Why demo products are sold for 1L$

[Leffe Levenque]

Since some time I have been wondering why it is that some merchants sell their demo for 1L$

I know it is a small amount, but if looking for hair or skins one might buy loads of demos to try out to see which fits best.

Hundreds of lindens are spend the last couple of months to find some new hairstyles and after a while I just gave up looking at shops where they charge that 1$L fee to try on some hair.

Customers will most likely pay a linden for a demo, if it doesn't look any good, leave the shop. On the other hand when demos are free, they might try on other styles then the ones they are looking for and purchase things they actually didn't came for in the first place, which happens to me all the time

I never got charged in any rl shop either for trying out clothes

So tell me, is there a specific reason, other then trying to make profit on selling demos?

[Liquid Panthar]

If you need extra prims to place demo vendors (it really is only one prim per products) then I think that should be covered in the price of the retail version and not by charging for a demo. There are few places that I will pay for something that will get thrown away after one use and the cost of those items is so high  and the items such good quality that when I do go there I'm prepaired to fork out regardless of any cost. And I know there's a hair place that charges 5L$ for a demo.... I haven't been back there since I ran for the door.

For my own products I only put on a 1L$ price tag if I'm giving the proceeds for the item to charity. Otherwise I think its unnecessary and a deterent to potential customers. If people are doing it simply through force of habbit then they need to change with the times.

[Sooge Solo]

I also think it would be best for stores that want to track to refund the L$1 and post a sign stating the fact where everyone can see. Works for everyone.

Sooge

[Saikiki Moriguchi]

one reason they might charge is because some ppl (looks around innocently) will buy a demo hair and wear it around as if it was normal hair...but i have to agree it is prolly for tracking purposes...how many ppl are willing to buy a demo and then buy the real thing?...if enough ppl are buying both the seller knows they have a good price and product...if not too many ppl are buying the demo or the product or after they buy the demo then the seller will know its over priced or not a style that ppl want

[Doris Haller]

There should be a better way to trythings before you buy than buying a demo. After all, SL tries to be a commercial vehicle..

The shop owner should be able to set up temporary transfer times for free items. They would be returned after that time, just like the auto-return of rezzed objects in some area. This should be possible for objects, clothes, gestures, shapes, and while we're at it animations too. Not sure about tetxtures though.

[Ghosty Kips]

You walk around with demo hair? LOL ... do you care if the box over your head matches your outfits, I wonder?

[Groovebunny Shabazz]

I really don't mind paying 1L to demo a product I really want to try. The way I figure it...the majority of merchants in SL are not getting rich off their in-world products and are lucky if they're breaking even in sales to pay for the shop rental or land tier fees.  However, I am mindful that some people may be put off by having to pay 1L to demo my products so I keep all my demos at 0L. I really don't want to charge for something someone will not be able to wear outside of my shop. But if they're at a party where the theme is to wear all your demo items for a prize, I would hope that person would send me a 1L if they happen to win! lol jk.

Also...since someone mentioned the icck factor with the 0L product...while I understand it, there are a lot of creators in SL who are creating and putting content out there for the enjoyment of it. Some choose to do the freebie as a group gift or just set them in their shop. I have some 0L and 1L items in my shop that I happen to think is very good quality and really meant to help noobs feel good about their avatar and appearance. It might be funny though to put my earliest creations out as a freebie and call it the "Box of Ickk!"...hehe

[Corinne Cerise]

I never got charged in any rl shop either for trying out clothes

So tell me, is there a specific reason, other then trying to make profit on selling demos?

 

The point is the commercial process is not the same in SL and RL. So, I'm not quite sure the comparison with RL shops can be an argument. In SL, for obvious reasons, you need demo items while you don't RL, where you simply try out the acutal product. And a demo pack requires some specific work of its own (such as applying the "demo" label onto a skin or placing a box on top of hair, etc).

This additional work may possibly explain why Demos are dollarbies.

Just my two cents

[VonGklugelstein Alter]

Here are the main reasons:

 

Most commonly used vendor scripts cannot complete a zero dollar transaction and need a price .. some better vendor script have a " refund 1L purchases Feature" which is optional. In most cases if set up properly you will get your 1L back instantly.

