Czari Zenovka

Flea Yatsenko wrote: I am starting to think that my DD sales were good because I was an early adopter and not a lot of people moved to DD. The big migration from MB to DD before the June 1st deadline probably had a ton of merchants changing over in a few months which completely flooded the system. Using that logic, which could be at least somewhat accurate, maybe the reason my sales have suddenly gotten back to normal for me this last week after two months of sales/no sales cycling is because I'm a "non adopter" of DD atm. If more merchants are using DD than MBs, maybe the MBs have kicked back into better action. And no, it's not because I've been fiddling with the MBs. As stated above, I've done that each time I added new products or updated them for years and never immediately had sales of that particular item. *Grins*

WADE1 Jya wrote: Using multiple magic boxes becomes more essential the more items you have. My delivery solution with MB is using layered redundancy, combined with not overloading the boxes. I find more than 50 items per box causes issues. So for 300 items you need at least 6 magic boxes, but optimally you would use 18. Sometimes there would still be mass failures with 6 magic boxes. This is where redundancy comes in to save the day :catembarrassed: In this example I copy these 6 boxes into locations at two other regions. Being able to receive orders from separate regions is important. This way if one sim is very slow, or maybe even two sims have crashed or something awful, at least one location should be able to get a delivery through somewhere. Thanks, Wade. I figured that a large number of items would do better in separate MBs; just wasn't sure what that number was. I'm still under 50 atm, although while I'm fiddling with them in general I may go ahead and separate them into categories anyway. I've always kept two boxes rezzed when I could, which was most of the time - one in my shop, one at my residence. Do you rename your MBs?

Pamela Galli wrote: Flea Yatsenko wrote: CTL says they know what's wrong and they're working on a fix. I have no idea how they're going to fix corrupted data unless they have backups. But they don't say what is wrong. If they just stated something like "we have identified a discombobulation in the flux capacitor" we would all have more confidence than "We know what it is but it's a secret." *Wipes Pepsi off monitor*

Blot Brickworks wrote: Whilst sorting my inventory for DD ,I noticed my vintage coke vendor had been taken down.No great shakes but this item has sold untold in 3 years .I always thought that coke did not mind about their stuff on SL. A quick check on the marketplace shows pages of similar stuff still up for sale.....What gives........Was I too cheap .too good ....sold too many ....who got the ump............appart from me..LOL. Precisely why I'm part of the Pepsi Generation. *grins* Will continue reading the thread - that is a great item, Blot - as is your entire sim. (Makes mental note to come back to visit soon.)

Pamela Galli wrote: Well I imagine it's like those who claim they got an empty box (and it only happens with transfer items). Highly unlikely but what can you do? I don't think there is any way to get rid of this particular complaint. If that's the case, I'm really glad (based on my thread inquiring what people prefer in permissions) that I have changed all my items to mod/copy. (Transfer permissions upon request. )

Josh Susanto wrote: >This is what I've been talking about with Magic Boxes being broken. Repeating this more often doesn't make it less untrue. > and there is no way a magic box is reliable. Did you try attaching it to your avatar while on Linden land? How do I know that you didn't? > I really think that Magic Boxes have problems handling a large number of items. No. The Marketplace, itself, has problems handling a large number of items. This is only made worse by sims where box rental being advertised being deliberately borked in order to create support for DD, as was done just about the same time that DD was first announced. Should it happen again, there are ways around it, though, which don't require us to give up other utlities that the box continues to offer. > I don't know how many items you have in your store or how many magic boxes you have those items in but it makes a difference. A magic box containing over 700 items will flawlessly deliver any number of things to my alt as quickly as my alt can order them, provided that the box believes it is rezzed on Linden land. Please try it yourself and get back to me when you actually have some idea what you're talking about on this point. Heh. I wasn't going to address this...again, but as an addendum: I have done similar updating to my MB over the years but have never had this particular situation happen plus had predictable, steady sales until the last couple of months. I mentioned this because, as Ann had something interesting happen recently on the MP, my situation was likewise interesting (to me at least...lol) and notable because of not happening in the past. I currently have 37 items active in my MB. During holidays, especially Christmas, this is increased by another 20 or so items. This relatively small number of items would not be bogging down my delivery system. Darrius mentioned having various MBs and renamed them by type of product. I was always afraid to change the MB name...just never know. I would like to hear from others if having multiple MBs has been beneficial re: MP delivery. Even with my few items, putting like items together would be handy for me. I'm assuming renaming the boxes is fine as well? Edited for grammar.

