1L$ "FREE" listings (?)

[AdamZadig]

Why do some items on the marketplace say FREE but are listed at 1L$...?

[So Whimsy]

A listing has to be at least 1L$ in order for the Gift function to work. That's what a lot of creators explain when asked this question.

It just makes me question if they know what the word 'free' means and whether or not it's worth the hassle to copy and paste from the oxford dictionary.

[Alyona Su]

Gifting is the reason for it.

I also concur that the word "free" shouldn't be used."Complimentary" would be more appropriate, I think. Heck, even "Almost free!" would be better! LOL

[Lys1990]

21 hours ago, Syn Anatine said:

A listing has to be at least 1L$ in order for the Gift function to work. That's what a lot of creators explain when asked this question.

It just makes me question if they know what the word 'free' means and whether or not it's worth the hassle to copy and paste from the oxford dictionary.

That's just an lame excuse, they are just greedy. As greedy as these vendors are who sell demos for L$. They know their ***** sucks and no one would purchase it, once they try out the demo, so why not grab the 1 L$ for the demo then anyways. If they find 10000 Idiots getting this demo, they already made good amount of L$, since most of the crap there is already purchased as full-perm for 250 L$ or so and put on some cheap crap looking texture on it. 

[So Whimsy]

12 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

Gifting is the reason for it.

I also concur that the word "free" shouldn't be used."Complimentary" would be more appropriate, I think. Heck, even "Almost free!" would be better! LOL

I've always liked the 1L$ items being called Dollarbie, it's appropiate and just sounds cute

 

4 minutes ago, Lys1990 said:

That's just an lame excuse, they are just greedy. As greedy as these vendors are who sell demos for L$. They know their ***** sucks and no one would purchase it, once they try out the demo, so why not grab the 1 L$ for the demo then anyways. If they find 10000 Idiots getting this demo, they already made good amount of L$, since most of the crap there is already purchased as full-perm for 250 L$ or so and put on some cheap crap looking texture on it. 

Okay cowboy, calm your horses. Just because some merchants use the word 'free' questionably or charge for a demo does not reflect on the quality of their products. I hardly ever purchase a demo that is not free but making such a blanket statement is neither true nor polite. There is nothing keeping you from not shopping with those merchants, but going out of your way to be as insulting as possible is not the way to go. That's worse than the missuse of the word 'free', imho.

[Lys1990]

8 minutes ago, Syn Anatine said:

Okay cowboy, calm your horses. Just because some merchants use the word 'free' questionably or charge for a demo does not reflect on the quality of their products. I hardly ever purchase a demo that is not free but making such a blanket statement is neither true nor polite. There is nothing keeping you from not shopping with those merchants, but going out of your way to be as insulting as possible is not the way to go. That's worse than the missuse of the word 'free', imho.

There is. Just look at the quality of the stuff sold there for 1 L$. It's mostly some cheap shows, know one ever head off, selling hardly creative stuff since it's, like said above, just resell of full-perm items with some cheesy texture.

No quality or popular shop offer demos for 1 (or 10) L$, they all offer it free. Demos for the reputable (and successful) SL shops put the demos for free on the Marketplace. Only cheesy vendors have either no demos at all (which in 99.9% means, their product is crap, badly rigged, not supporting the major mesh bodies or just *****ty textures or it looks like made out of paper) or they charge for demo, which is almost always the same too.

Such lame excuses as that its for redelivery or anything else is just lame. No one wants to gift demos, who ever wants to try it itself just grabs it from MP or inworld. It's just these vendors who cry and complain, that the SL Market is declining, but the reality its just that they never cared to create quality products and now get the bill for it

[Alyona Su]

11 minutes ago, Lys1990 said:

No quality or popular shop offer demos for 1 (or 10) L$, they all offer it free. Demos for the reputable (and successful) SL shops put the demos for free on the Marketplace. Only cheesy vendors have either no demos at all (which in 99.9% means, their product is crap, badly rigged, not supporting the major mesh bodies or just *****ty textures or it looks like made out of paper) or they charge for demo, which is almost always the same too.

