Tag: SL Marketplace

Marketplace: Commerce Team refuse in-world meetings (at least for now)

Posted on by Inara Pey

On the 7th November, the Commerce Team gave their latest update on activities. The post reads in full:

Merchants,

Thank you for your continued feedback. Following is an update regarding your latest questions and requests:

  • Direct Delivery email notifying merchants receipt of item by customer: We understand your request and are looking into this.
  • Marketplace category changes: We’re working on some proposed updates to these categories and will give you the opportunity to provide input. Stay tuned for more details – including a survey.
  • JIRA changes: We are working to adjust our communications practices to make sure all Merchants are kept up-to-date on bug fixes.
  • Marketplace weekly user group: We will not be adding a user group at this time.
    [My emphasis]
  • Publish Marketplace six-month backlog: There are no plans to provide this data.

In addition, we are evaluating ways to improve communications practices with Merchants that will allow us to address technical and support issues more effectively. This includes direct email correspondence, such as the direct email that was sent November 6, 2012 to let all Merchants know about the benefits of Direct Delivery.

We appreciate your patience while we continue to improve marketplace functionality and merchant communications.

The Commerce Team

Of particular interest here are two statements – that the Commerce Team are “evaluating ways to improve communications practices with Merchants”, while simultaneously refusing to agree to in-world user group meetings.

On the subject of the former, the Commerce Team point to their recent e-mail to merchants extolling the virtues of Direct Delivery; virtues which are, as I commented at the time, actually non-existent for many in receipt of the e-mail because Direct Delivery is for them proving to be at least as unreliable as Magic Boxes (and the Marketplace in general). As such, I’m actually unclear on exactly how such an e-mail is actually “improving” communications practices given the frustration it might generate, much less addressing technical and support issues “effectively” – but, c’est la vie.

User Group meetings: a source of positive LL / user interaction the Commerce Team remain unwilling to embrace

The refusal to hold in-world meetings, although hardly unexpected, is regrettable. While it is true that in this day and age, face-to-face meetings are not always required in order to resolve technical issues and problems, the fact remains tat face-to-face meetings – even in the digital domain – do serve a valuable purpose. They help promote a more positive attitude between people and they encourage greater mutual support and respect for one another (and I’m deliberately not mentioning the very practical results which can come out of such meetings by way of ideas and suggestions for dealing with issues and problems or providing LL with information on issues of which they may have no prior knowledge).

Anyone who has ever been to other SL user group meetings cannot fail to note the appreciation and understanding they generate towards LL. sure, there may be occasional bursts of frustration when things are going wonky somewhere on the grid – but by and large both sides of the equation – Lab and users – benefit from the interaction and exchange.

It’s therefore regretful that the Commerce Team continue to step back from in-world interactions with merchants. While the initial meeting may well be a little rough on them – I would venture to suggest that the vast majority of merchants would actually welcome the opportunity to have such face-to-face meetings and would be only to willing to engage with the Commerce Team fairly, rationally and respectfully.

Of course, there is the little caveat to the Commerce Team’s rejection on the idea of in-world meetings, the “At this time.” This suggests that at some point in the future they may well reconsider their position. I hope they do – and that they do so sooner rather than later – because doing so really would be to be to their credit and do far more to help to “improve communications practices with Merchants that will allow us to address technical and support issues more effectively” far more than any number of bland e-mails or forum posts is ever likely to achieve.

Swap to Direct Delivery, merchants urged

Posted on by Inara Pey

Merchants still using Magic Boxes are in the process of receiving an e-mail from the Commerce Team urging them to swap to Direct Delivery.

The e-mail reads:

Dear Marketplace Merchant,

You are receiving this email because you have at least one listing on the Second Life Marketplace that still uses an outdated delivery process, known as Magic Boxes.

 Why should you update to Direct Delivery?

Linden Lab has already started to phase out support for Magic Boxes. In order to ensure uninterrupted service to you and your customers in the future, we strongly encourage you to migrate as soon as possible. It’s easy to do – and worth it for both you and your customers.

 Uploading to Direct Delivery is easy

We’ve made it easy for you to update your older listings to Direct Delivery. Many of our top merchants have already migrated and found the process relatively painless. For more information, please check out this Knowledge Base Article or watch these tutorial videos covering the Direct Delivery Basics, andMigration to Direct Delivery.

 What are the benefits of Direct Delivery?

    • Deliveries are TWICE AS FAST compared to Magic Boxes
    • Direct Delivery purchases are successfully delivered more often (2.5% greater success rate than Magic Boxes)
    • Direct Delivery supports “test delivery” for safe and commission-free “test run” distribution of your products
    • You can now see everything that is included, at a glance, on the Contents Tab

 Support for a dedicated “Received Items” folder where your customers can quickly and easily find all of their Marketplace purchases.

