Step In Marketplace Staff, here is what we merchants would like to see

[Chelsea Malibu]

I know we have been ranting on issues we see with MP and moreover, features we would either like changed, fixed or removed however, I don't believe we have collectively given LL a list of what we want.  Therefore, I wanted to outline some of the things we have talked about here specific to MP and from there, I will open a Jira in hopes that some at the Labs will listen.

1. Rating system:  Change the Star Rating where it will provide us who gave what ratings.  Also a warning the pops up when someone rates lower then 3 stars asking if they would like to notify the Merchant of your issues and an IM/Email is sent to that merchant to let them know there is a problem.

2. Auto resends purchases that are copy.  The buyer can log in and have the item re-sent to them on failed delivery.  The merchant would have the option to toggle enable for each product.

3. Freebie and almost freebie items not showing up under relevance.  In fact, anything 25L or below should have it's own area and not be in the general filter.

4. The ability to ban buyers from our individual MP store.  We should have the right to refuse business to griefers and know saboteurs.

I know there is a lot more so please add to this list. 

 

[Chelsea Malibu]

Oh, and though this is not directly related, another idea but not critical would be to have a private forum for MP merchants so we can discuss our rants without the world seeing.  I don't think the world needs to see our problems with MP as it does not shed a positive light on MP which in turn, may discourage some residents from using it. 

Better to air our dirty laundry among ourselves.

[Mylar]

One thing that isn't discussed much, but I would like to see is better reporting. Trying to track views and sales and trends on the marketplace is near impossible with the current system. And search terms!!! Telling me an item showed up in search X number of times doesn't help if I don't know what those people were searching for.

Tracking on my website looks like this, which lets me know exactly where I need to focus my efforts. Tracking, both in SL and on the marketplace, doesn't even come close to being useful like this.

[Chelsea Malibu]

Good stuff. And what about the ability to buy key words?  The current "Enhancements" don't work for most but if I could buy or bid on keywords?  Then they would need to show us popular keyword searches.

[Chelsea Malibu]

wow, slow day here in the forums, where is everyone?

[Claireschen Hesten]

rating system yes buyers should be warned if they if they are leaving 1 or 2 star reviews maybe they could bring back the contact merchant feature from xstreet all messages would be sent and received via the marketplace and merchants would be notified of them at the top of the screen 

auto resend purchases yes seller should be able to choose if buyer can re-send once (preferrably for no copy items) or unlimited for full perms copy/trans copy/mod on delivery failures

ability to ban people from your MP store i'm in two minds about this it's not something i would use and it could be abused

freebies/dollarbies should have their own section like the old xstreet as someone who sells the vast majority of their stuff at L$25 or less i would not segregate this price range i believe the price filters are sufficient 

when searching for something under relevance the item title should come first i.e. if you search for a sun lounger all instances of sun lounger in the title should come before unrelated items like pools or patio sets that have either sun or lounger in the title/keywords

on the private forum for marketplace merchants such thing exists and is known as the merchants roundtable you have to put in a support ticket and be a marketplace merchant to be granted access to this private forum

[Pamela Galli]

As far as I know, no one can leave a review anonymously on the marketplace, and never has been able to.

[Arwen Serpente]

Chelsea, it's a great list (or start of a list). There are several already started in JIRAs. Basically, if we want the Commerce team to take notice, we need to create/vote for a JIRA and set it to Watch. The most recent one that Pamela created regarding ability to create/control a MP ban list the same way that we do with inworld stores is a good one for Merchants to jump on right away. I don't want to take attention away from this discussion, but the one that was started for that topic is still fresh in the list of topics.

Some top of mind ones that I can think of:

1) Reporting tools (already mentioned in this thread and in multiple others)

2) Stale shopping carts: Carts need to be emptied if a sale is not completed especially if a Merchant runs a limited time price promotion on a regular item. Right now, if the item is put in the cart at the "sale" price and sits there, even after the promo is done and the item has returned to regular price, if it was in the cart, it will be delivered at the "sale" price.

3) Ability to show color variations from one listing (the related items is excellent for this, but only goes so far). This would also allow listings to be much more consolidated and a shopper will be able to see all variations of the same style on one page.

As for a separate forum to discuss Merchant issues among only Merchants, we have that. If you aren't a member, file a support ticket requesting admittance and you'll be able to go there. Unfortunately, it is rarely used (and it really should be since it is for us to discuss critical issues). I'm happy to start going over there to participate.

[Mylar]

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Arwen Serpente wrote:

3) Ability to show color variations from one listing (the related items is excellent for this, but only goes so far). This would also allow listings to be much more consolidated and a shopper will be able to see all variations of the same style on one page.

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Metaverse Exchange had this when they were up and running. It was a great feature that was used for more than just color variations. I saw it used for providing regular/pro versions of items, attaching demos, and a number of other creative uses of it. And it did clear up a lot of clutter in the listings. It also stopped merchants from releasing a "new" item every day just to keep themselves at the top of the new release list.

[TatianaDokuchic Varriale]

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Chelsea Malibu wrote:

Oh, and though this is not directly related, another idea but not critical would be to have a private forum for MP merchants so we can discuss our rants without the world seeing.  I don't think the world needs to see our problems with MP as it does not shed a positive light on MP which in turn, may discourage some residents from using it. 

Better to air our dirty laundry among ourselves.

