.

[Flea Yatsenko]

Well, now that you mention it I've seen that brought up before, but I remember it being about stopping scammers from selling scam items, getting bad reviews, and then relisting it to remove the bad reviews.

I think it has to do with relisting items that are identical. I think that if you sell your product under a new store name that you are allowed to do so.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/listing_guidelines#re-listing-items

It states that by relisting an item you're trying to hide negative reviews. I don't have any negative reviews for my existing buildings. I have seen other mechants on these forum selling their own products under different stores and different prices to test out marketing and pricing. Other than pushing your product to the top of the new sorting, I don't know what you'd gain from relisting a successful product. I'm not trying to be decietful or anything and I'm letting it be known that the new products under a new store name are related to my store. I am pretty confident in my products and I've had lots of happy customers, I have no reason to abandon the reputation I've built up.

I could technically just retexture it and call it a different product. I could probably do that just to play it safe. The TOS is kind of blurry here. It says it's misrepresentation of a product, but if you have the same product, no reviews, no discussion, and you use the same marketing tools are you really misrepresenting anything by changing the name of the merchant store?

For my little test, things would have to be as similar as possible, and if my buildings had a bunch of reviews either positive or negative, it would mess things up. It would also mess things up to change the text, images, etc. I basically just want to test to see if the size of your store and the age of your store affects your sales as I think it's possible LL had some issues with some people when they migrated to SLMP from XStreet.

If it does end up showing evidence that this is going on, it'd be immensely helpful to the merchants who have problems. I think that there's enough evidence that something went extremely wrong (for a limited number of people) in the migration by the fact that the mixed up search results only affect older merchants. It's entirely possible something really small (like changing "Opt out of the Marketplace Beta" in the dropdown on the old XStreet website a few times would cause chaos, and only a few users would have done it). 

I changed nothing except I resetup my magic boxes one month, and I had three days where I beat record sales and I doubled my monthly income in the time when I was messing with things. Even after switching to DD I've had massive profit increases. I honestly don't know if I'm still affected by these issues anymore. But it does seem like there are people who are affected by it even moving to DD.

I would encourage other users who have had odd sale patterns and problems with magic boxes or DD who have migrated from XStreetSL to join me in at least setting up a new store and selling new or old products there. I really do believe that there are issues that are only affecting a small number of users, most of which (if not all) that have been through the migration. There's absolutely no way that this has affected everyone, and I doubt the people it has affected have been affected in the same way.

But, to be honest, with the marketplace having the issues that it's having, I don't know how reliable things would be if you were to open up a new store right now. Sales are still pretty erratic day to day and everything seems to be blowing up a lot lately, even the grid.

[mtwtfss71]

Yes Flea. I think you are interpreting that correctly so I guess I'm wrong. It seems to me that I read somewhere that listing the same product more than once is considered unfair as it floods the market. Now I can't seem to be able to find where I read it. lol If I do manage to find it, I'll post it here!

 

And I agree, it would be valuable to get the data.

[Myrylyn]

Regarding the re-listing of items, I think it within reason and within the bounds of "fair play" to re-list and item that has zero sales and/or zero reviews. It's entirely possible that one might list an item only to have it flooded out by a massive listing of similiar items by another store owner.

I can't tell you how many times my items have been flooded out by someone else's "one-in-every-color" batch of new items.

 

As and aside...

Gosh, it would certainly help customers if each listing we did had the option to have seperate SKUs in it-- you know, a drop down for each color / pattern / flavor. From the client side, wading through a listing of one stores very, very similiar items can be quite tedious.

If the Marketplace had such a feature, you can bet I would use it for my similar items.