Try Before Buy

Boy this brings back memories.

Maybe this feature will achieve the near-mythic proportions of Havoc 2 someday.

Ditto.

A suggestion I made in another thread...

Cristiano: for your L$100 shirts, how about setting up a "camping pose stand", paid for in shirts, in your shop. You'd have demo versions of a few of the shirts (or maybe a regular version of something that's a slow seller), but only a few, in a box that the stand hands out on touch. After an hour on the stand you'd pay the camper with a non-demo shirt (their choice, your choice, you can try all kinds of ways)... and their job would be to wear the demo shirts or the shirts you're paying them in when customers request them.

Weird. I had the same idea. After some thought, I came to the following idea.

A person buys an item. We know who they are and what they bought. They want to get it free and agree to model that item. They stand on a pose stand for an hour (or however long) and, at the end of the time, are given a 100% rebate of what they paid. If they bail early, you've lost nothing and they have what they paid for.

One risk is they may not wear the merchandise; you can't force them to. Another risk is they may not represennt your product well

-Lavanya Hartnell

Notice that the original suggestion was dated about a year ago. This has obviously been a "high-priority" feature at LL. You can expect it to be released sometime before the heat death of the universe.

That's even better. And maybe they could earn the money back over time, pose for 30 minutes, they get 1/2 or 1/8th or whatever the deal is (depending on the value of the item). That would help solve the problem of people who think it's funny to stand there wearing something else...

They're modelling. Your other customers are going to see them. They can report on people who aren't modelling well, and they don't get to play again. If you dole out the payment over time they've got an incentive to avoid complaints.

I like the idea, but it's very confusing.

How about something like a chance to return something you buy. The creator and/or seller can set a time to try in which you are allowed to return a sold item. Rather than that money going into the bank account of the seller automatically, it could get held temporarily in sort of an escrow account until the timer for the item runs out or the item is returned. This allows different items to be set to different times and allows the seller to set that time to zero if they don't like the idea at all. The buyer would be told of their time to try the item. If they don't return it in that time, they have bought it and the money goes to the seller like it does now. If they do return it, they get their money back and the item goes back to the seller or is destroyed at the sellers option. The seller does not have use of the money until the Time To Buy has worn off or the user selects a buy now option. This would allow sellers to compete another way by offering long Try Times than others.

Maybe a flexible and practical way to go about it, from a technical standpoint, would be to have a new LSL function called llGiveInventoryTemporary() function with a timeout parameter in seconds. The idea would be that it would act just like llGiveInventory() -- that is, an object would give something from its inventory to the person or object specified -- but that after the specified time, it would be returned.

Any item given in this mode would be forced no-copy and no-transfer. That way, the automatic clean-up would be fairly simple for the system. One technical challenge would be returning a no-copy item back into the original dispensing object. Maybe it would be worth making a constraint that this would only work for copiable objects so that there would be no need to return; only to delete from the recipient's inventory. A bigger challenge would be dealing with the contents of a package dispensed this way. If you didn't make those auto-return, too, then the point of this exercise would be moot.

Sadly, I think the Lindens won't seriously consider doing this sort of thing because of all the technical intricacies involved. This isn't just a repackaging of what's already in place; it involves a bunch of new technologies, even if modest ones.

- Lavanya

Instead of having it scripted at all just give a function in the creation tools.. Or Properties layout... Have it say... Die in secs mins hrs... That way there is no script to set... Don't give it an LSL backbone to be exploited and thouroughly tested so that there aren't any glitches... Say... Make to where you build one item... And you make two copies... One Real and One Advertisement (try on)... Let's call them Shirt Real and Shirt Try On... Well with the properties layout for Shirt Real you would have it set normally... And for the Shirt Try On you would give it an on rez timer... Once rezzed it would last for however many secs mins hrs and then disappear... But you couldn't stop there... Then ppl would just pop it out for pictures or whatever if the developer let them have a 30 min trial... So you would have to implement Linden Server Side inventory deletion... So that the timer doesn't stop if they detach it back to their Inventory... The only drawback I see to this is the Rez Time on some objects... Maybe find a way to find out if an object has fully "rezzed" in world before the timer starts... But it's not a real bad problem... Just would make ppl irritated if they had to pay 1L for a try on basis and it not rez fully... All of you out there know that it takes some time to get things to rez most of the time when put on... Another feature that could be implemented would be a timer for each piece that is try on... So that your not fooled into buying something for full price only to get a try on and get ripped off... Considering the fact that most businesses would lose business by doing this but it's a long shot anyways... The reason I suggest this way is to prevent utter confusion amongst everyone and not to have to rewrite every scripted object you sell (Pain in the Rear)... You would simply just have to set properties on it... Which isn't too bad... Let me know your thoughts... I've been thinking about this a while...

Heratiki

Interesting suggestions. But the Lindens are nothing if not pragmatic. They seem to eschew almost anything that is not a safe, incremental change. This sounds like a lot of work.

- Lavanya

One thing to remember is that clothing that automatically disappears could potentially cause the wearer to be naked. This would sometimes violate SL's loose decency standards, especially in the Teen Grid.

- Lavanya

I think the only way to do this would have the check made when the clothing is worn, and have it disabled. That way you could "cheat" by wearing them longer, but as soon as you took the clothes off you couldn't put them on again.

Thanks for the laugh. I needed it

Absolutely! This is how it works in RL and for good reason. Happy customers who return and return and return!!!

I have a proposal that would allow for Try before you Buy among other desired things. Please take a look at proposition 2323 http://secondlife.com/vote/vote.php?get_id=2323

You currently have a mechanism in game for preventing people to enter areas, while letting them see what is inside.

Create an "off-limits" area (call it a "mirror area". Outside of it, put a "cloning device". The cloning device will, on command, spawn short lived mirror copies of anything (avatars, clothing, animations) inside of the "off-limits" area.

Allow copies can respond to be indirectly manipulated - maybe a "Put clothing on" button, or a "dance" text command, while ensuring they are not altered, touched, or removed from the off limits area.

With regard for trying on clothes before you buy them you could have the option of looking into a 3-D mirror which projects a 3-Dimentional image of your av except the image would be wearing the clothes in the advertisment. As you move or spin, so would the 3-D image wearing the clothes. Once the mirror is deactivated the image dissappears and you never have ownership of the clothing unless you actually by them.

It would be cool to walk along past a row of 3-D mirrors in a clothing store and see all the outfits popping up on an image of your av...This would add a very thrilling element to the whole shopping experience. Not only would consumers get to try before they buy, but vendors would enjoy the added aggressiveness of this sales tactic.

I'd love it....
Christie Newall

To implement this would be no less difficult than simply allowing people to "buy" clothes temporarily as is done in There.
This would be VERY difficult to implement. Each "image" would require as much computation as rendering a whole avatar... more if the clothing included prim components... your frame rate would drop precipitously. If this was even possible I would MUCH rather see the "mirror" mechanism being made available for scripts, and let residents implement things like you're talking about themselves.