Dark Larkspur

How can I get my Marketplace Listings Cleaned up to eliminate ancient No Copy items and some updated items? I waited for the Marketplace updates. Thankfully I do not have a lot of items; but when I am trying to list new items; I have to scroll through blooming butterflys and old versions of products that have not existed for some time; and if you try to associate the wrong old product to a new one; it leaves a blank spot on the Marketplace Store Window for an associated item; but still shows it filling a spot when you are editing the item... I would really like to be able to clean out my Marketplace Inventory of Invalid Items. And please don't tell me to click the "Look For Errors Button".... It Found None... Thanks In Advance.. o,O

;-) 'Don't Sweat The Small Stuff; And It's All Small Stuff' Well; Unless you have a working blog with a good following and are studying fashion in college; I would suggest finding a Child RP situation that will put you in close contact with the SL fashion world so you can develope your skill set. Wheather you are looking for a position in a company or a relationship within a family; the ultimate goal is to 'Find Your Niche'. It's all about being happy, wanted, & useful. Please consider that being a good Child RPer to a Family that runs a business related to your interests in fashion and blogging; might be a better alternative to having an SL Job. Most merchants are also creators, and would respect your ability to contribute to the family business with textures and modelling products, and you could do your blog, and learn, and meet people and make connections. In Reality; it is no easier to find your 'Niche' in SL than it is in RL. While aggressively approaching a company as a prospective Child Clothes Model might get you the Job; searching for a specific family would be a lot more difficult; but in my opinion, much more rewarding and valuable. Big Decision : Do you want to become part of a 'Family' as a Child Avatar and dedicate your efforts to the entire benefit of the Family; or; do you need to create an Adult Avatar so that you can pursue your goals under your own name and brand? Remember: Anything is possible; especially in SL; and usually, only those with the courage to speak out and ask for what they want , get it... ;-)

IMHO, the term Inworld Employment, is effectively safe, as the modifying term of 'Inworld' implies a difference equivalent to the generally accepted disparities between 'Real Life' & 'Digital Life'. But Hang On; If your Avatar asks my Avatar to fly a Happy Birthday Banner over an SL Birthday Party for a sum of $100L, on such and such a date at this time... that constitutes a verbal agreement, does it not? Bottom Line: The Legal Professionals will do whatever required to be safe and limit their liability working diligently 24/7 thinking up stuff many people will never know existed let alone comprehend. The majority of Society (be it SL or RL) tend to operate on A Person's Word, A Handshake, A Good Feeling, Luck... You know the saying; 'Life Imitates Art' ? We made Movies about going to the Moon; then we went to the Moon... We strive to make SL more like RL ; Sooo, SL will probably continue to be more and more like RL.... Hmmm IMHO, the term Inworld Employment, is inherantly unsafe as a legal term with limited liability with respect to implyed legal and financial obligations, which we may or may not be prepared to .......... ;-)

Well now; that is a complex question. I am sure there are at least as many marketing theories as there are merchants, and probably more. And I suspect, some have a few tricks they would prefer to keep secret. But; lets start with some reasonable and logical things that can be done in a practical way. Make sure; while you are still new; you have a store name and logo that you are extremely happy with and never change it; unless years from now you feel you can freshen it up without messing up your ability to be recognized. I treat Listing Enhancements like a Holiday Ham; once in a while for a special event is fine but it is not for everyday. Marketplace provides sales on comission basis with no constant rental fee as in an in world land based store. Take advantage of this and minimize your expenses. More Products, More Products, More Products; the more variety of models, types, styles, colors, even choice between no copy or transfer versions of the same product; increase the odds that you will have something for everyone. You did not say what types of things you sell; but there are some basic ways to promote those also. High Fashion clothes would benefit from being seen in some of the Runway Model events and rubbing elbows with your potential customers. Club Clothing can be shown off by the Hostess at Events (Contest Boards) you choose to sponsor via the prize money and some free items for the Hostess to wear. Homes and Vehicles can benefit greatly from an inworld location where they can be displayed and or demo tested. On Marketplace; use as many high quality pictures as you can stand to upload; it is free, and pictures sell. Use the Related Items feature to the fullest. For Example: You have a line of skirts in various colors, available seperately, Create one in basic black or white and list it at a reduced price and associate it with all your other colors at the standard price. Have freebies or cheapies that have other items associated with them that you want to promote (FREE compared to listing enhancements) Be Patient; Marketplace sales start and stop and go up and down all the time. Be Consistent; pick a fair price and stick to it; Sales are fine, but cutting your price in half all of a sudden because you suddenly decide you set it too high, is personally difficult for me; as I feel bad for any who purchased the product at the previous price. Be more than Fair and Helpful; when Marketplace totally messes up a delivery; I just give the Customer the item in world with no regard to whether I got paid or not; that Customer will make an effort to try and purchase from you in the future, and may, in the process, tell unknown numbers of friends that they found a new store for them to shop at. In Closing; it may be of interest to note; items under $10L can not use the profit split / distribution function.... Items between $10L-$20L may give slightly more comission to the operation of the Marketplace System. And of personal interest to me: the ability to sell no copy items such as breedable animals, is still not functional, to my knowledge.

