The new Marketplace Features coming - Merchant Survey Requirement

[Pamela Galli]

2 hours ago, Hintswen Guardian said:

As a customer I would like to see it harder for merchants to have negative reviews removed.

The is a merchant survey in the merchan forum.  Read the sticky at the top of the forum  that Dakota  made about the rules regarding reviews. 

 

Edited March 24, 2018 by Pamela Galli

[Faris Bloodrose]

I want to add my request too. I think nobody ask about the things I will say, if they ask well... a vote for it.

-Wishlist of items: Will be nice if people can have wishlist, with privacy settings and the ability to share with friends if they want. That is good for save for later any item you want but you not have money in that moment or just are offline and you prefer buy it when you are online. Also is good for give gifts for friends. 

-Follow or add to favourite store: Another thing really nice will be able to follow the stores, so you can know when they release new things with e-mail notifications.

-The Ability to bann some bad customers: If something we have to struggle every time is that customers that put 1 star review to all your demos only because reasons they only know. Sometimes haters, grieffers... or bored people.... We can already bann those people of our sims, but not from MP. I seen many unfair 1 star reviews on MP of people like that and I think bann people like that is a good thing. Plus they rarely buy a full product, they review demos. Just for hurt the creator.

-Ability to send updates to customers: As we already do with some vendor system.

-A way to link vendors In world to Marketplace: So we are not forced to use vendor systems to provide redelivery in world. (Vendor systems fails in high traffic sims sometimes and I'm not a fan of them) 

 

And, that's all for the moment! ^^
I really hope they listen to us. 

 

 

[Kitsune Shan]

So here it is the list of what I think it could surely be very useful.

1. Possibility of having two or more stores at the same time.

2. Possibility of adding all the items colors, variations, fatpacks and demos to the same listing item to avoid the cluster of repetitive items on searchs.

3. Shareable wishlists and favorite stores.

4. Stores subscriptions to be able to follow stores and receive notifications either inworld or through emails of updates and new releases.

5. Being able send updates of items easily and automatically and also through redelivery manually from customers.

6. Being able to sort items by different range of times. Seeing the best selling items from the past 15 years it's tiresome and not so useful. Options to see the most popular and filter a range of time by day, week, month and year would help to locate those popular items from new releases without seeing that freebie flexy dress from 2008 or demos (demos shouldn't appear anymore if the point 1 it's done).

7. While I understand that changing the inworld vendor system could be a different project, it would be great if at least we could simply link an inworld vendor with a marketplace listing so we can have everything in a single place and send updates or check transactions through marketplace.

8. Full statistics view. We really need to see all the statistics of our listing. Number of sales per day, week, moth, etc. graphics, percents, demography, number of views, clicks, etc. all this it's very important to study which items sells more, what customers really like, which ads seems more effective, which season of the year people are more prone to buy and a whole lot more data.

9. Better interface for mobile devices like smartphones or tablets. We all often likes to check marketplace on our smartphone and check what's new or if there is any new release of our favorite stores. This it's very annoying if you try to do it on a smartphone or tablet since the interface isn't good to read on them. While an APP would be the ideal case, an adapted website would be enough just like most websites nowday do.

10. Improved ratings. Creators often gets a bad review for a single feature that usually does not implies a faulty or wrong item and it always leads to a permanent wrong review. For example, rating bad an item for the simple fact of being "no mod" while it's already stated on the item description or a negative review for being only for certain mesh body, something that it's also already stated on the item description. A more advanced rating item coud include different aspects to rate depending of the category:
   -Rate the fitting.

   -Rate the number of texture quality and options.

   -Rate the number of animations/pose options.

   -Rate the LI cost.

   -etc.....

   -A sepcial section to list the pros and other for the cons so people can better explain what they do like the most and what doesn't.

   Aditionally a comment box would be included. It would be similar to how people can rate items on eBay, Amazon or GooglePlay.

11. Bulk upload of pics.

12. Possibility of configuring a landmark per store so items always include them automatically without having to edit every single listed item.

13. Aditional managers with customizable rights so you can choose who can manage your store and to which degree will be able to do it.

14. Some formatting text on descriptions. Being able to format text on a simple way like italic, bold, list, etc. could help to organize and make the descriptions more visible and easy to read to customers. This was an old feature that was removed and, while I do agree that shouldn't be so much customization, some basic ones can help on clear descriptions.