PeterCanessa Oh wrote: LINDEN LAB SPEAKS ! http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Marketplace-and-Direct-Delivery-Update/m-p/1462915/message-uid/1462915#U1462915 And admirably comprehensive, if concise, it is too. Woot!!! New target date to shut off Magic Boxes - not before Aug. 1, 2012 - with at least a 4-week prior notice! Very happy about this! Thank you for pointing us to the link, Peter.

Ann Otoole wrote: I am getting sales on things that have never ever sold on SLM. After I converted them to DD. Interesting eh? I've noticed something kind of similar (still using MB): After off/on cycles of sales, this past week I seem to be back to "my previous normal" sales. However, the last two days I have been working on putting the rez script Zanara offered into each of my MB items which entails removing the current item, inserting the script, putting updated boxed item into MB. I decided to update my product instructions/notes as well as my MP listings at the same time. Each time I do this for a group of items, at least one if not more of those particular items sells that day. Not sure why - maybe by resetting the box/resynching with MP/something, it moves the items to the top of search again. Whatever...I'm not complaining. Selling things that never sold now *is* interesting Ann.

Toysoldier Thor wrote: The Commerce Team has a habbit of very short deadlines after announcements so it wouldnt be surprising that they post a blog one day and say "MB will now be retired and please be off it in 2 weeks" I would like to know what the current % of listings in MP are still on MB and not DD. I know my 6 top sellers are not migrated over but my 42~ other listings are all migrated over. Lets guess that about 40% of all listings are still on MB. Lets say that even if LL announces a drop dead date of JUN 30 for MB to be shut down and that 25% of all listings on that date are still on MB.... Do you all think LL would have the nerve and smarts and guts to shut down MB and destroy 25% of all MP's listings? LL has proven by their actions to often not be the sharpest tool in the shed but I cant believe even they would destroy 25% of all MP listings simply because they set an arbitrary deadline to retire a delivery system that in all honesty is not negatively impacting their operations by running. It hurts no one that MB continues to run. So do you really think LL would be that stupid to wipe 25% of listings?? What are your thoughts. Based on my past experience, I could honestly believe that LL would give a "2 week notice" (if that much) that they were shutting off MBs, even if it affects 25% of the merchant listings. My reasoning is two-fold: 1. LL seems to have this "attitude" that once they announce something, even something that didn't pan out as expected, residents don't like it, complaints and jiras come flooding in, etc., they are still too tunnel-visioned or maybe just plain arrogant to back down. 2. As long as the 25% (or whatever percentage) of merchants not migrated over to DD are not in their cadre of favorite top-producing merchants (whoever they may be), they could care less about the small - medium merchants or probably, for that matter, large businesses that are not in their "group." IMO this has been amply demonstrated by the total lack of concern or communication to the merchant community by LL these past two months. As for me, I'm still using my MB and when/if they are shut down *shrugs* - not sure yet. I may just concentrate solely on my in world store. I'm definitely not going to rush to migrate over regardless what happens. If the whole thing gets to be a major cluster in general, I'll quit selling, create as I choose, give away or donate items to charity, events, etc. Just depends.

So with all the "stuff" going on re: MP orders I took a look at the MP transaction history today and saw an attempted order yesterday with the status "Undelivered." I thought that was odd - not "In process" or whatever the stuck ones say. I checked my SL transactions and there was no listing of that transaction. Off to the side of the MP transaction page on that attempted order it showed a 0L amount. I next IM'd the person who attempted to purchase the item to see if she received it, if her money was taken, etc. She got back with me and said the order just never went through; no funds deducted, etc. and thanked me for contacting her. (What I never get is how many customers don't contact merchants when they have issues ordering something.) Anyway, she was very sweet and said it was ok because she knew sometimes MP orders were quirky. We talked for a bit; I explained some of the current MP issues and encouraged her and anyone she knows to please contact the merchant if something like this happens. I sent the item to her at no charge and thanked her for helping me troubleshoot what had gone wrong. To my knowledge this is the first time I've had an undelivered item in the MP. Not saying I NEVER have because I primarily kept track of the IMs/ANS as well as the SL transaction history each month. Wonder how many sales I may have lost. :matte-motes-bashful-cute-2: Just another story in the great MP debacle.

