The new Marketplace Features coming - Merchant Survey Requirement

[Blueberryxx]

42 minutes ago, Elvina Ewing said:

no it's not. Even not looking outside of SL at all, just within SL's own environment, - if LL kept steadily increasing MP commissions with 1% each year starting many years ago, we'd just call it inflation and nobody would say a word of complaint. When they increase commissions from 5% to 30% (or even 25%) overnight, you should expect major shock waves. What happens when RL economy inflation is 30%, is that considered healthy?

 

I was mentioning the exact same thing actually.

 

3 hours ago, Blueberryxx said:

I don't have any insider info, I haven't spoken to any Linden. Disclaimers first. 

I read the forum and saw some numbers thrown around like 25%-30%. I am going to elaborate before it catches wildfire. 

I highly doubt you will ever see Linden Lab come out and say okay now you go from 5% to 25% because we said so. Linden Lab has always been very restrained in how they do their changes. Notice how they just reduced the land fees without increasing the fees with it at the same time? It's because (I am assuming) they want to see what exactly needs to change and from what I am seeing they would rather slowly decrease on land to find a middle point where creators won't pay too much but neither will the customers. 

So from what I have seen so far I expect there to be a raise of 2.5% and they might add another 2.5% if that didn't cover. But from what we have seen over the years, I do not foresee anything in the lines of a sudden crazy change. Linden Lab may have been slow at times, but they are far far smarter than everybody is giving them credit for. I believe @Grumpity Linden when they say they see as partners. We are partners. We are the most significant part of SL economy when utilized properly.

Again, these are my personal expectations, predictions. No claim has been made by any Lindens to me. 

 

[Luna Bliss]

33 minutes ago, Blueberryxx said:

But from what we have seen over the years, I do not foresee anything in the lines of a sudden crazy change. Linden Lab may have been slow at times, but they are far far smarter than everybody is giving them credit for.

You are sounding way too much like you just got off of the blueberry boat. LL in the past made quick changes with disastrous consequences for people. Think of the education islands who suddenly lost their 50% discount and so lost their sims (hello LL, maybe talk to them before you take action and see when new budgets are planned each year), or of the homestead/open space fiasco that cost residents tons of money when they ended suddenly. There's more.

[Charlotte Bartlett]

10 hours ago, Blueberryxx said:

I don't have any insider info, I haven't spoken to any Linden. Disclaimers first. 

I read the forum and saw some numbers thrown around like 25%-30%. I am going to elaborate before it catches wildfire. 

I highly doubt you will ever see Linden Lab come out and say okay now you go from 5% to 25% because we said so. Linden Lab has always been very restrained in how they do their changes. Notice how they just reduced the land fees without increasing the fees with it at the same time? It's because (I am assuming) they want to see what exactly needs to change and from what I am seeing they would rather slowly decrease on land to find a middle point where creators won't pay too much but neither will the customers. 

So from what I have seen so far I expect there to be a raise of 2.5% and they might add another 2.5% if that didn't cover. But from what we have seen over the years, I do not foresee anything in the lines of a sudden crazy change. Linden Lab may have been slow at times, but they are far far smarter than everybody is giving them credit for. I believe @Grumpity Linden when they say they see as partners. We are partners. We are the most significant part of SL economy when utilized properly.

Again, these are my personal expectations, predictions. No claim has been made by any Lindens to me. 

I agree with you. 

 

11 hours ago, Majestic Kohime said:

Hi, you seem to forget that sometimes when an update works badly its better to use back the old technology.

-

I am not talking about an update, I don't believe the current MP has the capability to be updated sufficiently to be fit for purpose.

 

 

 

Edited March 27, 2018 by Charlotte Bartlett
Typo

[Chic Aeon]

I just wanted to point out WHAT HAS OFFICIALLY BEEN SAID ON THIS TOPIC.

From the blog post referenced elsewhere in this thread.

That sounds MOSTLY like cleaning up long gone creator's files, getting demos to ONLY be in a demo section - and / or  a way to have all versions of one item (such as hair that comes with color huds) in ONE listing with  pickable choices (they have that in Kitely). 

I have seen NOTHING official about any 30% raise. In fact it was mentioned both in this blog post AND in the developer's meeting last (anyone can listen to that video) that they were going to move VERY SLOWLY with these changes.

ALSO NOTICE THE LOWER LAND COST FURTHER COMMENT. 

