How Are the SL Web Based Business Doing?

Thanks Prokofy.

Please try to stay onTopic which is SL Web Based Businesses...

I think the web stores are an interesting idea; I've looked them over, but I haven't used one yet. They seem a little under-documented to me. The FAQ sections are pretty bare bones on all the sites. Before I get involved with an extra middleman in my SL purchases, I want to know exactly what's going to happen with both my money and my identity.

In short, my advice to the SL-related web stores (if they're interested in expanding their customer base) is to explain their service clearly...make it seem easy and idiot-proof.

This is very good business advice. In fact, if these places were a little more idiot-proof, I might even start using them.

Buster

In my week of being in SL I did alot of teleporting and flying to shops based on what I found using find. Most of the time when I get to the shop I'm dissapointed. Was not what they advertised or in some cases shop was gone. I even found one that was locked. Shopping in SL is hit or miss and takes quite a bit of time looking for things. I find I do better just by stumbling across shops. (now why didn't they show up when I used find?)

The website, (and I've only used SL exchange so far) are easy and fast I do a search and there it is. Sometimes I'll use SL exchange to find sellers then look them up in SL. But either way I'm parted with my hard earned cash much faster by website selling.

I wish all sellers would singup for web based selling! I know I'm spending money on something that someone probably has a much better product and would be willing to spend more. If I have to find them in SL chances are I never will.

SL sellers PLEASE put some thought into your keywords and if you are no longer providing something PLEASE remove it from your keywords. I find if I've been mislead you are of my vendor list for good.

Well thats my rant.

I don't do a vast amount of business on the Web (I have items for sale at all three shopping sites), but it's enough extra to at least justify some of the hassle of making product screen shots and posting descriptions. I still make a lot more from my in-world locations than I do online, but I find the Web sites to be an attractive option for at-work shopping. An open Web browser doesn't look nearly as bad running on my work machine as a fully-rendered 3D "game" does.

I've also received IMs from people wanting to purchase items in-world, who originally discovered them on one of the shopping sites. I've even received invitations to display my wares in some in-world mall spaces, from mall owners who discovered my products online. Even if I don't make huge profits from the online stores, they are great exposure, and the one thing a small business can never get enough of is exposure. I think of SL Exchange, Gigas SecondServer, and SL Boutique as more than just places to sell things; I think of them as essential advertising for my products.

All three sites are easy to use from a shopper's perspective. Gigas SecondServer has the edge where attractive visual design is concerned, and I love its buying system. Not having to spend into an account is very convenient. That said, I think it's much easier to actually find items on SL Exchange and SL Boutique. Given that different merchants sell on all three sites, I'm happy to use all three.

From a seller's perspective, SL Boutique is the hands-down winner. Its interface for entering product descriptions and screen shots is the friendliest for massive bulk updates, and given that I have 41 items in my little store right now, I find the ability to update a lot of items at once to be highly desirable. My setup time for SL Boutique was a third what it was for SL Exchange or Gigas SecondServer. The in-world interface for SL Boutique is also completely no-nonsense; load up the vendor prim, give it a kick, and let it run. Even updating to a more recent version of the vendor was a simple process that didn't disturb the operation of my SL Boutique Web store.

SL Exchange's seller setup is the next easiest to use, and its in-world vendors are also extraordinarily easy to set up. It's a bit of a grind to set up many items for sale in a single session, but for the most part, the copy-and-paste goes pretty smoothly. It's just not quite as convenient as SL Boutique's single-screen update for all your items.

I find Gigas SecondServer's interface for sellers to be somewhat bewildering. It's got a lot of user interface elements, and it's not always obvious what will happen when you click on them. Updating many items in a single session is a bit more laborious than it is on SL Exchange, and its lack of a preview function means I have to pop open another browser window, run a search for my own items, and find the item I've just added if I want to double-check the text I've just entered.

I've also had some difficulty updating the in-world item server prim (the automatic updater to 2.2.7 didn't find my 2.1.2 server); I'm currently completely redoing descriptions for all 41 of my items, because I had to lay down a new 2.2.7 server and fill it by hand, resulting in descriptionless duplicate items on the Web site.

I'm not too pleased with the fact that SecondServer displays items that aren't ready for sale, but with a "this item may be broken" icon. It's a confusing end-user experience to be shown an unavailable item in the first place, further compounded by the pop-up list of technical reasons why an item might be unavailable. I really think that if you can't buy an item, it shouldn't be displayed to shoppers at all.

Criticism of Gigas SecondServer aside, I must say that technical support for the site is excellent. Nexus does a great job of answering support questions, which is important given how complex the Web site can be.

