MARKETPLACE BROKEN AGAIN

[Zak Larkspur]

I really sympathize with you all.  I thought I would look to see if anybody was saying anything about this.  I had been away for a very long time playing in Opensim but I wanted to come back and update and just see what Secondlife was like now.  I soon found the search function was next to useless on the marketplace and so I tried using Google, then I reverted to just asking people inworld and it took quite a while to get myself sorted and I just had to accept the fact that I can't find much at all even when I know from people it's there.  People inworld would give me the name of a designer or a product and the best chance of finding it was using Google.  A lot of people rely on second life for income that is my understanding, so this must hurt a lot.  The only thing that runs through my mind is collective action taken by the whole community regarding communication and service on the marketplace.  Not tickets, or requests. 

[Caren Jewell]

Update: I try my best to understand how this new search should work and test today over 100 Items in my Store and rename it how another Merchant told me kindly with Info's about how to try. Example: I have near 200 Trays / Dispenser and this or that for all Seasons or different Cakes, Food or Drink. I had Tons of Flowers and Fields on Top in my "old Store" before the Update comes and all are sending in no mans land after the Update 2 month ago. I try to find them and was a Work like Hell. Not one List shows me the right list and so the Work starts: Thinking about should I change "Flower Field Meadow with Grass" now only in "Flower Field", okay and should I rename now all my tons of Fields with the same name? Short and the Rest of Title in Keywords? I did this before and sit here with ??? in mind and thinking about this "blue Shirt" or "Sex Bed" ... so I change the Title in shortes way for me. "Flower Field Daisy" or "Flower Field Daffodil" oh wow there are more different for Winter, Spring, Autumn and wow there are more with Grass Patches or with Sparkle and so I stopped and try to find the first I changed in short Names. Finaly I can't found them in my Lists in my Store anymore - they are mixed and matched like before in all the different Lists but on other Places now. Not like it was before the Update comes. Okay, maybe my Mistake and I start to change the Title in the shortes Way for 30 of my Trays/ Dispenser. "Easter Nest Coffee Tray" now in ... in what? Coffee Tray? But I have 100 other Trays with coffee and how can I change it on the best way for the Customers cause they must find them too ... I rename some and plop they are away - good! But not good is, they jump in no mans land like the fields before. (that was all in my Store). So I went in the big Marketplace and try to find my Stuff ... no chance. I saw some Stuff yes but it was hard to find them realy.. All the Lists make no sense for me, before I change the title or later. And at last I try to upload a new release as Expample and it comes what I thought for me: New was a new tray and when I give as Name "tray" in the related Items list comes tray ...tray ... tray .. with this short names I gave them today. But - Coffee tray in short form and I had problems to see what kind of Tray was this. Was it a newer one, an older one .. was it a 10 years old Coffee Tray or one from this year - the short names should be short in title yes but this kills the Info for the rest. It kills the Info for Customer and for myself as Merchant. And at the end, I closed all and tomorrow I will start to rename all Items from today back cause this helped me not in one way. Its mixed and matched like before and never the same as it was before the Update comes End of February. I notice that not all Merchants have this Problem and have long Title in their Deco Stuff and in Lists on Top. But this are only 2 ways - the one are the Big Shops like Bazar and and .. or I saw the oldest stuff I remember over 10 years ago..

What I mean is - I can't find the line to change anything and I don't know why we should think about this all. Quotes or this or that and when we have Problems with this all, how should find a Customer the way in all this Mess. I be tired to copy all the lists from today and we had here enough examples before. The new copy would show the same ... and 8 hours work today was for nothing.

Edit: I forgot - no sales today!

Edited April 21, 2023 by Caren Jewell

[Arwen Serpente]

Caren, I also tried some of the tips that I received. My results were not good. The products lost any visibility they had with the original titles/keywords/features. Even restoring them to their original wording did not bring them back to the prior positions. They are now stuck even further back.  I will wait and watch to see if there is an uptick in sales for the changed items over the next week before I make any other changes.

