Return to Vendor!

Ephraim, let me lay down this scenario, which you can look at as a content creator yourself.

You created an item that is popular, rather pricey and is copy/no transfer. It's several objects, such as would be found in clothing or prim avatars, so you box it up for sale. Someone buys it, but you don't get the money for it, because it's in escrow, but the buy got their package with the parts inside. They rez the box, get copies of the items inside and then decide, "Well, I got what I want. And look, I can have my money back too!" And thus, they use the return feature and bam, they have what they want and they have their L$ they paid for it too. You're S.O.L, because of the perms of the items in the box. You have no L$ for all that hard work.

And guess what? LL won't step in because this is now a resident to resident dispute and the other resident did use their system properly.

Yeah, you're right, it gives the buyer a great recourse and the message is quite, quite clear: "Screw you, content creators!"

Oh, sure, the return feature could also return all items that were rezzed from the box. All what? Nine or 10, depending on what it is.. and this isn't including fat packed items. Outside of the box. Spammed right into your inventory. I suppose they could auto-delete instead, but then why bother with calling it "return?" Why not just call it "refund?"

*rubs her forehead*

I see so many issues with this that I can only begin to list them.

1. Gifted purchases (my vendors have the gifting option), recipient doesn't like it, but wasn't the one paying for it. Does purchaser get money back or recipient?

2. Gift cards. Many gift cards I see are a single prim with a texture. It is then turned in to the shop owner for items. No money changes hands after the purchase of the gift card itself, thus....

3. Copy perms. Oh, yes. I'd stop doing copy perms on my dresses and have to post a sign that says, "If you break it, you'll have to wait until I get back on line. Or you can return the items for a refund." See, I use copy/mod for my prim dresses so people can FIT them to their own shapes. But I'm going to be forced to be very, very paranoid about that, because LL and SL do screw up from time to time.

4. Customer never received item due to grid issues. No item to return and since the money is escrow, I didn't get paid. Knowing LL's amazing lack of planning, if the deal doesn't go through for the buyer (as in the buyer didn't get the item), then the money will never BE released (because the farking system will be in "processing delivery" mode. I won't send on a copy, because I didn't get paid for it. The customer is SCREWED unless they can get LL to respond via a support ticket. Which is exactly what I'll tell them too.

All four of these would be deal breakers and that's just the tip of a very big iceberg. Come to think of it, why not give content creators the ability to "Delete my creations from X's inventory," while we're at it?

See again what I wrote. Returning an non-defective RL item is a privilege not a right. All a store has to do is list quite clearly in big signs and on receipts, "All sales are FINAL," and they don't have to do a darned thing for you, except tell you to take it up with the manufacturer.

Raudf: that's one of the cases I tried to cover with my restricted version: you wouldn't be able to take anything out of the box until you accepted it. If the vendor wanted grant you return privilege, they'd have to set the box to "buy contents".

Gifted purchases and gift cards - this privilege wouldn't be granted for vendors.
Copy perms - not until you accepted it.
Never received item - I don't think I've ever "not received an item" from a "buy" box.

That would be a bit better, but I sell clothing, dresses to be precise and those are boxed for the vending system (some of my dresses can have up to 13 pieces if it's a mix and match).

Looking at myself as a customer, if I was to return something that I didn't like, I'd have to accept the box first, get the contents out and put them on. At this time, that's the only way to find out that the outfit doesn't look anything like what's shown on the box. And that'd be the only reason I'd return a purchase. Others might find they don't like the color on their avatar, or don't feel it fits their image after all.

Reasons I've seen for people wanting to return items:

1. Defective. I like knowing about this and fixing it. I also consider this a great way to weed out the bad merchants from the good, when I'm shopping. I also feel that my fellow merchants would rather know too.

2. Didn't like the item. It was wrong color, didn't fit, etc. I just keep it. I might eventually use it, because I do change appearances from time to time.

