Return to Vendor!

Important note: The poll above is pole-axed because I failed to set the options properly. My intention was that voters would be able to choose more than one option but I neglected to tick the appropriate box when I opened the thread. The opinions of other residents on the issue - positive, negative or otherwise - would be greatly appreciated nevertheless.

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An impulse led me to vote in Joshooah Lovenkraft's poll, Ginsu Knives & impulse buying in Second Life /327/c7/301628/2.html#post2282617 and before I knew it, I found myself thinking in a public forum about the entirely unsatisfactory terms we have as consumers in SL.

Eventually the notion occurred to me that it would be good to have the option to return goods within a limited period of time if they are found to be unsatisfactory. I'm not at all skilled at programming but I suspect that it would be possible to configure a Return to vendor option within the SL viewer that would effectively delete an item from inventory and refund its cost in lindens.

* The option would have to be limited to a reasonable period of approval - say 24 hours to a week - in case the Grid is playing up or the customer required assistance or advice from the vendor (creator) before deciding whether or not the item is fit for its purpose.

* Lindens spent would have to be held in escrow so that the sum may be refunded if the consumer chooses to return the product or transferred to the vendor's account when the approval period has elapsed.

* Some other controls would be necessary to prevent abuse: it would be quite easy to scam a new outfit every day, for instance, without effectively spending a linden cent so I guess there should be a limit to the number of times within a given period that the same account could return items.

* An option to specify the reason for returning the goods could be very useful for product development in the long run: if too many of your customers complain that your textures are crud, then you would be a fool not to brush up on your Photoshop skills.

I believe the inclusion of a Return to vendor option would raise the stakes in-game since nobody likes to find they have spent real or virtual cash on rubbish, creators will work harder to ensure that customers accept their products and the process of buying and selling in SL will become all the richer for it.

I have set this up as a poll because I intend to open a JIRA on the issue.

You've now posted this message at top level three times; if you carry on, people will not vote for the poll or JIRA simply because of the spamming.

As to the proposal itself, it'd be a bit dangerous given content theft and how it proceeds, and remember that the use of multiple accounts can circumvent any per-account limit unless you specify a way around it.

What I think would be better is an option for creators to allow copy-ok no-transfer items to be transferred provided all copies are transferred at once.

Apologies, the poll interface is somewhat confusing.

Is there any way I can delete the previous two?

Nope just don't post to them and they'll fall off the first page.


Re: the poll... I voted no because as a creator I'd rather know what was wrong with my stuff. Also, lots of problems involving copy/trans permissions come to mind.

I'd rather see more vendors provide demos.

Ephraim Kappler roars with laughter.

Oh the shame.


I did mention that there would be an option for the customer to say *why* the item was being returned. Also, I think it would encourage more creators to spend more time in-world.

I'm having serious doubts about the ethics of business in SL. Yumi mentioned content theft, which is often discussed both in-world and on these forums. I can see that it is a problem but I don't see it as a good enough excuse for why consumers are being poorly served in general.


A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but ...

Don't objects including avatars have a UIDD and surely the avatar's UIDD could be used in tandem with the UIDD of the unwanted item to clear all copies of the object from the avatar's inventory if the option was configured appropriately?


So would I but demos don't address issues like bad scripting. Also textures often look great as they are presented in-store but display badly in general.

Heavens no, the LL databases have enough problems with being overloaded as it is!! This has a huge potential for abuse, too. Texture sellers, in particular, sell their textures full perms for use by content creators. If this was in place, theoretically I could buy a texture pack, download all the textures to my hard drive, transfer copies to alts, and return the original pack and get all my money back. If there are modifiable scripts in an item, I could purchase it, copy the script, and return the item and get all my money back. And people could do the same thing to me. No, no, NO!

i would also have to give a "no" vote. the only fair way for a workaround is the availability of DEMOs and display models, though they can also lend a hand in content theft.

Hmmm, though not a bad idea I could see ALOT of abuse on this.

