Jump to content

I can no longer recommend anyone use the Marketplace


WolfBaginski Bearsfoot
 Share

You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 4474 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Recommended Posts

About the only thing the Marketplace is good for is as a search engine, and it's not so good at that. Non-delivery has become so frequent a problem for me that I feel it is just not worth buying anything through the Marketplace (this problem may be exacerbated by the UI design inbtroduced in Viewer 2).

In-world sales and delivery can sometimes be slow, but they work.

The choice seems easy. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hardly ever buy anything in Marketplace because I prefer shopping in world.  However, I've never had a non-delivery as either a customer or a merchant.   I check my sales records frequently and have never had an irregularity. I have answered a very large number of complaints in Answers from people who have had non-delivery issues, though, so I know that it is a serious problem for many.  It's easy to blame the Magic Box system, and I do, but my impression is that more of the problems come from people who accidentally refuse delivery or who have messages and deliveries capped.  I don't see much hope for relief from those problems. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Many people are having serious problems with offline delivery if they don't have anyone/anything on their "mute/block" list due to a recent server glitch. Apparently the server sends offline deliveries along with the block list and if there's nothing on the block list it doesn't send the block list (logical) OR offline notifications (fail). Sometimes adding something temporarily to the block list will release a whole stream of messages/objects, but they're capped at 25. I've been having major problems with Marketplace deliveries, especially of gifts, because of this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


WolfBaginski Bearsfoot wrote:

About the only thing the Marketplace is good for is as a search engine, and it's not so good at that. Non-delivery has become so frequent a problem for me that I feel it is just not worth buying anything through the Marketplace (this problem may be exacerbated by the UI design inbtroduced in Viewer 2).

In-world sales and delivery can sometimes be slow, but they work.

The choice seems easy. 

I use the Marketplace as a search only tool as well.  I MUCH prefer going to a store inworld and getting what I need from there.  The only times I HAVE bought from a Marketplace store is when the merchant doesn't have a store inworld. 

There are people here on the forums, though, that refuse to shop inworld because, you know, things have to rez and they don't want to spend the time going to all the different locations when they can just fill up their shopping cart on Marketplace and buy all at once.  Their suggestion was to give deep discounts for buying inworld.  THEN they would shop inworld. 

Well, the problem with that logic is that EVERYPLACE you go in Second Life, things have to rez.  Why a store or mall would be any different is beyond me.  Some of the clubs I've visited have taken five to twenty minutes for everything and everybody to rez (depending on how crowded it is).  I've never had a store or mall take that long. 

So, Wolf, I agree completely.  Use the Marketplace for a search tool ONLY and go to the merchants inworld store and purchase there (if they have one).  The comission percentage Linden Lab takes from every Marketplace sale does not apply to inworld purchases and they don't deserve it anyway. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm looking at my Marketplace transaction history right now (as a seller) and the top six are "Being Delivered" and have been for a long time, meaning a failure is likely. This will mean I probably lose around L$1200 in sales as from my experience people do not go back and buy them a second time on Marketplace. I really wish they could sort these problems, they are far too common and considering how heavily Marketplace is promoted (which has led to many closing up in-world and setting down their businesses exclusively on Marketplace) it should be a priority IMO.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's a mess tonight. Just like you Theodore, I've got a string of "Being Delivered" just hanging there for an extended period of time. What's concerning is that for a number of them, I have received the magic box delivery notice, but not the transaction confirmation and no funds appearing on my dashboard. I'm sure it is the volume of transactions going on tonight (yesterday, too), but it's very frustrating to just sit helpless. I'm sure the shoppers are equally if not more frustrated because the majority of these orders are gifts...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yep, same here, I have seen most of the items purchased from me today are in Being Delivered status for hours. Eventually, they did go thru, at least most of them, which is surprising. Normally, they eventually just get cancelled, and the person never tries to repurchase. I kind of assume now that the person did get the purchase, but LL just screwed me out of the money, as well as themselves.

This leads me to how all this crap works. I've never seen anything like this LL site and how it works. Really, it's only job, is to take the money. That is it. Technically, to me, it doesn't matter at all to me if LL delivers the product at all. I can handle all that myself. The 1 thing I do need them to do is take the dang money. They fail miserably at that. All that Being Delivered, or whatever else, is just BS. I can't even imagine how many hundreds of sales I've lost cause LL doesn't even understand what their purpose is. The 1 group of people LL should be protecting is the 1 group that get cheated by a system that thinks it's main purpose is to deliver the product. Yet, it does not have any idea if they have actually delivered the product or not. What an F'd up system. I sincerely hope this new DD system actually knows if the person gets the product.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Medhue Simoni wrote:

Yep, same here, I have seen most of the items purchased from me today are in Being Delivered status for hours. Eventually, they did go thru, at least most of them, which is surprising. Normally, they eventually just get cancelled, and the person never tries to repurchase. I kind of assume now that the person did get the purchase, but LL just screwed me out of the money, as well as themselves.