I have a small MP Store; the weekend had no sales for me; had a little jump at the beginning of the week. There are still issues, besides the deleted items still showing up and pictures from other merchants mixed into each other's stores; we are also still waiting to be able to sell 1 off no copy items such as the breedables are. It might be that everybody blew off steam in the blogs and are now concentrating on voting on and paying attention to the JIRAs that have been filed...

Not exactly ; but I have an item that is not in the Magic Box ; never been uploaded in DD; but when I got to change and associated item for another listing; I can see the product in the list of products to choose from to associate to; but it is really not there; ugggg !

As others have mentioned ; I have a small store also. It is difficult to track trends with so few sales; however, I can watch my cheapest & best seller sales go up and down as you have indicated. I don't know if it completely dissappears or what is going on; but when you average a few sales of a product every single day and then go a week or two with NO Sales; you know something bad is going on , on a regular basis. To those making RL Money from sales in SL ; I am extremely jealous; I have never even paid tier from sales; but again, I only have a few items. I have learned a bit; and I think I will take my experience and my effort and start trying to sell stuff on Ebay (RL Stuff, not SL Stuff).... I got to find some way to make RL money; and this 'Game Money' can't even pay for my 'Game Experience' let alone any left over for RL...

Right On ; Whenever I get a failed delivery; I usually contact the person; see if they think they paid; if LL is holding money for 3 days no-one ever really knows; Most of the time I send the customer the item they desired; and tell them if they get a refund or the product later thay can make it up to me if they so choose. Losing a customer because of LL / MP failures is deadly to a small business like mine. I need word of mouth and NO Failures to make my few sales each week. I would rather give my product away for free with the chance they will tell a friend about the Exceptional Service I provided and a product they like; than to tell them they can't have my stuff because LL can't process a $L Transaction to save their Digital Butt.............

We have all been greatly amused by the 'secret words' that cause our listings to get kicked out of General Catagory ; even more amused that the list of words is secret and when we tried to make a list; out posts got kicked... I love it even more that many items intended for Child / Kid Avatars can almost never contain the words Child or Kid in the name (pisses me off) My 'Child's Picture Frame' had to be renamed to 'Fun Picture Frame' to keep it in General. Also love that a 2 word phrase in English is too close to a 2 word phrase in Latin (an UnSpoken Language) that is kicking a listing out of General... Sooo; a bunch of your stuff got unlisted; have you tried to Activate one? Did it work ? did you try to migrate stuff to DD and the unlisted items are the items still in your Magic Box and are now 'Unassociated' ...?

Phoenix is old code and will most likely never be able to operate the Merchant Outbox function. Do all your work in Phoenix, log on with Firestorm to upload using the Merchant Outbox; log back on with Phoenix. Almost all your work can be done with your favorite viewer; you only need a newer viewer for the upload. All your web browser work like uploading pictures, description/price changes, etc. is still done on your web browser and does not require the use of a newer viewer. The Merchant Outbox Folder seen in any (Phoenix) Viewer is Only A Folder, when using an old viewer. You will not see your sales items "sitting" in that folder no matter what Viewer you use. It is only a 'staging folder' and once uploaded, your products will not be found in that folder no matter what viewer you are on. Magic Boxs were great for me; but I like not having to rent land or a place to keep a magic box and no failed deliveries just because the SIM it was rezzed on had to restart... Comment on / off topic / thread... I used to follow blogs when our Desktop used to show the most current topics of discussion, I used to do my best to help answer questions, I used to try to keep on topic of the Original Post... Now; I can not find the same blogs I used to post in; I have no idea what is currently of concern... I almost never see new topics show in the current Desktop Display - This newer Forum / Blog style is dissappointing to me. If I want to look up old answers I can go to the Wiki - I want a new interface on my Desktop again, which shows me the latest posts of people asking questions, so it will be easier to be useful in the Forums again.... ☻

