Dash Deal Thread

[Argus Collingwood]

Well, the first DashDeal is out. I will link the blog posts as they appear.

 

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/Introducing-Dash-Deals-on-the-SL-Marketplace/ba-p/826981

 

Why am I thinking that most merchants who post here will not be part of this? :smileywink:

[JubJub Forder]

I am thinking your thinking too :smileysad:

[Ciaran Laval]

Why does this remind me of the message of the day promo large estate owners got.

[Arwen Serpente]

lol, Argus, you're probably right.

I find it interesting that for all the "hype" there is no sign of this deal on the Marketplace home page...I haven't received the "weekly" email which kind of doesn't make sense for a 24 hour special...and I'm not a Facebook/Twitter follower...so I guess shoppers like me aren't really the "target". Not sure how this promotion is being really "promoted" unless you happen to see the blog post or look here for this thread.

What am I missing?

[Shockwave Yareach]

If they think I'm going to setup SL with Facebook or Twitter just because I (MAY) see a great deal on something, they have another thing coming. 

 

Now, a way this COULD work out good would be a "Daily Deal" on the Marketplace itself.  In this setup, the Lindens find a neat item and ask the vendor if they could sell it for half price one day only in exchange for the promotion it will bring to the merchant.  In such a scheme, few vendors would turn down the free money and advertising.  And more attention would be paid to the marketplace homepage (which I only see as I go to search for something, once every 2 weeks or so). THIS would be a wonderful way to showcase items that most people (let's be honest) would never see or even know existed, much less searched for them.

 

The current setup is merely an effort to make more people connect SL with their Facebook accounts.  I won't have anything to do with letting Facebook into my SL, so this effort and any other effort at cramming FB down my throat is a waste of time.  If Facebook was so amazing, there would be no need for SL to push it as hard as they are pushing -- it would attract us automatically, just like Second Life did.  (emphasis on that past tense.)  Brooke, if you have to bribe us to go someplace, then clearly it isn't someplace most want to go.

 

And had LL not run things so terribly the past 3 years, Facebook would be paying LL to connect up their FB accounts to SL accounts instead of the other way around.  Doesn't that just grate your cheese?  If it doesn't, it sure grates on those of us diehards who are still in SL.

[Canis Baxton]

If your inventory of products is large enough and you have a group for your product line, you can do your very own "Deal of the Day" and reach all of the people who like your products.....all for free.

 

So this dash deal is a waste of time and money for most merchants

[Shockwave Yareach]

You know, that brings up an interesting point Canis.  Do most customers Like, Dislike, or have no opinion about being prodded over and over about sales, new products and the like?  I personally do not have any sort of advertising for the simple reason that I'm in SL to get away from things like that which permeate every second of RL.  I thus assume my customers likewise don't want to be bothered -- just sell them their gizmodo and let them have fun with it.  More and more though I think that I'm actually in the minority of SL citizens that think this way. 

[Ciaran Laval]

The email is doing the rounds, people have reported receiving it. However, you're right about the 24 hour issue, some people won't see it until it's too late.

They have blogged it too.

[Darrius Gothly]

LOL I routinely get their mass emailings 3-4 days after they are posted. So yup, that puts me at a great disadvantage for snapping up that lovely gown.

(Now I just have to wait until 3-4 days after the matching pumps and tiara go on sale .. and I'll be strutting fine!)

[Shockwave Yareach]

*visualizes Darrius in the matching pumps*

 

Oooookay.  This is more about you than I ever expected or wanted to know!

[Canis Baxton]

Hehe well, there is a limit to the spam people want. Now I receive a daily email from NewEgg that lists thier discounted products of the day. I tend to look at it most of the time in case I can snag a good deal.

However the constant spam from Nordic Track and Yankee Candle can be annoying...So the way to please both types of people is to have one group thats for just questions and new product announcements and one for the daily/weekly deals/new product announcements

[Toysoldier Thor]

Honestly there is NO GOOD WAY for LL to be proceeding with DASH DEAL. 

Many Merchants have already chimed in from the first hour that LL Commerce announced this hair-brain idea.  Its a bad idea as...

 

1. Does nothing to promote SLM as a whole to increase sales (only bargain hunters snagging the firesale)
2. It has LL selectively promoting only favored Merchants that they select based on some secret LL formula
3. Similar to how the Midnight Mania and Lucky Chairs were fundamental factors to depress SL content across most of the economy - LL is using the same style of "give away" bargain prices as a desperate strategy to increase SLM traffic
4. As to point #3 - this approach for most MM merchants has proven to not be successful in actually increasing sale - just traffic that is purely targetted to snagging the good deal and running (like smart mice to a trap)
5.  It distracts the LL Commerce Team's efforts to focus on the issues and critical SLM problems that their customers/merchants have constantly been asking for LL Commerce to address

LL COMMERCE should not be marketing and promoting an absolutely microcosm of LL selected/favors SLM merchants  - in fact they should not be marketing the SLM market at all.  They should focus on building an effective set of marketing / advertising tools and offering these tools at reasonable prices for MERCHANTS to do the marketing with.

Brooke..... LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS.... to pretend to be listening.