 

On X-street the main reason is that there are people who will click on anything that is free causing a overload of transactions sent to the delivery boxes.. each time the box is busy delivering a freebie it cannot deliver a product that has a value. Charging 1L makes sure that only people that are actually interested in the demo will get it, as opposed to junk collectors who buy anything no matter what just because its 0L

 

Here is something to consider:

Did you ever try to ask for your 1L back from a merchant that charges 1L for a demo? Chances are that most will give you the money back without a question.

[Syd Silverweb]

I just attach a big transparent sphere to my ear, which covers the Demo box floating over my head... now it looks like normal hair... (I don't, but this will actually work for some demos). Hehehe....  Plus, some demos are mod (by mistake I am assuming)... delink the box, and voila!

[VeiledVamp Veranes]

I wonder how many of you even realize that once upon a time, there were no demos at all. For anything. Not for hair. Not for shoes. Not for skins or shapes. Not for outfits. No limited-per-use items you could test drive. Not for anything. Can some of you even image that?

I also wonder how many of you has ever made or attempted to make hair. Any one of you know the amount of time and work that goes into that? The resources required. The textures just right. The flexi just right. The size just right. Every conceivable color that anyone could possibly want. Not to mention that certain style that each person wants. The packaging. The options. The photo ads. The place to make that all available for any one of you who is in search of just that right set of locks to adorn your otherwise bald and empty head.

A creator wants one lousy Linden dollar for a demo version of his or her product line, for you to try before you buy, so you can be certain in advance if the style and color suits you. And typically, all many of you can do is snivel and whine about it.

It may or at one time been for tracking purposes. It may be to offset the time and effort spent trying to keep business afloat. The practice has been in place long before the Freebie Roadmap was written, so to even suggest that is ludicrous, but naturally someone had to suggest it.

Or maybe they simply feel that 1L is just not that much to ask.

For many of you, it obviously is. And for that reason, you will always have to option to shop with them and begrudge giving up your lousy 1L, or with someone else.

This is just one more example of the growing sense of entitlement which has become so pervasive in recent years.

[Amanda Lyon]

This response is an "answer"?

VeiledVamp.Veranes wrote:

 

I wonder how many of you even realize that once upon a time, there were no demos at all. For anything. Not for hair. Not for shoes. Not for skins or shapes. Not for outfits. No limited-per-use items you could test drive. Not for anything. Can some of you even image that?

1. What I just read here is, "I walked uphill in the snow both ways. So hush up about your problems. Nobody cares."

I also wonder how many of you has ever made or attempted to make hair. Any one of you know the amount of time and work that goes into that? The resources required. The textures just right. The flexi just right. The size just right. Every conceivable color that anyone could possibly want. Not to mention that certain style that each person wants. The packaging. The options. The photo ads. The place to make that all available for any one of you who is in search of just that right set of locks to adorn your otherwise bald and empty head.

2. You make it sound like it's more than just adding a box and a red stripe. And to EVERY sample? I think not. Unless you're doing it the REALLY hard way.

A creator wants one lousy Linden dollar for a demo version of his or her product line, for you to try before you buy, so you can be certain in advance if the style and color suits you. And typically, all many of you can do is snivel and whine about it.

3. If it's just one lousy Linden, why is it so important that they have to have it? Snivel and whine? Really? Is it just me or is that almost insulting? I know a lot of big businesses that consider customer feedback "snivelling and whining." Oh, wait, not anymore.

It may or at one time been for tracking purposes. It may be to offset the time and effort spent trying to keep business afloat. The practice has been in place long before the Freebie Roadmap was written, so to even suggest that is ludicrous, but naturally someone had to suggest it.

Or maybe they simply feel that 1L is just not that much to ask.

4. It may not be that much to ask from each person for each demo, but I can see how it would add up for the seller. I suppose if you sell crap you probably need all the demo money you can get.

For many of you, it obviously is. And for that reason, you will always have to option to shop with them and begrudge giving up your lousy 1L, or with someone else.

5. Again with the "lousy" dollar. It's only "lousy" when you want someone elses. Why is it not "measly" enough to warrant giving free demos?