I empathize with the issue of people with PCs that just can not manage to run the 'Newer (what are they calling them, Viewer 3 Code) Viewers, required to operate the 'Merchant Outbox' Folder. It may sound less than desireable; but you only need a certain amount of time on a capable machine with the proper viewer installed; log in; move items, upload, log off, thank you. All the rest of the 'work' is not dependant on that PC / Viewer now. I am saying; as a last resort; can you borrow time on a friends computer just long enough to do the 'uploading'. One time the IT Guy from where I work downloaded and installed something for me on his laptop because it was better than my PC ;-0 I Loved my Magic Box; I had it on multiple Regions too; lately with it only in 1 Region I have still had no problem; almost never had any failed deliveries. I feel for the Merchants who have to Migrate 100's or even 1000's of Products, it's a good deal of work even on the Products I didn't change, but we have to endure change for the hope of improvement ;-}

Su - If you used a Magic Box for your store before and did not need to use ANS, you will most likely not need it now. As I understand ANS, it is a way to send your Store Sales Records to an 'Outside Database' and / or helping to link your SL Store with other WEB Based Activities. Your Computer STATS look fine. When I first started SL; if something did not work, we switched Viewers to see if it worked in another... It often did .... If the Merchant Outbox Window is not properly connecting to the Marketplace Servers; That will have to be the first thing to 'resolve' before any 'meaningful work' can be done.... Often trying in a 'Lag-Free' Region can help... In case anyone has not found these videos yet; let me see if I can paste in the links ;-} (YouTube Video) (YouTube Video)

Sly - I only have a small store of a bout 25-30 items and I have migrated all of them over to DD. Only my Amaretto Bundles and Blooming Butterflys can not be moved yet. I only had to run Firestorm long enough to stick all the stuff in the 'Working Folder' and push the button...! took me a couple hours cursing the new code viewer, but you have to have V2 code to make it work, this is true, and Phoenix will not be able to implement it... but as soon as you are done with the 'Upload' you can switch right back to your favorite viewer.... If you want to go on voice inworld and have me walk you through the Migration Process that worked for me; leave Dark Larkspur a message ☻

Van - The Magic Box Delivery will fail if the Region it is rezzed in has to re-start or has crashed; a Merchant always has to fix the delivery problem for the Customer. Also if the Magic Box is in a laggy Region or has crashed it's own scripts; there is more work for the Merchant and stress for the Customer. I only have a small store, so I have not used ANS, and I only needed to be on the "New Viewer" just long enough to migrate my products; I still play on my favorite viewer; no problem, still not forced to 'Live' with the 'New Viewer'. As to instant messages on sales; I am not positive if those messages counted toward you having your messages capped; in any case, a Merchant who has a lot of Product selling and prefers to log in to that Avatar Account; gets way too much notification, while it is fun to see for some of us who have small slow sales... ☻

Ohhh - I forgot to warn you about needing to work with "Linked Objects"... And I looked up a starter page for you to go read... http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Building_Tools

First things first - Did you get the Linden Home that comes with a Premium Account? If so, you can not modify those Homes other than adding some stuff to it, even then it will not really be part of the house, just a decoration on the house. If you bought a house and are on an empty parcel of your own where you rezzed the house - you need to right click it and Edit it and look at the bottom of the General Tab to see if you can Modify it - if not - you are in the same situation as with a Linden Home that may not be modified. NOW; If you bought your own home and it IS Modify Enabled - woot - the fun and complications begin - and I do mean fun - I LOVE building! However, you need to be prepared for the learning curve. You need to search the SL Wiki for prim, primitive, creating, building in SL, Etc. *Right click on the ground and click Create one time - look at the simple shapes you can make, see how yu can stretch them, check out all the different Tabs while you are editing that simple object. Putting a texture on something, each of the 6 outside faces of a cube can have a different texture applied to it and tweaked different - and then if you hollow it out and cut the path - you got even more faces to texture seperately or all together.... It gets interesting real fast... Good luck, and I would also search in world for builders groups and classes - there are free classes around to attend. Also - search something called, Ivory Tower of Primitives. (I think thats the name) you might learn some neat stuff there; think it is kinda laid out like you were walking through a museum.... Enjoy your SL :-)

http://www.amd.com/us/products/notebook/graphics/ati-mobility-hd-x1000/x1600/Pages/x1600.aspx I think here is one place :-)

I am definitely not a great business person myself; but from what I can tell, your whole business set-up must work like a well oiled machine just to get by... You have to get sellers in your stores to help pay the land tier, and you need to get traffic to come see the stores so the sellers stay. The club and dancers may serve to draw the traffic (you still have to get them out of the club an into the stores) but the club usually costs money to keep running and never really Makes much... (I know someone who would argue this point with me; but Oh My - they closed their club and entire SIM because it was a big PITA to keep it running properly and not taking all their RL Fun Money) !!! Go to your top left corner to your tools and look to 'Move' your Blog/Post/Thread and see the different catagories where it could possibly go - some are people offering work and looking for work kind of catagories.... If you really want to be such a help to your 'Bosses', then you need to be given more Group Rights, maybe made an 'Officer' with almost as many rights as an 'Owner'... Just a thought; still don't know if that allows you to post the advertising you made reference to,,, I never did any of that...

