Direct Delivery questions

[Ceera Murakami]

In the Direct Delivery FAQ, it says:

"For products listed on the Marketplace using direct delivery, the number of objects per folder and number of folders will be limited. This will require merchants selling large numbers of objects in the same listing to box objects within their folder hierarchy. The total number of folders is currently set at 20, and the number of total objects for each folder hierarchy (each set of items to list) cannot exceed 200."

Is that the limit on what one "for sale" item can contain? Or is that the limit on a merchant's entire available infentory of products they can sell?

Apparently for each item we want to sell, we make a folder in our "Merchant Outbox", which may contain boxed proiducts, or loose items, or possibly a heirarchy of sub-folders? We send this to the SLM servers, and in SLM we somehow turn each top-level folder that we sent into a product listing?

Either way, these limits worry me.

I sell more than 100 texture bundles on SLM, in affiliation withTexturs-R-Us, which has a heck of a lot more testure bundles in SLM, all under one merchant account. If we can only offer 20 items for sale, we are well and truly screwed.

At the same time, if I wanted to offer my old free megaprim builder's set again, via SLM, that has over 300 items in it. If we assume the limits above mean one individual item can contain no more than 20 folders within its heirarchy, and no more than 200 items total in the heirarchy, I still couldn't sell that via SLM, unless I boxed it as a single item?

This is very confusing to me. Can anyone clear up what this really means?

[Sassy Romano]

per one item.

If you sell bundles of 1000 textures for example, just box them up, that's all there is to it and no it's not a limit of 200 products total.  That's 200 items in that individual item.

 

 

[CommerceTeam Linden]

Thank you, Sassy. To clarify, if you wanted to take your box of 300 textures, leave it in a box, and sell it on the Marketplace, the Marketplace would only see a count of 1 item. You may optionally decide to create 10 boxes for your textures (separating by color, texture type, etc), and the Marketplace would see a count of 10 items. 

Does that help?

[Ann Otoole]

Does this help?

You can make 20 folders. In each folder you can have a max of 200 items. This means a merchant will be able to list only 4000 items.

That is 10 times what I would consider a viable product line. That circa 2006 and earlier stuff likely needs retiring anyway. (IMHO)

The alternative to this, if anyone really has over 4000 viable products that will all sell, is to make alts and pass them the overflow and the alts can reset the permissions and list.

 

Does anyone have over 4000 products on SLM?

 

[Toysoldier Thor]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

per one item.

If you sell bundles of 1000 textures for example, just box them up, that's all there is to it and no it's not a limit of 200 products total.  That's 200 items in that individual item.

 

 

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WOW Sassy... you saying that Merchants should BOX their textures goes agaisnt your past beliefs of "why the hell would anyone box their items?  So they now have to find a laggy place to rez a box and copy all the content from the box".

Now I hear that BOXING content is ok afterall.

And we also hear that Direct Delivery's folders actually has limits.  Thankfully this would not be a problem for me since all my products sold are and will stay boxed.  For the best interest of my customers.

So I want to ask another question... Where did these Direct Delivery qquestions come from?  Are you telling me that Brook FINALLY started to deliver on her September commitment on leaking a few more bits of information?  Or is this an old FAQ on DD that I somehow missed?

Please provide the link in this thread.

[Ann Otoole]

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Commerce/Marketplace-Update-Beta-Testing-and-Direct-Delivery/ba-p/1205405

[Sassy Romano]

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

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Sassy Romano wrote:

per one item.

If you sell bundles of 1000 textures for example, just box them up, that's all there is to it and no it's not a limit of 200 products total.  That's 200 items in that individual item.

 

 

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WOW Sassy... you saying that Merchants should BOX their textures goes agaisnt your past beliefs of "why the hell would anyone box their items?  So they now have to find a laggy place to rez a box and copy all the content from the box".

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I've never been an advocate of selling unboxed content.  It's an option and it will be a godsend to me for some of my items.  The rest will just be boxed content when DD is available.  Like most, I have little time or interest in unboxing everything just to present it for DD.

People can rez in my shop, always have been able to.  It's a dumb idea to force your customers to leave to unbox.  A prime opportunity to sell to them is while they're in the shop, not once they've gone home to try something on and forget to come back.  They also don't *need* to find somewhere to rez, if the box can be worn and includes an unpacker.  I don't use those but it's an option.

