Linden Lab is migrating the web-based SL commerce over to a new site, and I have to say it's a relief and a pleasure to see it. For years the majority of users who wanted to shop without going in-world used Second Life Exchange, then XstreetSL, which was eventually bought out by Linden. They also bought out the smaller, yet substantially more pleasant to use Onrez (formerly SLBoutique) and since Xstreet was more popular they kept that one active, and us merchants lost the online service we preferred to use. For a year and a half we've had to live with the ugly, inconvenient to use, cluttered but very popular Xstreet, but now that's finally changing.
LL is finally unveiling their new cohesive marketplace which is a beautiful merging of the two sites. The technology Onrez used to make it more pleasant to merchants and the incredible volume of products and vendors of Xstreet are being merged after all this time to create the new SL Marketplace. It's not perfect, and it's still in beta, but considering Xstreet is closing October 19th if you don't like it, you don't have much of a choice (except maybe go to Apez...?)
I for one welcome our new online commerce overlords. I'm actually really excited about this change and for once I didn't mind going through my listings and making changes using such handy tools as bulk edit and quick fill. The new marketplace has advanced technology like... listing keywords, and choosing related items. Can you believe Xstreet didn't have that? And there are a lot more advances and features on the way.
I've set up my storefront, and I'm actually looking forward to putting more of my store online than has been before. I've had a tendency to get impatient in the past and only put my biggest sellers or whatever I get around to. But they've made it so quick and easy I don't really have an excuse not to.
Quick tip for my fellow merchants, if your Magic Boxes end up getting full and hard to keep track of, rez another! Sort your products and put each group into a different box. And for people with multiple colors, keep in mind that soon colors will be able to be grouped under a single listing for an item, and really focus on updating and polishing up one copy of each item. The other colors can come later.
Hope you're as excited as I am, I have to say this is one of the nicest developments for content creators LL has unveiled since sculpts.
1 comment:
As someone that's just really getting into selling, though I've long bought stuff, I'm pleased to see the new Marketplace. :)
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