This is just one more example of the growing sense of entitlement which has become so pervasive in recent years.

6. I don't consider try-before-you-buy "entitlement". That's good business, but only if you want happy customers.

[Farrah Foss]

Many demo vendors (not on XStreet but inworld) refund the L$1. They are clearly using the money to help in tracking. I don't have a problem with that, but lately the trend to charge for everything from group membership to demo pacs seems to be getting out of line.

LL has apparently stated that selling an item inworld below L$10 is the same as giving it away, so people who wholesale resell freebies stay off the radar if they charge L$10 or less.

Reselling freebies, charging for passage across a parcel, charging for demos, highly overpriced houses and objects, seems like some people simply do not have a clue.

[Farrah Foss]

Thats just lame. Put the demos in a decorated prim, set For Sale for L$0 and sell contents. Why use a scripted vendor to hand out freebies?

[Jolene McAndrews]

I really dont think so. You aren't forced to tip just because the jar is there. You HAVE to pay the 1L$ to try a demo. Yes, you can choose not to try the demo but most people in SL hardly ever buy hair/skins/shapes without trying it on for size.

[Alia Baroque]

I had thoughts about this issue in the past, what choice to make, if to change my policy and so on. I never had direct complaints about my demos at 1L but anyway considered someone can think it's a way to abuse the good will of  a customer or many other issues.

Seriously, I can't really even imagine how someone can even consider there can be any profit from 1L demos.

I can give you my personal explanation here:

- For me as main is a matter of tracking, I reach the transaction limit of 500 in something slightly more than one day, being able to take off the 0L gives me around one day more. I have really many freebies around and I find important seeing what people is interested into and sometimes I am unable to download the transaction history daily, which I also need for customer care purpose.

I am not sure how many know the amount of textures a skin takes, but I can give you an example here taking my hybrid line as example. I will not of course even mention the work on creating the skin itself, but just simple plain texture numbers as tga's made from psd files you are working on, and not even the tests but simply the final result. My whole 3 lines of hybrids skins, both genders, are made of 864 textures, and demos for the Hybrid line are made of totally new other 864 textures.Takes time to make demos, and is a necessary thing for a product of this kind.

IF1L cannot be understood as a simple matter of tracking, which IS, then can be at least be considered a small contribution to the demo texture upload cost which is 8.640L and a small thank you for those 0L freebies I offer and that grab me space in my limit of 500 in the transaction history.

But there is one option that would all of us make quite happy, asking Linden Labs to have that limit raised by request, and I do not think is a bad idea at all. And now that they merged the transactions with xstreet is even worst.

Anyway, thanks for reading folks, hope this can help you see how it works on the other side of the demo box,

Alia

 

 

 

 

P.S.

(To those to compare demos to going in a shop and not paying to try  something, did you ever considered the fact you actually try directly  what you buy, and that you do not have another exact same sweater for  trying. Do you have the ability to try at the Hairdresser and then say  when it's over I don't like it I don't pay you? Same with make up  artists and manicure?)

[Ceera Murakami]

Well, a lot of this has been covered in other replies, but here's an answer from someone who has been a merchant in SL for 4+ years, doing everything from clothes to furniture to homes to full-sim building projects.

1: When I started in SL, it was not possible to get a transaction record at all for zero L$ transactions. They were not recorded in the transaction record from LL at all. It was also not possible to set an item as "for sale" with a price of zero L$ - you had to set the box as "free to copy" instead, which again left no transaction record. So any merchant that wanted to provide demo items had to set the item to L$1 for the price, or they would be unable to obtain a record of how popular the demo was, and could not tell which items people had "looked at, but maybe not bought". That sort of information is invaluable in making your product line better. If you can tell from a disparity between demo sales and sales of the actual item that customers like a skin or a dress at first glance, enough to try on the demo, but then don't buy it, you should ask "Why?", and look for ways to fix flaws that may be in that item. Maybe the side seams were bad? Maybe the color of the prim skirt only matched the top at 3 in the afternoon? Info on what demos in particular get taken by customers can tell you a lot. So just dumping all your demos in a single box is no answer, either.

