Worst Shopping Experience EVER

[Alyona Su]

NOTE: The reason for my rhetoric is this: Remember that all sales in SL are 100% FINAL. There is no exchanging, no refunds, except for those very few creators willing to go beyond the norm; Linden Dollars is real money. So it hurts in a real sense when buyers' remorse becomes happens. So we shop carefully.

You merchants need to get a clue. Seriously.

FAIR NOTICE: This may appear as a rant against you creators who fall into this category, though I don't see it this way. I'm not angry with you at all. I see this as doing you a favor to help you increase your sales.

Other than a brand name on the wall, this is the entire sales display (brand name avoided intentionally) of a "booth" at the Winter Shopping even 2018 (which makes it an even worse "offense", the way I see it:

That's it. Nothing else anywhere. Zip, zilch, nada.

• What is it called?
• How much?
• Which mesh bodies does it work with?
• What (if any) features?
• How does it look when worn?

To get the answers, I went with the very first one (on the left-most of the image):

• Must get demo
• Contents of the demo are cryptic (as viewed in the "Copy to Inventory" window):
  • Land Mark
  • An object with the *apparent* name of the item (somewhat cryptic),
  • Notecard titled "Thank You."
  • Notecard titled *About Sizes Included..."
• Accept the folder into inventory
• Hunt inventory for folder
• Read notecards
  • Discover this is for ONE type of mesh body ONLY

Move-on without bothering even to cam the rest or take the freebie gift, make a note to never think about this brand again.

OR, if it turns out you do like this and have THAT body:

• Find out that object is a box
  • Must rez box to unpack
    • in a NO-REZ ZONE
      • Must leave regions to unpack demo
        • If you like it then must return to event location to purchase
          • Try to remember where that item is located, make your way there

It's not just this event, folks. I am seeing this type of "marketing" more and more at places in-world.

If you want to make sales, then make it easy as possible for me to give you my money.

This is the reason I shop almost exclusively on Market Place:

• No waiting for unoptimized, oversized, over-stylized vendor images to rez
• Easy to find items made for MY chosen body through meta-searching
• Easy to read the description because of easy-to-read web font
• A fast and easy way to grab a demo

Deal-breakers for certain:

• No demo, no sale; goodbye forever
• Have demo, but force me to hunt your in-world location? Unlikely (unless I really like what I see)
• Not a quality fit on my mesh body (and the reason for demo)
  • Just because you name my body doesn't mean it fits right. If it doesn't, goodbye.
    • I believe I shouldn't have to use alpha slices at all...
      • Unless my AO forces me to...
        • ...and only lower legs, shoulders, boobs, *maybe* butt and hips
           

So there you go — a little frank feedback to those of you creators that are trying way too hard to be all fancy-schmancy about it. Stop with the crazy animated vendor pictures, for example, they are annoying and make it harder to evaluate your product advert - especially if there's reading to be had on it. The simple matter is this: I am your target customer; I will pay higher prices for higher quality, and if I like your design, I'll usually opt for the fat-pack. Oh, and I prefer HUD change, not multiple copies in different colors.

 

One final note: if you have an inworld store and no Market Place: chances are I'll never even know you exist. If you're that lazy, then do it the way a few other creators do it: Put only demos on your MP store but at least provide a link to that vendor on that page. Don't drop me at the front door of your store and force me to rez the entire place then go on a scavenger hunt to find THAT item. Likely not going to happen.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Alyona Su

[Tamara Artis]

2 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

I am your target customer;

 

Are you sure about this? 

I have read the whole post and, honestly, while I agree with your opinion (these things annoy me too) I can't agree with the way it was said. It almost makes me want to ask you not to go near my place because you could find something that annoys you and decide to publicly shame me about it. 

There are tons of merchants out there and many of them are still learning and trying new things, seeing what fits them best. We all started somewhere! And I am guessing we are allowed to do things different and to try new things.... If you don't like it, move on, don't spit on their work.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

That's it. Nothing else anywhere. Zip, zilch, nada.

• What is it called?
• How much?
• Which mesh bodies does it work with?
• What (if any) features?
• How does it look when worn?

 

[Alyona Su]

26 minutes ago, Tamara Artis said:

Are you sure about this? 

I have read the whole post and, honestly, while I agree with your opinion (these things annoy me too) I can't agree with the way it was said. It almost makes me want to ask you not to go near my place because you could find something that annoys you and decide to publicly shame me about it. 

There are tons of merchants out there and many of them are still learning and trying new things, seeing what fits them best. We all started somewhere! And I am guessing we are allowed to do things different and to try new things.... If you don't like it, move on, don't spit on their work.

