Sending updates to past buyers

[Steve Atlanta]

Greetings,

 

   I am a builder of large roleply starships,  and I often  add NEW  features to these Starships.  I always try and send all past buyers the new version,  but theres a problem.

 

 

To re send  items, or  re deliver them,  is very difficult in SL Marketplace.  I have to negatiate a wierd ca;lendar set up,  then seach  page  by page and redeliver them one at a time,  sometimes searhes  80+ pages!   Why can't  SL Marketplace have a feature where  when you update an item,  you can just click one button and  "Redeliver all"  to everyone who has ever  bought that product,  it would be a VERY  convenient thing to do!

[Chelsea Malibu]

One problem I see is that most update the name as well.  If you have an item listed as Item V1.1 and then change it to an new update with the name Item V1.2, then that will show as a new listing.  If you don't do this, the box sent to the customer will have the same name and they wont know which is which.

For this reason there are vending system with servers as well as update scripts that most use to do this. You can find many of these on MP.

MP has issues with deliveries as it is, I can only imagine what a nightmare mass delivery would be.

[Pamela Galli]

Well they are not going to do that. :-) You can use some kind of scripted sender thing to send things out to a list.

[Talia Davidov]

Easiest way is something like the hippo update server (or something similar), though you have to have the script in the original item to begin with.  Then you can have your creations check with update server on rez or at specific intervals.  Then if there is a new version, the update server sends out the update automatically.

The advantage of this type system is that it updates your creations regardless of whether they were sold via market place, or in world.  There are several disadvantages as well such as the need to keep a server in world, and having to have the check for update script in your creations.  On the whole, I think the advantages far outweigh the additional work.

[Morgaine Christensen]

Question...is the product, when originally sold, state you guarantee updates for life?  If not, you are not obligated to send updates to your customers unless you feel it is part of your customer service (for me it is an obligation).  Something you might try is, wait till you have several updates to a product then send out an update. Or, create it as a new version and sell it as such after several updates, which effectively what it would be.

You might try downloading MP reports to your harddrive, open in a spreadsheet and sort by whatever parameters you want. You will still have to send individually. I do with myself but have started using Caspervend, which I hope will assist me.

Or, another option might be when you advertise your product, explain you update frequently and to insure they receive product updates they need to join (your group) xxxx in order to receive the free updates.  You can set up multiple groups for different products if need be. When you have an update, either send out a notice with it attached  or that they can find an update dispenser at XXXXX for XXX days.  Not only does this help with delivery, you can also unveil your newest products to an existing customer base. 

 

[Zanara Zenovka]

Copy the list of buyer names and paste in this, add update and hit send : https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/ArtiZan-Postmaster-Online-Delivery-Mail-Server/1365664

Or if you'd rather them come to your store to collect, add name list and update to this: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/ArtiZan-Access-List-3000-Vendor-Gift-Giver-Sellsgives-only-to-names-on-list/1688282

[Medhue Simoni]

Yeah, I do updates all the time, tho I do wait until the update is noticably different before sending them out. I always download the spreadsheets every week. Every few months, I combine all the spreadsheets into monthly reports, and in alphabetical order. When it is time to send out an update, I just have to go thru all the past months since the last update and add all the new customers to an update list that I have for every product that I do updates for. Then, I drop that list into a notecard, and the script sends the updates out to all past customers on the list. For the most part, this works pretty well. Tho, the last major update I did went out to well over 3000 past customers, and it took the updater about 5 hours to send them all out.

[Paula001 Goldschein]

my merchant hero of the day!

i never could make myself to go through all that, altthough my updates are more like double value of the items and not be send out for free.

and i might as well leave a little work for the IRS, i believe it is called in ae

[Steve Atlanta]

I appreciate the suggestions  for sending  updates,  btw  I do have Hippovend and its redelivery system is 100% better than SL Marketplace,  really no  prob there.  Unfortunately its too late to add the "Update script" to every product Ive made.

 

Just so you know how horrible SL Marketplace Transaction history and redelivery is,  I took  a screenshot of it.....

 

http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/4228/slmarketplaceuselesssea.png 

 

 

[Darrius Gothly]

The iGlom Redelivery System I use (from Iamanaltof Glom) captures the ANS transactions for every purchase made on Marketplace. He's just added a Recipients and Buyers report that allows me to select a product, set the start and end dates, then export a list of all Recipients or Buyers of that product in a format compatible with the Postmaster system (from Zanara Zenovka).

[Steve Atlanta]

Im sure its a nice system,  but it lacks what I need or requested,  which is...

 

1) Sales log searchable by ITEM

2) a one click, or convenient click  REDELIVER

 

 

Hippovend is  miles ahead of  SL Marketplace,  but thats no excuse for SL Marketplace to neglect this type of system,  I will post a picture of the Hippovend system for searching and redelivering, as you'll see it beautiful simple and I know from exp, it works!

 

http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/4679/hippovendsaleslogsearch.png

 

 

P.S.  I dunno if Casper has this type of search and redeliver, but if it doesnt, it  SHOULD  or I wont buy it.  Can anyone confirm or deny whether Caspervend has this?

[Darrius Gothly]

One of the report views is by Product, summarized within the dates specifiied. You can type in part of the product name to narrow the report to just those products that contain the fragment you enter. From there you can view the Recipient and Buyers report for that product. However it does not offer a redeliver function from there. (I'll mention it to Glom, he can probably add it.)

As for standard redeliveries, when the customer receives the initial delivery from Marketplace, they also get an IM that gives them a link to do their own redelivery. That way they don't have to bother you for routine stuff. If they lose the link, they can always enter a few details (order number, part of the product name and their name) and get a redelivery that way as well. Again keeps you from having to personally handle every redelivery.

I find it useful at least, and since using it I've noticed a few folks that get a redelivery shortly after the initial one. I'm assuming that's because they accidentally dismiss the "Accept" dialog. Rather than contact me to get another copy, they just do it themselves and save both of us the hassle. (The Magic Box IMs me for each redelivery as well as the intial delivery IM.)

At any rate, waiting until LL added those types of features to Marketplace seemed a lot less promising than using something else, so I jumped on the bandwagon. So far it's been really handy and I'm finding myself opening the Merchant Report many times during the day.

ETA: LOL I just tried to use the thumb scroller in that image. Dangit! Got me again.

ETAA: Adding two screencaps:

Above is the Merchant report by date

Above is the Merchant report by product

[Medhue Simoni]

---

Paula001 Goldschein wrote:

my merchant hero of the day!

i never could make myself to go through all that, altthough my updates are more like double value of the items and not be send out for free.

and i might as well leave a little work for the IRS, i believe it is called in ae

---

Thanks, but consider this, doing that routine every week and every month supports like hundreds of products. Yeah, it would be different if I did all that for a few products. This routine tho makes it easy for me to easily go thru past sales without having to dig too far. I think, on average, I have like 300 tansactions a day, and sometimes many more than that.

And actually, the bottom line is, doing these reports every week is literally the only thing that I have to do every week. If I wanted, I could just do the report and then watch 3's Company reruns all week. For whatever reason, I prefer to make stuff instead, lol.