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Buying and Paying

Pham Neutra
Registered User
Join date: 25 Jan 2005
Posts: 478
09-21-2005 00:50
Every old hand here please forgive me of this is a trivial one which has been answered a hundred times. But I could not find any answer by searching so I just ask:

If I see it right there are two ways in principle to sell something:
# Make it "For Sale" in the objects properties
# Put a script in it that accepts payments (with the "money" event)

Especially when no vendor is used I prefer the "Buy" option. If only because you don't have to remember the right amount of money ;)

But as I don't like the very sparse information SL is giving me, when someone buys my goods I would prefer to script the object in a way that I get more info via IM or email. But I would need an event that triggers such a script. Is there any event that is triggered, when an object is bought? I only found "money" and thats triggered by "paying" not by "buying".

And - if the object is sold, is there any way I can choose if the new owner gets it as an object that she has to unpack or as a folder in the inventory?
Julian Fate
80's Pop Star
Join date: 19 Oct 2003
Posts: 1,020
09-21-2005 01:36
I'm not 100% certain but I think the only way to get that information is if someone pays the object which gives them its contents, thus triggering the money event.. This sounds like a vendor so you might be out of luck.

Second part: If you want to sell them an unpackable object, put the object for sale into the package, put the package into the "vendor" and set it to sell its contents or possibly use llGiveInventory() . To sell a folder, use llGiveInventoryList() and specify the folder name as the "category" argument.

Again, this is theoretical to me but hopefully it helps.
Huns Valen
Don't PM me here.
Join date: 3 May 2003
Posts: 2,749
09-21-2005 02:00
Vendors do not work with "Buy" on the pie menu. You display an amount somewhere on the vendor so that the customer knows what to pay. They then right click the vendor and "Pay" that amount. (There is a new function in 1.7 to preload that amount into the amount field in the Pay box.) The "Pay" option shows up on an object when one or more of its scripts are currently in a state with a money() event. Once they pay the vendor, the money() event is raised, and the L$ paid go directly to your account. It is in the money() event that you put code that delivers inventory to the customer.
Moonshine Herbst
none
Join date: 19 Jun 2004
Posts: 483
09-21-2005 02:38
A workaround if you prefer using "Buy" is to put a script in the object for sale that checks to see if owner is not you. You can use on_rez for that, and have it send you an email and let the script self destruct when done. However, this will only give you info if/when they rez the item, and unrezzed items will not be reported.

For any serious reporting purposes, vendors do the best job. They get the info at the point of sale, and they can store and send the reports at regular intervals. A networked system can save you time updating products, and give you grid-wide reports.

If you go for the Gigas vendor/web system, you get nice web reports to help you in return for a small percentage of the sales.

I personally just have my vendor system email the sales reports daily to my gmail account. Simply because gmail is extremely searchable, and I find anything I need to make decisions in a few seconds.
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Pham Neutra
Registered User
Join date: 25 Jan 2005
Posts: 478
09-21-2005 02:45
From: Huns Valen
Vendors do not work with "Buy" on the pie menu. You display an amount somewhere on the vendor so that the customer knows what to pay. They then right click the vendor and "Pay" that amount. (There is a new function in 1.7 to preload that amount into the amount field in the Pay box.) The "Pay" option shows up on an object when one or more of its scripts are currently in a state with a money() event. Once they pay the vendor, the money() event is raised, and the L$ paid go directly to your account. It is in the money() event that you put code that delivers inventory to the customer.
Thanks a billion, Huns. But I was aware of that mechanism as it seems to be the usual one with vendors :)

And its not bad. But when I have something to sell, it seems just a little bit more intuitive to me, if the customer can buy it with "Buy" and not with "Pay" ;) Nitpicking maybe but I am involved in a lot of Usability work in RL ...

And - nitpicking again - I always found it less than satisfactory to manually have to type in the correct amount. Good to know that this will be gone with 1.7!
Pham Neutra
Registered User
Join date: 25 Jan 2005
Posts: 478
09-21-2005 02:46
From: Julian Fate
I'm not 100% certain but I think the only way to get that information is if someone pays the object which gives them its contents, thus triggering the money event.. This sounds like a vendor so you might be out of luck.

Second part: If you want to sell them an unpackable object, put the object for sale into the package, put the package into the "vendor" and set it to sell its contents or possibly use llGiveInventory() . To sell a folder, use llGiveInventoryList() and specify the folder name as the "category" argument.

Again, this is theoretical to me but hopefully it helps.
Thanks Julian. Yes, it helped! Even if it was not what I wanted to hear ;)
Pham Neutra
Registered User
Join date: 25 Jan 2005
Posts: 478
09-21-2005 02:55
From: Moonshine Herbst
A workaround if you prefer using "Buy" is to put a script in the object for sale that checks to see if owner is not you. You can use on_rez for that, and have it send you an email and let the script self destruct when done. However, this will only give you info if/when they rez the item, and unrezzed items will not be reported.
Thanks, Moonchine. Actually i was thinking about a workaround like this. On the other hand it seems a little shaky and the buyer might see it as a kind of spying if a system sends an email when a bought item rezzes :(

And if I dont missunderstand the inner workings of SL, clothes would never rez anyway.
From: Moonshine Herbst
For any serious reporting purposes, vendors do the best job. They get the info at the point of sale, and they can store and send the reports at regular intervals. A networked system can save you time updating products, and give you grid-wide reports.
I will have a look into those system too, advantage seems to be the easy "updatebility" in addition to the reporting. But I am not sure if I would like to sell anything through a vendor. Sometimes it just results in a much nicer shopping experience if the item itself can be sold.

Does anyone have some experience with customizing networked vendors?

From: Moonshine Herbst
If you go for the Gigas vendor/web system, you get nice web reports to help you in return for a small percentage of the sales.
What networked vendors would you "endorse"? Any experiences with different systems?
Moonshine Herbst
none
Join date: 19 Jun 2004
Posts: 483
09-21-2005 03:15
From: Pham Neutra
..On the other hand it seems a little shaky and the buyer might see it as a kind of spying if a system sends an email when a bought item rezzes :(
I agree. They wouldn't have to know it, but hidden reporting from objects owned by others is highly questionable.
From: Pham Neutra

Does anyone have some experience with customizing networked vendors?

What networked vendors would you "endorse"? Any experiences with different systems?

I have only tried three, Gigas, Raphael Rutherford's R3, and Trent Hedges' system. Support from Raphael was superior, I liked the reports, and I had problems with the other systems. I tried all three in parallell for a period.

This was quite some time ago. Worth looking into now is JEVN, at only 2K, and Kyrah Abattoir's multi screen networked system. I've seen the last one been used a lot for clothes, and it is pretty cool.

All these systems lets you design your own vendor and just drop scripts in them. When it comes to reporting, maybe you could ask the creators for sample reports?
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