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A modest rant about inventory
By Celebrity Trollop | June 18, 2007
I know that I’m not exactly the “typical case” when it comes to having inventory concerns, so maybe that earns this post a whopping boulder sized grain of salt, but I also know that a lot of other “high volume shoppers” in Second Life have many of these same issues, so let this at least be some food for thought to the awesome content creators in Second Life.
- Please develop an intelligent naming convention for your folders.
If you name a folder “blue” then odds are real high that once the outfit comes off my avatar and slips past the “since last login” inventory search filter it’ll never get worn again.
Maybe “blue” makes perfect sense in the content creator’s inventory. But to me it’s just a bunch of clutter. (Do you know how many folders named “blue” I have? More than 10!)
Instead, give your folder a descriptive name which includes your store name (or some consistent abbreviation), the outfit name and its color.
Example: [CT] Whiny Fashionista - FATPACK o’ DOOM
Since inventories are sorted alphabetically, this will put all of your store’s items in the same relative location in my inventory. Instead of searching through 1,000 folders named “blue” for that gown, I can just search through 10 or 20.
- Please include the ad texture of the item along with the item itself.
Not only does this help me rename things intelligently, but it also refreshes my memory 2 weeks later when “Destiny Gown” doesn’t mean “Period 1890s ball gown” any more.
- Please include a landmark to your store in each folder.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked “Where did you get that?” and not able to pass a landmark to the person to asked the question. Want to help spread word of mouth about your content? Include landmarks for people to hand out when its appropriate.
Phew. That feels good to get that off my chest. Now if I could stop people from putting boxed items inside of boxes all M.C. Escher matryushka style — maybe that’s a rant for another day.
Topics: Opinion |
OOOOh ty for this rant Celebrity!
I have created endless folders to sort out items that cannot be renamed just so I can find faves.
I have even had some lovely prim attachments ghastly named object or nameofoutfit prim.
#1 Commandment in SL of creation: Thou shalt name thy crap….um I mean creations. *sheepish grin
Designers-if I can find it easily, I will wear it and Im more than happy to brag where I got it. I have a big mouth! Great tips C…keep it up. LL
Posted by: Lisa Launay on June 18th, 2007 at 9:25 amAgreed! I was just cleaning out the inventory this morning and damned if I could recall what some things were based on some of the folder names. I am totally and completely anal about how I organize everything (all new items for instance go into my “to unpack” folder until they’ve been worn and/or sorted). And agree, it’s very helpful to have an ad in the folder so I don’t have to try it all on again once I have inevitably forgotten what it was ;)
Posted by: Gillian Waldman on June 18th, 2007 at 10:09 amAgree 100%.
Posted by: Tenshi Vielle on June 18th, 2007 at 10:20 amI think it all boils down to the motivation of the designer. I know many designers who already do the things you suggested. But there are some who are just too damn lazy to do it, especially the part about adding a copy of the poster texture.
One rule of thumb, the easier you make it for your customer to enjoy your product, the more likely they will return and keep purchasing.
Posted by: Me on June 18th, 2007 at 1:19 pmI would also like to add to put in a pic of said item. Most if not all designers have the texture already loaded to advertise it, might as well include it in the deal. This way i can look at the item via picture before putting it on.
Saves me some embarassing moments when it turns out that said item reveals too much for the public eye.
Posted by: Zoe Demar on June 18th, 2007 at 3:34 pmOne rule of thumb, the easier you make it for your customer to enjoy your product, the more likely they will return and keep purchasing.
That, and the easier you make it for them to remember where they got it. I’ve asked someone where they got their hair, or a cute outfit, and had them dig for the information, and give up. If it’s named right, people can say, “Oh, that’s Laynie’s. Here’s a LM.”
Posted by: Laynie Link on June 18th, 2007 at 3:53 pm“But there are some who are just too damn lazy to do it, especially the part about adding a copy of the poster texture.”
I always think ARG POP-UPS if a texture file insists on opening on my desktop when I unpack a new thing. Ditto the landmark. I failed to realise that people who buy more frocks than I do probably find them useful, so I’d say it’s perhaps a bit unfair to attribute a lack of those things purely to laziness. Lack of research maybe, but how many people actually give “can I have texture files please?” feedback?