15. Disccount and fidelity programs. Being able to setup disccounts, temporary sales (so you can set a time and day in which the item will switch to a certain % of it's price, new tittle, new image and even a category for sale items and going back to regular price automatically once the scheduled offer ends), coupon codes, etc. to appeal customers to return to your store. Aditionally, automatic rewards for reviews would lead to a more active comunity which actually only rate the items when negative feedback it's left.

16. Adding to the the reviews system, I really miss when marketplace (before being named marketplace) asked sometimes to leave a review in past items. Everytime that the user logs, should see  a small reminder to review items. This it's very important as, I mentioned several times, only bad reviews are left and isn't fair that an item that has been sold thousands of times but not reviewed gets a single bad review and gets marked forever.

 

And right now I can't remember any more features that I would like to be added but I am sure there are more. If I can think on something else I will write them :). Let's hope we get some luck on this.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

5 minutes ago, Kitsune Shan said:

7. While I understand that changing the inworld vendor system could be a different project, it would be great if at least we could simply link an inworld vendor with a marketplace listing so we can have everything in a single place and send updates or check transactions through marketplace.

 

This this this this this

There is another very well known system that has inworld vendors that are linked to their MP. I would love to see LL implement this. 

[Fionalein]

10 hours ago, Kitsune Shan said:

16. Adding to the the reviews system, I really miss when marketplace (before being named marketplace) asked sometimes to leave a review in past items. Everytime that the user logs, should see  a small reminder to review items. This it's very important as, I mentioned several times, only bad reviews are left and isn't fair that an item that has been sold thousands of times but not reviewed gets a single bad review and gets marked forever.

You like bad reviews, don't you? Because I in such a secnario I would leave one just to stop getting annoyed.

Mind you, I give positive reviews too. Buts most of the time I simply don't leave a review at all. Why? I got what I payed for, I'm more or less happy about it. A review isn't anonymous, It shows everyone I bought that product. Now if I run into something that positivley surprises me, I gladly put my name there. If I run into an issue I contact the creator and usually get it resolved. So far I never had to leave a 1 star review.

That whole review thing is useless anyways. I have seen stores advertising that I will get a gift if I leave a 5 star review both inworld and dirctly on MP. I have seen store owners beg their groupies to leave 5 star reviews on a demo so some silly 1 star review by another person does not get as much weight... 

PS: If you tell us only bad reviews are left by people... it makes me really suspicious who did all the good ones in your store  

[Faris Bloodrose]

1 hour ago, Fionalein said:

You like bad reviews, don't you? Because I in such a secnario I would leave one just to stop getting annoyed.

Mind you, I give positive reviews too. Buts most of the time I simply don't leave a review at all. Why? I got what I payed for, I'm more or less happy about it. A review isn't anonymous, It shows everyone I bought that product. Now if I run into something that positivley surprises me, I gladly put my name there. If I run into an issue I contact the creator and usually get it resolved. So far I never had to leave a 1 star review.

That whole review thing is useless anyways. I have seen stores advertising that I will get a gift if I leave a 5 star review both inworld and dirctly on MP. I have seen store owners beg their groupies to leave 5 star reviews on a demo so some silly 1 star review by another person does not get as much weight... 

PS: If you tell us only bad reviews are left by people... it makes me really suspicious who did all the good ones in your store  

Well, In my store (Also Kitsune shans store because he is my partner and he is my rigger) I have many type of reviews: From 1 to 5. We are lucky you can flag unfair reviews, but sometimes I get 1 star review from some customers because in the item says "No mod" and they want it "mod". They were happy with everything, and they said it in that review. But they left a single star. That mark my release forever like: The worst thing you can ever find. 
And that's is unfair. I sell thousands of items, but rarely get reviews, and when I get is just for ask things or for suggestions. When suggestions they review with 5 star usually, but when is something like "mod" rights, they left me a "beautiful" 1 star. :_D 
So we need a better review system. And not force, but just ask to the customer to please left a review. 
A review like Kitsune listed above will be nice, add many reviews in one such: Fitting, texturing, render cost maybe.... Will make reviews more fair. 
In furnitures can be: Texturing, details, land impact, pose quality.
 

[Pamela Galli]

There are  many many many threads about reviews —  Dakota made a sticky for this forum to clarify everything, re what is and is not allowed. Take a look. You can also do a search to revive these discussions. Or start  yet another one.