Many buying a 6000 wedding dress to wear it for the day and then return it, and other speciality items as well.

As a designer I would have to vote no, but as a consumer it would be nice to have the choice. I have purchased items that don't fit well for my shape or just don't live up to product as promised.

Every object rezzed into world gets a new UUID. This kind of thing could only be applied to no-copy objects, and *maybe* to some copiable assets.

no, permissions issues, etc (as has been said)

I understand the concept (bad/not working items from a vendor whose owner is no longer in world, etc) but there has to be another angle to go at it from.

My response is a resounding no, and that phrase is the reason.

I notice that you only talk about vendors, but many items are on view to the buyer, some even when they sell from a vendor. If the item is on view, there is no reason for anyone to buy something that "isn't fit for its purpose".

Well I did say that there should be a limit to the number of times an account could return items within a given period.

Nevertheless, there would be instances of abuse. But it would seem that all rights in SL transactions are weighted towards creators and their concerns over content theft which just is not healthy for business.

I debated using the words 'seller' or 'creator' meaning the party to whom the lindens are paid. As it is, I opted for vendor but I didn't think the semantics of that choice would be particularly irksome.

Anyway, there is every reason why a consumer may be disappointed by an item that looks ok in a stationary image on a vendor as opposed to utter crud when it is worn on a fully animated avatar. A very noticeable difference can be found between two different avatars wearing the same item: depending on shape and the animations running in their AOs.

So yes, if I bought a jacket that looked good on a vendor and it looked like crud on me, then the item would not be "fit for its purpose". Nobody spends money with any reasonable intention to look crap.


Unfortunately the only solution I can think of at this point is to refrain from spending lindens on anything other than file uploads, which is a shame because I genuinely enjoy making a good purchase that saves me time and trouble. Unfortunately I have been bitten once too often.

It would depend on whether or not the item looks good on other avatar shapes. It could be that your shape is a bit unusual. Also, I'm not a shopper but I believe that a jacket, for instance, can be adjusted to suit your shape as long as it's mod.

We've had recent discussions about clothes looking different in the pics than they do when worn. The best thing to do is not shop again at a place that does that.

Does this whole proposal stem from clothes not fitting right or looking the way they do on the picture on the vendor at the store? If that is the case, why suggest burdening ALL content creators of other objects by withholding payments and subjecting them to more avenues of content theft? Why not just stop buying clothes that you can't modify, from creators that are unresponsive when you contact them? There are a lot of content creators that would be happy to address your concerns. Doing what you suggest would not only disadvantage content creators, it would also create a huge burden on LL's databases in tracking all the items, and that would be detrimental to everyone.

There are changes I would like to see made in the SL permissions system that would enable more fair use of purchased objects, and there have been changes made in the permissions systems over the years that have hurt fair use,. So I'm hardly a pro-creator fanatic. But I don't see a safe way to modify it to allow the kind of thing you want.

A lot of people from There.com, for example, wonder why you can't "rent" objects and clothes, so that they vanish when the rental period is over. The SL object and asset system is too distributed to allow this to work, and would require massive changes to make it feasible. The same problems that make "rental" impossible, also make this kind of escrow system impossible.

And, as a consumer, I'm glad I don't have to keep buying the white album over and over again.

No it doesn't, Puppet. It arises from the entire question of spending lindens, which are a corollary of real cash in this micro-economy, on products, goods and services without having the fundamental right as a consumer to reject them in favour of a refund.

I have often heard the argument that this is SL, it's a game and that's how it is played. However, I would argue that the issue of content theft, which has been raised repeatedly and not unexpectedly in this thread, would have to be regarded on the same level: it's just a game.

Are consumer rights equally as important as content rights in the context of virtual worlds or are they not?

If not then it is money for old rope.

Question- how does, I mostly buy or i mostly sell relate? It is not really a pertinent option to the question - if it were possible to choose it as say- yes- i buy or no i buy or no i sell or yes i sell- see what i mean?