3. ZOMG!!!111!!! U no chex all permz!!111 Wan 4 gift to frendz!111 Gib mone bax or gibbme ful permz! (This little nugget of stupidity bought the items from SLExchange.. where the perms were correctly AND clearly listed)

4. New SL feature came out and this item was made before it. I haven't received any of these, but I imagine quite a few of my fellow clothing creators got them after flexible prims were added.

5. Instructions difficult to understand. Again, like the defectives, I like knowing and will gladly help customers through them.

Given that we're working with human beings, I'd like to note there are many, many reasons for wanting a return. And most merchants are willing to work with you to ensure customer satisfaction, because they want return business.

Also, forgive me if I'm really, really, really gun shy about LL implementing things that require them mucking with the inventory systems as well as perms and L$ transfers. I mean, they can't even keep the GRID stable at this time.

You wouldn't be effected by my proposal at all, because it would ONLY be for "Buy Boxes", since there's no practical way for LL to associate a purchase from a scripted vendor (especially a networked one) with a payment.

*nods* True, very, very true.

Of course not. People would simply borrow stuff for free and then give it back.

Small consolation but the song was bubbling in my head when I set the title.


I didn't base my conclusions on your statistics: I based them on the SL economic statistics for November that you quoted in your thread, which appear to be have been updated since you quoted them by the way. Over 430,000 customers spent money in-world in the course of over 21,000,000 transactions - most of which were miniscule amounts. Most of the big money is changing hands probably amongst a small group of land owners.

Business, in terms of selling content is basically peanuts, and my argument is that the situation would improve if a better system were developed to encourage customers. If nothing is done to improve the situation, then it looks as though sale of content will remain a minor aspect of life for most residents of SL.

Naturally I thoroughly disagree with your opinion that my option would dampen creativity and growth if it were successfully implemented. Many skilled and hardworking content creators have provided excellent product for free and with full permissions, the only condition on some work being that it is not for resale. I guess the decision of those content creators to do so was motivated by a practical understanding of SL's open source nature and what that implies coupled with the laudable ethos of building this virtual world together.

SL does not actually need this pseudo-commerce. We will always create regardless of the potential for monetary gain and that is not wishful thinking on my part, it is human nature.

As far as business goes, however, I think the only effect would be that those businesses producing poor quality content or poor after sales service would sink.

And that would be a good thing in my opinion.

Regular and committed consumers are unlikely to abuse the option and I think that sales would deservedly rise for good businesses, despite what you say, because less risk would be involved in making purchases. Residents would be more willing to try new products and they would be more likely to keep them since creators would be obliged to take trouble and ensure the quality of their products before putting them up for sale in the first place.


That isn't how I explained the option working at all. I did say that all copies would be effectively deleted from the consumer's inventory. They wouldn't *really* be returned to the vendor since there is no logical reason to do so but they would no longer be in the consumer's possession, which is the important thing. No spamming of the creator's inventory would result and the only communication would be if the consumer chose to include a reason why he or she rejected the goods.

Argent Stonecutter pointed out that every copy of an object rezzed in-world gets a new UIDD, which presents an immediate problem but I don't think that it is a problem without a solution. If permissions can be attached to an object and transferred to every copy of that object then it follows that other options can also be attached. It is simply a matter of working out how to do that.

Then there is hope for you yet.

Selling of any rezzable content would become pointless. Need some dance balls for your party? Just "buy" them and then return them the next day. Need some animated furniture for that "special" occasion? Well, you get my point. In RL this would be impossible since you can tell the difference between a new and a used item. In SL you cannot. People would even borrow clothing just for one day.

It's up to the costumer to make an informed decision based on demos and trial versions. Any good content creator offers a way for the costumer to test their product in-world before buying.

Wait, are you saying that SL doesn't need product sales, that "large transactions between landowners" are enough?
The problem is not "attaching permissions to an object", the problem is database lookup.