Lasher Oh wrote: Or perhaps sell it back to the original owners who knew how to run a marketplace facility ! ^L^ I'd love this!!!

Kampu Oyen wrote: >Next up is the phase where people start pointing out the problems after the damage is done about what's wrong with it, the pretending to fix some trivial bits, and the final ease into less resources and more sluggish sim behavior. Maybe they can become even more cost efficient by gradually cutting back on color resolution. Of course when people complain about the new 8-color "efficiency upgrade", LL will naturally have to accomodate user demand by going to a grayscale monochrome format. Maybe by the time they've finally "upgraded" to an all-text format, they'll also finally have purged their user pool of any cynical naysayers who still think that simply committing more processor rescources might have been a better direction to go in from the start. WOOT!!!! I can keep my old PC!!!!!

Ann Otoole wrote: Hopefully the magic boxes will be shut off before the new region idling system comes online. Because that will surely decimate magic box performance in empty regions. Just thought I would toss in a little habanero sauce on the convo. I knew there was a reason I never liked spicy food.

Kampu Oyen wrote: >Did the $ float away to the ether? That is practically the only way LL makes any money off of the SLM. Money that is lost or destroyed never has to be paid out again. Otherwise, maybe it does. Maybe the $L are in the same black hole as a one-of-a-kind sculpture donated for an event, my favorite easy chair, an entire living room set, 3 of my rezzed in world archive boxes (because I thought archiving currently unused items in world was safer than being in inventory - silly me), and an entire folder of very expensive gowns - all $L I paid out (except for the sculpture) and lost due to inventory failures AND items that were rezzed in world, under the correct land tag, and locked. I'm sure others have similar stories. Different form of losing money but still money.

Flea Yatsenko wrote: My point with talking about Magic Boxes all the time is that this isn't just a DD issue. There might be problems with DD as well, but right now everything else is majorly broken. Can you guys at least throw me a bone with the fact that everything is messed up? Everything's messed up. Flea Yatsenko wrote: If everyone in this forum banded together and made reasonable demands from LL (like something as simple as a status update) instead of doom and gloom and rage, it would help everyone out and this would probably get fixed a lot quicker. I thought that was what we were doing by filing the jiras and updating as more info is known. I agree that a well-functioning MP WITH regular communication from CTL is what I want and expect from LL.

Zanara Zenovka wrote: Czari Zenovka wrote: Zanara Zenovka wrote: If it's any help, I use a IM/Email on-rez notification script so I can see when things have been received which makes life a lot easier (there's a free IM one here - https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/ArtiZan-Business-Script-IM-Creator-on-Rez-notifies-when-products-are-unpacked/3061369) I would like to use this, Zanara (and thank you for the link!) - but since my items have copy perms, will it send an email each time a new copy is rezzed? Even if it did...at least I'd know the first time something was rezzed. But then, if we know something was purchased and we didn't receive the payment (I have no clue if this has happened to me or not) - it sounds like LL isn't going to do anything about that. Just thinking out loud here to figure out what would be helpful for my business. Ideally you'd be selling items boxed and just have it in the box - i find in practice you occasionally get someone rezzing the original box a 2nd time, but not often. I just filter all the notices to a particular folder and just search for names as needed anyway Thanks, Zanara. I'm still using the MB so all products are boxed. Good tip on filtering the notices. Going to grab that script now!

Toysoldier Thor wrote: As for shooting down MB's stability and reliability.... I have been using the SAME MB since 2008... and other than the times with LL has screwed up the over all MP or XSTREET, my MB has been nearly flawless all these years. I have had my MB on a laggy mainland sim for 2 years and before that under a tree at a very busy rock club sim. You can knock MB all you want but you will never convince me that DD will be any better than the near perfect service that MB has offered me so far in addition to the better reporting from MB (i.e. delivery notices) and easier administration of items in MP from a MB vs all I have seen with DD so far. Same experience with my MB here as well, Toy - also since 2008. It has been in several of my homes on a mainland sim, in tiny satellite locations within large, laggy malls, and most recently in my shop on a busy estate sim. Most of the time I had two boxes rezzed - wherever I lived and wherever my inworld shop was but sometimes I was in transition and either didn't have a home or shop. Wherever I put my MB, I still got sales.