2: Most vending systems, as they were developed, took the above limitations into account. If you know a sell price of zero L$ is impossible, you don't write code for it. The early work-around was to sell for L$1, and have your scripted vendor refund the L$1 after the transaction. This had a risk, however, as occasionally lag or glitches in LL's handling of sales transactions would make a condition where a person could repeatedly make a demo purchase, NOT have to pay anything, and still get the L$1 refund each time, thus draining funds from the merchant's account. So many merchants are leery of settings in a scripted vendor that can pay funds back to a customer without merchant intervention.

3: Demos do cost something to make. Especially with skins or non-prim clothes, the only way to make a demo version is to upload additional textures with "demo" stamped on it somehow. That can double your texture upload costs for texture creation, and in a large line of clothing or skins, that is not a trivial cost. On things like the prim hair with a "Demo version" box floating over your head, you still need to do extra work to make each of those demos, even if you use the same demo box texture for all of them. Time spent making demos needs to be paid for somehow, as it is time you can't be spending making new products. L$1 per demo helps defray those small but swiftly accumulating expenses. L$10 per demo texture adds up for the merchant faster than L$1 per demo item does for the customer.

4: When it was standard practice for ALL demos to be L$1, it was also LL policy that all accounts, even the free first account, got at least L$50 a week in stipend. Everybody had at least that small income, and could use it to buy the demos, even if they never bought L$. Everyone could save up their weekly stipend to buy that dress that they wanted. So an L$1 charge was no big deal.

Eventually, LL changed their system so L$0 purchases could be made, and so L$0 transactions appeared in the transaction record. That happened because the MERCHANTS asked for that feature. But most of the existing "Big box o' freebies for L$1" items didn't get changed over to L$0 items - too much effort, for no return, to track them all down. And it took a while for the vending systems to catch up to the changes, and allow zero L$ transactions in scripted vendors.

Today, new merchants see both L$0 and L$1 demos and freebies, and it's unclear to them which is "best practice".

Leaving demos at L$1 does make it much easier to track them. A busy content creator has a lot of L$0 transactions, every day. Yes, it can be filtered out by various manipulations of the CSV files from LL. But it still takes more effort to do that than to simply eliminate all L$0 transactions from the record.

About "Send as gift" for L$0 items: One thing no one mentioned here. What about sending demo items to your alts? My main does most of my shopping. If I see a skin or some other demo item that might be perfect for one of my alts, but I need to see it on them to be sure, it's much easier for me to simply send that to them "as a gift", than to log off, log on as the alt, get the demo for the alt, log off, log back on as my main, and keep shopping. And a lot of demos are no-transfer or no-copy, so I can't just collect the demos as myself and send them to my alt in-world from my own inventory.

What is best practice today? In my opinion, using zero L$ demos, somehow linked to the original item, as proposed in the new XStreet Marketplace is one very good option. So is doing zero L$ sales of demos form scripted vendors, with a tracking system that can flag the item as a demo, and link it to the associated item. Neither of those options is readily available yet to most merchants, but I see it coming, as SL evolves. The system also needs to be able to provide metrics on zero L$ items that have no associated "for sale" item. For example, I give away free sets of megaprims. I sell no associated product. But I would like to know how often people obtain that free item. If people eventually stopped wanting a free item, I would know I could stop offering it. If people get it a lot, I know the interest is high for that sort of item.

[Alia Baroque]

Thank you Ceera,

That actually gave me some informations more about what might come and really are useful.

Truly a solution provider, and thanks for the transfer demo tip, that I actually found myself many times into, not a bad idea at all. Might use actually xstreet as a source of demos,

Alia

[Allric Mabellon]

Damn Ceera your insight into this matter is really mind blowing Ive always hated paying 1L for a demo, to the point of refusing to 99% of the time. But, and i should smack myself for this being a content creator myself, I hadnt really thought much about the extra time and energy, more so than the extra Upload fees, that people put into demos, especially large hair/skin businesses.

[Happy Toshi]

People dont do it anymore and the people that do it makes them look really greedy cheap I think. 1l 4 a demo that you probably wont wear again. I wont pay it they probably dont get to much business to begin with to many GOOD hair places that have free demos. lol heh