A Good Start...

[Dadiella]

The viewer-managed Marketplace is a good start, but after this rollout is over, you need to take a serious look at the marketplace website itself.  Right now, the Kitely Market is leaps and bounds better in speed and interface design than what we have here.

 

Variations:

In Kitely, I do not need to list each color of an item individually.  It has a variation feature within the listing, so I don't need to make a separate listing for each color of shoe (e.g.) I sell.

Related Items:

Instead of having to choose related items individually, I can "group" items in the Kitely market and it creates the related listings for me.

 

Right now, the SL maketplace is so tedious that I dread listing anything on it.  Take a look at what they have done over there and see for yourself the potential of a properly run marketplace.

 

[Sassy Romano]

Take a ticket...how long have you been using SL Marketplace for?

I suspect not very long.

Let me recap with a little history for you...

Long ago, somene feel free to correct me here but around 2008/9, Pink Linden was brought in to handle Marketplace.  Pink was ex Ebay Marketing or something like that and she had good ideas.  SL Marketplace was purchased from an SL resident who had created an online Marketplace called SL Exchange which was later renamed to xstreet due to branding conflict use of trademark "SL".  LL had also previously purchased Onrez, another thirde party marketplace.

LL now "owned" the marketplace and had great plans, such as demos NOT being their own standalone product, one listing containing all colours/sizes whatever.

Because LL had purchased those two marketplace platforms, neither really worked well in terms of how they sat within the LL branding so LL decided to buy in a Marketplace solution which is the current MP platform that we have.  Then the disaster started!

LL took a multithreaded delivery platform in the case of xstreet and slapped on front of it, a single threaded delivery queue system based on Ruby on Rails, a web dev/sales platform thingy.  Now all the deliveries requests sat in a queue and without thinking too hard about it, LL had other database operations such as nightly maintenance happening which would occur right in the morning timeframe for Europe.  European deliveries went to pot, with deliveries sitting in a queue for hours and many would fail.  This was coupled with the issue that they had inherited a marketplace platform and had no real developer skills for it and had to bring it under a system that they had bought.  The integration the purchased web product and the back end systems to inworld LSL wasn't simiple.  LL really have lost developer skills in LSL.

Instead of identifiying the root cause, LL took a different approach, clearly the delivery method was wrong so they went about implementing a different delivery platform called Direct Delivery.  This was the saviour of deliveries (instead of fixing the actual cause of the issue in the nightly maintenance process!).

Problem was that somewhere in the process, the plan for limited permissions items was too difficult at the time and would come later.  Now, this Direct Delivery project became THE MOST IMPORTANT marketplace development project, sidelining all the really useful things that merchants and customers actually wanted.  Remember, we never asked for a single threaded delivery queue system, fundamentally flawed in architecture.

This Direct Delivery project consumed (gosh memory fails me here) 2 years? and still isn't finished but not to worry, it is soon to be scrapped to give way to Viewer Managed Marketplace.  I think of this is just finishing the original product of fixing delivery issues since that's where it originated from.

So basically for the past several years, LL has only aimed at fixing its self induced issues with deliveries, the rest of the acutal functionality and usability that we as customers and merchants need has fallen by the wayside.

Also in the above timeline, Pink Linden was exited from LL along with many others in the great cull and was replaced by Brooke Linden.  Brooke introduced herself as a developer with 12 years experience (of development) in contrast to Pink's experience in Marketing.

Brooke arrived with intent to communicate with merchants but the issue was that many merchants by this time were jaded, irritated by lack of momentum, bad decisions, previous shunning by LL and generally being ignored.  Brooke faced somewhat hostile inworld meetings and the soution...hide!

I can understand that inworld meetings were considered unproductive, hostile and nothing but a shouting match but rather than be open and communicate and deliver, retreating was the chosen option, followed by anonymity.  Any post here by anyone from LL is placed under the pseudonym "Commerceteam Linden", god forbid that anyone at LL should take responsibility and be accountable for the Marketplace.

So there you have it, MP just bumbles along, all effort is on fixing an LL induced problem, LL don't communicate and all that you have asked for has been asked for before, many many times.  Feel free to use the JIRA system to submit a feature reqeust but it's really a placebo to pacify you into believing that something will happen.