    • and much more!

NOTE: Limited quantity items (items that a Merchant cannot copy) are not yet supported by Direct Delivery. If you have problems migrating, please contact customer support with questions or issues.

Thanks,

The Second Life Marketplace Team

I assume this is more of the “upping the tempo” Rod Humble recently promised vis-a-vis Commerce Team communications. If so, fair enough. However…

The e-mail does tend to overlook the fact that for many merchants, Direct Delivery is at least as unreliable as Magic Boxes, and prone to more-or-less the same failures. This is something I pointed out in my last post on the matter, wherein I made mention of the fact that the core issues within the Marketplace are occurring regardless of whether someone is using Direct Delivery or Magic Boxes.

WEB-4441 is a case in point which is related to problems Merchants are encountering regardless as to whether they are using Magic Boxes OR Dirrect Delivery (yet it is still at times used by Commerce Team members as evidence that problems they may be experiencing with Magic Boxes are effectively “their own fault” for not having migrated).

Direct Delivery stats: irrelevant for those experiencing the ongoing Marketplace failures – such as not being able to use Direct Delivery, or facing mechanisms within the Marketplace which are broken regardless of whether or not Direct Delivery is used. (Also: spot the missing line in the comparison)

Frankly, until these issue are resolved, it would appear that there is actually little benefit for those merchants who haven’t yet migrated from doing so. Certainly, a “2.5% faster” delivery time is of little benefit if the reasons why delivery fail remain the same regardless of the mechanism used (Magic Boxes or Direct Delivery).

At the end of the day, it’s up to individual merchants as to whether they migrate. Some are remaining adamant that they won’t until issues are resolved or are at least shown to be improving. While I’ve not had any issues (so far as I’m aware) since converting to DD, I nevertheless can’t say I blame them; they have much more at stake than I.

In the meantime, it appears the cut-off date for Magic Box migration remains “on hold”; there has been no update on this since the (now removed comment from the Merchants forum), nor, except in the most generic of feedback, has there been any real update as to resolving the myriad of issued the Commerce Team have been dealing with for the better part of a year (or more).

Which really brings me back to the comment I used to end my last post on this topic:

It’s not just the tempo, Rod, it’s the quality of the information supplied.

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Of copyright, IP and product licensing

Posted on by Inara Pey

I’ve been watching a semi-interesting forum discussion going on since the weekend

In essence, some are getting upset over the fact that CBS, who now own the rights to the Star Trek franchise world-wide, have apparently “clamped down” on Trek merchandise for sale in SL, with the result that at least one creator has had all wares removed from vendors and the Marketplace, and may have also been banned.

While one may initially feel sympathy for those involved, it has to be said – as several have in commenting on the forum thread itself – that at the end of the day, copyright is copyright, period. Just because the holder happens to be a major entertainment conglomerate doesn’t make the fact that in building and selling content derived from their products, and thus potentially impinging on their copyrights, any less “wrong” than finding the guy on the next parcel over to yours is hard at work copying your own original builds.

Some of those expressing upset at the move do so on the basis that CBS (and before them, Viacom / Paramount) may have flip-flopped over matters in the past, and that holders of other franchises are more lenient. Sadly, none of this matters a jot. Nor does the issue of “fan loyalty” or any other argument.

The major issue in this matter, and the one that gets little or no mention in the topic, is that of licensing.

The fact of the matter is that over the years those holding the Star Trek franchise have made a considerable amount of money through licensing deals with other companies, allowing the latter to make Trek-related products (both real and digital) wither exclusively or in cooperation with others. These deals generally involve a significant upfront payment from the licence holder, usually coupled with a royalties payment scheme based upon unit sales.

As such, while CBS / Viacom / Paramount may well have wibbled over some matters, that licences have been granted at the exchange of large amounts of money, they do actually have an obligation to ensure said licences are protected, period. It doesn’t matter if the person in violation is a fan or not.

There are many great Trek-related (and other franchise-based) models and other goods on sale in SL. While there is no doubting the skill and dedication of those making them, many nevertheless are open to accusations of copyright / IP infringement

Some posters in the thread are calling for LL to get involved in matters. Yet the fact is, LL do not need to involve themselves in matters. I’d actually suggest that, on balance, it is far better that they don’t get involved in this, or any other licensing situation in terms of negotiations over rights even if they were so minded, as it is very likely that things would not end well for anyone.

A far better solution, as some have suggested, is for the Trek fans themselves to address the matter with CBS – and the roadmap for them doing so has already been drawn. At the end of 2010, the Battlestar Galactica community faced an identical situation Universal Studios took issue with BSG-related goods being sold in SL. At the time the fans responded by engaging with Universal and discussing the situation with them.