This thread  is for suggestions about new features, including new ways of doing reviews —but not just the usual complaints about reviews.  

Edited March 24, 2018 by Pamela Galli

[Luna Bliss]

27 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

new features

Pamela, can you think of say, the top 3 new features to the Marketplace that could compensate for a 25% reduction in our income? (I do believe the plan is to inch it up as far as possible, to the 30% Sansar takes).
I can't see any changes to the MP mentioned so far that would enable this, or even come close, but maybe you have more ideas regarding features that could compensate for at least a bit of the lost income? Or might I be failing to see the great benefit of some already mentioned?

[Kitsune Shan]

2 hours ago, Fionalein said:

You like bad reviews, don't you? Because I in such a secnario I would leave one just to stop getting annoyed.

Mind you, I give positive reviews too. Buts most of the time I simply don't leave a review at all. Why? I got what I payed for, I'm more or less happy about it. A review isn't anonymous, It shows everyone I bought that product. Now if I run into something that positivley surprises me, I gladly put my name there. If I run into an issue I contact the creator and usually get it resolved. So far I never had to leave a 1 star review.

That whole review thing is useless anyways. I have seen stores advertising that I will get a gift if I leave a 5 star review both inworld and dirctly on MP. I have seen store owners beg their groupies to leave 5 star reviews on a demo so some silly 1 star review by another person does not get as much weight... 

PS: If you tell us only bad reviews are left by people... it makes me really suspicious who did all the good ones in your store  

You just show how little experience you have as creator. The marketplace used to ask for reviews on a non intrusive way. It used to ask right after you made a purchase on the "thanks for your purchase" page which you could still ignore and close. It wasn't annoying at all. Today it could work on the same way or people could also get a single reminder email about bought items. Up to people to ignore or dedicate some time to do it. Several sites uses this system and it works. 

About your comment about bad reviews. We do not get bad reviews at all, you are just trying to hurt with your comment. But just so you can add to your knowledge, even the best store can tell you about an unfair review. They all have been reported and deleted for a reason but it still shows that the review system needs a rework and some incentive for customers to leave sincere reviews. I don't know which kind of practices you use but we, gladly, never had the necessity of buying good reviews. 

The thread it's about adding suggestions, not about debating which one you like or not. It's up to LL to decide which ones may be more necessary and which doesn't and how they should be implemented and how they should be improved or modified. 

17 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

There are  many many many threads about reviews —  Dakota made a sticky for this forum to clarify everything, re what is and is not allowed. Take a look. You can also do a search to revive these discussions. Or start  yet another one.

This thread  is for suggestions about new features, including new ways of doing reviews —but not just the usual complaints about reviews.  

Not complaining about reviews but about the review system and how could it be improved :). 

[Kitsune Shan]

4 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Pamela, can you think of say, the top 3 new features to the Marketplace that could compensate for a 25% reduction in our income? (I do believe the plan is to inch it up as far as possible, to the 30% Sansar takes).
I can't see any changes to the MP mentioned so far that would enable this, or even come close, but maybe you have more ideas regarding features that could compensate for at least a bit of the lost income? Or might I be failing to see the great benefit of some already mentioned?

You are right and we all know that whatever change they make it won't ever compensate such measures. 

Marketplace can be more friendly, be a better user experience and easier to setup but none of those added new features will increase the number of sales at all. At the end of the day, small to medium stores will just see the huge lose and pretty sure lots of them will just close. That's the reality. 

[Pamela Galli]

30 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Pamela, can you think of say, the top 3 new features to the Marketplace that could compensate for a 25% reduction in our income? (I do believe the plan is to inch it up as far as possible, to the 30% Sansar takes).
I can't see any changes to the MP mentioned so far that would enable this, or even come close, but maybe you have more ideas regarding features that could compensate for at least a bit of the lost income? Or might I be failing to see the great benefit of some already mentioned?

No, I almost always would rather have more money :-)

[Arwen Serpente]

Couldn't agree more with both of you, Luna and Kitsune. 

The only thing that will compensate for significant cost increases to residents will be growth of the overall SL platform, meaning population and retention.

Improvements to the MP are very welcome and a long time coming. It's great to have a survey that will help LL understand better what the priorities are for the shoppers and merchants alike.  But for the most part, these will be one time changes in MP code. That's a one time cost to LL with very little ongoing cost. Increases to cash out fees, commissions, membership plans, etc are not one time, they are ongoing increases to residents.  In planning my business for these changes, I see my costs rising substantially, but my sales staying about the same = net effect, a hit on my bottom line.