I also want to remind the private land folks that not too long ago they had the option of "lowering tier" with a buydown which if they chose to do that saves them lots of bucks.

So tilting at windmills that might be completely imaginary is really a waste of time. 

"KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW -- KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW" - a good quote to remember. 

[Charlotte Bartlett]

2 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

I just wanted to point out WHAT HAS OFFICIALLY BEEN SAID ON THIS TOPIC.

From the blog post referenced elsewhere in this thread.

That sounds MOSTLY like cleaning up long gone creator's files, getting demos to ONLY be in a demo section - and / or  a way to have all versions of one item (such as hair that comes with color huds) in ONE listing with  pickable choices (they have that in Kitely). 

I have seen NOTHING official about any 30% raise. In fact it was mentioned both in this blog post AND in the developer's meeting last (anyone can listen to that video) that they were going to move VERY SLOWLY with these changes.

ALSO NOTICE THE LOWER LAND COST FURTHER COMMENT. 

I also want to remind the private land folks that not too long ago they had the option of "lowering tier" with a buydown which if they chose to do that saves them lots of bucks.

So tilting at windmills that might be completely imaginary is really a waste of time. 

"KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW -- KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW" - a good quote to remember. 

Technically this topic was just to ask for a survey  - unfortunately the worms are all over the place and I can't get them back in the can, they are very wiggly!
 

[Vic Nerido]

Well well.. about the fees, I think we all deserve something which will be implemented for years. I personally don't like this yearly changes and rumors.

Please LL make up your mind and stick to it.

If LL wants 15%, then make it 15% - but don't increase the fees every year. That's really a bad thing, and rumors and complaints never stop.

Back to the main topic:

I'd love to have:

-) bulk upload (photos)

-) possibilty to ban specific people

-) redeliveries for customers directly at the MP

-) more flagging options & reactions from LL

[Luna Bliss]

7 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

In fact it was mentioned both in this blog post AND in the developer's meeting last (anyone can listen to that video) that they were going to move VERY SLOWLY with these changes.

They just raised cashout fees in January, and now they're talking about more fees -- it's March -- this does not seem slow.

Also, LL needs to do a lot of work to establish trust given all we've gone through over the years. I believe a company can change, but you can't blame us for being wary.

[Kyra Ishtari]

I could not agree more.  We need more easily accessible updating for store landmarks and for updates to products as well as the ability to ban users from purchasing from us.  I have seen users with childish vendettas going against other sellers and purposely buying only to leave inaccurate poor ratings.  This should be preventable with a blocking ability.  I also think that we should be able to store certain things on our listing templates like our terms of service, licensing agreements and such for full perm sellers and other instructional information that some of us use on ALL of our listings.    Multiple photo uploads would be great too!

There are so many ways that marketplace listings could be streamlined to make them work better for everyone.  I am 1000% behind the idea for a gacha resellers category as well, even with subcategories would be great.  And building and creating tools should be limited to full perm items.  I can't tell you how many times I've been looking for something full perm and found something in that full perm mesh category only to get it and discover that it was no trans.  This is EXTREMELY frustrating.

[Arwen Serpente]

For the most part, my list of upgrades has been covered by other posters.  I had 2 to add: 1) Ability to search, or rank, or group favorites; make it sticky so every time you delete one it doesn't revert to the 1st page on refresh; 2) Bring back the "Wish List" (didn't we have that years ago?) that can be made publicly visible and help when you want to gift a friend or loved one (this one may have been mentioned already, not sure).

A thought though as we enumerate our own "wish lists" for improvements - think of what the downside or unintended consequences of such a change might be and if you still want the change. For instance, I make clothing and accessories and have always wanted to be able to list color variations in a single listing. When I started thinking about it though, I started to wonder - what happens to the individual ratings and ranking? how will this affect my best sellers? what if someone searches for a "red" dress but the "master" listing is a black one with the red listed as a variation. A change to allow color variants as part of a single listing would mean that the search, relevance, and ranking algorithms would have to be rewritten as well. The appearance of entire categories would change - people would get used to it, but in the beginning, it will be very difficult to get used to and could adversely affect sales or ease with which people find what they want. So, makes me wonder if I'd really want to do it after all.

A final thought about the speed at which LL implements cost increases - it makes me think of the boiled frog fable: "The boiling frog is a fable describing a frog being slowly boiled alive . The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death." quote from Wikipedia.