The information about DD is in the FAQ.

[Sassy Romano]

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Ann Otoole wrote:

Does this help?

You can make 20 folders. In each folder you can have a max of 200 items. This means a merchant will be able to list only 4000 items.

 

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I read the FAQ as "a product can have a folder hierarchy of 20 folders each of which can contain 200 items". 

NOT 4000 products total.

[Darrius Gothly]

With Magic Boxes there is exactly one physical item associated with exactly one SLM Listing. This is also reflected in the ANS Transaction record as the two data fields InventoryName and ItemName.

With Direct Delivery there will be the possibility of having (as stated) 10 physical items associated with a single listing. Based on the stated limits, there will be at most 20 folders with at most 200 items per folder ... per single listing. This means there will be up to 4000 physical items per listing.

What name will be reflected in the ANS Transaction record for a Direct Delivery transaction as the InventoryName field?

[Toysoldier Thor]

Thanks Ann for the link! 

So reading this blog announcement today... it says...

Direct Delivery Beta Testing
In December, all merchants will have the opportunity to purchase and list items using Direct Delivery on Aditi.

Exactly what are Merchants "purchasing"??  So LL is trying to make money on Merchants that already have the guts to beta test their products on a test grid?

Am I missing something here?  Now there is a new way for LL to make money.

[Arwen Serpente]

Ok, I'm totally confused on the "folder" subject.

~ I understand that goods can be delivered in either boxes (as now) or unboxed in folders

~ I understand that folders will have limits on how many items they can handle

Since I'm one of those Merchants who has boxed products and do not intend to unbox them, here's where my confusion lies:

Do we create folders and put one box per folder? My plan had always been to just simply move the contents of my Magic Boxes into the "Out" Folder ~ easy, done. Do we now have to create folders for each product in the "Out" Folder? Meaning, we have to create and properly name as many folders as we have items to sell? If that's the case, that's going to lead to a TON of work for Merchants AND (of course) possible "folder naming" mistakes.

Sorry if I've got a brain-block on this thing...I don't get it. Can someone explain?

[Ann Otoole]

That is not how I read it. The statement is nebulous and can be interpreted in more than one way.

So LL must come forth with actual examples to demonstrate how this actually works and exactly what all the limits are.

 

Overall I feel the only safe approach will be to treat the folder as a magic box and continue on exactly the same we we have for years that has served all the needs of SL very well. Or are we now required to make a folder for every boxed item we sell?

Adding complexity to a working system seems illogical. Where are the requirements for this odd set of limits that were solicited from the merchants anyway?

 So LL, how many items are allowed in the outbound folder? Please provide detailed scenarios and explain everything in detail exactly how it works.

[Toysoldier Thor]

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Arwen Serpente wrote:

Ok, I'm totally confused on the "folder" subject.

~ I understand that goods can be delivered in either boxes (as now) or unboxed in folders

~ I understand that folders will have limits on how many items they can handle

Since I'm one of those Merchants who has boxed products and do not intend to unbox them, here's where my confusion lies:

Do we create folders and put one box per folder? My plan had always been to just simply move the contents of my Magic Boxes into the "Out" Folder ~ easy, done. Do we now have to create folders for each product in the "Out" Folder? Meaning, we have to create and properly name as many folders as we have items to sell? If that's the case, that's going to lead to a TON of work for Merchants AND (of course) possible "folder naming" mistakes.

Sorry if I've got a brain-block on this thing...I don't get it. Can someone explain?

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You and me both!  I have read this 4 times and I have read the Sassy Commerce Ann and Darius posts and they are all saying different things.

WTF!

>  So we need to creat a SINGLE Folder for each product we SELL in MP?  And if I sell an item on MP and have a folder for that item then why would I need anymore than one folder for a single selling MP listed item?

>  So am I also understanding that I cannot just place my 40 or 50 BOXED items in my magicbox on the root of the OUTBOX folder like they are all right now in the Magic Box?

>  Also, if I dont have a supporting 3PV as Merchant then I will have this OUTBOX folder but it will not push the content up to MP?

