DEMOs in the Marketplace

[Nad Gough]

I just wanted to look at free stuff, ya know? So I go to the marketplace and enter "mesh" hit the search - and order by price low to high. That works.  Except at least the first 200 pages that one gets from this search are DEMOS. This means that anyone (like ppl new to SL) looking for free stuff is gonna be - not satisfied.

 

Please LL fix this. either add the capability to do a "-demo" or put demos in a category all their own.The "-demo" approach allows everyone to decide to view demos are not. Seriously. Hundreds of pages of DEMOs on a search ordered price low to high. This is not even functional. Thank you.

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[Bree Giffen]

I second your request although I have seen people bring this up before and nothing has happened yet. Until it gets fixed the only workaround is to try searching for key words that are used when a shop owner has a free item for sale like GIFT or FREEBIE or even just FREE.

[Sassy Romano]

Nad, using NOT demo can give some respite.

[Teagan Tobias]

DEMO's should be removed completely from the market place. The only place you should see them is on a product page. See the product, want a demo, click the demo on the product page.

I have said this or similar before, your talking to a brick wall, give it up.

It would be a great step in retaining new users. Look you can play SL without spending an arm and a leg.

[Nad Gough]

That's so awesome! Why dint I think to try that! Thank you, Sassy!

 update: I tried this... it filters some out but it is still not functional.

If Linden Labs is interested in retaining ppl who try out SL, this would be a very good place to do a very small amount of work.

I agree with Teagan Tobias's comment. Personally I will not (that should be NOT) even consider a vendor who junks up the marketplace with this kindsa stuff - one entry for each color etc. Even when I shop in world and see an article I like, I check out the vendor on marketplace first. Junking up the marketplace listings is a DEFINITE stopper on my purchases. It's hard to believe that anyone thinks this is an effective way to show their goods.

I dont put in these lines below I dont even use chrome <script charset="UTF-8" type="application/javascript" src="chrome://hdv/content/hdv.js"></script>

 

[Teagan Tobias]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Nad, using NOT demo can give some respite.

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Does not work for me

[TundraFire Nightfire]

I get DEMOs all the time and I think it would be easier to search the listings for DEMO items without the other stuff non-DEMO mishmashed in.

[Perrie Juran]

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Teagan Tobias wrote:

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Nad, using NOT demo can give some respite.

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Does not work for me

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Did you use ALL CAPS?  The Boolean terms need to be in ALL CAPS.

I use it and get some respite but I have also seen sometimes Merchants use the run on word, for instance "hairdemo" rather than "hair demo."  Those don't get filtered.

[Teagan Tobias]

Market place > apparel > women's 812543 items.

Searched for skirt NO DEMO and got 330 items, first 10 on the page of 12 are DEMO.

Searched for just skirt and got 170353 items.

Does not work, for me anyhow.

[Kelli May]

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Teagan Tobias wrote:

Market place > apparel > women's 812543 items.

Searched for

skirt NO DEMO

and got 330 items, first 10 on the page of 12 are DEMO.

Searched for just

skirt

and got 170353 items.

Does not work, for me anyhow.

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Not NO, but NOT

If you want to look for skirts that aren't demo, your search terms would be:

skirt NOT demo

As Perrie says, merchants get around it by using terms like "Clothingdemo" or "demo!", but it should cut the numbers of demos down significantly. You can also use the terms AND and OR where relevant; like (skirt AND mesh) NOT demo.

[Bree Giffen]

I think you have to use the word NOT and not NO. I wonder if we can use other booleans. Ohh just saw Kelli's reply. Thanks for the info.

[Teagan Tobias]

LOL, If I do it right it works a lot better. Not perfect but much better.

Thanks

[Sassy Romano]

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Nad Gough wrote:

I will not (that should be NOT) even consider a vendor who junks up the marketplace with this kindsa stuff - one entry for each color etc.

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It's not the merchants fault, it's the broken system that LL delivered. 

MP was *supposed* to consolidate colours into one listing, same with demo's.

LL didn't do what the customer or the merchant wanted but we did get a Facebook "like" button that nobody asked for.

Incidentally, you're not the first to feel this way, it's a common rant, here's a couple of similar threads from the merchants forums:-

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Demo-Scewing-Search-improvments/m-p/2697896#U2697896

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Marketplace-0-1-Is-Being-Abused/m-p/2321975#U2321975

[Nad Gough]

I see. Sort of. Because some vendors were doing this on the old site too. But certainly I can understand this largely happening due to a misunderstanding between LL and the vendors.

 

Again, fixing this is not financially challenging nor technically difficult. I'd take the opportunity to fix this after understanding the impact on user retention.  NOT (all caps fixing this means Linden Labs loses another possibility. So it's either a no brainer or no brains IMHO.

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[Conifer Dada]

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Teagan Tobias wrote:

DEMO's should be removed completely from the market place. The only place you should see them is on a product page. See the product, want a demo, click the demo on the product page.

I have said this or similar before, your talking to a brick wall, give it up.

It would be a great step in retaining new users.

Look you can play SL without spending an arm and a leg.

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All that would be needed is a 'demo' option for sellers when they list an object, which would automatically distinguish it from freebies or L$1bies.

[Czari Zenovka]

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Nad Gough wrote:

Personally I will not (that should be NOT) even consider a vendor who junks up the marketplace with this kindsa stuff - one entry for each color etc. 

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Many merchants have been asking (begging) LL for the option of being able to list multiple colors of an item (a blouse, for example) in one MP listing for YEARS...at least since 2008 going back to the old forums where a very lengthy thread  existed on the subject of SL marketing, so this is largely a situation that is built into the MP software and not merchants deliberately trying to "junk up the marketplace."  While there are some merchants who do contribute to the MP search mess, it is largely due to the misuse of keywords.

@Teagan, I'm not sure if a demo could be included with the item listing for the same reason that multiple colors cannot be in one listing.  That would be the logical place for a demo and I would love that feature as well.

edit: clarification

[Czari Zenovka]

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Nad Gough wrote:

Again, fixing this is not financially challenging nor technically difficult. I'd take the opportunity to fix this after understanding the impact on user retention.  NOT (all caps

fixing this means Linden Labs loses another possibility. So it's either a no brainer or no brains IMHO.

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Merchants would love to see a LOT of things fixed pertinent to the MP; come check out some of the posts over there and you'll see a lot of gnashing of teeth over very simple things that could easily be corrected, according to people who have posted who understand coding, but have remained untouched for years.  Trust me, many merchants are as aggravated about a lot of things as you are.

[Sassy Romano]

Conifer, a product is already identified as a demo by merchants by the process of setting it as a demo hyperlinked from another listing via the demo field.

 

Merchants have done all they can here. The fail rests entirely with LL by not excluding these items from search.

[CheriColette]

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Teagan Tobias wrote:

DEMO's should be removed completely from the market place. The only place you should see them is on a product page. See the product, want a demo, click the demo on the product page.

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As it happens ..I saw this option last night when shopping in marketplace. 

Works well..and I agree, it should be the way its done in the future.  But demos arent free any more.....there is a small cost to try.

[Sassy Romano]

You're not correct there, demos are whatever price the merchant chooses to set them at.  If you found a merchant charging for demos then go elsewhere!

That option to get the demo from a listing has always been there, the problem is that the merchants has to create a separate listing and thus the demo gets "found" on its own.  It should never be returned from search and should only ever be clickable from the full product.