I really hope we aren't destined to be boiled frogs.

[Majestic Kohime]

1 hour ago, Chic Aeon said:

I just wanted to point out WHAT HAS OFFICIALLY BEEN SAID ON THIS TOPIC.

From the blog post referenced elsewhere in this thread.

That sounds MOSTLY like cleaning up long gone creator's files, getting demos to ONLY be in a demo section - and / or  a way to have all versions of one item (such as hair that comes with color huds) in ONE listing with  pickable choices (they have that in Kitely). 

I have seen NOTHING official about any 30% raise. In fact it was mentioned both in this blog post AND in the developer's meeting last (anyone can listen to that video) that they were going to move VERY SLOWLY with these changes.

ALSO NOTICE THE LOWER LAND COST FURTHER COMMENT. 

I also want to remind the private land folks that not too long ago they had the option of "lowering tier" with a buydown which if they chose to do that saves them lots of bucks.

So tilting at windmills that might be completely imaginary is really a waste of time. 

"KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW -- KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW" - a good quote to remember. 

You forget to quote the main part:

Quote

Last week, we announced that we have lowered the cost of Mainland by over 10 percent and doubled the Mainland tier allocation for Premium members. In the coming months some other fees may increase, including Marketplace commissions, Linden Dollar exchange fees, and cashout fees. In addition, we will soon announce new tiered Premium membership offerings that allow Residents to choose the membership level that provides the benefits most important to them.

What does it looks like for you?

Wide range fees?!

So people pay more to buy l$ then paymore the MP items since there are extra fees on them, and then finally , the creators will pay another 2.5% after cashout. , so they will have to rise the pricews again to compensate. After everything is upped, finally, people will buy cheaper lands. WOW , that sounds like a plan.

And this time this isnt only creators, but also customers , L$ buyers concerned by fee  increase

The heart of the problem is the wide range fees increase itself, i had the hope that, at least this could have been discussed somewhere.

The only time a forum post made significative changes in Sl it was the REDZONE matter (about rotten security systems data mining the IP of Sl accounts - do some searches), it was 8 years ago and topic reached 8000 posts.

iam afraid that unless it happens again, we will talk to walls.

 

Also, if you analyse deeper the official post, they do announce migration to a cloud: which cloud? which servers? what performances? will they cost more or less than the previous data center to LL? Is that the main reason of the re-equilibrating of the whole Sl economy?

Migration to the cloud? is there any beta to test performances? will the server config concerning servrers that host SIMs made public, as the Sl servers configs were public in past???

A lot of questions, no answers yet.

This SL 15B post  more important than ANYTHING LL announced the past 10 years. This isnt JUSt a marketplace update and fee problem, this is the economy and the Sl structure that might change slowly but completly

Edited March 26, 2018 by Majestic Kohime

[ChinRey]

3 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I would guess, that the minute they start policing and enforcing, then they (LL) are open to liability for stuff they missed and wrong decisions.

No they are not. The ToS says:

" Linden Lab may, but will not have the obligation to, display, maintain, or otherwise make use of, any of your User Content, and Linden Lab may, in its sole discretion, modify, delete, or otherwise make use of User Content without notice or any liability to you or any third party. Linden Lab reserves the right to treat User Content on the Service as content stored at the direction of users for which Linden Lab will not exercise control except to block or remove content that comes to Linden Lab's attention and is offensive, obscene, abusive, illegal or otherwise objectionable to Linden Lab"

[Love Zhaoying]

17 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

No they are not. The ToS says:

" Linden Lab may, but will not have the obligation to, display, maintain, or otherwise make use of, any of your User Content, and Linden Lab may, in its sole discretion, modify, delete, or otherwise make use of User Content without notice or any liability to you or any third party. Linden Lab reserves the right to treat User Content on the Service as content stored at the direction of users for which Linden Lab will not exercise control except to block or remove content that comes to Linden Lab's attention and is offensive, obscene, abusive, illegal or otherwise objectionable to Linden Lab"

Yes yes, but TOS can always change. If it’s in their favor or a law changes, etc.

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, Chic Aeon said:

"KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW -- KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW" - a good quote to remember.

I know what I know, from being in SL for 14 years.

And I KNOW all the people that left SL because of the way they were treated by LL.

We are wise to be wary.