The result was that in February 2011, Universal Studios agreed to allow BSG-related merchandise to remain available in SL, so long as it was not being sold for personal profit / gain. One might question how actually effective this arrangement has been (there are admittedly a fair proportion of BSG-derived items on active sale in the Marketplace), but the arrangement at least leaves people knowing where they stand, and that those persisting in selling franchise-related merchandise which may be subject to licence arrangements elsewhere and / or are liable to be looked upon as copyright/IP infringing would know precisely where they stand.

At this point in time, there seems little reason to suspect CBS would not be willing to enter into such an agreement if approached positively, and I would hope that if they are not already doing so, Trek fans in SL are making overtures along such lines already. In fact, I’ll be rather surprised if this isn’t already the case. In 2010/2011 the Universal deal was reached through the able assistance of Anthony Haslage, (Ntanel Swordthain in SL), himself of the International Federation of Trekkers (IFT), and Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) Second Life Chapter President. So not only is the roadmap there, the chief architect for bringing it to pass is himself well-placed to represent SL Trek fans.

In the meantime, perhaps the biggest question this situation leaves open is what will happen with regards to Star Wars merchandise in SL now that Disney has acquired LucasFilm, and, presumably, the rights to the highly lucrative merchandising arrangements related to that franchise.

Commerce Team: upping the tempo with more of the same

Posted on by Inara Pey

Following Rod Humble’s entry into the ongoing Marketplace issues discussion, the Commerce Team have posted an update. At the time of Rod’s entry into the situation, I commented that overall, more than just a stepping up of forum posts is really needed if issues are to be sorted with any degree of satisfaction (and I didn’t just mean the technical issues – I was referring to the entire loss of trust many merchants have with the Commerce Team), then more pro-active steps are need.

Sadly, if the latest update is anything to go by, rather than moving to build bridges, the Commerce Team is simply going to give more of the same.

The update opens with a report on Direct Delivery delivering items “2.3 times faster” than Magic Boxes and at “2.5 times” the success rate. This might be taken as significant but for two things.

  • Many of those hit by the problems remain unable to use Direct Delivery
  • Many of the issues impacting merchants at the moment are occurring regardless as to whether they are using Direct Delivery, Magic Boxes  – or both. Issues such as WEB-4441, for example, which was originally raised in relation to Magic Boxes, but which was opened-out by the Commerce Team to include a number of Direct Delivery issues (WEB-4559, WEB-4570, and WEB-4595) as well (which also served to confuse the purpose of the JIRA).

As such, talk of the “success rate” and “speed” of Direct Delivery is pretty much pointless.

Direct Delivery stats: irrelevant for those experiencing the ongoing Marketplace failures – such as not being able to use Direct Delivery, or facing mechanisms within the Marketplace which are broken regardless of whether or not Direct Delivery is used. (Also: spot the missing line in the comparison)

The rest of the update is, frankly, bland. It offers no more information than previous updates; in fact in some respects it is less informative. At least the previous updates (which appear to have been removed from the forum with the publication of this update) recorded a consistent list of JIRA, allowing merchants to properly identify issues and look them up (all the relevant JIRA remained public access after the switch-over to the Bug Tracker mode in the JIRA system).

The one ray of sunshine in the update is that it would appear that the overcharging for listing enhancements has finally been resolved some 10 days after it was originally reported as fixed. While this is indeed welcome (if correct), it really is overshadowed by the lack of genuine information being provided by the rest of the update.

Of course, keeping people more informed is to be welcomed. However, the key point here is keeping people more informed. That implies passing on meaningful information and making some effort to explain what is going on: what are the priorities, where are the possible bottlenecks in dealing with maters, what has been done to date in order to understand the issues, and so on.  As it stands, it would appear that the Commerce Team’s response to Rod’s comment on “upping the tempo” appears to be “more of the same” in terms of bland summaries – only possibly more frequently.

So far, the update has been met with a deafening silence, which may reflect the fact that it really doesn’t say that much more about core issues than merchants already knew from previous updates.

And while not entirely unexpected, it is nevertheless disappointing. Again withe respect Rod, and to precis my previous post on Marketplace communications:

It’s not just the tempo, Rod, it’s the quality of the information supplied.

Marketplace: it’s not only the tempo, Rod, it’s time for practical steps

Posted on by Inara Pey

The SL Marketplace has appeared in these pages a few times these past couple of weeks, and not in a good way. First was my coverage of the latest errors relating to listing enhancements, to be followed by the news that LL’s Commerce Team had apparently seen the error and taken steps to correct it and refund people. Only as it turned out, they’d only fixed half the problem, which resulted in people again being incorrectly billed.

Marketplace: a dispiriting place?