As a business owner I have always had an alt. I login as her when I need to work or meet with someone without interruption. Maybe it seems unfriendly, but I find it very hard to deal with multiple conversations at the same time. It also is hard to script or build with IM's popping up, even when I have busy set... And so I have an alt. I don't think there should be a way to tell if a person has an alt, people should be allowed some privacy when they want it. I've always understood, though, that who I am chatting with in SL may not be who they say they are... including whether they have other alts that might talk to me at some other time without letting me know who they are. It's just the way it always has been on the Internet. OK, well some people may be geeky enough to know how to trace IP's and such, but most of us aren't and just have to realize we never know if we are talking to our RL neighbor, an ex-spouse, a president, a movie star, an axe murderer, or one of our own children. So it pays to be careful, and truthful. You are only responsible for your side of the street, after all. I think if someone seems fishy to you should trust your instincts & try to avoid them.

PelleLaccio Piaggio wrote: I was told by one of the support team members of the Phoenix Support Group that the SL Servers "capped out" at 3000. Fact or fiction on whether the 3000 "cap" number that I was told is officially correct information... I have no idea. I have a 50 MB downstream internet connection with computer hardware (Router, NIC, Computer, etc.) that's more than capable of keeping up... I can't say that I can really 'feel' or 'see' any significant difference "in-world" when running SL between setting it at 1500 or 3000 (which is where I've had it set soon after switching to Phoenix a couple of months ago from SL v. 1.23 @ 1500)... which (thinking out loud to self) would almost seem to support that the cap is 1500 (and perhaps not 3000). Excellent replies by all to Dark's original post/question, btw. Yes PelleLaccio - I agree that the posts have been most helpful and kind and I really appreciate that. Thank you as well for the info on the 3000 cap. Every bit of info has it's uses when compiled into the overall idea of "What The Heck Is Going On" Scenario... LOL...

Wow - that messes with my mind - cause I swear the last Phoenix had a max of 500Kbps and now the new one has 10,000Kbps - and I thought pushing it up to half the allowed would be good (5000Kbps) - what possible use is there to having almost 10 times the ability of the SL Servers as a setting in the viewers ???? I did that speed test - I get pretty much what my ISP claims to give me - 10 Megs down and 1 Meg up........

Thank you Peggy - I assumed upload was less important since the ISPs are designed to work that way in the first place - but have seen references to Your Viewer telling SL what clothes you are wearing and such - but it makes perfect sence - your viewer only has to say what - not upload all the stuff since it all lives on the LL Servers in the first place... Huggs.... Yeah - FPS - what; the average Human Eye can not tell a flicker over 30 FPS or something like that ??? so having 60 FPS could be considered a little overboard, outside some special applications / uses.... Thanks for your insights... ♥

Thank You Peggy - I have almost 9.5 Mbps Download and almost 1 Mbps Upload - sooo I think I will try around 8.5-9.0 Bandwidth - however; I still wonder how the difference between upload and download speeds works with the viewer's "Single Bandwidth Setting"...... Message was edited by: Dark LarkspurPS: My computer can handle MANY times more than my Service Provider ; provides ; LOL

Hi All - Happy New Year. With new viewers, I discovered the ability to set the Bandwidth to a higher number than was allowed to be set in previous viewer versions (In the Preferences/Net Tab). My assumption was I could set it all the way to the top and it would allow SL to suck down/push up as much as possible (within the limits of my ISP abilities). I also assumed that allowing SL to have all the bandwidth available to me might cause problems for Other Programs on my computer that were trying to run at the same time (and this I don't really care if it does). SO NOW THE REAL QUESTION: Will setting my bandwidth for SL to a level higher than my ISP claims to provide cause problems for SL Itself ? AND, since there is no seperate "Up and Down Speed Settings" - how does this relate to and ISP that claims to provide one speed for UpStream and a seperate speed for DownStream ? Thanks In Advance :-)

Please be aware - you are allowed only 1 change per week... I messed up the first time :-(