I don't name and shame anyone  When I say I'm your target customer, I mean that I have lots of discretionary money to spend (perhaps "ideal customer" would have been a better choice of words in that regard.) I buy stuff all the time and I'm not a "price-shopper" - if its quality justifies the price, I'll go with the higher-priced version as compared to a lower-priced competitor. That's what I mean when I say "I'm your target customer".

As for the main gist of my post is: target your customers clearly: Say what it is, which bodies it is designed for - up front. I shouldn't have to sleuth that information. I found one vendor at the event I've never heard of before, they were clear on their information on the signage: which bodies and what it comes with. This tempted me to grab a demo, it was a folder - so I tried the demo on the spot - it fit so well and they styles and colors so amazing I purchased from every vendor they have, save one, without doing the demos. Then I went to their MP page - favorited the store. Now I will see every time they add something new.

This guy "gets it". That's all I'm saying.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Alyona Su

[Alyona Su]

12 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

 

You always have been my favorite..., what are you again? LOL

I learned later that there are other body-types supported in some of the other "racks" - but too late, I'm not going back there just to see. LOL

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Alyona Su said:

You always have been my favorite..., what are you again? LOL

I learned later that there are other body-types supported in some of the other "racks" - but too late, I'm not going back there just to see. LOL

I’m a Neko Lion. Most of the stickers I post are lions, but some are huskies.

[Alyona Su]

4 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

but some are huskies

That's where my confusion is coming from

[Claireschen Hesten]

I know exactly the store you mean and your right they really should have some posters modelling the clothes and more importantly body rigging I have several things from that store from L$50 Friday or event freebies some stuff is Maitreya only other stuff also includes both slink + Freya and Isis. What your seeing at the LL shopping is pretty much what I've noticed at the mainstore plus at least one of the items has been a L$50 offering in the last few months

[bigmoe Whitfield]

I can agree with your list, the biggest for me,  "come get the demo in my inworld store"  Creators, No, you put it on the marketplace or it's a no sale ever,   I'm not giving you traffic nor playing hunt it down in the store, since most of you like to force the tp point.. instead of letting me go right to it from the link you put... 

 

So gist is

 

• No demo, No sale
• Demo, but I must go hunt it down in your store, No sale
• Demo with a time limit???  No sale and word passed around you are one of those kind.

[Elvina Ewing]

15 hours ago, Tamara Artis said:

 

There are tons of merchants out there and many of them are still learning and trying new things, seeing what fits them best. We all started somewhere!

And the saddest thing is that they did get selected over some great quality brands who applied but never got the chance. I wonder which Linden exactly is responsible for the selection process, or has this been outsourced to some blogging diva. 

 

Edit to add:

I was made to believe this was some kind of prestigious event, with only the best top brands and the highest quality top products. The OP shows that the quality of the products clearly wasn't the most important selection criteria for this event. Also, about 3/4 of all listed brands I have never even heard of. I see at least one of them is not even original mesh items but uses full perm mesh templates. I guess I was wrong expecting only the top quality from a Linden event...

Edited December 19, 2018 by Elvina Ewing

[Cindy Evanier]

1 hour ago, Elvina Ewing said:

And the saddest thing is that they did get selected over some great quality brands who applied but never got the chance. I wonder which Linden exactly is responsible for the selection process, or has this been outsourced to some blogging diva. 

 

Edit to add:

I was made to believe this was some kind of prestigious event, with only the best top brands and the highest quality top products. The OP shows that the quality of the products clearly wasn't the most important selection criteria for this event. Also, about 3/4 of all listed brands I have never even heard of. I see at least one of them is not even original mesh items but uses full perm mesh templates. I guess I was wrong expecting only the top quality from a Linden event...

I believe from what I remember reading on the forums about these past events,  there was complaints previously that only the big names got a chance and so they changed it to spread the entrants to include lesser known brands too.  This comes at a cost if there is nobody who checks the quality of those brands first.  

[Ethan Paslong]

1 hour ago, Elvina Ewing said:

 I see at least one of them is not even original mesh items but uses full perm mesh templates.

thats not tied to small or unknown stores, many big and top stores do exactly that too.
In most things in your post i can't say otherwise than .. yep... nobody can understand.

As guy i also would like to add that the pick for male stuff is simply sad again. Most creators already ignore them, but should be a opportunity to select, lets say, at least 25 % stores with male clothes ... they áre around... it means still 75 stores for the women's choice (as far the gf doesn't pic the clothes for her bf :) )

[LittleMe Jewell]

5 hours ago, Elvina Ewing said:

 

I was made to believe this was some kind of prestigious event, with only the best top brands and the highest quality top products. The OP shows that the quality of the products clearly wasn't the most important selection criteria for this event. Also, about 3/4 of all listed brands I have never even heard of. I see at least one of them is not even original mesh items but uses full perm mesh templates. I guess I was wrong expecting only the top quality from a Linden event...

