Something Disturbing

I was in a shop today when someone asked me to look at her profile. She had a list of things for sale in the About field. When I asked her where her store was, she said she didn't have one but I could IM her and she would show me anything I was looking for.

I continued shopping but then I thought about it. Most, if not all of her items, were in direct competition to what was in that shop. I started wondering if she maybe hung around shops looking for customers.

Has anyone else noticed this? Or was this just a friendly person being friendly and I have an evil mind?

Interesting! Mind PM'ing me the details?

I'm guessing it is her way of doing marketing.

I've never seen anything like that, but im not shopping around that much either. Slick trick, but it doesnt match my sense of ethics.

LMAO thats a lot of work for a little cash. Are people really that desperate?

Sounds to me like the episode of Lucy where she and Ethel were trying to get rid of a side of beef they'd ordered by selling it out of a baby carriage in a corner of the local butcher shop.

coco

(If that was what the person was doing, of course.)

Yeah, no kidding. The return can't be very much money.

Did she offer you a fine selection of quality watches, by chance?

I had someone hanging around my store a few weeks ago offering to teleport people away to her daughter's shop. :/

There are some very, very tacky people in SL, especially when money is involved.

It's the same problem we have everywhere in the internet -- pop-up spam, email bombardments and spyware are not the tactics of reputable (or very successful) businesses. In America we have the Better Business Bureau (no doubt there are similar organizations in a few other countries). We don't have a BBB in SL.

It's really not much different than going to a club and IMing everyone there to leave and go to the club you're promoting. It's not far removed from the few individuals I've encountered who invite you to Friend on sight, and then turn out to be self-promoters looking for more people to spam for their events.

I think in the situation here, the best thing to do is try to IM the store owner and give them the name of the individual. Let them handle it their way. If nothing else the person could simply be banned from the store.

In RL most people selling items out of there jacket are selling fakes or stollen goods (or flashers).

But in SL it's possible to run a buissness out of ones inventory without a store. While it might be mildly unethical to camp out competitions stores and advertise there, if the product is supperior then who is loosing out? In SL if your fake rolex is better quality then the official one, the fake is the better product.

By taking up residence in your competitions stores you become associated with the store, people will start going to the store looking for those products; and maybe buy some that are in the store while they are there.

By camping out in someone else's store, you are being a parasite leeching off of their land and monthly tier fees to peddle the wares you're too cheap to buy or rent space for.

That being the collective 'you'.

I agree that this is not something I think people should do. I would make it a point NOT to buy anything from someone I found doing this, and I would report them to the shop owner, and probably go so far as to ban them from my own land depending on the outcome. It is very rude to say the least.

We had this issue in TSO as well (at least in beta, not sure if it got better). People would come to someone's property SPAM to come to their place and then keep spamming till the lot owner finally was able to boot them.

Scott dealt with them with humor
http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/Pendari/118223

It sounds like she's hawking used goods, a la walking yard sale (thanks for the details April ). Anyway, I'd be surprised if any of these things she's selling were things she made by herself, which is worse, in my eyes.

If she's selling second hand items she bought at the same store for a discount and it's not copyable then it seems like a reasonable thing to do. If anyone has items they bought from me they want to pass on, feel free to hang around my store and ask customers if they're interested. They get a discount. I get your dwell. The seller cleans out their inventory of unwanted stuff. Everyone wins.

If, on the other hand, someone is hanging out in my store for no reason other than to try to entice my customers away to your own store, don't be surprised if you end up on my ban list.

The part that worried me was the "I can find whatever you are looking for" part.
That sounds shady to me.

In my experience, even if this is not a scam, people who play that fast and loose with commitments are usualy people to stay away from. Would you trust someone selling watches from the side of the road for instance, who could "also get you a car maybe?"

I know I am putting words in the person's mouth there, but it seems that way from the account given.



PS - Hamster balls are for sale in Neualtenburg!

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I like your attitude on this. A little less than knee-jerk, definitely.

What items, pray do tell, are the flashers selling?

I don't know, it made me feel icky. I came to the store because something was advertised in the forum and before the store even fully rezzed, this woman was asking me to look at her profile.

At first I thought maybe she had something funny there, like an error/bug or something that had just happened was was showing it. Or she had seen my profile and there was some similarities. And I was somewhat taken aback when I realized she was trying to sell something to me in someone else's store.

I've also heard of people putting vendors in someone else's rented space. It's stealing to me. Maybe I'm just weird.

But on the other hand, not all inventory-sellers are A-holes or amoral self-promoters.

I myself model and sell Kewlips out of my inventory.. But that's in addition to the Vendors Satu has up in places.

My only personal form of advertizing is a hovertext blurb above my head. I wait for people to ask me about it, rather than push the avs on them.

So.. I dunno. Am I the exception? o.o;

Damien Fate sells (or at least did at one point) and vendor system that worked as an attachment. I think it created a temporary vendor that people could browse. It was created specifically for people to sell their wares the way you do. I don't know how many people use it, but I don't think you're the exception It was more the possibility that the person was trying to steal business away from the store they were in that was the OP's issue.

Right, there's nothing wrong with selling out of your inventory. Or even having a sign. But when you ambush people as they walk into someone else's store, someone who has paid for a place and you take away business from them, that's kind of pushing it.

But i'm sure you didn't give second thought to the L$ you get from dwell.

Yeah, that $1L that gets divided by my group is really worth them hanging out trying to steal customers for.

If that person was online all day, hopping from shop to shop, the dwell she is going to give anyone shop is most negligible.