Will New Direct Delivery Empty MP

[Sassy Romano]

---

Magnet Homewood wrote:

Different stuff in different boxes, good point, perhaps we will be allowed to have different folders within the main DD folder to replicate that? Who knows

---

Why would you want this? on the Marketplace inventory view, you see all items and can search for product.  Items are REMOVED from the DD outbox as explained in the FAQ.  There will be no folders in the outbox to "manage".

 

 

[Magnet Homewood]

FAQ? Ahh, FAQ! FAN Q very much!

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Sassy Romano wrote:

---

Magnet Homewood wrote:

Different stuff in different boxes, good point, perhaps we will be allowed to have different folders within the main DD folder to replicate that? Who knows

---

Why would you want this? on the Marketplace inventory view, you see all items and can search for product.  Items are REMOVED from the DD outbox as explained in the FAQ.  There will be no folders in the outbox to "manage".

 

 

---

Sadly it seems this design limitation is true.  LL did not think it was of any value to use a MASTER SOURCE model for the OUTBOX so all the folders you create to upload into the SLM Inventory DB gets deleted after upload, forcing you now to create yet another new OUTBOX in your inventory that will have to mimic what the OUTBOX would have looked like if it didnt delete all its content after upload.  You will be forced to do this supposedly as a way to update your content on SLM.

THIS has not been confirmed in the FAQs yet since LL keeps ignoring this question on exactly how do Merchants update their content of listed items. 

-  How does a boxed or folder of content get updated if there is no need for versioning of the product? 

-  How would 1 item in a folder structure of an item get updated if there is not need for versioning? 

-  How would contents be updated if there is Versioning required?

-  If a new Version of the Product gets upload as I assume new content with a new name (Prod1 v1, Prod1 v2), then how does a merchant clean up the old content that is not needed anymore?

Asked several times.  Not answered. 

These answers would indicate how important it is for all merchants to now have to create their own DUPLICATE OUTBOX as a Master source to the SLM OUTBOX.  Manual synchronisation which is prone to errors vs an automated synch that LL could have easily incorporated into the solution design.

Ohh well.... I guess LL knows best how about our needs.  No need to ask us Merchants.

[Sassy Romano]

Leaving aside the nirvana of what could be, I wonder what would happen if they had done this and then "forced" merchants to increase their inventory size by thousands of items.  I seem to recall that most objected to such a method.

Second and it's just a thought, I wonder how this might have worked had the Outbox with all it's subfolders and content failed to be displayed correctly locally and a merchant started making changes that no longer reflected the true folder hierarchy.  At this point, what would have happened if the merchant chose "sync" or whatever process with a corrupt view of what the folder structure looked like?

Given those situations, I can see why LL have done it like they have, at least the server side view in MP inventory page is what you have on MP and available in inventory.  Figuring that the next step to replace something would be to just upload that item again where an item would be the whole folders worth and not just a component, then all you'd have to do would be the same action as the present state with a new item in a Magic Box.  That is, re-associate the existing listing with the new uploaded item.  This has been answered in one of the entries from CommerceTeamGroupMember Linden

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Sassy Romano wrote:

Leaving aside the nirvana of what could be, I wonder what would happen if they had done this and then "forced" merchants to increase their inventory size by thousands of items.  I seem to recall that most objected to such a method.

Second and it's just a thought, I wonder how this might have worked had the Outbox with all it's subfolders and content failed to be displayed correctly locally and a merchant started making changes that no longer reflected the true folder hierarchy.  At this point, what would have happened if the merchant chose "sync" or whatever process with a corrupt view of what the folder structure looked like?

Given those situations, I can see why LL have done it like they have, at least the server side view in MP inventory page is what you have on MP and available in inventory.  Figuring that the next step to replace something would be to just upload that item again where an item would be the whole folders worth and not just a component, then all you'd have to do would be the same action as the present state with a new item in a Magic Box.  That is, re-associate the existing listing with the new uploaded item.  This has been answered in one of the entries from CommerceTeamGroupMember Linden

---

 

I wonder what would happen if they had done this and then "forced" merchants to increase their inventory size by thousands of items.

Whaa?  So Sassy, where do you think Merchant will get this content from that goes into the OUTBOX?  From thin Air?  The content of thousands of items are already in the inventory in some order (maybe in the similar or not similar structure as the magicbox is - for me its not).  With the destruction of the Magicbox which is currently the absolute master source for SLM, I "WILL" be forced to create this new MASTER SOURCE within my inventory in an order that matches the folder structure that the SLM inventory knows it as. 

This solution will now be in addition to product content that is already in my inventory is an internal format (my product folders and all related marketing and build related objects for each product).  So LL has not stopped anything on expanded inventory since this MASTER OUTBOX Source folder will pretty much be a mandatory in order to ensure it matches the folder structures used in SLM.