I'm actually glad that it is not just the top brands in LL and that some of the creators are ones that I've never heard of, because I love finding new shops.  I do think that LL sponsored events should promote new stores as well as old, less known as well as the well known.  There are already hundreds of events that only give us the top well known brands time and time again. And I sometimes don't mind the creator using full perm mesh templates IF the mesh is well made and IF the creator is able to give me good and unique texturing as opposed to the run of the mill standard texturing that way too many of them do.

[Resi Pfeffer]

21 hours ago, Tamara Artis said:

If you don't like it, move on, don't spit on their work.

The one who spits (fire) is you, not Alyona. She has the right to say what bothers her, especially when its said in a polite way, what she did.
I wonder how you react in case of a customer complaint, if you cant even stand a harmless rant, what has nothing to do with your own business (poses).

Edited December 19, 2018 by Resi Pfeffer
grammar

[Pamela Galli]

In the Olden Days, every creator made their stuff with their own hands because they liked making stuff — or sometimes hired a partner or team. All made inworld out of prims. Then sculpties were invented by Qarl Linden. So people who liked making stuff learned how to make sculpties.

There are still many who are making stuff because they like making stuff, as well as making money. But now and for several years many are coming into SL because they have heard they can import and sell professional quality content found on the internet. Since this costs so litttle time, they can slash prices. 

Recently several top sellers were caught selling stuff illegally , things they just downloaded, without obtaining permission from the real creator.

Not that everyone cares whether the original creator is being credited and compensated, but some do.

 

Edited December 19, 2018 by Pamela Galli

[Alyona Su]

5 hours ago, Cindy Evanier said:

I believe from what I remember reading on the forums about these past events,  there was complaints previously that only the big names got a chance and so they changed it to spread the entrants to include lesser known brands too.  This comes at a cost if there is nobody who checks the quality of those brands first.  

Other than Blueberry, all my purchases were from creators I never knew of. My main gripe (and this is a personal gripe to be sure) is that it is a 75% Maitreya and Beleezza Fat-Avie event. As for the rest, some are well-known, like #Foxy hair, etc. But I have absolutely no doubt many are "small-fries" in the SL economy (especially that one Japanese guy where I bought from every vendor, except one) - because the *quality* if his stuff amazed me. Also, though not the best "quality" in terms of technical prowess, I picked up another BonBon hair because the style is super-cute (I picked one up at Hair Fair, too). So there is that type of quality also.

My main complaint would be there is a real lack of creativeness among clothiers at this event. Other than colors or patterns, anyway.

1 hour ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

I'm actually glad that it is not just the top brands in LL and that some of the creators are ones that I've never heard of, because I love finding new shops.  I do think that LL sponsored events should promote new stores as well as old, less known as well as the well known.  There are already hundreds of events that only give us the top well known brands time and time again. And I sometimes don't mind the creator using full perm mesh templates IF the mesh is well made and IF the creator is able to give me good and unique texturing as opposed to the run of the mill standard texturing that way too many of them do.

Ditto this. It's the truest reason I go to these type of events. For me it's not about saving money (if you don't spend it then you actually save a lot more, right?); it's about creator-discovery. And I've discovered some new favorites for sure and I was more than happy to throw my support and vote at them with my Linden Dollars.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Alyona Su

[Cindy Evanier]

6 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

There are still many who are making stuff because they like making stuff

Funny you should say this.  I was just filling in a survey regarding an event we were in and whether sales were good or not.  Ours weren't particularly but my reasoning was the item was made because my other half enjoyed making it, he learnt a new technique while doing it and was happy with himself.  It wasn't made to fit the season, for bloggers to find it easy to fit in their images or any other reason than we had an event coming, he had made something he enjoyed and so it went into the event.  I think he would hate creating purely for the money.  Although obviously sales are a nice reward, a factory production line just for money would completely kill his enjoyment and he would just stop. 

[Pamela Galli]

22 minutes ago, Cindy Evanier said:

  I think he would hate creating purely for the money.  Although obviously sales are a nice reward, a factory production line just for money would completely kill his enjoyment and he would just stop

Exactly. For some at this point  it’s the creating that motivates, for some, creating plus money, for others, it’s the money alone. That last group does well being essentially a middle man. They can be very competitive selling the work of others, and enjoy doing it, whereas a creator would find it too boring. 