Oh right...the whole mesh thing is another animal entirely. Thanks for bringing that up.

Zanara Zenovka wrote: If it's any help, I use a IM/Email on-rez notification script so I can see when things have been received which makes life a lot easier (there's a free IM one here - https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/ArtiZan-Business-Script-IM-Creator-on-Rez-notifies-when-products-are-unpacked/3061369) I would like to use this, Zanara (and thank you for the link!) - but since my items have copy perms, will it send an email each time a new copy is rezzed? Even if it did...at least I'd know the first time something was rezzed. But then, if we know something was purchased and we didn't receive the payment (I have no clue if this has happened to me or not) - it sounds like LL isn't going to do anything about that. Just thinking out loud here to figure out what would be helpful for my business.

Arwen Serpente wrote: Since all of these things have happened (and other issues such as the inbox initialization difficulties), I have stopped listing new items on the Marketplace. I've expanded the number of inworld stores and am focused on inworld business. The Marketplace is very much taking a backseat in my Business plans until it is running smoothly and consistently. After Deja's post a month or so ago about concentrating on inworld sales, I've begun doing this as well and had forgotten how much fun it is to actually BE in my shop and interact with customers. Meeting some great people and having more fun on the merchant side than I've had in a long time. So yes, I am planning on doing the same. At this point, once the Magic Boxes are shut off, I do not plan to switch to DD until and unless the major issues are solved.

Blot Brickworks wrote: I posted yesterday that I had a shutdown weekend with sales being the worst for years. I have put off DD till the last moment because my sales until now have performed very well for over 3 years and I have worked on the "if it aint broke" theory and left well alone. I dreaded the change over and now have a couple of weeks to transfer.I will start today but with no confidence whatsoever. I see this a the crunch time for me and SL,it's been fun and I made a few bob,but if LL does not pay for itself I will abandon land and walk away. If LL loses people who have been with them as regulars because of this **bleep** up they only have themselves to blame. They should never have got involved in competing with their paying customers at all. I will post on how my transistion to DD goes ...... *Waves to Blot* Great to see you I'm pretty much at the same point. Once the frustration level of dealing with these issues as a merchant and it's time for me to say "Aloha" and go do something else in SL. As a sidenote: I am participating in the upcoming Silk Road Hunt 3 for the month of June. I had a great conversation today with one of the hunt organizers who is a long-time SL resident, builder, etc. She says she won't use the MP (and sounded like she never has) because she's never sure how reliable it will be compared to in world and went on to say that all her friends do the same. Just an interesting "feel" for the "shopping habits" of established residents. She also mentioned that LL has always made it difficult for the small merchant. I'm not complaining on this issue as I know my success depends on me; but I did find it interesting she mentioned this as a totally unsolicited comment and, as a hunt organizer, has worked with all different types of merchant stores, sizes, etc. Maybe LL *does* want the average Joe to go away. *Adjusts my tinfoil hat*