>  And these items or folder that I create in the OUTBOX folder will disappear after the item is moved into MP?  So generally if i want to update a selling boxed item in MP, I need to create a similar folder as what I created last time then dump my boxed item into it then it will move to MP and the folder will poof again from my OUTBOX?  What happens if the folder name is different from the last one? 

[Sassy Romano]

aditi has play money

[Arwen Serpente]

I'm reading the DD Q&A and getting more confused and concerned word by word.

It sounds like a level of complication is being added that needs an interpreter. I'm really not getting it.

Excerpts from the DD Q&A with my comments/questions in blue:

How will Direct Delivery work for Merchants?

As a Merchant, you will send folders to your Marketplace inventory that you plan to list for sale. You will do this by placing items in a system folder called the Merchant Outbox and sending the contents to your Marketplace inventory. Each top level folder in the Merchant Outbox represents one sellable item in the Marketplace. Once all folders are successfully sent to the Marketplace, they will disappear from the Merchant Outbox.

?So, this appears to be a process we have to repeat due to the limits on the top level folder quantity (20) --> so we can only send 20 folder/items to the Marketplace at a time and we need to create a folder per item?

Once those items have appeared in your Marketplace inventory, for each item you will be able to create a new listing or associate it with an existing listing. When one of your items is sold, the Marketplace will deliver the item (as a folder) to the customer's Received Items folder.

?We have to redo all our listings?

Received Items: Items delivered to the recipient will appear as folders, instead of boxes, in a system folder called Received Items. Some Merchants may choose to box certain items, which will appear in Received Items as well. The Received Items folder will be created for a user the first time an item is delivered.

?If a listing now delivers multiple folders nested in a Master folder, isn't this going to be a mess in inventory and risk more losses or customer mistakes ("I think I only got part of the order")?

For products listed on the Marketplace using direct delivery, the number of objects per folder and number of folders will be limited. This will require merchants selling large numbers of objects in the same listing to box objects within their folder hierarchy. The total number of folders is currently set at 20, and the number of total objects for each folder hierarchy (each set of items to list) cannot exceed 200.

?This is what makes me think that we can only send 20 items/folders at a time...what am I missing?

[Sassy Romano]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

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Ann Otoole wrote:

Does this help?

You can make 20 folders. In each folder you can have a max of 200 items. This means a merchant will be able to list only 4000 items.

 

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I read the FAQ as "a product can have a folder hierarchy of 20 folders each of which can contain 200 items". 

NOT 4000 products total.

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Slight correction to my post:  FAQ says "The total number of folders is currently set at 20, and the number of total objects for each folder hierarchy (each set of items to list) cannot exceed 200. "

So that's an item can contain a 20 folders.  Maximum number of objects in total in that hierarchy is 200.  I don't see why that's not clear but I appreciate others read it differently.

[Darrius Gothly]

Here's what I base my statement on:

1. Gathering the list of items (the "Contents") that can be delivered from Magic Boxes results in a "Flat" list. That means it is only a list and not a folder tree; you can't have folders in the Contents of a Magic Box. The most natural mechanism to implement the list is a "Top Level Folder" that contains an unlimited number of other folders. Each folder inside that top level folder would be one "Item" that can be delivered. Scanning the top level folder to develop the list of Items is a simple operation that does not need to be collected into memory all at once; the folders can be scanned sequentially until the desired one(s) are found.

2. When a purchase is made, it is a simple operation to locate the desired folder from the Top Level Folder. Thus I believe the Inventory Name will be the folder name inside the Top Level Folder. (That top level folder will be named something like #SLM Out or similar .. I forget the exact name.) However the items to be collected and the folders they go in MUST all be collected into memory so that the entire delivery can be completed. (Actually, it doesn't. They could recursively iterate through the sub-folders, but that's one of those "complex" operations that I don't think they know how to pull off.

3. They will build a list in memory of all the items and their attendant folders ... then walk that list and pluck copies from the Merchant's inventory and plop them into the Purchaser's inventory. They will put them in a folder under the Purchaser's Top Level Inbound folder (named something like #SLM In or similar) and lay out the pieces in the same folder trees and same locations as found under the Item folder in the Merchant's Inventory. The name they give the new main folder would be the same as the source's main folder.

