Code Bounty: SL Shoppers Site

How many times are you searching through "Find" or a shopping site and not finding exactly what you want? I have an idea that I believe will be a great asset to the SL economy, and a solution to this problem.

At the same time, there is a need for microjobs for new users to do to earn some spare L$.

I am happy to announce the beginning of a code bounty for a SL website for shoppers. I'm doing this because I like giving ideas to the community and I'm too busy to code this myself.

the Goals:
- Make it easier for buyers to find "just what you're looking for"
- Give more job opportunities for newbies / casual residents
- Promote SL business through tool creation

the jist of it:
1. Buyers and shoppers would register with this website.
2. Buyers would create a "job" and fill in:
(a) a description of what they want to buy and any notes
(b) a commission for the item, either % or flat fee
(c) price range
(d) desired payment method (pay up front, pay after, etc)
3. Registered shoppers claim the job. That job is solely theirs for a period of 30 minutes. (or a time we decide) After, the job gets opened up to all shoppers, and someone else can claim it. (but not the same person.)
4. Shoppers would run around SL and/or the web and find the item and then click a "found it" button on the site, and input the location. -- this could take the form of a SL location or a website location to an online shopping site.
5. Buyer goes and checks out the item to confirm it's what he/she wants.
6. Buyer and shopper both rate each other based on the transaction. Buyer is rated on whether he/she paid what was promised, shopper is rated on whether the item was as desired, or close to it, etc. Both could leave text to describe the experience, as well as a positive/negative eBay like rating. Ratings would be public.
7. Statistics collected on the shoppers that can be made public by the shopper - like how many items they do, average shopping time, etc.

Benefits:
- Newbies get jobs other than camping chairs
- People who don't like to shop or don't have the time can have someone else do it
- Promotion of business in SL through people buying more stuff because they find what they want
- More stress on competition between sellers means better products for customers

the prize: (I'll keep this updated as more people add to it)
2000L courtesy of Armand Callisto
400L courtesy of Gwyneth Llewelyn
50,000L courtesy of Hiro Pendragon
1000L pledged by Rick Deckard
1000L pledged by Diderot Mirabeau

Prize will be given when a website meets all of the requirements as stated here, and is a functional site. I will require assurance to make sure that this won't be made and go stale - that the site will be run in good faith (or transferred to someone who will).

The poll is there on whether or not *you* would use this tool.

That ? Or in reverse, à la eBay-Wanted-list ?

I've started coding something similar about half a year ago, but then I realized I'd have to deal with all the SL people using it, and dropped the project.

My sentiments exactly!

Besides which, Hiro either has no clue the amount of work involved, or doesn't put much value on coders. Because for such an exacting set of requirements, that bounty is an insult. I charge more than that a day.

LOL it is the reason I decided against doing an online shopping site as well, and did Snapzilla instead. Overall Snapzilla has been lowkey in terms of support, other than the occasional request to delete a bunch of pictures because someone has a new boyfriend/girlfriend and they want to obliterate evidence of their previous partner. The idea of dealing with people with money, lost inventory, glitches, vendors, etc... definitely made me rethink it. I keep having the desire to want to try my hand at it, but then I just remind myself of these things and talk myself out of it every time.

That said, this sounds like an interesting site though - it could potentially open up personal shopping as a way for people to make some money in SL, if the implementaiton is well done. It will be interesting to see if development by bounty works.

PS - I was thinking that about the bounty too, Kris - but I think the key is to get more people to donate - Hiro shouldn't have to foot the entire bill, since he is not buying the site, just helping to seed development.

Ooooo... what delicious irony!

He's not merely 'seeding development'. It stipulates that every condition of his listed feature set must be met to qualify. He's asking someone to build his personal dream shopping site for an incentive of 175 bucks. Oh, and sign a written contract of continuation with Hiro.

If I was building a shopping site, this wouldn't sway me towards his feature requests for 10 seconds. If I wasn't building a shopping site, it sure as hell wouldn't convince me to start, even if I did like his ideas, which I don't.

really what you want is a script that you can just drop onto a products image (as in, the lump of wood in shop that you display your picture on). and have it send out (via XML?) the image for the product, its location in world, and any other info the author posted i.e ("silk dress, $100" . then grab this info, and mash it up into a database driven website.

do-able, maybe...... worth it ? maybe.....

Hahaha, this is hilarious.

The main reason to use a shopping site was to avoid flying around and lag. Now with P2P you can go exactly where you want, I will never use a shopping website again. I imagine a lot of other people will use them less since shopping is more fun now.

i dont know, the idea of going from shop to shop to shop is kind of crap. i'd just prefer the ability to whip down a list of images to see what a shop offers. then click the one i like, and go directly to it in world.


does that not sound at all attractive ? -- or does everyone like going to the same tried and trusted outlets, looking at the same clothes, and then jumping from shop to shop for hours trying to find something good ?


maybe its just me then o_O

why do I get the feeling such a thing would be widely used for lap dances?

