What is the linden recommended process for a merchant to do with delivery problems?

[Cald Stine]

I have had several customers tell me they ordered a product, and their records show it delivered, but they claim it did not.  My records show they ordered it was delivered.  Most of these complaints have waited a full day or more to come to me.  What is the linden recommended process for a merchant to do?

Delivery failures or misses are not a reflection on my product, but rather the Linden controlled Marketplace.  I don't want customers posting bad ratings because Linden failed to deliver.  I usually just re-deliver and they are happy, but I can't help but wonder if some of them are getting second copies of my products and giving them away or selling them. 

 

What am I supposed to do?

[Rolig Loon]

That's always the risk you take.  It's a rather small risk, of course, balanced by the good will that you create (and the repeat business) by redeilvering things, perhaps with a pleasant note. We get a few dozen anguished questions a week here from people with delivery issues.  We always advise them to wait and then send a polite, infomative request for redelivery, and not to expect that all merchants will be willing to do it, especially for no-copy items.  This is not a "Linden recommended" solution.  It's the wise advice we offer as residents, fellow customers, and fellow merchants.  In cases when a merchant chooses not to respond, a resident can always file a support ticket and ask LL to do an end run around the merchant and redeliver the item themselves.  As a merchant, that makes me feel uncomfortable, but I suspect that LL actually does that quite rarely.

The delivery failures are largely due to flaws in the Magic Box system, which will vanish when they finally release the Direct Delivery model from beta, where it has been since ....... the beginning of time.  You've probably seen LL's many suggestions to merchants (maintain more than one Magic Box on more than one sim, don't put more than a couple of hundred items in a box, .....), but the system is clunky, so we're stuck with at least some delivery failures.  Of course, some delivery failures are actually the customer's fault.  Newbies reject deliveries by mistake. People order WAY too much stuff and then aren't in world to receive it, so their "in box" caps.  They'll keep doing that even after Magic Boxes are history.  I guess the bottom line is that merchants have to figure that returns and redeliveries are just part of the cost of doing business -- part of our advertizing/good will strategy.