In any case, since importing is so much easier than creating, it is the natural evolution of SL content 

Edited December 19, 2018 by Pamela Galli

[MoiraKathleen]

17 hours ago, Elvina Ewing said:

I was made to believe this was some kind of prestigious event, with only the best top brands and the highest quality top products. The OP shows that the quality of the products clearly wasn't the most important selection criteria for this event. Also, about 3/4 of all listed brands I have never even heard of. I see at least one of them is not even original mesh items but uses full perm mesh templates. I guess I was wrong expecting only the top quality from a Linden event...

In my mind, a Linden sponsored event should not be just the "best" top brands.  It should have high quality items, for sure, but just because one hasn't heard of some of the creators at the event before does not automatically mean that their items are not high quality.  I enjoyed seeing all the new to me names at the event, and I was thinking how refreshing that was after seeing the same names at so many other events in world.  I also don't think that just because a creator is at all the "popular" events necessarily or automatically means that they are "top creators".  There are so many creators that there are bound to be hidden gems out there, and a LL sponsored event that gives them a possibility of being selected is a good thing in my book.

[Claireschen Hesten]

On 12/19/2018 at 9:21 AM, Elvina Ewing said:

I see at least one of them is not even original mesh items but uses full perm mesh templates. I guess I was wrong expecting only the top quality from a Linden event...

If that's the one selling full perm templates rather than using someone else's then they're one of a number of brands i've seen at seemingly every LL shopping even since SL14B  so i wonder if there isn't a bit of favouritism going on 

[Bradford Mint]

Lack of demo is easy to address.

A refund is ALWAYS an option, there's no issue.

I don't understand creators that have an issue with this. If someone is really unhappy, they're unlikely to use the item thus there's no loss.

Alternate option, just give anyone that asks if there is a demo, the product, adding a suggestion that if they like it, they could return and buy it.

If you've never tried this, you may be surprised at the result.

[Fionalein]

9 minutes ago, Bradford Mint said:

Alternate option, just give anyone that asks if there is a demo, the product, adding a suggestion that if they like it, they could return and buy it.

One item without a demo was sold to me on a "refund if no fit" POlicy (upon asking) when I came back to the creator telling he I could not make it fit after 1 hour of trying she refunded me more than the item was worth... "for trying" - back then those extra 30L over refund were much money to me.

[Blush Bravin]

On 12/18/2018 at 9:50 AM, Alyona Su said:

Other than a brand name on the wall, this is the entire sales display (brand name avoided intentionally) of a "booth" at the Winter Shopping even 2018 (which makes it an even worse "offense", the way I see it:

That's it. Nothing else anywhere. Zip, zilch, nada.

• What is it called?
• How much?
• Which mesh bodies does it work with?
• What (if any) features?
• How does it look when worn?

I hadn't planned on stopping in this store but your post made me want to take a look. What I found is a lot of things done right where you only found problems.

Personally I don't like all the visual clutter I see in shops with tons of info on vendor boards. It makes me not want to even look at their products. Looking at the demos from this shop:

You can easily see the name of the garment, 

Of the eleven vendors at this shop only two do not readily show which body/bodies the garment is made for, *easy to assume the two that do not are made for Maitreya*, though if you buy the demo of either of the two it's a very easy unpack to see which body/bodies the garment fits. Perhaps you are unaware of the very common labeling of "MT" for the Maitreya body.

There is no need to go home or to find a spot to rez the demo in order to try the garment so you can see how it looks on your body. Quite frankly I wouldn't trust any vendor image to show me how a garment is going to look on my body/shape anyway.

What this merchant does very right is to display the actual mesh so that you can inspect for yourself the quality of the mesh and the actual texturing before you even have to try on a demo.

I don't get why you are so put out by this shop. Maybe you need to ask yourself why you don't want to put any effort at all into your shopping. Do you want to be spoon fed? Or is this more that you feel slighted because your favorite body isn't as supported as you'd like?

As a creator, I do value constructive criticism when the criticism is valid and presented in a helpful way rather than a rant. But first and foremost I am a shopper. I spend most of the money I make as a creator shopping here in SL. As a shopper, I have no problems with how the shop is set up.

 

 

[Alyona Su]

12 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

I hadn't planned on stopping in this store but your post made me want to take a look. What I found is a lot of things done right where you only found problems.

Personally I don't like all the visual clutter I see in shops with tons of info on vendor boards. It makes me not want to even look at their products. Looking at the demos from this shop:

You can easily see the name of the garment, 

Of the eleven vendors at this shop only two do not readily show which body/bodies the garment is made for, *easy to assume the two that do not are made for Maitreya*, though if you buy the demo of either of the two it's a very easy unpack to see which body/bodies the garment fits. Perhaps you are unaware of the very common labeling of "MT" for the Maitreya body.