So, I believe they will allow an unlimited number of Item Folders under the Top Level (#SLM Out) folder, and each Item Folder will be allowed to have at most 20 sub-folders and each sub-folder can contain at most 200 items. The sub-folders will NOT be allowed to have their own sub-folders, but it does sound like you can have at most 200 items in the main Item folder in addition to up to 20 folders with another 200 items .. maybe.

Most people will:

 

1. Open their SLM Outbound folder,
2. Create a new folder and give it the same name as their Boxed Item from their Magic Box,
3. Copy the contents of the Boxed Item into that new folder,
4. Set the "Delivery Method" on SLM to "Direct Delivery" and associate the new Folder with the Listing (in much the same way as you change associated item now).

This method and manner make the most sense to me, and I don't see any logical way to fit all the parts they've disclosed into making the machine work. I could be way fricken wrong, and no doubt have made some major misassumptions in the decision process ... but it's how I see it coming down.

PS: The one thing I see them making a big mistake with .. possibly .. is requiring that the Merchant name the main item folder the SAME as the Item Listing and NOT allow association of the Folder to any Listing. This is the same mistake they made when they first rolled out the SLM, they locked the Inventory Item to the Item Listing .. and that was wrong. I'm betting they try the same bonehead with DD. If so, they will want/need to fix that before any of us can really use it.

[Arwen Serpente]

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

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......

>  And these items or folder that I create in the OUTBOX folder will disappear after the item is moved into MP?  So generally if i want to update a selling boxed item in MP, I need to create a similar folder as what I created last time then dump my boxed item into it then it will move to MP and the folder will poof again from my OUTBOX?  What happens if the folder name is different from the last one? 

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It would appear the "uploading" of items/boxes/folders is an iterative process...20 at a time. Once uploaded, they disappear, and you go on to do then next 20. At least, that's what it seems to me.

I really don't understand why DD can't be taken in stages:

Stage 1: Outbox/Inbox Folders & Merchants just transfer their current Magic Box inventory to the Outbox to be uploaded to the MP. Since all boxes are already associated from the Magic Box system - no significant work for the Merchants.

Then,

Stage 2: Unbundling/Folder delivery IF desired by the Merchant

Just seems to me that doing both of these at once is going to lead to a bumpy implemention.

[Toysoldier Thor]

Yeah Arwen - reading it sounds like a gaggle of Developers came up with this massively confusing method of getting MP items up to MP for sale and updating it.

"As a Merchant, you will send folders to your Marketplace inventory that you plan to list for sale. You will do this by placing items in a system folder called the Merchant Outbox and sending the contents to your Marketplace inventory. Each top level folder in the Merchant Outbox represents one sellable item in the Marketplace. Once all folders are successfully sent to the Marketplace, they will disappear from the Merchant Outbox. "

So i guess for us DUMB Merchants that dont find this simple I am reading this (as a merchant that exclusively will continue to use BOXED items in MP:

 

1. I have 50 Boxed items in MP for sale.
2. For each of my Boxed items - instead of just dropping all 50 boxed items onto the OUTBOX folder to be sucked up to MP, I need to first create 50 unique folders on the OUTBOX and like:  /SculptyPack1  /SculptyPack2 / SculptyPack3 ...
3. Then I need to place my item SCULPTYPACK1 into / /SculptyPack1 etc... (x 50)
4. as soon as I drop my item in to this folder.... some automated process will detect this and suck all the contents and the respective folders into the MP folders for my store.
5. Then all these 50 folders will be deleted from my OUTBOX
6. .... fast forward a month ....
7. I want to update my SCULPTYPACK1 ....
8. I have to create a folder  /SculptyPack1
9. Drop my SCULPTYPACK1 into this folder
10. and poof - it automatically get sucked up to MP again?

So... if I decide to just drop my 50 SCULPTYPACK1 thru 50 boxed items into the root of OUTBOX.... what will happen?

So... if I incorrectly type this /SculptyPack1 folder wrong - how will it update my pack in MP? Or do I now have another accidental rogue item?

What a mess from what I see!

[Toysoldier Thor]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

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Sassy Romano wrote:

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Ann Otoole wrote:

Does this help?