[Luna Bliss]

26 minutes ago, Majestic Kohime said:

What does it looks like for you?

Wide range fees?!

So people pay more to buy l$ then paymore the MP items since there are extra fees on them, and then finally , the creators will pay another 2.5% after cashout. , so they will have to rise the pricews again to compensate. After everything is upped, finally, people will buy cheaper lands. WOW , that sounds like a plan.

And this time this isnt only creators, but also customers , L$ buyers concerned by fee  increase

The heart of the problem is the wide range fees increase itself

Happy Birthday

[Luna Bliss]

28 minutes ago, Arwen Serpente said:

A final thought about the speed at which LL implements cost increases - it makes me think of the boiled frog fable: "The boiling frog is a fable describing a frog being slowly boiled alive . The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death." quote from Wikipedia.

I really hope we aren't destined to be boiled frogs.

 

[Pierre Ceriano]

17 minutes ago, Majestic Kohime said:

You forget to quote the main part:

What does it looks like for you?

Wide range fees?!

So people pay more to buy l$ then paymore the MP items since there are extra fees on them, and then finally , the creators will pay another 2.5% after cashout. , so they will have to rise the pricews again to compensate. After everything is upped, finally, people will buy cheaper lands. WOW , that sounds like a plan.

And this time this isnt only creators, but also customers , L$ buyers concerned by fee  increase

The heart of the problem is the wide range fees increase itself, i had the hope that, at least this could have been discussed somewhere.

Good point. Here we can reach the philosophical level. I always thought and said that among the years the LL team realized they were running a real business. But it was not the primary philosophy of the Second Life metaverse : it was first created by some hairy nerds who had that brilliant idea to make people meet in a 3D world created by themselve. Then they permitted the folk to sell their stuff on a MP, but that was maybe because they needed to improve the business part of the model... and not to allow anyone to make a living. So now some think they can earn money thanks to a world created by others, they also consider a scandal to be punctured.

If LL wants to lower the tiers and increase the transactions fees, it's because a bunch of the "players" don't "play the game" anymore : both sellers and buyers should interact in-game and not off-game. That doesn't happens since years ; so the LL team, which has since hired some skilled business guys, took a decision. Guess it is not the worst if it makes us coming back in-game.

[ChinRey]

13 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Yes yes, but TOS can always change. If it’s in their favor or a law changes, etc.

That's very true but in this particular case I think the chances that Linden Lab will change their ToS just to make it easier for people to sue them is fairly slim.

[Sweet Valentine]

3 hours ago, Elvina Ewing said:

no it's not. Even not looking outside of SL at all, just within SL's own environment, - if LL kept steadily increasing MP commissions with 1% each year starting many years ago, we'd just call it inflation and nobody would say a word of complaint. When they increase commissions from 5% to 30% (or even 25%) overnight, you should expect major shock waves. What happens when RL economy inflation is 30%, is that considered healthy?

but they gonna lower land prices to balance out so it all works out...we haven't had any increases in sales commissions in the 12 years i been selling..i consider that being dang lucky when everywhere else has increased...also the cash out fees were 1 dollar for 10 plus years, lindens took a loss on every cashout on that fee... covering it from other avenues so we paid only 1 buck...its time things increased/change to keep SL thriving ...it will just make us work a bit harder...no one is saying the increase will be 30% i highly doubt that would ever happen especially overnight...i haven't seen any price placed on it ...if so please show me so i can read where it says they will have 30%...speculating on anything LL does is a waste of energy....everyone thought sansar would kill SL also but alas we are still here alive and well 5% is small beans ...try etsy see what they charge to list or sell on ebay or turbosquid<much higher commissions than SL) and then we know what we can be grateful for ...we are all lucky that they even allow us to monetize what we do here, in my opinion

 

my list i would like..... 1..fix the broken bulk editing  category doesn't stay when using quick fill

                                        2..fix my broken blank folders when uploading to the website

                                       3.. better tools to flag and remove scam stores...i don't mean copybot i mean scam stores selling everyone else's full perm items against license and empty box scams the ones that change the names of an empty prim to make it spoof the original creators items ....

