The new Marketplace Features coming - Merchant Survey Requirement

[Charlotte Bartlett]

Hi @Dakota Linden

A few merchants have been discussing, and have seen the fantastic news re SL turning 15 and marketplace changes will be afoot for long awaited features.

Would you be open to consider before entering into development phase, a user requirement phase with a short survey that merchants can respond to define what are the top 3 things they would love to see from the marketplace.  You could include a google survey or whatever format - but having this sort of intel would help us merchants have a "voice" that may be wider that forums which has a small posting group of merchants into the wider social media groups we use (e.g. Facebook).

Examples I know we talk about a lot

Ability to have more than one marketplace storefront per avatar

Ability to have demo's listed with the main product etc

Ability to have different colors in one listing with the main product etc

Customer being able to get redeliveries for copy items

(I am sure you have a long list but to give you an idea).

If any other merchants read this - can you post below you would like a survey as Dakota might then be able to see this is a wide spread ask versus just random old me haha!

I also understand some things just may not be possible (so my list above isn't a requirement just some ideas).

I have linked to this post on FB so other merchants see too.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

 

[Pamela Galli]

Off the top of my head, the ability to ban buyers we don't want to do business with, as we can inworld stores. That's probably hopelessly complicated. (Somewhere there is a big thread from several years ago in which lots of good and not too difficult ideas re MP were shared.)

[Blueberryxx]

I desperately need everything Charlotte listed. I would be willing to pay monthly packages for premium features for merchants on marketplace, gladly.

[Therese Tammas]

I'm not a merchant but I"m very supportive of this idea! Some day I might be a merchant and I'd like to see good changes too

[Cary Forsythe]

I'd love to see the ability to ban buyers, including all of the above mentioned.

[ChinRey]

1. Bulk upload of images.
2. Usable transaction history functions
3. An easier way to create and update related items listings, preferably some automatic semi-automatic system
4. Updated and upgraded layout of the listing form
5. Clickthrough ratio and page view statistics
6. A way to change the listing order of items within a store
7. Editable "standard" text blocks for item descriptions (for things like store policies, EULAs etc.)

And of course, everything Charlotte listed. With multiple storefornts for an avatar we also need an easy way for those of us who had to resort to multiple alts for that to transfer all our stores to a single account.

I'd be more than happy to pay 10%, even 15% commision to LL if we get all of that. If not, the level of service they provide is hardly worth 5%.

Edited March 21, 2018 by ChinRey

[Rucy Byron]

There are definitely some improvements that could be made, glad to see them coming. I agree with Charlotte, a survey/consultation with the wider merchant community would make sense.

[Zailee Quartz]

Yes please! I would love to do a short survey to (at the very least) inform, LL about what's important to my store and my experience on the marketplace. 

Ultimately I'd love to see the form go to buyers as well as sellers and make a thing of it, widening the information gathered can only be a boon, but understand if this isn't possible at this time.

[Annie Melson]

I would love to see the things Charlotte and others have mentioned implemented to Marketplace. Here are a few other ideas I would like to throw in there:
1.) Easily change the pricing and descriptions from the main listings page without having to open up the whole listing. 

2.) Not sure if this could be done, but have the ability to click to include a universal Sales Sticker or bubble or something that could be added to a listing if merchants decide to have a sale.

 

 

[Ripley Rozenberg]

A category for full perm items because right now there is a lot of no trans or no copy items in the building supplies. 

Also a category or something for gacha items that are resold.  

A way to add related items all at once instead of one at a time.  Same with items textures.

Ability to designate all the bodies an item works with that can then be used in search for the customer to find for their specific body.  Right now there is branding but that seems to just work for one body instead of several.

[Kismet Chrome]

Being able to block people from shopping from your marketplace like in-world is a great idea!

 

[Bea Bunny]

Yes please. There needs to be a easier way to report certain items that are copybotted.

[Blueberryxx]

There needs to be a store manager option who can edit or create listings, because we want to be able to delegate but we don't want to break TOS or put our account in any danger. 

[Charlotte Bartlett]

4 minutes ago, Vianme said:

Yes please. There needs to be a easier way to report certain items that are copybotted.

Hi Vianme, Linden Lab already follow the DMCA process and it's pretty simple to do, with details via their main site.  That already covers Marketplace items so copyright holders can initiate the process .  

Edited March 22, 2018 by Charlotte Bartlett

[Charlotte Bartlett]

1 minute ago, Blueberryxx said:

There needs to be a store manager option who can edit or create listings, because we want to be able to delegate but we don't want to break TOS or put our account in any danger. 

omg this x 1000000.   Would create a secondary employment market in SL as well as trust me I would pay somebody to do that for me RL rates.

[Charlotte Bartlett]

I had one other random thought, the main issue I find with MP is having to use their interface.  If they opened up the API for Marketplace, TPV Developers could create custom front ends and management tools to sit over it (stuff still would be uploaded from SL/Avatar obviously due to database bit).   Imagine the metrics etc we could have etc.   They could slice views based on shoppers own unique customs profiles too.

That was my crazy idea 

Can I tag @Whirly Fizzle who is very good with technical things hah.