Such lame excuses as that its for redelivery or anything else is just lame. No one wants to gift demos, who ever wants to try it itself just grabs it from MP or inworld. It's just these vendors who cry and complain, that the SL Market is declining, but the reality its just that they never cared to create quality products and now get the bill for it

4

Wow. Not sure where your shopping or what you're shopping for, but either way it sounds like a personal issue.*Smart* shoppers interested in anything costing more than L$25-L$100 will not buy it unless they can demo it/see it in world. As for being able to gift demos: important. I'm logged into MP on one account and see something my alt may like. Easier to just gift that demo to my alt, rather than logout, login, search for that demo all over again, buy the demo, logout, login back into the first account, continue shopping.

There. Can you now see how closed-minded you are? That because you don't do something a certain way you cannot fathom another way it can be done that is useful, therefore you are correct then the rest of the world is wrong? It's okay if you do not see that about yourself; everyone else does.

[Pixieplumb Flanagan]

My marketplace demos are L$1 but are free in world, and so stated on all demo listings.  They are like that to allow gifting (to alts mainly I expect).  No one has ever complained since they can come and get the demo free if they want to.  I have quite a few freebies on marketplace and in world and would never describe a dollarbie as a freebie.

[Dakota Linden]

Greetings!

There are a couple of reasons for $1L charge.

1. Zero Linden Items cannot be sent as a gift.  

2. Zero Linden items used to not be tracked on sales logs.

 

[Desudesudesuka]

I made a thread on this because I was mildly confused and annoyed as a consumer. Now most of my stuff is priced 1L to allow gifting and for the slightest amount of cost recovery. I have a couple items at 0L for SEO reasons. I disagree with tagging or listing dollarbies as freebies and STRONGLY disagree with ever tagging demos as freebies... which a lot of merchants do, cluttering up the MP. If someone is searching for freebie and you tag a 1L item as free, it's not even going to register in the relevant results, which would be sorted from least to highest price. Mis-advertisement is poor practice but I would not call it "greed" and pretend 1L actually matters.

On a side note I wish there was a better demo system, I'm reluctant to clutter my shop with demos or even spend the time making them (it's literally duplicating your number of listings) when I'm just beginning to turn profits.

[Fionalein]

11 hours ago, Desudesudesuka said:

On a side note I wish there was a better demo system, I'm reluctant to clutter my shop with demos or even spend the time making them (it's literally duplicating your number of listings) when I'm just beginning to turn profits.

How do you even do that without demos - profit I mean? Hope you are not offended, but I most likely would not buy from you if I had no demo.

[Desudesudesuka]

Tons of people sell stuff in certain categories that is advertised clearly, without demos, and people buy it. In other categories, demos are expected, hair is one example. This is a very easy observation on the MP.

Edited April 3, 2018 by Desudesudesuka

[So Whimsy]

11 hours ago, Desudesudesuka said:

On a side note I wish there was a better demo system, I'm reluctant to clutter my shop with demos or even spend the time making them (it's literally duplicating your number of listings) when I'm just beginning to turn profits.

You are losing out on a crap ton of sales. A lot, and I mean a lot of SL users won't buy things without a demo delivered into their inventory or the option to check out the product in world if it's not clothing.

People are spending their RL money after all and they only have to get burned once to never again purchase an item without a demo. While I agree a better demo system needs to be put in place all I can do is encourage you to work with what we have. Make demo's or you are stunting your brands growth from the get go.

[So Whimsy]

3 minutes ago, Desudesudesuka said:

Tons of people sell stuff in certain categories that is advertised clearly, without demos, and people buy it. In other categories, demos are expected, hair is one example. This is a very easy observation on the MP.

And all of those merchants would sell even more if they offer demo's.

Look at all the bigger name brands whether it's for clothing, hair, skins, decorations, buildings, landscaping, animations etc etc etc every single one either offers demo's or the ability to check out the products in world. Why do you think they're so profitable? They're going out of their way to showcase their wares so the customer can see before they buy.

There is no need to be stubborn about this, take it from one merchant to the other. Give your customers the ability to try out your products.