If you can rez an object in-world, and then when you "return it" the object gets deleted even if it's in-world, you either have to:

(a) Add some kind of tracking token to your inventory, and update that every time the object is moved from one sim to another, by any means, whether you're in-world or not, so that knocking a physical prim across a sim border will require looking up the owner and updating something in their inventory... and if logins are disabled because of database load this is also likely to fail... not to mention increasing database load.

(b) Scan all the sims in-world that the object might be in, looking for it.

If you want to leave the object copiable, you'd have to say "I'm sorry, there's still a rezzed copy of the object in-world, please delete it or take it back into your inventory before you return it".

However you resolve this, the cost is not going to be minor.

That's where my suggestion for a rental or "restocking" fee would come in.

Dinosaurs Park (which may or may not still exist) have(had) rental dinos. The rental dinosaur avatars looked exactly like the dinosaur that could be purchased. Rental did not have a rental sticker on it, nor anything like demo.

Rental was available for specific period of time (apparently 2 days according to the picture), after which the avatar was "broken" - could not be used.

I did not think about how that was done at the time, nor that it was the only one like it I had seen in SL. Ah, I just remembered demo horses. There are demo horses that you can ride for 1 to 5 or so rides, after which they disappear - are not rezzable. So there are other "rental" items out there. Heck, I just remembered that I have seen rental buggys out there. I saw the sign, didn't need one as I owned that specific vehicle, and so do not know what it looks like/how it works.

You can rent objects inside Second Life.

Ah come on now, folks, can we please drop the borrowing thing at least? If some cheapskates want to pull that trick it will eventually backfire on them as they become known for what they are. The business won't be out of pocket because it's not as if they will be reselling the product and in any case most consumers will be honest about their purchases. You could even look on that sort of thing as free advertising if you adopted a 'glass-half-full' sort of perspective.


Wait for what?

Now that you mention it, product sales don't really amount to much at this point since most residents hardly seem to be buying at all. My apologies if I framed my remarks a little dismissively.

Unless you like building in sandboxes, I suppose land is just about the nearest thing to an essential commodity that you can find in SL and perhaps that's why the land barons are the only residents making really big money? I'm not saying that's a good thing but it seems that's how things are and I for one would like to see a change where product sales amount to more than they do today.


Well for heaven's sake keep thinking! I need you to find a workable solution asap!


There's a ranch does a good line in demos of their horses: exactly like the saleable product but they get deleted after the sixth rez. I think you can even modify them. Going back to Monalisa's complaint about 'borrowing', I don't see the owners of that ranch having a problem with it. My cheapskate neighbours got the demos but never bothered to buy the product after they had used their six freebie trials. I recall they even saved the last two rezzes for a party they were going to.

However, I was very impressed by the thing so I bought one of the horses - a fine black clyde. Please note, however, that I wouldn't have known about that product if I hadn't seen those jerks modelling their freebies.

As has already been noted in this thread, this can be done for no-mod 100% prim-based content, but "There" does this for clothing as well.

Ephraim, I think you're missing some important points there. First of all, most content is deliberately underpriced and sold on a "low price, many sales" model - in a world with no duplication or distribution costs, that's probably the best way. It even opens up some flexibliity - for example, most of my products are sold quite cheaply and if someone does ask for a refund, I can generally give it to the customer even though the item is no-transfer. I haven't had it happen very many times (or I'd have to reconsider that policy) but so far whenever I have done it, I have made the money back fivefold once the reciever started telling other people that I had such great customer service.

Secondly, the main reason why "sale of content is a minor aspect of life for most residents" is because it's become divided. Selling content now requires a lot of effort in terms of practice, development, marketing, and similar, and so most people who do it have to devote all their SL time to doing it. It wasn't always that way, in 2005 the typical view of SL was that you would "follow your dream", would inevitably make things as a reult, and would be able to sell them for money, but the professionalisation and capitalisation of SL have removed that model. I'm a bit sad about that and so are quite a few others but still, sadly there's no way to bring it back unless you're going to put the full-timers on ropes or limit the amount of login time they have, because without that, they'll inevitably outcompete the part-timers.