There is no need to go home or to find a spot to rez the demo in order to try the garment so you can see how it looks on your body. Quite frankly I wouldn't trust any vendor image to show me how a garment is going to look on my body/shape anyway.

What this merchant does very right is to display the actual mesh so that you can inspect for yourself the quality of the mesh and the actual texturing before you even have to try on a demo.

I don't get why you are so put out by this shop. Maybe you need to ask yourself why you don't want to put any effort at all into your shopping. Do you want to be spoon fed? Or is this more that you feel slighted because your favorite body isn't as supported as you'd like?

As a creator, I do value constructive criticism when the criticism is valid and presented in a helpful way rather than a rant. But first and foremost I am a shopper. I spend most of the money I make as a creator shopping here in SL. As a shopper, I have no problems with how the shop is set up.

 

 

I get it and your comments are fair, though your examples are moot. You are a creator, your mind works differently from non-creators. That is what you're not getting.

Here's is the main gist of my experience:

I approached the shop and saw on the simulated clothing racks. I looked at the walls for signage, I didn't see any; only the racks. No textual information at all, nothing to give me a reason to investigate why I would even want to buy any of this stuff.

Since I am camming around I decided to do the 'round-robin in a clockwise fashion, so I started with the nearest at the left.  Clicked the demo and perused the contents it was about to give me. The list of contents was cryptic (I couldn't even get information based on file names there.) So I copied to inventory.

I never "wear" unpacker boxes for two reasons: I am in SL for 12 years, I have learned and, by habit, rez boxes (and HUDs, too) to unbox manually for reason 2: so I can put the contents where I want them put, not some randomly-named folder dumped into the top level of my inventory. I prefer controlled organized methods. I had to copy to inventory, then read a notecard just to find out the product is 100% useless to me. That is just all kinds of wrong.

There should be information about supported bodies *before* I have to take anything into my inventory. Since my time and effort is wasted for naught, why would I bother looking at any of the other stuff, *even though* my chosen body *is* available in some of the other items (as I was told much later)? If there were signage or even, at least, some way to see a list of supported bodies throughout then perhaps I would have taken the time to investigate the other items. Because of the way this creator chose to market their merchandise (which is to say: zero marketing whatsoever) - they lost ant sale to me (and I spent almost 10k L$ that day).

I am not saying it is the wrong way to set-up a store and I am not saying the method is wrong. I am saying that for me as a shopper, it was a bad experience. The place was extremely laggy and that process I described took ten minutes. You may consider it a rant, and perhaps it is in the context you are viewing it. But keep this in mind: different people shop in different ways. I gave my money to those who made it *easy as possible for me to give them my money) and I'm not referring to vendors, I'm referring to purchasing decisions.

I am describing my own experience and I am only a single drop in the SL economy ocean. Though how many others have foregone purchasing from this creator *at this event* for the same reasons? The smart thing to do would have been to put those items with the widest support for the most mesh bodies, etc. at the ends, where people will look *first*. Then, knowing that this creator does support my chosen mesh body in at least some of their products, I would have continued perusing. Sure, they will make lots of money and, perhaps, couldn't care any less about my own experience. But they also are leaving money on the table, as it were.

As a clothier creator, your perspective is *very different* from the non-creator shopper. THAT is why I give this feedback.

 

[Blush Bravin]

10 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

I never "wear" unpacker boxes for two reasons: I am in SL for 12 years, I have learned and, by habit, rez boxes (and HUDs, too) to unbox manually for reason 2: so I can put the contents where I want them put, not some randomly-named folder dumped into the top level of my inventory. I prefer controlled organized methods. I had to copy to inventory, then read a notecard just to find out the product is 100% useless to me. That is just all kinds of wrong.

I've been in SL for 15 years. I love using "add" to unpack a box. It's very easy to see the folder in the recent tab and the delete button works perfectly, which is what I do as soon as I'm finished with the demo. Easy peasy!

10 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

There should be information about supported bodies *before* I have to take anything into my inventory.

All you have to do is click on the demo vendor. It opens and shows you the bodies supported for each garment except two of the eleven vendors. I will agree that those two should have better info visible after clicking the demo. 

11 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

I am describing my own experience and I am only a single drop in the SL economy ocean.

True.

12 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

As a clothier creator, your perspective is *very different* from the non-creator shopper.

I honestly, don't believe this. I might be less inclined to slam a creator than someone who has no idea what it's like to run a business in SL, but as for convenience in shopping I think I'm pretty much like the standard shopper in SL.