You can make 20 folders. In each folder you can have a max of 200 items. This means a merchant will be able to list only 4000 items.

 

---

I read the FAQ as "a product can have a folder hierarchy of 20 folders each of which can contain 200 items". 

NOT 4000 products total.

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Slight correction to my post:  FAQ says "The total number of folders is currently set at 20, and the number of total objects for each folder hierarchy (each set of items to list) cannot exceed 200. "

So that's an item can contain a 20 folders.  Maximum number of objects in total in that hierarchy is 200.  I don't see why that's not clear but I appreciate others read it differently.

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Yup Sassy... you are smarter then us because it sure make absolutely no sense to me and Arwen

[Darrius Gothly]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Slight correction to my post:  FAQ says "The total number of folders is currently set at 20, and the number of total objects for each folder hierarchy (each set of items to list) cannot exceed 200. "

So that's an item can contain a 20 folders.  Maximum number of objects in total in that hierarchy is 200.  I don't see why that's not clear but I appreciate others read it differently.

---

 

Rereading the quote, I revise my earlier statement. I now believe a single item listing may have at most 200 "parts" .. pieces contained in the main Listing folder. Those parts may be placed in the root of the listing folder or in up to 20 separate sub-folders of the listing folder. But no matter what, you may not have more than 200 pieces delivered with a single item purchase, and you may arrange those in no more than 1 main folder and up to 20 sub-folders.

DocumentationAndArtwork Linden needs to draw a picture to make it clear to everyone ... including me!

[Arwen Serpente]

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

Yeah Arwen - reading it sounds like a gaggle of Developers came up with this massively confusing method of getting MP items up to MP for sale and updating it.

"As a Merchant, you will send folders to your Marketplace inventory that you plan to list for sale. You will do this by placing items in a system folder called the Merchant Outbox and sending the contents to your Marketplace inventory. Each top level folder in the Merchant Outbox represents one sellable item in the Marketplace. Once all folders are successfully sent to the Marketplace, they will disappear from the Merchant Outbox. "

So i guess for us DUMB Merchants that dont find this simple I am reading this (as a merchant that exclusively will continue to use BOXED items in MP:

 

1. I have 50 Boxed items in MP for sale.
2. For each of my Boxed items - instead of just dropping all 50 boxed items onto the OUTBOX folder to be sucked up to MP, I need to first create 50 unique folders on the OUTBOX and like:  /SculptyPack1  /SculptyPack2 / SculptyPack3 ...
3. Then I need to place my item SCULPTYPACK1 into / /SculptyPack1 etc... (x 50)
4. as soon as I drop my item in to this folder.... some automated process will detect this and suck all the contents and the respective folders into the MP folders for my store.
5. Then all these 50 folders will be deleted from my OUTBOX
6. .... fast forward a month ....
7. I want to update my SCULPTYPACK1 ....
8. I have to create a folder  /SculptyPack1
9. Drop my SCULPTYPACK1 into this folder
10. and poof - it automatically get sucked up to MP again?

So... if I decide to just drop my 50 SCULPTYPACK1 thru 50 boxed items into the root of OUTBOX.... what will happen?

So... if I incorrectly type this /SculptyPack1 folder wrong - how will it update my pack in MP? Or do I now have another accidental rogue item?

What a mess from what I see!

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Yup, that's what I am understanding too. Except, we can only send 20 at a time.

[Cara Ametza]

This is a nightmare in progress!  What is the process when an item needs to be updated and corrected for some reason? Nothing in the FAQ about that, which is terrifying since the developers have proven they don't have a clue exactly how SL works as a merchant.

 

The information on the FAQ is great, but at the same time, it's nothing at all.  They are shoving this down our throats and with the poor communication and lack of good beta testing first it isn't a good idea.  Sorry viewer 2 proved that the lab doesn't properly beta test stuff or they would have realized the huge piles of issues before it ever launched and the riots started.

 

I'm all for a more stable system, especially with the rolling shut downs that occur each time the lab schedules rolling restarts, just not sure this is really the right way to do things.

[Ceera Murakami]

All these discussions are why I opened this thread. My take on it was confusing as all get out, and it appears I am not alone.

