Iris Rants: The Second Life Marketplace's Direct Delivery is Not Yet Ready for Prime Time

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of virtual world and MMO fashion

SL fashion bloggers, do not trust the SL Marketplace, especially if you're on a deadline. SL fashion developers, do not trust the SL Marketplace to give your customers the content they bought from you in a timely fashion, and more importantly, be ready to take the brunt of the blame for it yourselves.

I talk about the SL Marketplace a lot, and I use it at some point while preparing almost every Second Life-based fashion post that I make. It's an invaluable tool for browsing what's available and I strongly believe that every designer should maintain a storefront there. And yet, I only rarely buy anything from it, and even then it's usually only products that are exclusive to the Marketplace. I use the Marketplace like a catalogue, frankly, but I wish I didn't have to. The truth of the matter is that until the kinks are ironed out of the Direct Delivery system, that's all it's really good for.

If you're not sure what I'm talking about, let me explain:

Today, I had a very different post than this in mind. I got up at 6am (no joke) to make sure I had time for leftover shopping, styling, and shooting, as well as to write the post itself. One of the first thing that I did in preparing the post was order a few items from the Marketplace, from stores who don't have an in-world presence. I ordered these items early, knowing that they might take some time to arrive due to the hit-and-miss direct delivery system that the Marketplace is unfortunately transitioning into. As of the publishing of this post, I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for that Marketplace order to be delivered, so Hamlet wisely suggested a slight change of course.

And this isn't an abnormal experience for me, or for many other irritated fashionistas. I try to make it a habit not to rely on prompt delivery from the Marketplace, but once a month or so I forget just how bad it can be and optimistically try it out, hoping that maybe they've worked out the bugs and I'll be pleasantly surprised. You'd think i would have learned my lesson by now.

Since the direct delivery system was unveiled, Linden Lab has made up for the system's shortcomings by making it easier for sellers to redeliver and keep track of unsent orders. It's been months, and it's clear that this was a pretty lame band-aid for a widespread and persistent issue. I particularly hate hearing from designers when products that failed to deliver receive negative reviews from ignorant consumers, hurting future sales because of something that is entirely out of their hands. The deadline for converting all your Marketplace items to direct delivery was set as this month, and while I truthfully don't know if that's still the case, I desperately hope that it isn't. (Update: A hat-tip to the comments for pointing out that the migration deadline has been quietly bumped a second time, to October 1st. It also seems like delivery fails are getting less severe in general, so maybe my luck will turn as well as the new deadline approaches. I'll keep testing and let you know!)

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Iris Ophelia (Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[Whimsy Winx]

I thought they changed the manditory date to October 2012?

[Shug Maitland]

I too use marketplace as a search tool and shop in world where ever possible. What drives me to ranting insanity is when the "See item in world" SLURL link leads me to a vacant plot!
"Fix or remove the slurl in your marketplace ad and just might, maybe buy your product"

[DBDigital Epsilon]

Yes the New date is October 1st, 2012 If you log into Marketplace then click the "My Marketplace" at the top of the screen then drop down "Merchant home" it gives this link: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Marketplace-and-Direct-Delivery-Update/m-p/1562745#M25446

Which then says October 1st 2012. Now why they couldn't make that easier to find I don't know. Or perhaps LL will even do a blog post? Seems like that might be a good place to make such very important announcements?

[Ziki Questi]

Yes, it was extended to October, and has been extended several times in the past as well as LL has attempted to fix several lingering and significant problems. It wouldn't be surprising if it were extended again.

Although I usually shop inworld, I do shop on the Marketplace a couple times a week and personally haven't ever had a delivery problem. But I also manage two merchant accounts, one quite large, and occasionally customers say an item wasn't delivered. Merchants in general have been unhappy with many facets of the Marketplace, ranging from delivery issues to reporting.

You might want to visit the Merchant's Forum to keep track of these conversations:
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/bd-p/Merchants
That's where you'll see information on Direct Delivery updates, etc.

[Natali Naglo]

I avoid adding to cart whenever possible, but even so, rarely have problems anymore. I'm also not using SlL during peak times.. Sorry your post didn't go to plan today ：／

[Danaf]

Funny, I buy a lot off MP and havent encountered this problem at all !!! Maybe its my lucky charms!

I do have some bad spin with Merchants who like for example have the demo attached as the purchase item or give me an entirely different item and other weird ommissions or faults .. some respond ok some i juss give up on.

[Sandy Sandalwood]

I buy a lot from Marketplace and only occasionally have the delivery problem you describe.

The thing that annoys me about direct delivery is receiving a box that requires opening rather than direct access to the products. I have been assuming that is a cheap trick some merchants use to meet the LL deadline.

[Ziki Questi]

@Sandy, merchants who followed the original instructions from the Lab on how to migrate from Magic Boxes to Direct Delivery ended up with boxes uploaded to the Marketplace rather than folders. Reuploading everything can be a daunting task, especially for merchants with hundreds of items for sale.

[foneco zuzu]

As a user only, all i buy from marketplace (only free items or full perm ones that don't have a shop in world, or that the link to that shop is broken:(, never give me any problem at all!
And i do buy at least 8 items per day (Still lots of free ones to be found there:))
Wish that merchants will fix the Slur's for their in World Shops, to many end on a vacant spot!
Wish even more that all merchants where obliged to have a shop in World!
Stupid fucking Lab can't even make its own vacant land usefeull, allowing merchants that have products on martkeplace to rent at cheaper prizes, i wonder if Lind Lab top exec are worth a single Usd in payment???

[shockwave yareach]

I buy almost everything from the marketplace. Search is a sad joke and finding what I'm hunting for with that is an exercise in futility. Whereas marketplace, I find what I want and buy it right then and there. If I like the item, I look for LMs in the item so I can examine their store when I have time.

I haven't had a misdelivery in quite some time. But lately I have seen where I buy something while I'm inworld, and I cannot find it in my Incoming folder -- I have to log out and log in again for that to refresh. I can see how people mistake that for a No Delivery problem, but it's really something else.