Amethyst Jetaime wrote: Flea Yatsenko wrote: DD was designed to avoid this problem. I don't mean to be a LL apologist, but Magic Boxes rely on a lot of very awful communications methods (like llEmail) which leads to long script delays and events falling off of the event queue and being forgotten forever by the simulator. This is a known bug with magic boxes and it's probably giving your product away for free. I'm using DD and it isn't happening to me and I have scripts that notify me when an object is rezzed out. I know it sucks but you can't rely on an LSL script to handle the amount of data transactions required for interaction from a website. There are scripting limitations as well as network lag, sim lag, etc. I know SLMP and the grid is in a bad place right now, but you really should get off of the box. I'm not the only one who has seen sales skyrocket since switching and I haven't had a single person message me for a redelivery other than people who didn't know where the received items folder was. With Magic Boxes, I would get them constantly. A few weeks ago something awful happened to the grid and it's still getting sorted out. Whatever is going on is way beyond a simple SLMP/DD/Box problem. Just grit your teeth and hang in there. If you are concerned about not being able to track what's been delivered, write or find a script that will notify you when someone rezes out a product. It's far more reliable than ANS, magic boxes, or transaction or order history. Bully for you. Just because your little corner of the world is all roses doesn't mean that this is not a showstopper issue for many others. If I were you I'd keep your fingers crossed you won't be effected - as it could start for you at any time. The MP DD problems started to occur way before the recent problems with the grid so they are unrelated. There are a LOT of merchants who have seen their sales hit rock bottom and/or who aren't being paid and it is severely cutting into income that supports their SL projects and/or tiers or even their real lives. They have a RIGHT to be on a "soap box" about it. You advise about getting a delivery script is way off base too. Knowing a product was delivered to a customer is not the problem here. The problem is that creators KNOW they have been delivered and they have not been paid. They not only reported the lack of payment problem on JIRA but have filed tickets on specific incidents when a customer admits directly to the merchant that they got the product and yet the merchant has NOT paid. That is what is so disturbing. Why haven't they been paid when the money was deducted from the customers account? No script in the world is going to correct this, only LL can and they are not. People have been severely effected by the fact that obviously LL introduced this way before it was ready to be released and now apparently isn't even doing what they can to remedy it even in a small way by at least paying merchants when product was delivered and who have reported the issue DD is at this point a major FAIL. Even the CEO has admitted this. And lest you think that you are totally immune, many people in SL have heard about this and have told me they have stopped shopping on MP all together and aren't shopping in world either. So you are probably losing sales yourself. THIS^^ In spades! Yes I know there are some people who haven't been affected, thus far, but there are certainly more than a "few" who ARE affected. Flea, for every time you say you had problems with Magic Boxes I will say I never had a problem - for FOUR years. (Not trying to be argumentative - we've just gone over this a few times already. ) So yeah, a bunch of us who have been merchants awhile are torked off big time!!!!

Spica Inventor wrote: This is the second weekend in a row where my sales have been sub par. How is everyone elses weekend sales? Could be that we are having global warming as part of it anyway. hehe ;-) Was just going to answer this question, but now that I have my transaction history open, will amplify my response to Flea. Beginning from April 12 (the farthest back I can open transaction history without going to saved downloads): 04/12/12 - Thursday - 3 sales via MP 04/13/12 - Friday - 1 sale/MP 04/14/12 - 04/15/12 Weekend - No sales 04/16/12 - Monday - 1 sale/MP 04/17/12 - Tuesday - No sales 04/18/12 - Wed. - 5 sales 04/19/12 -04/23/12 - No sales streak - includes weekend 04/24/12 - 2 sales (1 MP - 1 Inworld) 04/25/12 - 04/27/12 - No sales 04/28/12 - Sat. - 2 sales/MP 04/29/12 - Sun. No Sales 04/30/12 - Mon. - 2 sales/MP 05/01/12-05/03/12 - No sales streak/Midweek 05/04/12 & 05/05/12 - 1 sale each day/MP 05/06/12 Sun. - 1 sale in world 05/07/12-05/10/12 (Mon. & Thurs.) - No sales streak 05/11/12 - Fri. - 1 sale/MP No sales this weekend (I envy you graphing/chart types!) Anyway, while it looks like most of my no sales days have been on weekends, there are times during the week with no sales as well with two episodes of several days in a row during the week. Here's something else really strange: I am offering two free items for the month of May as a rezday special. Both items are from my stock (ie. not something cheap I just threw together) and have been good sellers in the past. I am only offering them inworld (have temporarily taken them off the MP). I sent notices to approximately 4 groups - one with like thousands of members. When I used to offer free items, or even 5L items, in the past, people would flock in. To date I have had 3 people come to the store to get the free items!!! I did send the notices out on a weekend thinking people would be more likely to be in world and not at work, but maybe that wasn't great timing. So, where are all the freebie hunters?

WADE1 Jya wrote: Flea Yatsenko wrote: it's really clear something bad happened on the 30th and the grid still hasn't recovered. maybe they sold off half their servers to pay rent on the office building. so now we have "deploys" until they can afford to buy them back from the pawn shop down the street. *Wipes Pepsi off my monitor*

Ann Otoole wrote: I saw some delicious mesh boots I had to have. So I bought them. That led to buying a new hair wig. And that led to buying a new corset. So some people are getting sales. Just depends on what you are selling I guess. Could I interest you in a Lady's Dagger? *Grins* Very nice! Love the look.