[Darrius Gothly]

 

---

Shockwave Yareach wrote:

*visualizes Darrius in the matching pumps*

 

Oooookay.  This is more about you than I ever expected or wanted to know!

---

 

/me pirouettes gracefully ... "They don't make my ass look fat, do they?" ROFL!

PS: And now to add insult to injury .. I just got the email about the Dash Deal. *facepalm* Sneaky sneaky LL! I never get the usual stuff this fast! LOL

[Claireschen Hesten]

i didn't get the email so didn't know about it i logged in to the marketplace not long before seeing this there was no mention of the deal dash i think that would be prime place to promote itr 

[Medhue Simoni]

If you ask me, marketing and advertising has gotten a really bad name because of things like TV and websites that cram it down your throat. In many cases, It is just getting worse too. If I'm searching for a video on Youtube, I sure as hell don't want to watch a 30 second commercial before I see the dang video I actually came there to see. This kind of stuff is extremely retarded and whoever in the marketing department at youtube came up with this should be fired right away.

There are times that marketing is extremely handy and get you right when you are looking for it. Inworld search is a prime example of this. It is too bad that inworld search has been fubar'd for so dang long.

As far as this deal thing goes, I didn't get an email. Missed it on twitter, until I went back and looked. Yeah, I have a FB account, and I don't mind people knowing who I am in RL,but I'm not looking on FB for SL stuff. Sure, i post alot of SL stuff, cause SL is what I am doing most of the time. The thing is, I don't want people asking for support through FB. I can barely get anything done in SL when I go inworld. Heck, today I got an email from an SL resident. Why did they not IM me?

Oh, and if you did not see any of the forums, tweets, or facebook, then you would not even know it happened. I can't believe there is nothing on the marketplace about it. So they want us to pay them half of half, for a few messages. WOW!

[Shockwave Yareach]

I don't dispute that abuse is possible in the setup.  But if LL does it with the objective of a) showing off gadgets and neat things that just searching won't reveal, and b) giving ALL creators a shot at the front page (instead of only the well heeled bigtime names) so they can gain some name recognition, it would be a good shot in the arm for all.  Customers seeing something they never knew existed could become fans of a whole different thing in SL.  It could be good for LL, merchants and SL customers who are getting bored with their current stuff.  All Win.

 

This of course assumes that LL won't limit the specials to only its favorite people.  They would need to spread the wealth and opportunity around, something which they don't have a very good track record of doing.  While I see your concerns about how it would likely be implemented, I still think that there is a vast potential good for merchants and customers alike in a properly done One-day-showcase that may just be the shot in the arm that we all need. 

 

As for me, my gadgets in the store are simply there because I feel greedy if I don't share my best and cleverest stuff.  If they sell, I get my ego boost.  If not, I don't care.  I'm in SL for fun and personal satisfaction.

[Lera Keng]

I have just read about this DashDeal through the email that was sent out.  I took a look at the blog posted about it which has very little information for merchants about how the dash deal is operated other than:

"Hand-picked by the Linden team from Merchant submissions"

Exactly how/where are merchants submitting their products??  Is there a place in Marketplace to sumit because I cannot locate any information within Marketplace about DashDeals - or is it a separate place entirely?

It is very discriminatory of them to not give EVERY merchant on the Marketplace an opportunity to submit a product on this test program.  This could be an excellent opportunity for small businesses to get good exposure for their items (granted all the posts above about the reported email delays and other caveats). 

My two cents - It seems the only thing that gets added to Marketplace is more ways for them to make money and not actual fixes to the inherent problems therein that cause sales to plummet and deliveries to fail thereby pissing off the very consumers they want to attract to the Marketplace.  All those things that have little to do with merchants but hurt our reputations/sales nonetheless.

[Suella Ember]

 

---

Lera Keng wrote:

Exactly how/where are merchants submitting their products??  Is there a place in Marketplace to sumit because I cannot locate any information within Marketplace about DashDeals - or is it a separate place entirely?

---

 

See here:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Commerce/Dash-Deal-Test-Program-Opportunity-for-SL-Marketplace-Merchants/ba-p/768033

It's currently a test program. Should they decide to keep it going full time, I'd imagine there will be a more direct submission process from the merchant page or something.

[Claireschen Hesten]

 

---

Lera Keng wrote:

"Hand-picked by the Linden team from Merchant

submissions

"

Exactly how/where are merchants submitting their products??  Is there a place in Marketplace to sumit because I cannot locate any information within Marketplace about DashDeals - or is it a separate place entirely?

 

---

 

there was a blog post about it and submissions for the test program are now closed  http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Commerce/Dash-Deal-Test-Program-Opportunity-for-SL-Marketplace-Merchants/ba-p/768033 i had thought about putting my self in for it but my stuff is so cheap i didn't think it was worth me only making 25% of the items value once you take out the 50% discount and LL's comission (50% of item value after discount)

 

[Jim Tarber]

I received the email this afternoon, after seeing the occasional reference to "dash deal" in twitter messages.