[Luna Bliss]

Ok, I'll just come out and say it. I think this "birthday gift" is a smoke screen...it's 'market-speak' manipulation. It shows a profound disrespect for creators here. One has to wonder if LL thinks we just play with tinker toys and so should be compensated accordingly, or if we are in the 'illustrious category' society places artists and healers and decides they should give freely to society and live on air while doing so.
Silicon Valley has to change...the people on the internet using the tools Silicon Valley makes have to make a living too, especially as more and more services go online. Even though LL is a small company, they are acting like a big Silicon Valley company and I'm profoundly dissapointed in the way they are putting the squeeze on their creators.

We are "partners" ??  Grumpity, I know you have to say what you have to say as an employee, and I never met a Linden I didn't like (well maybe one)....but if we are partners maybe you can convey to LL that they need to pay the Moles more than 10 freaking dollars an hour if they want to show they really value creators here. This is pretty much proof of how much they value creators -- I've found over the years that people usually value what they are willing to pay for.

I know several creators that are in the thousand dollar a month income range, and they work well over 40 hours a week. They simply can't take a 25% reduction in wages and remain working here...actually it will be more than a 25% increase because cash-out fees will increase too.

Edited March 24, 2018 by Luna Bliss

[Luna Bliss]

I could feel okay about a 5% increase ...bringing our increase in fees up to 10%, along with a 5% sales tax that purchasers on the MP pay for each transaction.

[Elvina Ewing]

what is this 25% reduction in wages you all keep talking about?

[Arwen Serpente]

Elvina, the LL SL15 announcement made clear that there will be increased costs to pay for these upgrades, not only to the MP but to other parts of SL. They have not said exactly what those increases may be, but the participants here are surmising that it could be MP commissions, Premium memberships, cash out fees, even perhaps a "service fee" for all MP transactions (I don't want to call it a sales tax, but that's what it would be). So based on what other sites charge, say for commissions, that could be up to 40% versus the current 5% Merchants pay now. So I think the "25%" that's been mentioned is just a guess-estimate  - but it does make the point that none of this comes free and it will have an impact on our business revenue.

[Luna Bliss]

11 minutes ago, Elvina Ewing said:

what is this 25% reduction in wages you all keep talking about?

The following is what was said in the birthday announcement:
"In order to avoid shocks to the in-world economy and to take care that we keep the business healthy, we plan to make these changes in a measured way, taking time to assess the impacts of each change as we go."

At Sansar they take a 30% fee from each transaction, and this is a common charge on 3d modeling sites (30%, or even 40%).
They take 5% presently, so if they plan to "make these changes in a measured way, taking time to assess the impacts of each change as we go" I can only assume they are headed up to at least 30%, and that is an increase of 25% over what we're charged now for each sale.

[Luna Bliss]

 

[Elvina Ewing]

so if the MP commissions fee goes up, we can always increase prices on MP vs in-world, no? I know that is technically not allowed but if you upload 2 meshes for everything you make, with a difference of a couple of polygons or something, it will technically not even be the same item, it will have different ID and time stamp, so technically you could call it "MP version" and sell it for more on MP, to offset the 25%. Customers will quickly learn what's the catch, those who are in a hurry or have plenty of money can shop on MP, those who don't will come to the in-world store.

[Luna Bliss]

2 minutes ago, Elvina Ewing said:

so if the MP commissions fee goes up, we can always increase prices on MP vs in-world, no? I know that is technically not allowed but if you upload 2 meshes for everything you make, with a difference of a couple of polygons or something, it will technically not even be the same item, it will have different ID and time stamp, so technically you could call it "MP version" and sell it for more on MP, to offset the 25%. Customers will quickly learn what's the catch, those who are in a hurry or have plenty of money can shop on MP, those who don't will come to the in-world store.

Not sure about the legalities of that.

Also, I don't think most of the content creators on the MP even have inworld stores...or at least a large percentage of them don't.

[Arwen Serpente]

To me, that gets complicated. I'd rather keep things as simple as possible for my customers. If, though, there are substantial increases in MP fees, then the restriction on how we price things on the MP versus inworld needs to be lifted. RL stores do it all the time. Right now, Walmart, Target, and others have one price on the their website and a "pick it up at the store" lower price. In the end, if we are allowed to do that, it could help inworld shopping make something of a resurgence. Won't ever beat the convenience of the MP, but for those that are price sensitive, it will provide an option.