Me, i'm just one of the now very jaded ones, beaten into submission by LL, it's just not worth the effort trying to push water uphill.

[Dadiella]

I know.  I really do not post much on this account, but I have been around.  I rezzed just after they got rid of last names.  

I was hoping that if they could see something that is working, is what we want, and is a competitior of sorts, that maybe it would kick them in the butt a bit.  lol.

I have participated this travesty for a long time as well.  I saw some good things come from Ebbe but I wonder if he really knows how bad the Marketplace is.

Ruby on Rails was one of those "cool" web trends that came and went.  In reality, like any other programming language, it has strengths and weaknesses - but because it was a "fad," programmers were usiing it for everything.

Honestly, they should really contract out the web site to a company that specializes in ecommerce, and get the dang thing right.  Finally.  Now is the time.  If they plan on continuing the use of Lindens in their 2.0 thingy, they should do it now.

 

[JoJo Aurelia]

MP is a beast. It causes me more problems than Carter's had pills... I sell many no copy items, the creations are solely mine, drawn in PS, but I'm forced to use a no copy script (please don't mention the name Ponzi since I pay for these scripts); anyways, these little scripts cause me SO much trouble. I have to put a sold item, one by sold one, back into my Magic box, every day, hourly, because if I wait too long, it becomes overwhelming... Then I have to go back and put the number 1 in available....because the current system can't handle more than one no copy (it can't accept an additional character like 2, and why this couldn't be fixed will be one of the great mysteries). Ahem, I started on XStreet. OMG the joyful memories of those days. NOW, the past years, listing, deleting, "whatever you have to do," is like crawling through mud with hands tied. For "awhile" it was speeding up, now NO. And the added feature, it's not removing the unlisted item even days after it was removed from the Magic Box. You can refresh until your finger breaks. Also the Fact that the newer items don't show first pisses me off. So people coming to my site get to see some older items that I wish would fall into line. I've been just removing them to make my MP look more cohesive. I'm totally worried about this change because I have over 300 no copy items! It's aweful. Just aweful.

[Aspire Rang]

The state of marketplace is revealing, that and the state of content creation tools.

 

Issues like the mesh uploader Still not properly manageing simple things like origin/root points in models.

Forcing creators to waste effort on thousands and thousands of creations to jurry rig around the flaw.  Jury Rigs that will be wasting grid and user resources for all of SL's remaining life.

 

The tools are irritating, but the state of Marketplace is disheartening. Not because it sucks, which it does, but because said suckage demonstrates that LL has STILL not realized that Marketplace represents their only real option for monetization going forward. Putting togeather a team and learning to create a first rate marketplace would be an investment in SLNext just as much as SLNow. Instead LL seem stuck treating the world we all love as a Country Club, trying to profit from membership dues, as though that model has not historically been SPECIFFICALLY DESIGNED TO LIMT PARTICIPATION.

[Pamela Galli]

Bravo, Sassy, we have long needed a history of the marketplace. Now we need a catalog of the low hanging fruit that we have been begging for, for years. Then maybe Inara or someone will refer ebbe to it in her blog.

[Sassy Romano]

LL could also learn to use the forum search feature as they have been listed over and over. *shrugs*

/me watches a flying pig flutter gracefully past the window, pursued by a pink unicorn.

[Pamela Galli]

I cling to the hope that if Ebbe knew the state of the marketplace, what the situation is, what the history is, and what simple steps we have pleaded for, for years now, and how we have been repeatedly stonewalled, ignored, and snubbed -- he would do something about it.

 

How naive does that sound?

[Drake1 Nightfire]

/me cracks his knuckles.

Demos never showing up in search, only being linked to final products.

Merchants names only showing up in a merchant search.

a freebie section that will not show freebie results unless searched for.

a wishlist that is shown in our inworld profile, along with the ability to purchase from it.

enforcement of relevant keywords.

a drop down for color options.

enforcement that demos should be free (personal pet peeve)

A date on each item that shows when it was listed.

Auto delete of limited items when they run out.

A mesh check box

A demo check box (where the perms check boxes are)

 A 'follow this merchant' option... perhaps like the favorites section now?

Photos on the past purchases section, and make it searchable.

Marketplace Giftcards.

A redelivery option that allows the user to have copy objects redelivered themselves.