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Actually, there is a private Merchants Roundtable forum at http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants-Roundtable/bd-p/MerchantsRoundtable but I guess you would have to sign up to see it.

[Mickey Vandeverre]

They've stated pretty clearly that all their efforts are being focused on direct delivery.

there are suggestions all over this forum and have been for a year.  each and every thread has the same suggestions over and over again....and thoroughly explained.

1) people's names are attached now, and have been for some time.

3) absolutely NOT - and there is a rather lengthy thread on that

any of my suggestions are plastered all over these threads in detail.

[Sassy Romano]

I have no problem that Direct Delivery is a priority however, in the meantime the ridiculous 8 hour timeout should be dropped to 15 minutes max.

I'm with customer self redelivery, we have asked for that for long enough.

Email alert on reviews being left.  We were given Facebook Like This! but nobody asked for it.  I "get it" why it's there but I find myself strangely agreeing with Toy when he asked why time was spent on this when we've begged, pleaded for other things such as "email on review being left", also a trivial job for anyone with web skills, like the Facebook button skills and the change of an integer to change an 8 hour number to 15 minutes.  Seconds that would take, yet would save so much frustration.

Multiple storefronts

Ability to "partner" with a business partner and cross promote each others products under one brand.

 

[Josh Susanto]

If I could only put one item on my wish list, that would be just fine:

1) XStreet

 

[Mylar]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Multiple storefronts

Ability to "partner" with a business partner and cross promote each others products under one brand.

 

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A very emphatic "Yes!" to both of these items.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Couple of questions:

Are you going to compile this into a single list that goes in the Jira? I think you said as much, just clarifying.

Might this be suited to putting this together in roadmap form? Something that's never actually been done by Residents that I've seen and actually a very proactive step. If yes here, besides a roadmap format, reasonable and realistic timeframes might be a good addition?

Potentially an awesome collaborative project, and certainly something thoughtful and professional to present to make about the best case possible for the kind of toolset modern SL Merchants need.

 

[Anaiya Arnold]

I disagree with the things under 25 lindens.

I think 10 is a reasonable cut off.  At 10 a commission is paid to LL even if only the single item is sold.

As a customer, I do not expect to have go delving among freebies to pick up a single color eye shadow or lipstick layer that costs 20 lindens.  That's not a freebie or promo price, but a reasonable amount to pay for a full working, full priced product of this nature.  Anything from 10 lindens and upwards is a full priced item for some product ranges.

Customers should not have to trawl amongst the over abundance of demo items just to find a full priced eye shadow tattoo layer on the basis that this would be a give away price for entirely unrelated product types.

10 lindens might be a give away price for a scripted, textured, sculpty creation with animations (as an example), but for a single texture eye make up tattoo layer, that's a full priced product.  It's at the budget end of the range, but by no means a give away price for an item of this kind.

[Pamela Galli]

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Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

 

Potentially an awesome collaborative project, and certainly something thoughtful and professional to present to make about the best case possible for the kind of toolset modern SL Merchants need.

 

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Collaborative effort. In the Merchant forum.  Think about it.

[Sassy Romano]

It would indeed be interesting to see a collective feature set that the customer requires and then see what the response is.

Will it be:-

a) Lets build what the customer actually wants

b) That's great but we think you need totally different things, we'll give you a list of shiny things, none of which you've asked for

[Mickey Vandeverre]

Excellent Visual 

hey Dartagan -

there are only about 10 or 12 people who even participate here anymore.  Not exactly a representation of merchants.  Have a bit of a problem with the thread title "we merchants".....this ain't "we merchants"...

Lots of requests for tools here.  Some have a decent conversation inside of a thread, where the pros and cons are weighed.  But doesn't make a hill of beans around only a dozen people.

I would rather a Linden from the marketplace team make a list of suggestions based on what's already here, or what their support tickets are asking for, than to have an individual start  the agenda. 

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Got it. Thought this was veering toward a list of fixes/features/expectations that do share a common agreement. Also thought it might be trending toward something resembling an "open letter" that could be published.

My mistake.

[Claireschen Hesten]

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Anaiya Arnold wrote:

Customers should not have to trawl amongst the over abundance of demo items just to find a full priced eye shadow tattoo layer on the basis that this would be a give away price for entirely unrelated product types.

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now there's something, maybe it would help if demo items didn't show up in search results at all the merchant could add a demo item if they wanted, to a listing, on the listing and beneath the buying options could be 'Try Demo Version'

[Pamela Galli]

A while back they sent out a poll to merchants which would give them a pretty clear idea of how to prioritize what they worked on -- that's how they decided on DD, since delivery failure was at the top. They are not lacking the data.

[Josh Susanto]

They had the data to justify paying someone to write DD only after they had paid probably the same person(s) to write the Shopping Cart, and to otherwise assure that nothing like Xstreet would again threaten the necessity to keep paying someone to fix things.

[amarock Amat]

4.....

 

Noit sure if that is worth the programming time, I can just alt..but your stuff and then rate it as low as I want.

[Anaiya Arnold]

I'd love to have separate categories or a filter to exclude demos or to exclude non demos. 

 

Search by price 'low to high' returns both, but if you only want demos the freebie results waste time and push demos you want to look at back in page order (which unnecessarily minimizes product exposure for merchants appearing further back in search results).  Vice versa when someone wants a freebie or dollarbie rather than a demo.