From my POV,  if the changes that have been made to the MP coding are so extreme that over 5 million listings need to be reworked to benefit from it, then the problem lies with the coding, not the listings.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Arwen Serpente

[Happy Toshi]

Just keep mine simple havent really changed much. Maybe adding a color in the title instead of just saying couch or something. I dont trust the search results thats why. With all the neg response im hoping they do another update or something. Im just sitting here trying to hold out I guess. I never used "this" trying to search for something I doubt to many people do. They really need to take that out thats pretty much useless when someone is searching for something.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Happy Toshi

[Caren Jewell]

18 minutes ago, Arwen Serpente said:

........................

From my POV,  if the changes that have been made to the MP coding are so extreme that over 5 million listings need to be reworked to benefit from it, then the problem lies with the coding, not the listings.

THIS is a good argument and you are right. I think I needed 8 hours to rename but I need now a full day or more to find the Items and rename then back. So, next time I should listen more at my belly 🤔 .. thank you Arwen

[Ziamia]

I have been silently biting my time to let the people work, but no more. To whoever from Linden Labs reads this:

My shop is now showing Christmas items on the front page. Lets not pretend that any customer searched for that in April or purchased any of that recently, nor are they set up "properly" with features and so forth. Meanwhile, that lovely forum announcement where you commented with such pride that you had greater profits due to this new system....you had profits because merchants in their desperation to save their stores entrusted you with their money to purchase ad space. Which fell flat as well. When we are all pulling on one string and people are clearly sitting around with few to no sales, you as a 10% ++ earner of each transaction cannot possibly have earned more. As for elastic search, it has proven to be very valuable on some websites, but what this experiment looks like here is nothing like that, it looks like faulty coding and alternating cache between resetting and getting stuck.

You have endangered peoples livelihoods, ignoring their feedback and default replying (if at all) to any communication. Some of us do own a great deal of models, textures and so forth, items of quite some value over the years. Your foundation are the creators and their value, which they can take else where the moment a chance arises. And imagine that, you have competing companies popping up, granted they are terrible, but at this rate they may be faster one day in achieving presenting everyone here with a new opportunity. My patience and my loyality to you have reached their zero point, as the two rarely go separate.  

Edited April 22, 2023 by Ziamia

[Drake1 Nightfire]

It just dawned on me as to whats really going on.. LL just acquired Caspervend. I bet dollars to donuts they arent going to fix the MP because they are integrating the Caspervend system into it. When they finish that and roll out the "new and improved MP" it will work just as it did before, only with Caspervend vendors as well. 

[Ziamia]

Marketplace commissions are now even rounding up and charging a fee even on purchases below 10 L$. Squeeze out every single Linden out of the creators and customers. And if your products can not be found, you are forced to advertise. What dawns on me is one symptom: Basic greed. 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Ziamia

[Flea Yatsenko]

2 hours ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

It just dawned on me as to whats really going on.. LL just acquired Caspervend. I bet dollars to donuts they arent going to fix the MP because they are integrating the Caspervend system into it. When they finish that and roll out the "new and improved MP" it will work just as it did before, only with Caspervend vendors as well. 

There is a problem with it showing outdated products. It really struggles with simple keyword searches and shows lots of sculpts and prim builds even though there's much more modern stuff out there. It also feels like it does better with more mainstream products, like clothing, than niche products. Then again that's still not great, take a look at at the Linden example of searching for "blue shirt" and see. It really needs more keywords to do well, like if you search for clothing and add the name of the mesh body you're looking for.

But I think what's happening is search has gotten very bad in some situations with people searching for short keywords or a few keywords and it's obliterating sales for people who don't have multiple keywords to find their product (i.e. (body type) shirt). It's like it just searches by keywords now and if ignores everything else including product age, ratings, etc. For example if you're selling products that people would find by searching for "cave", you're buried in outdated stuff.

[Billysue Bluebird]

It's the Best selling List thats ruining my sales, i'ts all wrong!  My best selling things shows wrong and I dont sell them anymore.

 

 

Edited April 23, 2023 by Billysue Bluebird

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

Listing Enhancements seem to be working again, for a few days now - both as shown in the report and as reflected by sales. Also, LL seems to have silently granted another four weeks of free continuation of currently active enhancements. This also explains why enhancement subscriptions didn't automatically cancel when set to 'do not renew', last week.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[DulceDiva]

For me it's really clear when I look at the first pages of categories. You see demos, fatpacks and super old,outdated items instead of best sellers.