But now I will have to keep it synched manually as opposed to the LL OUTBOX being the undeniable source of the SLM content in the SLM inventory.  As Master source, I would know that whenever I changed content in the outbox, at some polling or trigger event the entire Master folder would be synched to my SLM. 

Please dont scare ppl by saying that synching a master to Destination will cause tons of traffic because you would be spreading FUD for something that is untrue.  Modern Day synchs of even very large sources of data can take seconds if only a few items change.  In our RL environment we master-destination synch 13,000+ folders with content every night and this normally take about 1 or 2 minutes if most of the content has not changed (i.e. a publishing model).

You are right that the OUTBOX could possible look corrupted thanks to LL Asset Server screwups or some caching view on the viewer, but if you want to go into deeper solution design on this concept, I would have placed extra maintenance solution components in place on the SLM website for the Merchant... like...

"VALIDATION CHECK OF MASTER TO SLM"  to report to the Merchant a comparison report of whats in the Master OUTBOX to the SLM Inventory....or

even another cool maintenance tool in the event that the Merchant accidently really did screw up the Master OUTBOX (i.e. deleting or polluting the Master by deleting things he didnt mean to delete or dropping content into the folder by accident) by allowing a REVERSE SYNCH of the SLM Store Inventory to the MASTER OUTBOX.

Your argument on this can be used against you as well if the OUTBOX is corrupt and content that was already upload does not appear to be deleted and merchant takes action on what he thinks he sees.

Now to go after your "its simple" and "its already been answered" on updates.  So how simple is it if a Merchant wants to update a large or even simple folder structure and accidently spells the folder name wrong from what it was the first time it was load?  SCULPTY MOUNTAINS PACK  then accidently SCPY MOUNTAIN PAKC the second time.  This folder structure has 100 items in it with subfolders.  BOOM.... DD blindly uploads this incorrectly spelled content into SLM.

The likelihood of this happening is MUCH GREATER than the fears you proposed with a master sych. 

Please provide a link to the FAQ or a clip of the LL answers to all my update question.  I would like to read these answers.  Seems I completely missed this. 

[Sassy Romano]

Well as i've said before, the design is what it is, debate about it's design has limited value.

If you spelt something wrong, you'll just end up with the same as you did if you uploaded a box called "sclpts" instead of "sculpts".  It'll appear a product in your inventory that you re-associate with an existing listing.  I'm not sure why that's seen as an issue?

As to the re-association, it is out there and has been answered but you'll have to hunt for it

[Toysoldier Thor]

---

Sassy Romano wrote:

Well as i've said before, the design is what it is, debate about it's design has limited value.

If you spelt something wrong, you'll just end up with the same as you did if you uploaded a box called "sclpts" instead of "sculpts".  It'll appear a product in your inventory that you re-associate with an existing listing.  I'm not sure why that's seen as an issue?

As to the re-association, it is out there and has been answered but you'll have to hunt for it

---

LOL - see Sassy - there are answers to your "dilemmas" on how to create a better solution than what LL created.

I was not debating or trying to convince you or LL that thier idea was poorly thought out and needs to be redone.  We already know that 1) LL does not listen to its customers ,  2) would never change their minds no matter how bad their idea was.

It was just explaining yet another reason why the current OUTBOX Upload & Trash concept was bad.  You just allowed me to give even more reasons us Merchants will have to deal with when using this model.

As for your inability to provide me the link to the answers to my posed questions on how update works.... let me translate your response.... "actually LL didnt answer the questions but this is my inside knownledge as well as Wiser LL SCRIPTER skills providing educated guesses on how it works"

 

[Sassy Romano]

Come on Toy, deduce it.  What do you do now?  you put an item in a box and you sync.  Then you use the web view of MP inventory to associate that product with a listing.

Since DD aims to replace the Magic Box, figure it out!

Everyone will get the opportunity to try it long before it's live so there's really nothing to be concerned about as to the "how it will work" and since LL won't listen anyway, there's no point in discussion about whether it's right or wrong

[Toysoldier Thor]

So lets Deduce it:

CURRENT MODEL

 

1. My personal inventory has a structure of selling product folders (for me generally 1 folder for every product I sell on inworld / SLM) that contains both my FINISHED BOXED SELLING ITEM as well as all the content in the box, photos, marketing content, demo items, older boxed versions, etc. related to this product).  This folder structure in NO WAY resembles the content that is in my Magicbox nor my inworld vendors.  NOT AT ALL.
   (as such, this cannot be considered my SLM Master Source)
2. My SLM has a MAGICBOX which contains ONLY the content that is available to be sold by listings on SLM.  NOTHING ELSE.  In fact, if I verbatim change / update an item in this box, it IMMEDIATELY makes this updated item the version of content that the next sale seconds later will sell to a customer.
   (as such, this is TRULY my Master Source of SLM content)
3. There is no other source of this content for SLM as the SLM only maintain record pointers to the content that was item-label synch'ed into SLM.  SLM only knows of the object names in my magicbox. Nothing more.
   (As such, SLM current does not even have a copy or slave version of the master content in the Magicbox)

So, this model has a VERY SHORT Data Path between my product builder storage locations in my inventory to the point where SLM uses it to distribute.  1 STEP. 

