Rampant Unwanted Advertising

[Ethereal Faerye]

Lately, i have been growing a resentment against buying things on the marketplace. It seems every other merchant adds your name to some advertising database and these are verry hard to get rid of. They are mostly located on roofs and in inaccessible skyboxes and MEANT to be hard to unsubscribe. The best i can do is IM the merchant and rant at them, wich is not my hobby. At least put a kiosk where i can unsubscribe  -.-

Is this something that more people encounter? because, quite frankly, its beginning to annoy me verry much. I'm also betting a few dimes on the fact its clearly against LL TOS.

 

Ethie

[Monti Messmer]

Hi ! Thats kinda funny because i wanted to start a thread like this right now.

Not only they bug you after you bought something from them or visited their stores, more and more just randomly sending  inventory as advertisment. This is SPAM so clearly against TOS.

I know this is working for spam-mails when only 2 % read and reply to but please merchants, don´t do that ! Thanks

Monti

[amarock Amat]

hmm, what would you consider legit use of such a system?

[Mickey Vandeverre]

I use automated system for gift giving, in which someone may come back to receive a gift after visiting the store.  They will receive an auto-message to come back and pick it up.  It applies to store visits only, and not through marketplace....and I'm in mode to cut slack on merchants who are getting creative in marketing/promotion (besides spamming forum with deception ads)....

....because our marketing and promotion tools were severely cut off last year.

Free classifieds....group pic ads....inworld classifieds....cut off or not functional....once that happened, you have to get creative and fend for yourself.

As for the tool I use....it is highly effective, and only two people out of thousands mentioned an annoyance with the auto-message, but then took the gift.   

Those marketplace incentives you are talking about, might just be effective for that merchant. 

[om Piers]

I understand taking advantage of opportunities to market and advertise where you can, but sticking an av's name on a permanent list to receive spam marketing every week, or every day in some cases, is intrusive when it was not done at request of the av. Extremely so when the av is not removed from said list when he/she requests it.

To stay in the range of courteous behavior, a merchant should instead just indicate in the product's page that you can join ABC group for special deals and discounts. That leaves it up to the av, and far less likely to alienate those who do not like getting 20 advertisements slammed at them every time they log in.

At most, set it up so that the very first time (and only the first time) an av buys something from a merchant, the merchant sends a message inviting them to join the group to receive future notices about deals.

 

 

 

 

[Ry0ta Exonar]

I think It's legit only when people choose to receive those message and/or inventory offer on their own will. We shouldn't be added to the mailing list just by passing by, visiting or buying something from the store.
I'm using a subscriber kiosk for my product update group and if people want to be kept informed on new release, events and what not, they touch the subscribe button on the kiosk by themselves. Some people subscribe just to get the subscription gift and after receiving it, they soon unsubscrib. :matte-motes-big-grin-squint:

[Mickey Vandeverre]

I'm not sure how the system she described works.  Haven't encountered anything like that when shopping on marketplace, and do fair amount, but I generally purchase from some old timers.

Would love to encourage marketplace shoppers to join group....kinda missing the boat there.  I don't think asking in a notecard in the box is effective.  Will work on that!

[Madeliefste Oh]

I only want to receive messages from merchants where I subscribed for receiving messages.

There are many methods merchants use to subscribe you against your will. You don´t even have to buy from them, visiting a store, or even being member of a populair group can cause these unwanted subscribes.

In most cases I ask the merchants how I did get on the list and ask to remove me. Most of the times they remove me, but some are really  bold and just refuse to remove you. Abuse reports don´t seem to help much in those cases. So now the result is that I simple mute merchants who send me unsolicited bulk messages. 

[Jaylin Wytchwood]

Well, after unsuccessfully trying to unsubschribe 2x from a Merchant i once brought via Marketplace, i had to mute him.