I'm wondering right now how I can even go about testing this direct delivery method myself. I deleted my magic boxes and quit selling on Marketplace about the time they started making noises about charging merchants fees to list free stuff that I was offering as a public service, like my megaprim kit.

I could not, and still can not, directly list my own texture sets on SLM, because the system as it is set up is crap for selling things like texture bundles; the in-world store they are sold at isn't MY store, it is Textures-R-Us, and SLM policy only allows you to link to an in-world store that is YOUR OWN; and where I really would want to refer them for information is the TRU website, and THAT isn't allowed because it is a "competing merchant site". I had to rely on TRU's owner to create a master account for TRU, and to place all the freelance TRU artist's sets on SLM, with the appropriate profit sharing split between the artist and TRU. Now I get my share of those SLM sales, but I still can't manage my own texture items on SLM. Not without pulling out of TRU and setting up my own independant texture store in direct competition with TRU.

I have an SLM Merchant Account, but I never set up a "Store" in SLM. Other than my textures, the products that I used to sell on SLM I don't feel are worth bothering to re-list. My furniture, clothes, wings, eyes, and other misc. items that I sold at one time or another weren't selling well enough any more to be worth the time or expense to maintain the in-world store, and my SLM listings got lost in the flood of featured freebie crap. And in light of the new Mesh stuff that will be flooding the market, which I have no skill at making competing products for, I'm not very inclined to spend time making new stuff to sell.

Still, if I ever do decide to sell via SLM again, I would like to understand how the heck it is done.

So, for the sake of argument, here's what I *think* I understand so far.

I *think* there is no limit on how many products I can sell as individual listings.

For each item I want to sell, I have to make a folder in my "Merchant Outbox", and put in that folder either the contents of the formerly boxed item, or the boxed product. That folder could potentially contain a heirarchy of up to 20 folders and a max of 200 items, with each "item" being either a texture or prim object or piece of clothing or whatever, or possibly a box of things. That will be a pain to do for merchants with a lot of already boxed stuff in their magic boxes, but I guess I see how that works, IF you hope to eliminate delivering boxed stuff.

I send that to SLM, and then via SLM I can tell a new listing or an existing listing that the item is delivered without a magic box, from that uploaded folder.

I guess if I want to update an item, like version 1.1 of a scripted door, I can make a new folder for "Door 1.1" in the "Merchant Outbox" folder, upload that, and associate the old listing with the new 1.1 version's uploaded folder, instead of the earlier 1.0 version's folder?

When someone buys an item, they get a folder that contains whatever was in the folder that I associated with that listing. I guess its name is whatever name is listed for the item? And it can contain up to 200 things, suich could be individual content or sub-folders of content or boxed things?

If I don't have a "store" set up now in SLM, can I set one up so I can test this on the Beta grid?

Is it possible yet to set up multiple stores without using alts? For example, can I set up "Ceera's Furniture" and "Ceera's Textures" and "Ceera's Clothes", as one account with three SLM "stores"? Or must I use my main and two alts to do that?

I'll likely have many more questions, but I want to quit now and eat my dinner. See ya.

[Toysoldier Thor]

Yess ... this confusing mess I am reading on this process stinks of a back room Geek LL Developer that has Never used MP and has no concepts of being an MP merchant.  They seemed to have turned what seemed to be a relatively simple objective of "Replace the less reliable Magicbox boxed content delivery with a more reliable content delivery" into a pet project of Rubix Cube puzzle for the geeks.

I agree Arwen.  Why didnt they start by CRAWLING.... just allow our boxed content to be moved from Magicbox to this new DD delivery.

But nooooooo, LL had to boil the ocean and come up with a complicated, confusing, form of brain surgury just to get our boxed items into MP?

And where are the countless other answers in the FAQ to answer our questions?  How do we update?  What if we just want to keep using boxed items?  What triggers the actual OUTBOX uploading process? Do folders or Boxes need to maintain some naming standard?  etc.

The good news is that they wont deploy this expected and likely to screw up mess until after new year!  At least they listened to that.

I want to ask one more question to LL... not that they will answer me.  Why cant LL leave the Magicbox model in place permanently instead of retiring it.  Since it clearly will be operating in parallel to the new DD.... why not let us Merchants decide if we want to stay on Magicbox?