Edited March 22, 2018 by Charlotte Bartlett
typo

[Jessicaann Wrigglesworth]

Yes PLEASE please please  *jumps up and down*

[Colleen Desmoulins]

22 minutes ago, Blueberryxx said:

There needs to be a store manager option who can edit or create listings, because we want to be able to delegate but we don't want to break TOS or put our account in any danger. 

I would pay extra for this!

[Love Zhaoying]

41 minutes ago, Blueberryxx said:

There needs to be a store manager option who can edit or create listings, because we want to be able to delegate but we don't want to break TOS or put our account in any danger. 

This is a winner! I’d buy that for a dollar! That way, someone else could help market/sell the scripts I created all these years!

 

[Pamela Galli]

44 minutes ago, Blueberryxx said:

There needs to be a store manager option who can edit or create listings, because we want to be able to delegate but we don't want to break TOS or put our account in any danger. 

 Yes, this would be number one. I don’t think Linden Lab has ever realized how difficult it is to manage a business with one account. 

[Quarterhorseygirl]

I definitely agree with and vote for many, if not all, of the above mentioned features.  Coming from the perspective of merchant as well as customer, I'm first led to hope for:

1.  Some way to designate demos differently.  I'm not going to pretend to know the dynamics behind setting something like that up, but it'd be much nicer if there was a way to let folks be able to search the MP and filter via price but not be faced with a gazillion demos that they weren't expecting OR at least an easier way to upload the demos in addition to the actual items so there's a nicer view/easier search.

2.  For sure would love to see an editable field for store policies so you don't have to paste them in every description, they'll just be part of the listing automatically but can be updated as necessary.  Sure there's a policy section on the storefront but many do not look at this and it doesn't offer enough space for an accurate and full policy section.  To add to this, also if something changes it should update on every listing as opposed to having to go in and edit each individual item listed.  Maybe during the listing setup a radio button could give the option to include policies on the listing and that way one policy section can be used and linked to both places?

3.  A built in redelivery system for copy items would be fabulous.  We already have the option to select whether something is CMT, etc.  it could be tied to that in some way.  If a copy item is chosen, it automatically gets placed in a redelivery list that can be on the store front page or even as another option if someone has already purchased it instead of 'Add to Cart', 'Buy As Gift', another button 'Redeliver Previously Purchased'.  Idk if that's possible to really code or whatever but you get the idea.

4.  Easier updating for prices on the 'manage listing' page instead of editing each individual listing for sure.  If something's been sitting for a while and I want it to go, and maybe I have many items like this, I don't want to take forever updating.  It'd be nice to edit them all at once from one page.

 

 

[eku Zhong]

Almost all of the above especially Charlotte's list and Pamela's request to ban people from buying, but more than ANYTHING .. please make a separate marketplace for gacha resale.

Not a section, not a subcategory, but a separate market for reselling gacha.

It would clean up the search results on the marketplace.

Also delete merchants who no longer have an account or have not logged in in anyway for more than a year even.

[Narcisse]

As Charlotte has requested, iwould be great to be able to offer input into some improvements for merchants on MP.

- Store Manager/delegate as Blueberry said above, this is a game changer.

- Bulk upload of images &/or an ability to apply the same image to multiple items.

- improvement to the feedback/review system to make it fairer for merchants to take action where necessary when negative feedback is left before it is made visible to the public.

- Improved search facilities/filters to make it easier to find relevant items

 

[JubJub Forder]

yes please, and i might as well as add some off my list too

• ability for a user to retain their page display preferences across pages and sessions (it's very rude not to do that) - on all pages including Merchant pages
• bulk/multiple image uploads (easy and standard for user input)
• revisit the next-to-useless Reports pages - include ability to break them down into date ranges ie "most popular this week"
• Multiple storefronts for a single maker - we can do it using alts, so why not for a single name?
• ability to easily place a range of items on Sale without having to individually edit each page.... ie multiple select Check boxes with options for percentage discount, or dollar value discount, and would love automatic date ending
• ability to bulk edit Slurl  - a drop down list of LMs for each merchant that can be edited.  When most Merchants have only one, but that information is duplicated across hundreds of records - that is bad data normalization.
• ability to display more than 10 results on Merchants dashboard pages ( seriously - '10 results only' dates from the days of a 640 x 480 px screen)
• move item Features from the tab it's on to the main product display page

I'll stop there - my time is limited for spelling out what are stupid design flaws from bad web designers

 

Edited March 22, 2018 by JubJub Forder

[Aris Pancake]

I Agree with Charlotte 100% 

 

1. We also need possibility to changed the  landmark for ours listing easier then going thought all the pages.

I myself had to changed sim and locations and having to changed the landmark can be very hard if you have 10 pages + .

2. We would need a way to keep same info on files regard descriptions , or listing can be very long to copy paste all info store policy etc..

3. We should have a Way to add up multiple item to one listing regard collections so people can buy and see thought a photo their choices without having to click each individual item on market to access to buy and visual. I myself and other creators created collections that could be very helpful!

 

I have no ideas if this make sence but i agree on multiple of you. This