I know what I'd like to be able to do. Click a button in-world, go into mouse look, click a vendor. My HUD attachment reads the vendor's key, looks it up on a database to find out what it sells, then looks up the product on SLEx or other rating sites and displays the star rating and reviews on my HUD in-world.

Keep on imagining... I was actually in shock that January outdid December, traditionally the biggest retail month by far:

SLB transactions per month:

+----------+---------+
| count(*) | date    |
+----------+---------+
|       37 | 2005-01 |
|      228 | 2005-02 |
|      802 | 2005-03 |
|     2005 | 2005-04 |
|     3274 | 2005-05 |
|     5256 | 2005-06 |
|     6928 | 2005-07 |
|    10349 | 2005-08 |
|    13412 | 2005-09 |
|    19263 | 2005-10 |
|    22237 | 2005-11 |
|    27709 | 2005-12 |
|    29089 | 2006-01 |
|    17859 | 2006-02 |
+----------+---------+

(February 2006 stats through 2/14)

Regards,

-Flip

But Flipper, the sales volumes are tiny in comparison to sales in-world. I mean, really tiny. It's ancillary, and I'd argue that it hasn't really taken off in a serious way, not even after a year of the sites being available. And that's not just slboutique, that's slex as well.

It's been obvious with my sales on my Skoopf Ultra Roller Skates for instance:

1. slboutique - about 2.5% of sales
2. slexchange - about 2.5% of sales
3. in-world - all the rest (95.0%)

To further illustrate this, my Ultra roller skates have always stayed at the top of your Top 100 Sellers. And since May last year that's around 140 sales on slboutique.com.

They're nice avenues, don't get me wrong, but they aren't even really touching the overall market. It will be interesting to see how the growth on slboutique and slex moves over the next year.

Oh, that's absolutely true, but I still think the growth chart shows that P2Ps impact has been minimal on the continued growth of web sales. I was using the continued growth curve as solid data to debunk that claim.

I'm under no delusions that web sales are going to compete on an even tier with in-world; the tools are simply not available to developers (yet) to make it truly integrated with SL. Once HTML on a prim arrives, I think we'll see a more noticable spike, should people choose to leverage that option to have a more centralized location for tracking their SL business.

Its also true that for all the buzz and sales sites like Amazon do, malls have not become obselete. I think this is a similar analogy.

Regards,

-Flip

These number are supposed to impress or prove a point? So you went from .001% to .002% of total SL sales? *golf clap*


why someone would want to sink time into a shopping site when there are 3 currently fighitng for about 5% of SL sales, is beyond me. It would be a waste of time and resources.


Also what about SL is so freaking terrible that people feel the need to drag everything outside of it? Why not make better sales interaction in world, instead of creating 3rd party solutions. There are very few places in SL that offer any kind of person customer service touch or appeal. Another boring website *yawn*

Excellent points Flip. I think for people like me who are devoted users of the websites for shopping, the P2P availability does not change my use of the sites. Many reasons: ability to use the site while at work, favorite items lists and not having to TP to a giant mall without signs and look around for a simple item are top issues for me.

For me (I know, small sample size), the absence of P2P previously did not sway me from shopping inworld if that was my desire.

1. Because it's a site to hire people to shop for you, rather than an eBay type site.
2. Because I'm hoping one of the 3 shopping sites will decide to implement this as an addition to their existing site.

It seems the concept in #1 is being lost here - I think that is a really interesting angle myself.

That is quite interesting. I guess it kind of parallels an RL business model; many companies now hire "information gatherers", typically in research departments. Their job is usually to find information on the 'net as their bosses require. This sounds like a similar function; hire someone who has expert skills at using search engines, similar to the RL model.

Eboni, the numbers weren't meant to impress at all; they were meant to show that web sales growth is still continuing, despite the introduction of P2P. Nothing more, nothing less, as I stated. When I started SLBoutique, many people asked if I would be transparent with my numbers, and share the data as is appropriate, and I agreed I would when it could be useful. I'm trying to make good on my word.

Regards,

-Flip

I dunno, looks like about 2 days of relaxed work to me. I'd be right on it if I wasn't busy with uni stuff at the moment.

Ok you used some terms incorrectly in your first post then. Personal Shoppers shop for people. Buyers are generally people who buy for large dept stores unless you are talking about consumers but they are usually called consumers.


So if you replaced shopper or buyer I'm not sure what means what above with personal shopper, then I think the whole thing will make a lot more sense. There are some services like this already in SL, so they may be able to give you some insight on what customers are looking for.

this thread belongs in advertizing thread.

No, it does not. Other code bounties have been posted in General, and I'm not advertising my services. Instead, I'm posting a contest of general interest to the community for a tool that is also for the general interest to the community.