[Desudesudesuka]

I can think of like one case I bought an eye texture and was annoyed there was no demo, since it was utterly broken. Eyes for the M3 heads never have formal demos, and I don't see any reason to buck the trend. At most artists offer a single colour here or there as a gift and example of their work, which I do. Will I offer demos for some of my products? Definitely. Others, no. I don't consider it worth the time or even effective in certain cases. Demos are also ugly, on the level of the store, glowing DEMO text, and self destructing items, these methods don't line up with what I would offer as my art.

I have ideas for adding trial versions of many of my things, but it will not be via a ridiculous amount of listings and floating DEMO banners.

Edited April 3, 2018 by Desudesudesuka

[So Whimsy]

11 minutes ago, Desudesudesuka said:

I can think of like one case I bought an eye texture and was annoyed there was no demo, since it was utterly broken. Eyes for the M3 heads never have formal demos, and I don't see any reason to buck the trend. At most artists offer a single colour here or there as a gift and example of their work, which I do. Will I offer demos for some of my products? Definitely. Others, no. I don't consider it worth the time or even effective in certain cases. Demos are also ugly, on the level of the store, glowing DEMO text, and self destructing items, these methods don't line up with what I would offer as my art.

I have ideas for adding trial versions of many of my things, but it will not be via a ridiculous amount of listings and floating DEMO banners.

Do what you think is right, but always remember, going a step toward a potential buyer will always pay off more in the long run. It's your decision to decide whether you would choose a cleaner MP catalog over more profit. It's your decision to decide whether or not you have the time to offer demo's just as it's your customers decision not to purchase your product without being able to test it.

I'll rest my case since you're obviously happy with less, kudos to you.

[Pamela Galli]

1 hour ago, Desudesudesuka said:

Tons of people sell stuff in certain categories that is advertised clearly, without demos, and people buy it. In other categories, demos are expected, hair is one example. This is a very easy observation on the MP.

If I could prevent people from buying without inspecting the demo first, I would.

[Desudesudesuka]

I literally said "well, I offer demos just not those kinds" lol, but okay.

I'd like people to use my less-then-full versions of items as a deterrent, if they would later feel like leaving a negative review on the website or in my inbox over some flaw in the finished product.

Edited April 3, 2018 by Desudesudesuka

[So Whimsy]

1 hour ago, Desudesudesuka said:

I literally said "well, I offer demos just not those kinds" lol, but okay.

 

14 hours ago, Desudesudesuka said:

On a side note I wish there was a better demo system, I'm reluctant to clutter my shop with demos or even spend the time making them (it's literally duplicating your number of listings) when I'm just beginning to turn profits.

 

[Desudesudesuka]

That's earlier in the reply chain.

[So Whimsy]

2 minutes ago, Desudesudesuka said:

That's earlier in the reply chain.

Still 100% relevant though. You started out with a firm sounding stance on this. So I am not sure if your later mention of offering demo's was backpedaling. You literally changed your entire view on this within the span of an hour. Either way, it's a good thing if you do offer demo's after all for the reasons mentioned above. You seem happy with starting to turn a profit, so for future reference, it's worth it going out of your way to make your products as accessible to potential customers as they can be. There's no harm in going that extra step it can and will only do your brand good.

[Desudesudesuka]

No. I'm reluctant to clutter my shop with demos =/= there is no demos, I don't make/believe in demos. It's purely a statement of fact I dislike the process of making them.

[AdamZadig]

Would be great if demos had their own category and if search options allowed you to exclude key words like DEMO

Freebies are cool but you literally have to scroll through so many pages because the same results show so many demos 

[Desudesudesuka]

Add "NOT demo" and then have fun sorting through listings not actually tagged demo or with DxExMxO in the title because the makers are obnoxious.

[Codex Alpha]

Who cares why? If it's not a freebie, don't advertise it as such.

All my items marked free or freebie ARE free. No exceptions.

If you want to gift someone the item, send them the marketplace url to them inworld, and thanks for advertising the item for me, I appreciate it.