                                      4.. NO more demos in search

                                       5..additional store fronts

                                      6.. ability to block customers or other stores i want to filter out by use of keyword or creators name so i dont see there stuff and have it savable

                                      7..a better category  organization...for example all textures need to be in building creator tools/texture category not spread out some in clothes some in holidays ect

                                       8.... more categories for like GACHA

                                      

                                 

 

Edited March 26, 2018 by Sweet Valentine

[Pierre Ceriano]

Always good to see the old fogies are back :))

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, Pierre Ceriano said:

So now some think they can earn money thanks to a world created by others, they also consider a scandal to be punctured.

Pierre, they may have started the game but they need us to fulfill their goals, and it's only fair they should pay attention to our needs too.
So much of life is going online, and we can't let the toolmakers have all the control, on the internet or in Second Life.
I defer to their ultimate decisions as owners of course, always...but I want them to take our needs into consideration too.

Praise be to the tookmakers yes! But they are nothing without someone to use their tools, and we are nothing without their tools.

** Added: The economy of the internet is something very important to consider. Those who create the tools, or the Facebooks, or whatever should not be the only entity allowed to earn a living (or have a gold mine really) while our time and effort has no value!

Edited March 26, 2018 by Luna Bliss

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, Pierre Ceriano said:

Guess it is not the worst if it makes us coming back in-game.

I am in-game, especially when doing custom jobs, though I spend a lot of time on a building platform too.

I kind of look at it like my thing is to roleplay as a creator here, as a builder -- it's my passion.

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, ChinRey said:

That's very true but in this particular case I think the chances that Linden Lab will change their ToS just to make it easier for people to sue them is fairly slim.

Well you responded to something that Love had responded to me with...so back on track...why do you think LL has never gotten serious about removing stolen content?

I want to know because should I actually decide to take part in this possible survey I need to know if it's something to realistically request.

*You are so technically minded, so that's why I'm asking you....but if anybody else knows how difficult it would be to implement this feature I'd love to hear the info.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Luna Bliss

[Charlotte Bartlett]

On 3/22/2018 at 1:09 PM, Grumpity Linden said:

Thank you all! 

I'll try to answer as much as I can without giving away what I can't  :

1) You'll be happy to know that a significant number of changes and improvements listed in this thread are also listed on our roadmap and got there from multiple sources, including those conversations in UG, which Whirly links to above (http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Web_User_Group), as well as Feature Requests in jira.  

2) A survey is a great idea, and we'll look into the best way to do that to make sure we get a statistically relevant result. If there's one thing we continuously learn, it's that SL is vast and our Residents' interests and needs are vast and varied as well. 

3) We're being upfront with you about our plans to shift revenue sources because our communities are our partners.  Not all changes will make everyone happy, but none are going to be made lightly, and all are made with a goal of the continued health and success of Second Life.  

4) We're hiring.  

Because this thread got so off topic on what it was intended for and I think there have been some great constructive suggestions for the survey content.  I am requoting this here.

Point 2 - has answered the original post, so personally I am hopeful and waiting to see what @Grumpity Linden comes back with on this.

Also Point 4- they are actively recruiting including for Second Life - which is great to see and gives credibility to investment to improve the platform.

I think that's a really positive post and I honestly think we all want to see this succeed hence why we are all so passionate and vocal.     This forum is a tiny audience, so I am really hopeful we can get a link soon to the survey to share with wider merchant community (weirdly most of them are on Facebook, so go figure!).

ps please don't harm any frogs, they are super cute and sometimes they turn into princes 

 

 

[ChinRey]

6 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Well you responded to something that Love had responded to me with...so back on track...why do you think LL has never gotten serious about removing stolen content?

That is a very good and rather complex question. Linden Lab will of course say they are doing what they can and they probably believe it even though it's obviously not true. I could go on with a long rant about it but I think the short answer is that they never saw it as a big problem and certainly not as their problem. So they do what the law requires them to do, nothing more and nothing less.

 

26 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I want to know because should I actually decide to take part in this possible survey I need to know if it's something to realistically request.

It's realistic in the sense that it's certainly doable. And the more I think of it, the more I feel that if LL wants to justify a higher fee, that's the improvement that should be right at the very top of the list.

[Chic Aeon]

My main point was for those that seem to be missing it, it that almost everything said here is SPECULATION. People have pitchforks in had when nothing concrete has been decided. 

It ALSO said in the blog post that they plan to LOWER LAND COSTS AGAIN --- no one seems to be pointing at that.  

So I am going back to the work of creating since you guys obviously want to do what you do best :D.

Enjoy the worry and the complaining. I plan to enjoy doing something more positive.