I looked, blinked twice, looked again.  I can't believe it.  Linden Lab is singling out specific single products from specific single vendors... like one at a time?  This will do nothing for Second Life, except to alienate a few competitors of the products getting this preferential treatment, and to annoy large groups of residents with irrelevant spam.

No, I'm not interested in wearing a dress.

And I'm highly annoyed that Linden Lab would abuse that email channel they have to me in this way.  Like the inappropriate marketing of a specific brand of bunnies to me by the grid owner, this is one of the biggest mistakes I have seen in recent SL history.  This was a horrible, horrible idea and the decision to proceed should be reviewed by those in charge.

Someone in the decision hierachy there is in over their head.  Please terminate this program without repeating it.

[Katrina Pugilist]

I agree. It seems very inappropriate and unfair to promote a single merchant. Especially when the criteria for being chosen are so vague.

And there should be an opt in or out choice on the Dash Deals. Let people choose if they want to subscribe to a Groupon style promotion for SL.  Or at least offer those who are annoyed by the spam and the concept an option to unsubscribe.

*irked

Kat

 

 

 

[Kornscope Komachi]

It's competition people! The Linden is marketing against you.

I suggest merchants have their own "Double Dash",  "Triple Dash" and "Quadro Dash Deals"

Mark Make up some prices content  and join in the fun.

 

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Kornscope Komachi wrote:

It's competition people! The Linden is marketing against you.

I suggest merchants have their own "Double Dash",  "Triple Dash" and "Quadro Dash Deals"

Mark

Make up some

prices

content  and join in the fun.

 

---

Its not as if any SLM merchant wanted to out-price / under-price the LL Dash Deal of the day that they couldnt.  In fact, we all could cut our prices by 60% or even 70% and make our Dash Deal far more attractive then LL's Dash Deal and even lose less money than if LL blessed the rare merchant by promoting their product (since for the LL Dash Deal, the Merchant is cutting their revenue on the item by 75% - LL get 50% of the cut of any DD deal).

The one major disadvantage these DD competing merchants would have with LL's Dash Deals is that none of us have access to LL's customer user database where they use their spam their customers, and have huge followers on their SL wide twitter and facebook groups, and wherever else they use their monopoly access to promote ONE SLM MERCHANT.  You cant compete with that.

Not that most merchants want to anyway - or else we will now further propogate the devastating SL Content price collapse that Midnight Mania and Lucky Chairs and other desperate sales grabbing gimmicks have already done to the SL economy.

But if LL wants to promote the marketing concept of generating SLM traffic at any cost by promoting some few specially selected Merchant's content based on unknown secret selection criteria... THEN... maybe the Merchant Community needs to create a third-party SLM MIDNIGHT MANIA site where the scavaging freebie and super bargain hunters can flock to and find out what AWESOME 60% 70% super 24 hour sales are available on SLM.

If LL wants to encourage this... then there is no stopping the creation of a SLM FIRE SALE promo site.  At least it will be fair in that LL would be secretly hand selecting with of the 10s 100s 1000s of participating DD Merchants they will promote.

For those that are saying this is the first they heard of LL's Dumb Dash, I will say that Brooke advertised this like a month ago and then her team had to promote it again since I assume so many SLM Merchant put up their palms to this really bad marketing idea from LL.

I so much home Rodvik engages and sits the LL Commerce Team down and asks them:

"What the heck is your team doing with ideas like this Dash Deal ?"...

"Why is your team promoting one or two or even 10 specific Merchant's and their products over the 10's of thousands of other SLM Merchants?"

"How does this marketing and promotion strategy in any way help SLM and address the bigger issues with SLM?"

"Why do you want to generate traffic by gutting / cutting prices?"  "Show me the increase in general SLM traffic and sales because your team is spamming our customer-base with the products of a couple Merchants".

I sure hope Rodvik starts sitting his teams down and asking some tough questions.  LL COMMERCE TEAM needs to be asked some serious questions - the Merchants of SL are generating a lot of LL's revenue... dont abandon them Rod.

[Lera Keng]

Thank you for the info, replies and links!

I followed those links to the wiki (http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Dash_Deal_Test_Program) which is what told me that the application program closed March 28th anyhow.  Gee they can send us fashion show event junk mail, advertising for DashDeals but not email us to let us know that something has been flagged and de-listed, or reviewed or any number of important things.  I read this as well:

"We will be considering various factors when selecting the items to feature, including popularity of the product and brand on Marketplace and the potential to appeal to a wide audience. We will be focusing on a diverse set of products for the purposes of this test."

Who makes this junk up? 

Sorry small or unknown business owners who possibly haven't sold too much on Marketplace and those who sell things under a certain price-mark $L - I guess we are again excluded. Heck even if I wanted to sell in the Dash Deal my bestseller is 60L then with the 50% off sale for 24hrs and the 50% commission from LL, I would make a cool 15L per unit sold!  Yay

I am going filter that DashDeal email to spam.

[Paladin Pinion]

I thought I'd give it a shot so I applied, and received a "sorry, you weren't selected" email a few days ago. LL said there were thousands of applicants and they only had six slots for this test run. I was surprised when I saw today that the first item was a dress. You'd think they'd choose something less gender-specific for their "wide audience" appeal.