[Caren Jewell]

jupp .. today it changes a bit in my List - yeah I have New Year Stuff now on top - I think at Xmas 2023 I'll see there my Spring Stuff. 🙄

[Drake1 Nightfire]

I dont need to look any further the instant i see this. That tells me things are still borked. And i wont be buying new products from FPM creators on the MP as they dont show up after page 1. As soon as  i hit the next page button it switches to "relevance." 

 

[Samara Sharkfin]

On 4/22/2023 at 6:17 PM, Ziamia said:

Marketplace commissions are now even rounding up and charging a fee even on purchases below 10 L$.

I do not see any difference in rounding up the MP sales fee in my last sales. Can you explain on which price range, and how much, that happens?

As for a fee below 10 L$ i can not check that for my store, bit i remember vaguely that 10 L$ fees were not applied. (but i did not check that in the current fees page)

 

[Billysue Bluebird]

Best selling.. I figured it out.  It only shows 104 pages of results if you have set to show 96 items per page.

I looked threw all 104 pages and my skybox wich is 1linden and i've sold 5,500+ of, is not there! so ill never sell anymore! because its not there!

but it shows alot of things id never buy and doesnt look like have sold much if any.

I went from sometimes being on page 1.... too............ not shown.

I feel like they  reset the Best selling list too day 1. If thats the case it would take maybee 200 years to get my sales to where they were before with no advertizing and the amount of items on marketplace now.

Edited April 27, 2023 by Billysue Bluebird

[Caren Jewell]

Billysue I agree with you 100 % and you explain it perfect and show that only "I search only news and its fine" not the Point is. Our best Sellings are not longer showing on the right way. People come, open our Shop Sides and want to see good running Stuff too and buy then why they see this and not only why they are before searching for it. We worked long years hard for this best sales and they are killed in one moment end of February in the Update from MP Team and none is willing to say "okay Merchants, this was ***** and we notice this AND we fix this how fast we can" .. all we got in all the weeks was:  badest support ever! To ignore the Problems they made is the badest way ever and we can do nothing.

[Flea Yatsenko]

A lot of my recent transactions are for products made between 2011 and 2015. In fact it's by far the majority.

[Billysue Bluebird]

18 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

 

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by Billysue Bluebird

[Happy Toshi]

Any news ?

[Billysue Bluebird]

3 hours ago, Happy Toshi said:

Any news ?

my best selling seems to have changed for the first time since being completly wrong for months. Ive been only selling things ive never sold in 10 years. now my skybox wich ive sold several thousands of for 1l shows near top. but i still feel like im just starting over trying to biuld sales from 0. I dont understand why they have relavent by default ive never searched by relavant amazon doesnt have relavant.

[Billysue Bluebird]

strange thing i just noticed. most people comenting here are arround my sl age.

 

ID BE OLDER BUT LINDENS DELETED MY WHOLE HOUSEHOLDS SL ACCOUNTS IN 2009 AND SAID I COPYBOTED! IVE ALWAYS WANTED TO ASK THEM WHO THEN MADE THE THINGS ?I STARTED IN 2006

Edited May 4, 2023 by Billysue Bluebird

[Ziamia]

of course it has, sort by featured.

[Flea Yatsenko]

I don't know if it's a long standing change or a fluke, but the last few days my sales have been better and it's been pushing higher quality products. I changed nothing in my store.

[Caren Jewell]

9 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

I don't know if it's a long standing change or a fluke, but the last few days my sales have been better and it's been pushing higher quality products. I changed nothing in my store.

Same here, sales goes up very slow but they did and I changed nothing atm too. The Lists are the same Mess in my Store as before and I noticed that the last sales are in this Lists again on Top the first 2 Items or three and then comes the old Stuff as Mess like before. Anything is working there but it make no sense atm for me .. the Lists in MP complete at all looks a bit better but not in own Store. 

Edit: the two or three Items where changed in the Lists on Top are only my new releases I sold. The other Items I sold are there not public for me - realy strange ... 

Edited May 7, 2023 by Caren Jewell