Well, I like the idea and it has some real benefits ...

I did most of my shopping in /another/ place while at the office, and not inWorld at all.

With more to chose from I might be able to change my shopping habits here as well.

On the other side of the coin, I have set up a few items for sale in a couple of the online sites.

Found the process confusing ... and since each one is different, confusion multiplied

However, I freely acknowledge that Im easily confused.

Bottom line, I'd like to maintain the things I've listed, adding new stuff as I make it. But that will mean figuring out the process, again, and most likely, again, and again. And I've been busy with a couple of projects so haven't had the time to invest in climbing the learning curve again.

So the few bits that I've listed online languish, lacking the companionship of their newly created comrades. Maybe /next/ weekend, I'll have time to get some of that done. Or the week after, ... yeah ... definitely then.

Jim

Thanks Chandra for the feedback, I'll get in on adding some of that stuff in.

As for updating your items, just let us know beforehand, there shouldnt be any reason you need to do that; we probably know of a better way to do what you are trying to achieve.

-Adam

See, that's one of the reasons I like Gigas SecondServer: friendly, helpful people running the place.

And I apologize if I sounded a bit harsh in my criticisms of SecondServer. Frankly, I'm amazed you've got something that complicated running at all; it's got an amazingly rich feature set. It's just a bit on the confusing side still.



Yeah, next time I won't be quite so "do-it-yourself" about the whole update process. I'll be sure to ask in advance as soon as it looks like an automated system isn't working correctly.

Not necessarily - could be people just not renewing...

I have had no problems paying - selling there is different (although I am still in the mall).

I agree whole-heartedly. Also the numbers of items in a category seem to reflect ex-items as well as current ones. I also think that items with no web data shouldn't show either.

The gigas systems is the better one from a shoppers perspective as it doesn't involve finding an ATM and paying it. I choose to buy there over the other two - but with less objects than slexchange I'm more likely to find things I want on slexchange and then have the hassle of TPing to an atm and working out how much to pay it.

As a seller I sell on all three. Slexchange sells most, then secondserver, then slboutique.

Hmmm, I don't know, but you just need put money on account once and then you can shop many times until you are out of cash?

How would you want us to improve the SLExchange system in this regard?

Here's a radical idea, but you have shown to be a radical thinker. How about a system that didn't require your customers to have funds on deposit in a virtual bank account that bears no interest and becomes the discretionary funds of Anshe Amalgamated to be used to further your interests.

Put another way, if you had 200 merchants and buyers with a mean balance of L$1000 each the pseudo-player Exchange Street gets the equivalent of US$800 free spending cash. And since pseudo-banks have no actual liabilities or regulation, those $L200,000 can be used for anything Anshe Consolodated likes with no reserve requirements and only the hope that you'll be able to pay the demand deposits. I expect these estimates are low, but I don't know, because as a completely unregulated bank you have no reporting requirements. Isn't unrestricticted capitalism nice?

You could pay interest to all your depositors; thanks for asking.

Which is EXACTLY why secondservers' set up is really the best one, allowing you to make purchases WITHOUT having to deposit non-interest bearing funds into a shopping account. Secondservers site is ugly and really doesnt show products as well as Slexchange, but as a shopper, shopping at secondserver is MUCH easier.

I got some suggestions..... err - never mind!

I agree. I can shop much quicker on Second server and impulse shop. I have to plan shopping on SL Exchange. And I want to buy something and dont have enough in my account I have to log on SL put money in then go back to the page, well when I log on SL, I just go to that persons store instead of going to the webpage.

Yeah, the whole deposit thing is pretty silly.

I probably would have spent over 10,000 L$ by now if it had not been for that.

As I understand it there is basically two ways to do this:

1) Ask people deposit L$ to special account using ATM machines, then take money from that account if they buy things

- or-

2) Force them give one script full money permissions to their normal Second Life account.

Sofar SLExchange.com, much like GOM, decided to use first method and allow customers decide how much money to entrust to the system.

If GOM or SLEx would be using method 2), then what is at risk would not only be what is stored on one SL account. We would be talking about roughly 100 million L$ on residents' accounts accessible to the system, more than 400000 US$ of value. Who is 100% save from hackers or bugs? Imagine somebody hack into one website/database and mess up Linden$ on thousands of resident accounts. Imagine scripts get bugged and mess up accounts. Would Linden Lab be able track and undo bugged or malicious transactions spread over more than 1000 accounts as compared to only one account?