Some Good News

On the 8th October the Commerce Team issued the following update:

Merchants,

There has been quite a bit of discussion on Product Listing Enhancements and stuck orders over the past few days on this Forum. Here is an update on these issues.

Product Listing Enhancements:
Last week, we deployed a fix for Product Listing Enhancements to allow them to start billing again. We refunded all PLEs for the prior two months.

After we refunded merchants, billing for Product Listing Enhancements started again. Not all of the billed enhancements correctly updated their renewal date, so we stopped billing. We have updated the PLEs that had an incorrect date and will be releasing a fix this week before we start billing again.

We are aware that there are some Merchants who have Product Listing Enhancements stuck in the “Charging, cannot edit” state. We are continuing to look into this and investigate what we can do to get those PLEs unstuck.

Stuck Orders:
Late Friday night through early Saturday morning, many orders got stuck in the being_delivered state. This morning we were able to force those orders to a completed state (allowing payments to Merchants to complete) and are working to prevent this from happening again.

If you are seeing anything different than [sic] the behavior described above (or have an additional problem), please contact support or file a JIRA. Please include order numbers or listing information as needed.

The Commerce Team

On the whole, this is welcome news, regardless as to how the problems originated.

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Marketplace issues: not so much eroding trust as completely undermining it

Posted on by Inara Pey

Well, it seems news over the correction in one aspect of the ongoing SL Marketplace listing enhancements debacle (itself merely one part of the overall Marketplace debacle) was premature.

No sooner had the Commerce Team announced they were refunding people for the mess-up over payments, that automatic debiting for enhancements resumed, with the same level of confusion as to what is actually going on, and people unable to determine exactly what they have or have not been charged for. How this came to pass is unclear, although I do tend to agree with Darrius Gothly’s assessment of the situation, vis:

When your staff went through and refunded everyone, you should have AT THAT TIME tested to be sure your code modifications would not immediately undo everything just done. But did you? Nope. As a result it went through and lickety-split re-billed everyone .. not only for what they’d just been refunded but additional charges too. Pardon me but .. WTH?!? By dint of your lack of attention you have just completely undone everything your staff did .. by hand .. at great expense to your employer. You have WASTED a very large amount of money. Wasted because you could not or did not want to bother testing your changes. 

It is perhaps bad enough that people have seen refunds enter their accounts only to evaporate once more. But it would also appear that people are again getting charged for enhancements they cannot cancel due to WEB-2974 (an issue now some two years old, and resolution of which was “on hold” as of July 2012).

This state of play is, frankly, ridiculous. While mistakes can and do happen, what has been going on within the Marketplace and on the part of the Commerce Team long ago reached a point of farce. Even the simplest of tasks appears to be beyond their capabilities (or the capabilities of the software they manage). Remember the change to the sales notification e-mail address I mentioned as being rolled-out on September 26th as a part of my last general SLMP update? Guess what was rolled back just 48 hours later, only to be rolled-out once more on October 4th?

One has to question a) the level of competence within those responsible for managing and coding SLMP; and b) the overall condition of the Marketplace code itself, as it seems utterly incomprehensible that even the most basic issues within the system appear to be beyond LL’s grasp to fix.

In his comment on the matter of listing enhancements, Darrius concludes:

Communication from your team to us is a major issue. I’ve no doubt why this is the case. Most people have a very difficult time going to others with the need to say “We’re sorry, we screwed up.” With the number of times you must begin a blog post in that manner, it’s no wonder you don’t post very much at all. So here’s an idea … stop being lazy, stop short-cutting things and rushing changes into production, stop screwing up .. and STOP having to begin every post with an apology.

While I agree with his point of view, I’d go a step further.

It doesn’t matter as to whether or not these issues are only affecting a “small number” of merchants (as the Commerce Team have repeatedly stated); it also doesn’t matter as to whether LL regard L$ as “real money” or “tokens”.

What matters is that the company actively encourages people to get involved in their platform’s commerce engine, and to invest time and money in it – and they promote the Marketplace as a major means for people to do so. People have taken LL at their word, and for many of those affected by all the Marketplace screw-ups over the years, it very much is the case that real money is involved, and real stress and real upset.

As such, it is time for someone within Linden Lab to recognise this, take responsibility and step forward with a sincere apology for the manner in which the entire litany of mistakes, errors and mishaps going back as far as at least 2010 has been handled. They then need to go on to ensure issues are managed in such a way that people are kept properly informed on progress, and that issues are not exacerbated by what appears to be either flaws in internal processes – or carelessness.

Simply saying people are busy “crunching numbers” doesn’t really cut it any more.

As it is, a decent projection as to when LL will “have a fix” for Marketplace problems, would appear to be, “Around the 12th of Never”.

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