Abuse of Auto-Update Vendors to Send Spam = Loss of Customers

[Nefertiti Nefarious]

Merchants - the purpose of an auto-update vendor, such as the CasparVend is so you can send updates to scripts, updates to instructions, etc. to people who bought the products  It is NOT a bulk marketing machine! 

Buying from a vendor is not the same as clicking on a "Subscribe to my new product announcement" sign. If you send me ads just because I once upon a time bought something from your vendors ... all you are doing is annoying me and probably ensuring I will never return, I will mute you, and I will file an AR for annoying me with your ads.

If you want to build an advertising mailing list, use a subscribo-matic.

[Nicolette Lefevre]

I second this. I already stopped buying from several merchants because of this. One has even been one of my favorites before they started spamming me with regular updates via inventory-offers. I am NOT going to tolerate of even encourage this kind of behavior by continuing to give them my money.

[Incoherendt Randt]

Someone who's on the Internet long enough to find Second Life and do a store there has been on the spam receiving end enough to know what it's like. They know better and they don't care. Give them one (1) chance to take you off their spam-o-matics, then go straight to AR for anything that gets past mute.

[Chelsea Malibu]

Ditto and what I find most ridiculous about this practice is that many are rather large merchants doing this.  They loose far more customers than they gain.  

[amarock Amat]

Casper vend has a delisting feature, why don't you use it ? I use my item once a month , and that was mostly to give away a free gift and a notice that my main store is out of order for now until college comes back. When i come back into business, I will be using that same feature to let those that have bought from me know that I am back about, and a small catalog showing what is new.

[Sassy Romano]

Sometimes you just can't win, I know this is about converting a customer into a marketing subject but my little story here tells why a merchant can't win.

My "Spam-o-Matic" (yes that's really what we called our in house one) is such an oxymoron.  If I send a dozen messages a year through it, i've been busy and around product updates, they're nearly always pulled by the owner rezzing their existing one and it testing for an update.

There was one product that I felt needed a more urgent update so I compiled the list of existing owners and did a very targeted update to push an update there and then.

Within moments, someone TP'd to the location of the sending server where I happened to be and demanded to know why I was spamming her.  "Um, it's not spam, it's an update because you're a customer".

She then added "but i've deleted it from inventory".

The conversation didn't get much better but clearly my best intent was unwelcome even though I couldn't have any idea as to who has deleted an item or not.  So bearing in mind that this was the first time she had ever received such an offer of a replacement item, it was rather over reacting.

So you just can't win either way but I do agree that converting a purchaser into an automatic marketing target is unwelcome.  Just like the one dance ball vendor who adds you to the list automatically when you visit the shop and refuses to take you off when asked in IM.  "I'm too busy, send a notecard" was the reply.  "Um, but i've just asked you right now, why send a notecard?" said I.  Then it was claimed that I was muted for daring to ask to be removed from a spam list that I didn't ask to be put on in the first place.

Far too mant dysfunctional merchant practices in SL unfortunately.

[Nicolette Lefevre]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Just like the one dance ball vendor who adds you to the list automatically when you visit the shop and refuses to take you off when asked in IM.  "I'm too busy, send a notecard" was the reply.  "Um, but i've just asked you right now, why send a notecard?" said I.  Then it was claimed that I was muted for daring to ask to be removed from a spam list that I didn't ask to be put on in the first place.

Far too mant dysfunctional merchant practices in SL unfortunately.

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Ah yes. I know that vendor. I think that one was the first one ever that *I* muted :-)

 

[amarock Amat]

Far too mant dysfunctional merchant practices in SL unfortunately.

 

 

here ill fix that for you

 

Far to many dysfunctional customers who do not practise common sense in sl unfortunately lol

[Anaiya Arnold]

Customers are obliged to have lindens, not common sense. 

[Sassy Romano]

I don't subscribe to that view regarding customers.  Yes, some are more challenging to satisfy than others but when in receipt of money, a merchant is somewhat obliged to either offer the product as advertised or a refund and in other cases appropriate adjustment of compensation or goods.

It's dire just how much shrugging of shoulders and the view of "it's your fault" towards customers.  The total anonymity and lack of redress merely exacerbates this.

None of us are perfect but some seem to want to excel at racing to the top of the dysfunctional tree.

 

[Nefertiti Nefarious]

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amarock Amat wrote:

Casper vend has a delisting feature, why don't you use it ?

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The product in question was purchased

from the Marketplace

about 2 years ago, according to the merchant, so they had to have put my name into the CasperVend manually.

Why should I jump through someone's hoops to get off a list I never asked to get onto?

If it happens again, it's AR time

[swedishfox Ghost]

My customers get product updates and that's it, I might include an optional notecard or message with it, but rarely do I update anything (I need to poke around for stuff to fix)

[Cara Ametza]

If I get spammed with notices I didn't ask for, I don't nicely ask to be removed.  I get ugly about it.  Why? Because I didn't ask.  If it's an updated item, I don't have a problem with it.  But just because I buy something from you doesn't give you the right to add me to a list that I didn't ask for.  I will AR not only the merchant but the object sending out the notice each and every time.

 

I will not nicely IM to ask to be removed.  You shouldn't add me in the first place.  If I like your stuff, I'll subscribe.  I got into a huge argument with someone the other day over this.  I had already manually unsubscribed from their list twice and was added back yet again and yet she wondered why I was so nasty about it.

It's rude, disrespectful and to me screams desperation.