Ephraim Kappler roars with laughter. I wish I'd had the sense to return my copy of "St Elsewhere" when I had the opportunity.

If your opinion regarding the functionality of my fondly imagined Return to vendor option is anywhere near correct then I guess I must be perpetrating an ill-judged act of cruelty on a deceased nag.

Figures on linden expenditure quoted by Joshooah in his original poll suggest that the majority of residents do not spend much at all. I don't think this will improve unless a radical solution is found that will encourage custom and discourage bad business in SL. There's far too much of one and far too little of the other.



I relegated my reply to a quote and let it stand since it has a bearing on other posts. I was unaware at the time of my response that I had failed to configure the poll properly to allow multiple choice, which is what Amaranthim is querying.

Serves me right for being a smartass.

The thing is... if I have a vendor box that sells an outfit, and you want to add a "return" option... wouldn't that be adding a script to that vendor box? Some shops are hard enough to enter, with all those hundreds of textures on all the vendors loading, I can't imagine how bogged down each parcel/sim would be with the additional scripts.

And honestly, I've actually returned/asked for money back on a grand total of 2 things in over 2 years here. Both times, either the item was fixed or refunded promptly by the creator. I just don't see the need for all these additional hits on the databases.

As a creator of clothes, I've actually been asked for refund/return maybe 2 or 3 times as well, in 2 years. It wouldn't be worth my time to go through and change the options on every single vendor box for something that happens once or twice a year.

That is the million L$ question.

You are looking to protect your money, of course, and creators are looking to protect their content, which took time, which is worth money. What you are suggesting turns every purchase into a 'free trial', and money is withheld from the content creators while consumers get their use out of the item, who subsequently can return it with no penalty. It doesn't matter whether there's a limit on how many items in a given time period. For example, (hopefully) one will only need the L$6000 wedding gown for one occasion.

It is also not healthy for business to take away the content creators' reward for putting their time into creating new items. What will be left then to consume?

Sorry, I voted No. This sounds awfully unwieldly and nanny statish to me. I find it sufficient to take any complaints I have with a purchase to the seller. my experience has been that most have been accomodating, any that haven't just don't get my business again, along with word of mouth anti advertising.

Actually that poll was about impulse buying, not carefully considered purchases.


But you see, many of us are buyers and sellers. As a buyer, I still dislike your proposal. I don't recall having a problem with an item I've bought that I couldn't resolve with the seller directly. If I did, I wouldn't buy anything from them again and I'd suggest my friends stay away too. As a seller, if someone contacts me with a problem with an item (which I think happened once) I fix it.

^^Edit: See Brenda's post above. She's like the ultimate shopping goddess in SL. If she doesn't like your proposal, well, what more can I say?

I think your proposal is sorta like shooting at a cockroach with an Uzi. An overreaction that causes more problems than it solves. And what of all the additional load on LL's databases? Adding something like this to an already overtaxed system would be sure to bring about more lag, more lock-outs, more inventory loss, for everyone.

That answer your question, Oryx? Anyone else need to read my proposal a little more thoroughly and perhaps get their alt to cast a more considered vote?


Well good for you, Oryx. You're just the sort of consumer and apparently responsible business person that I think the option would work beautifully in favour of. I'm quite the dandy, in RL as well as SL, and if I had the option I so dearly crave I might just be tempted to check out your range of menswear (if you have one).


But you failed to answer it.


Don't apologise, it's a free (if only virtual) world ...

Do you mean nanny statish (if that's an adjective) Brenda? I'd prefer a good old nanny with her plump bosom and responsible manner to the lairy wide-boy that characterises the status quo any day.

Thankfully quite a number of business people are good about dealing with customer complaints but just as many are not. I don't think it is a sufficient guarantee to take a 50/50 chance that I will get an adequate response if I am unhappy with my purchase. It isn't a matter for the vendor's discretion as far as I'm concerned.

And failing customer satisfaction, I don't get out enough for any adverse publicity I might generate to carry much weight.