I'm confused! How do I give someone a gift?

I am still quite new here, and still learning. Alas, to be green at something in life real or otherwise yet again.

My situation is this. I would like to purchase an item in SL and give it to someone else as a gift. (Shoes to be specific) I have no use for these items personally.

My questions are multiple.
1. If I purchase the item myself, does that mean I'm stuck with it and can not give it to anyone else? I've read some sparse information throughout this web site about transferable and nontransferable items. But it's still not clear to me how this works.
2. How do I contact the vendor personally to ask them if I can give their merchandise to someone else as a gift? When I go to the shops, I don't see any way to contact the vendor's. Am I just missing something here?
3. Assuming that I actually make it as far as to be able to give the item as a gift to someone else, what is the process?

I understand these are newbie questions and possibly insignificant to the veterans here. But it would be most appreciated if someone could at least point me in the right direction.

The possibility of being able to give someone a gift here to show my appreciation for all the help they have given me thus far would be gratifying.

I've read so many post about how people can be rude and disrespectful in SL. In a place such as this where a person can create so many things using their imagination, to perhaps create a little joy, through dignity and respect, and common courtesy seems to me a worthy and valuable thing to create.

Any assistance would be appreciated
thank you

Hello Roman and welcome!


When a person creates an object, they can set certain permissions on the object, one of which is transferance. The creator can choose whether a creation of theirs can be sold or given away to someone else. If the shoes that you wish to purchase as a gift are transferable, then a simple purchase will work. If not, your options are to a), contact the creator and ask them to send the item to the intended person or give the intended person the money for item so that they can purchase it themselves.

A lot of vendors will specifiy which permissions are set when displaying their goods. If not, you can IM the shop owner and ask.

- Sam

Possibly. If you're purchasing it in world, look around the store for a notice that might indicate about what kind of permissions things are sold as. If you can't find anything zoom in on the ad and see if the letter "M" "C" "T" are there. If there's a - generally green - check in front of T that means the item is sold as transfer, if there's a - generally red - circle with a dash it means it's no transfer.
Lastly, hover your mouse over the ad, and hold it still until you see a box appear with the name and possibly a description and see if that has any indication.

If you don't see anything about no transfer in any of the above then it's likely transfer, although still not guaranteed.

Alternatively, add a post with the name of the store and someone will be able to tell you whether it sells transfer or no transfer .

When you hold the mouse over the little photo ad, it should show the owner's name, which is - in most cases - also the creator/seller. Once you have the name you can use search to get to their profile and send an IM from there (remember to uncheck online if it's checked ).

A slightly easier way is to right click on the ad, and pick edit from the options that appear. You'll both a name next to creator and to owner and owner is the one you want. Click on the profile button next to the name and it'll open their profile from which you can send them an IM.

If you bought it yourself and it's transfer. Have your inventory window open, and left click (and keep holding it down) on the folder (or box) and then drag it over to the person you want to give it to.

Another way is to have their profile open on one side of the screen and your inventory on the other and simply drag from your inventory over to their profile. You're less likely to miss that way .

If the item is no transfer, then you do indeed need to always contact the seller and ask if they're willing to sell it as a gift item. If they're online at the time of the IM they'll ask you to pay them and then they'll offer the item to the person you indicate. If they're offline it becomes a little trickier but they might ask you to pay them in the next message (I wouldn't pay until they ok giving it as a gift) and then they'll take care of delivering it when they're online the next time.


Or you could take said person shopping and when they find something they like you give them the money and they pay for it.

Hope that helps .

Read the Notecard on anything you Intend to Buy, If you wish to give it as a Gift, it CANNOT be No Transfer.
You CAN IM the creator of a No Transfer Item, and explain that you wish it as a Gift for a Third Party, Many vendors will make some kind of accomodation, but some won't. To do this, Just Right Click on the vending machine, Select Edit, On the General Tab of Edit, you will find the OWNER's name, Click on their profile, and IM from there.

Now, as for Giving the Gift, you can either Drag it directly from your Inventory and drop it on their Avatar, Or, you can make a Gift Box (Wrapping paper, ribbons, whatever. It can be as small or as large as you like, and be of any shape.) and Drag the Gift from your Inventory into the "Contents" window of the Box. Once done the Gift item is now Inside the Box. The person you give the Box to, can extract the Gift in one of three ways, 1) Edit the Box, and drag the Item from "Contents" to their Inventory. 2) Right click on the box, and Choose "Open" This will open ONLY the contents window, and grant an Option of "Copy contents to Inventory". or 3) Add a simple script that is Free Most places, You put it In the contents of the Gift Box along with the Gift. Once the person has the Gift, they Rez the Box on the ground. Touching the Box now will automaticly transfer the contents to their Inventory.

Hope this helps.
Angel.

In some cases you might be able to use an SL shopping website like SLBoutique.com or SLEx hange.com to send the gift.

Wow! So much great and detailed information! I'm so very impressed! And gift boxes, wrapping paper, and ribbons. I had no idea. This is wonderful!

Thank you all so very much for taking the time to respond. This helps immensely!

This puts me right on track to achieve my goal, to create a little joy and happiness.

What a wonderful adventure I shall have!

Again, thank you all so very much.

In order to see information when mousing over any object, enable "hovertips on all objects" in View -> Hovertips.

I have been pondering about this myself.

Mostly when I want to give someone a present, I give them the money so they can buy the item themselves. Not very nice or romantic, but it works.

Now... would it maybe be an idea to extra buy-option that would allow to transfer an item one time?
For example, when you pay 10L$ extra the item(s) are placed in a very nice giftbox. This giftbox allows that the complete box with content is one time transferred. When the box is opened after that transfer all premissions set by the vendor (copy, transfer, modify) are active and not to be changed again.

Something like that (I cannot oversee all consequences, it just came to mind).

Morwen.

One merchant that I buy clothes from, House of Zen, came up with a wonderful solution to this issue. All their clothes are no-transfer... BUT, when you buy an item, you recieve a voucher first. That voucher IS transferrable. You can give it as a gift, pass it around as much as you want. When someone actually activates the voucher to deliver the merchandise, they get one copy of the no-transfer clothes, delivered directly to them in a 'shopping bag', and the voucher itself vanishes. That shopping bag is their master copy of the boxed, no-transfer item. You rez a copy of the bag, use it to place a folder in your inventory containing the clothes, and delete the bag. The original master copy of the bag remains safely in your inventory.

It takes more steps to get to your merchandise, but it's proven to be a wonderful solution to the "transfer or no-transfer?" dillemma.

That sounds as a great solution for this problem. Wished more shops would do that.

Morwen.

Slbotiquete allows you to send gifts in game. I am not sure about slexchange though.
I do think it would be cool though if gift was seperate from transferable but I understand why its grouped together there is no way to check to see if your charging for that gift.
I think it would be cool though to have scripted gift box that allows you to place gift in that works similarly to the atms but more of gift box or decorative image of item from shop that represent item that you can activate when the gift is given. It would work only once like rezzing but the person would have item and some type of happy wow animation and hug and item would say "this is great gift do I want to try it on?" yes box" Please keep it in my inventory for safekeeping" yes box
I have no clue how it would be created yet though.