Actually, it's usually because the product was no longer selling and releasing it as a freebie can attract newbies to their store, and/or promote their business around the grid.

They decided to run their business that way. If it works for them, good for them. But why should every creator be forced to let people use their creations for free?

I ended my post by noting you can rent objects. Note, objects. I did not mention clothing.

Your post mentioned objects.

How? You think the vendors are going to start banning people?
I pay Alliez about L$7000 a month. She pays thousands of US dollars a month out of a bunch of L$7000 transactions like that. But the only reason I can make that L$7000 payment is because I'm getting L$10 and L$40 and L$60 from "small transactions".

Those small transactions are what pays for the big transactions.

Edit:
I already did. You thought it was too complex.

It mentioned "objects and clothes". I'm talking about ALL assets. I apologize for not using a geekier term like "arbitrary assets".

And I'm also not in the slightest bit interested in any scheme that requires objects to be non-mod for it to work. Non-mod content is the bane of SL. OK, it's not the only bane of SL, but it's pretty bane-ey on a scale of bane-ishness.

Flight Feather was written from the start to be freely redistributable. It's always been sold on the honor system. And people buy it, regularly, and buy updates, even though it's clear that it's not technically necessary. It's BSD-licensed, after all.

BUT...

That's my choice. My decision to do business that way. Any proposal like this needs to leave that in there. That's why my counter-proposal makes this kind of thing at the vendor's discretion.

The buyer can choose to buy "guaranteed" products, like the buyer can choose to buy "modifiable" products.

The dinos were mod. There was mention of the horse demos being mod but I do not have first hand evidence of this factoid. Do not know about the vehicle as I did not test it.

Yes, objects and clothing. I mentioned that there are rental objects inside Second Life. I do not have first hand information about rental clothing. That could actually be pretty neat. Recreate that fairy tale inside Second Life. Horses return to mice. Carriage returns to pumpkin. Dress disappears at the stroke of midnight. If not careful, woman standing there in party naked. Yes, very interesting.

As I had mentioned before, given the choice between two similar products of which one I could return for a refund after a short test period, of course, as a consumer I would choose latter. However, I just don't see consumer confidence in content creators as a major issue that would warrant the use of scarce LL resources. Nice to have, sure, but a global LL initiative .. no.

There will always be a subset of the population unwillingly to spend much or any money on a "game", so I think the focus needs to be on those that will buy and encouraging an influx of new residents that are also willing to spend. How would you do that ... focus and prioritize on the stability of the grid and make that initial experience something enticing and easy enough for you to spend your time and real life dollars in.

Just this weekend there was a 50% off sale at the Aoharu store and I would have easily spent a few K of lindens there had even a 1/4 of the vendors rezzed in the half hour I stood there, not even taking into account the high probability of transactions failing on a Sunday at peak concurrency. Working on these types of issues I believe would go a lot longer in helping the microeconomy than what you've proposed.

On a somewhat similar note to some of the economic discussions in both of our threads, you might be interested in reading this fascinating but really lengthy article about the SL economy http://gwynethllewelyn.net/2008/10/13/the-hard-facts-about-the-second-life%C2%AE-economy/

/me nods. Vendor's discretion ... great! You could start a consortium of businesses that offer such guaranteed products. I'd certainly want to shop there. However, most certainly not a mandatory requirement for starting an SL business that involves LL holding your lindens in escrow. Developing something like this might be a great idea for a scripter to introduce to the marketplace but I think it would be a waste of scarce LL resources when there are much biggger fish to fry like the stability of the grid.

If they're mod, then a programmer of average skill can certainly remove the rental limitation on them fairly trivially. ANd of course the only asset that can be protected by scripting is a scriptable one.
Not possible for assets other than objects.

Very true. My bad. From LL's perspective, some form of this proposal is probably technically doable but just can't see it happening any time soon from both a priorty standpoint and their general aversion to involving themselves in resident to resident transactions.