This leads me to how all this crap works. I've never seen anything like this LL site and how it works. Really, it's only job, is to take the money. That is it. Technically, to me, it doesn't matter at all to me if LL delivers the product at all. I can handle all that myself. The 1 thing I do need them to do is take the dang money. They fail miserably at that. All that Being Delivered, or whatever else, is just BS. I can't even imagine how many hundreds of sales I've lost cause LL doesn't even understand what their purpose is. The 1 group of people LL should be protecting is the 1 group that get cheated by a system that thinks it's main purpose is to deliver the product. Yet, it does not have any idea if they have actually delivered the product or not. What an F'd up system. I sincerely hope this new DD system actually knows if the person gets the product.

Mine too, Medhue.  I have watched magic box notices come through all day and on my transaction report it shows "Being Delivered".  No money my way either.  Luckily, all of mine has eventually gone through though.  And all of them were gifts as well.  Of course there's nothing I can do about it but sit, watch, cross my fingers and hope. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

    Unfortuneately i have had terrible time with sl marketplace. This happens all  the time i dont get my good delivered then i hae to go to the merchants and  ask them to redeliver

thing is it isnt the merchants who should be following up on it, its all linden labs and second life servers. I will probably have a sl hit put out on me for saying that, but i too ( one of secondlifes most prolific shoppers,) cannot recommend the marketplace due to slow or nondelivery of items to the grid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes there are the inherent problems of llGiveInventory() delivery at the user end, and issues of web-inworld communication, but these pale in comparision to the SLM database problems that are becoming apparent. 

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-4260 (1-2 hour delivery delay between midnight and 5am - regular as clockwork) has been identified for close on two months now, with a brief acknowledgement from LL but still no signs of resolution, and today that same behaviour has stretched out to 3-4 hours.

It's not all about the poor, much maligned magic boxes - they deliver reasonably well, when they're actually told to, but if it takes hours for them to receive that instruction ...

There are clearly some design issues with the way that the freeware Spree RoR package has been implemented, and so far no evidence that there's anyone willing/able/authorised to dig deeper into the source code and optimise things at a lower level, and that this is also why we're just seeing updates of the odd cosmetic changes at interface level (inventory sorting and display) and not the more useful functional features we've been screaming for (notification on review/failed sale, meaningful reporting).

My biggest fear is that some of the reported scaling issues of RoR may be at play, which doesn't bode well for the future, if we can't even make it through a busy Christmas eve shopping night unscathed. At this point a bottleneck due to poor design would be a welcome diagnosis, since that, at least, is ultimately fixable.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I average about 25 sales per day on Marketplace (50 per day this week leading up to Christmas) Failed deliveries I estimate to be .5% or about 1 out of 200. When a customer contacts me I am always happy to redeliver or share a replacement directly, even if it is apparent that the delivery did not go through due to lack of funds or is otherwise suspicious. Replacements cost nothing and its good customer service.

Today I was looking through my Marketplace store and noticed one of my popular products with a new, one-star review. The review consisted of two words: NO DELIVERY.

I immediately sent a replacement in world to the customer along with a polite IM asking her to delete the review if she was happy with the product. Evidently she was, I notice the review is gone now. (yay!)

I recommend Marketplace every day and I have clickable links throughout my in-world store that open Marketplace pages in browser so customers can get more information about the products. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have never recommended buying on the marketplace not only is the system buggy but we also have issues within our own merchant community.  Heavily photoshoped items, poor descriptions, reselling of freebies etc.  By going to a merchants inworld shop I can get a much better idea of the products quality, I can buy it and receive it immediately instead of waiting on the marketplace to deliver, and as a merchant I like to give my peers ALL the linden vs letting LL have yet another piece of profit

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Personally, I have HAD IT with Market Place, the land of utter fail.  IF you are not logged on, ready to catch your ordered goods (OR GIFTS FROM OTHERS) they simply NEVER make it.  Even IF I am logged on, it is 50/50 that it will work at all.  The REAL PAIN is that so many item are NON-Trans and ONLY Giftable through Market Place.  

Now, having tried to send gifts to my Partner, I get the JOY of arguing with this fail-ridden system as, MOST never got to her.

Thank you, ever so MUCH, MARKET PLACE.  I hope /b/ raids it and kills it off, once and for all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 4474 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...