Anyway, I think we may be getting a bit away from the topic of this thread, the Merchant survey and features wanted. So, I'll leave it at this for now.

[Fionalein]

12 minutes ago, Elvina Ewing said:

so if the MP commissions fee goes up, we can always increase prices on MP vs in-world, no? I know that is technically not allowed but if you upload 2 meshes for everything you make, with a difference of a couple of polygons or something, it will technically not even be the same item, it will have different ID and time stamp, so technically you could call it "MP version" and sell it for more on MP, to offset the 25%. Customers will quickly learn what's the catch, those who are in a hurry or have plenty of money can shop on MP, those who don't will come to the in-world store.

Not sure if this would be allowed either. But having items only in the inworld store surely is and many creators long ago started walking that path

[Kitsune Shan]

Since when having different prices in world vs marketplace it's not allowed? Just asking because lot of stores does this. 

Either way, not sure if we are thinking about SL in the same way that we do with other platforms. 

SL shouldn't charge the same kind of fees to customers that, let's say, platforms like Turbosquid because there is a huge difference here. Those platforms offers you a "free" service in exchange of some fees while SL has no free service at all. Oh sure you can connect and play SL for free but EVERYTHING in SL it's made by creators and not LL. I have to pay for a land or sim, I have to pay for every upload, I have to pay for everything I want to own and on top of that I pay a premium membership with little benefits (I used to get 24 to 48 hours response on tickets with free account while now I have to wait more than a week with premium). So, I don't think it's really the same as others platforms. 

We will be charged extra but we aren't getting anything extra at all. Cheaper Sims? OK, that's cool but why would I want Sims to be 10$ cheaper if I will get charged 200$ more on fees? And why charging more to creators who keeps alive SL so common users can get cheaper land? Instead make L$ more expensive to buy adding extra fees and ask customers if they like to pay more for less L$ in exchange of having cheaper lands (which at the end won't go down in price as people that owns and rents Sims will keep their price). 

What would appeal for people to buy more land could be increasing the number of players and to do so you have to give  more freedom and powerful features to creators because if the diversity of items lowers due stores closing, people won't feel attracted to play more. I really don't know why taking these measures now that SL isn't even as popular as used to be. Yeah we will get new features but isn't creator's fault that in the past 15 years the most important features has been mono, sculpts, materials, meshes and bento. Most of these features should have been there 10 years ago. Maybe if LL could stop wasting money on unsuccessful side projects we wouldn't need to pay extra. LL it's a big enough company and it's clear that SL it's their main income source so maybe they should invest deeply on totally updating it so more people could join in, don't you think? 

New windlight options will be cool but it really means an extra cost for LL? We could share windlights in the past with Emerald viewer and it surely wasn't a huge deal. And yes, animesh it's exciting but actually it ads 200LI extra to the LI of the mesh just for being animesh. I know this is temporary and it will be less LI but it already indicates that will be a too high cost to use freely so again we get our hands tied with more and more limitations. 

I know some of you don't care paying extra but me, as profesional 3D and FX professional for more than a decade, have never been heard by LL when I tried to suggest really useful features for creators so I hope you understand that isn't fair to pay extra in exchange of nothing.

Edited March 24, 2018 by Kitsune Shan

[Luna Bliss]

40 minutes ago, Kitsune Shan said:

SL shouldn't charge the same kind of fees to customers that, let's say, platforms like Turbosquid because there is a huge difference here.

Exactly -- there is a huge difference between SL and other platforms that sell 3D content.

[Elvina Ewing]

1 hour ago, Arwen Serpente said:

Anyway, I think we may be getting a bit away from the topic of this thread, the Merchant survey and features wanted. So, I'll leave it at this for now.

Nothing mentioned in this entire thread is worth the 30% commissions fee increase. Nothing. LL can keep it. It's just another one of those "exciting new features" they were selling us last time as an excuse for the process credit fee increase, which several people here called an "insult to our intelligence".

I have lived without all those things for years, i could continue doing so, instead of paying 30% fee for any of these. There is only one thing that i would like to have (from the things mentioned), ability to ban certain people from MP stores. I remember this Jira entry was labeled by LL "Nice to have" 6-7 years ago.