Overhaul the rating system or remove it. 

0% commission. If they will not get involved in Merchant/customer disputes they have no business taking a cut of the sale. IE.. shady merchant sells an empty box for $5000L LL gets $250L and the poor customer gets shafted. even with a ticket LL tells them "sorry, MP is buyer beware."

The marketplace should have a system for full perms items that come with a user license. The buyer must agree with the user license of the merchant, by pushing a button, or marking a field or such, before he can actually buy the item.

Allow more people to work in one shop.

Allow merchants to have more then one shop.

A blacklist feature for merchants.

A last logged in on a merchants store.

 

That's what i have so far.. my hands hurt now.. Time for coffee and a scone.

[Pamela Galli]

Thank you.

 

My favorite "easy to fix" fixes regard cleaning up search, most of which you have mentioned:

 

* Cut the keyword field space at least in half.  People just fill up all the unused space with spam.  Less space means more focused, relevant keywords.

* Do not include the merchant name in results for item searches.

* Do not include the store name in results for item searches (eg Do no include House of Shoes in a search for "house".)

* Give the Item name more weight in search than keywords.  

[Drake1 Nightfire]

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

Thank you.

 

My favorite "easy to fix" fixes regard cleaning up search, most of which you have mentioned:

 

* Cut the keyword field space at least in half.  People just fill up all the unused space with spam.  Less space means more focused, relevant keywords.

* Do not include the merchant name in results for item searches.

* Do not include the store name in results for item searches (eg Do no include House of Shoes in a search for "house".)

* Give the Item name more weight in search than keywords.  

---

Exactly. They have a merchants tab for searches, why isn't that a fixed issue?

Oh, perhaps a list of allowed/suggested keywords and if you get legit flagged for keyword spam you can't relist it. Possibly a penalty system. Too many legit flags and you get a week of your store being suspended.

[Pamela Galli]

Yes, and there is SO much more. These are easy things. I am not even talking about anything that would be hard, just the easy stuff.

 

I did tweet this thread. Not that I have seen any sign that anyone at LL is interested in their own marketplace.

[ChinRey]

---

Dadiella wrote:

The viewer-managed Marketplace is a good start, but after this rollout is over, you need to take a serious look at the marketplace website itself.  Right now, the Kitely Market is leaps and bounds better in speed and interface design than what we have here.

 

---

Let me put it this way:

Earlier this week I released a series of 28 medieval cottages and I decided it was about time I started taking my long neglected inworld store seriously, not just focus on MP.

Now this CasperVend thingy was all new to me so I had to learn almost from scratch (although I could use some of my CasperLet experience). I have quite a bit of experience with MP listings though and I think I know most of the tricks how to do the work efficiently by now.

Even so, it took me several hours to get those cottages listed on MP. It took about 20-30 minutes to learn the basics of CasperVend and get them all listed in my inworld vendors and on Primbay.

That's the difference between MP and a professionally made web store system really. Or one of them. When I checked Primbay afterwards (never done that before) it turned out it had a proper search result sorting algorithm too. Oh, and unlike MP, Primbay is being properly maintained and developed too.

I know Linden Lab has ignored the Marketplace for longer than I have been in SL but there's a new factor now: Primbay.

Primbay is still not fully developed, missing a few features, and it's limited by what is possible to do for a third party when it comes to connecting to the grid. But even so, it's already a sleek, fast, efficient, professional web market, in stark contrast to the miserable LL Marketplace.

[Sassy Romano]

Be careful how you promote Primbay. I suspect that the exit strategy is for it to be perceived as a competitor to Marketplace, such that Casper is made an acceptable offer by LL.

 

Don't agree with me? Let's just say OnRez and SLExchange (xstreet SL)

[ChinRey]

---

Sassy Romano wrote:

Don't agree with me? Let's just say OnRez and SLExchange (xstreet SL)

---

Oh I believe you but I don't think there's that much risk. Casper has already quoted the acceptable takeover price and it's a seven digit figure in US dollars. If LL is actually  willing to pay that much to get rid of an annoying and embarrasing competitor, well it'll make Casper rich - and he really deserves that for all the good he has done for SL - and leave the field wide open to the next MP alternative. I'll be tempted to go for it myself actually.