As such, to see what SLM can sell I can look in my magicbox.  To update any SLM item sold by a listing is as simple and replacing the object with a newer version of the object with the same name. 1 STEP.  To Delete the item... go into magicbox and delete the item and of course delete the listing in SLM or its orphaned.

It also means that the content that is actually available for SLM to distribute is outside my inventory (unless I want a backup of the magicbox whereby 1 prim object gets placed in my personal inventory to backup my entire magicbox content.

THE NEW DD METHOD (making guesses since me nor you know exactly how updating works):

 

1. I STILL HAVE ... My personal inventory has a structure of selling product folders (for me generally 1 folder for every product I sell on inworld / SLM) that contains both my FINISHED BOXED SELLING ITEM as well as all the content in the box, photos, marketing content, demo items, older boxed versions, etc. related to this product).  This folder structure in NO WAY resembles the content that would be uploaded via OUTBOX to SLM.  NOT AT ALL.
   (as such, this cannot be considered my SLM Master Source)
2. I now have an OUTBOX that - thanks to LL's incredible solution logic - does not contain ANY permanent SLM item content.  Its simply a "fire and forget" transport of content that is dropped into it to the SLM Inventory.
   (As such, since it has no permanent data in it, it clearly cannot be a MASTER Source of the structure or content that is being maintained in the SLM)
3. I now have a new SLM DD Store Inventory DB maintained by the central SLM system.  Its outside of my access or control as a folder and can only be somehow viewed / possibly managed to some limited extent via the SLM Merchant website.  Technically it would be the SLM Destination data repository since it received the content to sell from the OUTBOX "transport pipe".
   (As such, if I as a merchant am not creative, this will have to be my only MASTER Source of SLM content even though my management of it is limited)
4. Since I am not a STUPID MERCHANT, and I realize the importance of maintaining a true MASTER source of the SLM content that is in full control by me... and because I see that in order to update my content in SLM in the future with reduced upload errors due to spelling mistakes or not realizing what content is or is not in the folders, I will have to now create a replacement of the MAGICBOX Master source folder in my Inventory to take on the function that the OUTBOX could have done.  This new SLM MASTER MAGICBOX folder in my inventory will have all the SLM products in their folder structure that is being pushed up to SLM.
   (As Such, this will now be my TRUE Master Source of SLM content)

Now with DD I will have to move my new or updated product from its builders folders to the appropriate MASTER MAGICBOX folder in my inventory.  Then drag the updated folder or selling box, or item from this MASTER MAGICBOX folder into the OUTBOX SLM Transport pipe folder in my inventory.  SLM will suck this content up into my SL Central store folder and delete the content in the outbox.  Then - I hope - the updated content of that item will immediately be available then for distribution to the next customer that buys this product.  I hope i dont have to go to the listing to inform the listing that this content has been updated.

Additional Step.  A lot more time to update.  Still prone to potential errors since I could accidently drop content onto the outbox while I am doing unrelated inventory management.

 

There Sassy.  I Deduced.

LL's model sucks and as you said, there is nothing we can do about it now since LL doesnt listen nor ever takes good advice and corrects a bad idea.

 

 

[Sassy Romano]

---

Toysoldier Thor wrote:

There Sassy.  I Deduced.

 

---

I knew we'd get there in the end

*hugs*

[Ann Otoole]

LL shopping cart is still a total failure. All delivery failures are related to poor people stil using the cart.

 

Still. To this day.

[Ann Otoole]

People are closing up and going home. The marketplace will have no effect on that. There is an endless stream of creators announcing big sales only to be followed a couple of months later by their closings and the last chance 10 dollah sales. This in turn leads to people going to the 10 dollah sales and not going to established successful creators. It is a feeding frenzy.

 

If you are in business and times are hard then downsize to a free account and rent a few prims for your magic boxes. When direct delivery arrives you can get rid of the rentals. LL wanted this via the commerce team. It is what they asked for. If this is not what rodvik wants then rodvik can make the HR decisions required to straighten it out.

[Josh Susanto]

The shopping cart works just fine, but the magic box can't keep up with it.

Unofficially, it has been explained to me that there is no way to remove or disable the shopping cart, and the boxes are on the way out eventually anyway.