At SLExchange.com we believe in safety and limiting risk. We don't believe in infalability, total control and convenience at any cost. We know we are human, Second Life is run by humans and our web hosting company is run by humans. As such we require our system to be setup in some way that allows us to still be able recover or compensate damages even in worst case of total system failure or hacking.

Some of you might have noticed on the leaderboard that some time ago I moved most of my L$ to my second account "Anshee Chung". The reason to do so was to move them out of reach of money scripts that I have to run for my business on my main account. It would be immoral if I would require customers to subject themselves to the same kind of scripts that I decided are too risky for my own money balance.

Interesting analysis, however I think you are mistaken.

Right now, more money is at risk as it is just a # stored in a DB. If someone corrupts that DB, all desposited money could get transfered around.

Therefore total amount at risk = total amount in the SLExchange DB. And that is a lot because nobody wants to have to make multiple trips to the ATM.

With a pay-as-you go system, if the code was written carefully, you would only pay what you type in. Therefore nothing would be at risk.

For example:

Make the personal item payable (enable the money event).

In the money event, take the amount paid and then pay that to SLExchange.

The only way this could be hacked if someone either

a) hacked in the Linden Labs inventory database and replaced your personal ATM with a different script (in this case, it's unlikely they'd bother with something as pointless as tackling your personal ATM)

b) if somehow the code was written so it could be auto-updated. recommendation: don't make it auto-updated.

Here's some pseudo code:

money(int amount) {
llGiveMoney(SLExchangeKey, amount)
}

Now, theoretically, it might be possible to somehow race condition this so that the money doesn't get through.

The other problem of course, is accounting for SLExchange gets annoying as you have to verify that all this money has been paid.

I haven't tested it, but I assume the race condition is pretty hard to evoke. And you can do tests against the website to see what people have or have not paid.

I know it's not the super duper solid way of doing things, however making it easier for people to buy small ticket items is one of the most important things you can do for this type of ecommerce.

If someone is concerned then they can use the SLExchange ATM and deposit money.

I think I'll hotline this question about llGiveMoney not returning a value.

Alrighty, so you are basically suggesting personal ATMs that people can carry around and pay?

The problem I see is that when people pay it, first the money goes to their own account. Then whatever script is in that device must have permissions to take money from their account and send it to Exchange Street. So each customer will have to expose his/her whole SL wealth to our script. This need to be weighed against benefit of such device.

The second thing is that to make it really save the person must be logged into SL and pay the device. Personally I prefer deposit money once and then just buy on website without need to have to log into SL and pay after each transaction. The only way to avoid this manual payment in world would be to have your personal ATM listen to commands from our website database which, IMHO, would constitute absolute security nightmare. If that would get hacked somebody could thoroughly and completely mess up thousands of SL accounts! I talked about this with my hubby who implement mission critical systems at big blue chip companies and he also say: "no way!".



In this worst case desaster scenario we could still recover all necessary information from database backup and Exchange Street transaction history.

If something with personal ATM script goes wrong we would not even have access to transaction data of affected accounts.



Giving people choices is always good thing, so I will still discuss your suggestions with Apotheus. As for now we just installed SLExchange.com terminals at many many more telehubs to make deposit easier to do

Well, you can always let those who don't wish to do so use the method you already have going. Unless you really brag about how insecure the new method is, I don't think many people will care or will really have enough money to care.



Doesn't SL provide this?



Again, nobody is saying get rid of that option.



Clearly, your hubby doesn't work with credit cards and last time I checked, credit cards were considered mission critical. But, regardless, that really has nothing to do with my proposal to manually pay a personal ATM, now does it?




Worse case is not a disaster scenario. Worse case is someone who goes in and starts transfering 10 l$ at a time.

Anyways, you do bring up some interesting points.

I guess the idea would be a way to write a script such that you can deposit money in a prim which can than give it to whoever it wants without accessing your entire money inventory.

I'll go add that to my hotline request to SL.

Would you buy more if you could use a RL Credit Card to purchase items inworld or at one of the big 3 SL Web Stores?

Transaction fees will kill ya.

Really the whole secret sauce to SLEcommerce is that it handles micropayments.

And for free! Oh well I guess not really for free.. cause we're all paying good ol PayPal.

No doubt we could buy L$ and leave it in our 'slexchange' bank account.. but it's all the same problem.

I have a system where you buy blocks of L$ (large enough to justify the fees) and redeem them at vendors that support it. The vendor get's paid for the transaction, and you get the L$ change (and maybe bonus cash back depending on the vendor). Sound like something you'd be interested in using when shopping in SL?

Just doing market research.

Yeah I saw that. Very super cool.

Actually my favorite aspect about it was the fraud protection.