So yes, this is all very good points, particularly the folder bit (a folder called “object” is the SL fashion equivalent of a html page without a header in shoddiness terms, and a lot more of a nuisance) but maybe it could have been couched less as a rant and more as a “Word of advice to designers re: pissing people off less and selling more stuff”.
I put things by the same designer into a single folder within my Clothing folder, but giant spidering folder trees can get a bit irksome, so I get why that isn’t for everyone. And if I get behind on it a bit, then yes it is helpful to have the label name on the folder. Even if virtually no one is actually in alphabetical order because of an assortment of square brackets and asterisks and so forth, it’s better than random.
Maybe one day we’ll actually have some sort of wardrobe utility that works better for the frock-heavy inventory than the current system. Maybe it could have thumbnails that display garments as in the upload preview window. A sort of 3-D texture previewer. Or something. If that is remotely possible within the client as it stands. And lo, its designer will OWN us all.
Posted by: Miriam Woyseck on June 18th, 2007 at 6:51 pmI agree with, and try to do all but the landmark issue. I only include landmarks when someone buys an item from someplace other than my main store. I usually head to places via landmark in the map’s drop-down list, and when I find 20+ landmarks for the same place, since it pulls them from all folders, it’s a personal pet peeve of mine, so I keep that in mind when packaging my products.
If someone is at my place shopping, I assume they know where they are, and can use Create Landmark to mark it if they want to come back and/or spread the word. If not, they can look up my profile, or pretty much just port into the middle of Gallinas and they’ll end up in my shop. I know that adding landmarks would be better for business, but to me it feels an awful lot like landmark spam. Again, that’s a personal pet peeve, so your mileage may vary.
One thing I do that I’d like to see catch on is to offer an Info notecard, upon clicking, which will give people landmarks to the places where I get skins, hair, accessories, shoes, and anything else I use in my ads that aren’t made by me. I think, if they’re good enough for me to use, they’re good enough to endorse.
Posted by: Jonquille on June 18th, 2007 at 8:21 pmI would also like add one more:
Never use the word “worn” in the name of a no modify item. Lots of us filter our inventory on the word “worn” to quickly see what we have on and it irks me to no end to see some no mod piece of clothing show up in that filter that I can’t rename.
Posted by: Samantha Chandler on June 18th, 2007 at 9:03 pmAnd please name the attachment to your group announcement with designer/shop and a descriptor for the design. When I don’t have time/desire then but know I will want to look later, it’s much nicer if the attachment has the pertinent info. If I’m too busy to check out a new something, I’m probably too busy to relabel also.
Posted by: Casandra Shilova on June 19th, 2007 at 4:38 amGood rant Celebrity.
Going further with Jonquille’s comment, I’m all in favor of notecards with lots of info in the folders. Where to buy info for stuffs shown in the ad, what inspired the item and it’s name, even how much it costs so I can tell other people when I forget.
Posted by: CronoCloud Creeggan on June 19th, 2007 at 8:01 amThe texture thing is a good idea, but I must admit to automatically deleteing textures and sometimes landmarks and notecards that pop up with things. Which is absurd because it’s meant well and is indeed useful stuff to have. Probably I’m swayed by having a cluttered and disorganised inventory full of textures I’ve forgotten I had and landmarks to places that moved months ago. Oh, a bunch of stuff called Object. :) Added caution on that being that I tend to go round occasionally deleteing things called Object on the basis that if I cared enough I’d have named it. And it might not have. I can only wonder what I might have lost.
Posted by: Chav on June 19th, 2007 at 10:08 amwinners for most thoughtful designers..
artilleri..
falln
nocturnal threads
and 7 deadly sins
for being good at doing all the things most helpful in this article
wooties.
^.^
Posted by: echo cooke on June 19th, 2007 at 2:16 pmIf only Landmarks were dynamic! I didn’t include them since following them often leads me to old empty places with no store anymore. :-(
Now I delete them religiously (thereby lightening my inventory items) and simply go through the designer’s profile picks.
Same with textures, takes SO long to load in SL, and I keep snaps on my local drive of outfits. ;-)
Posted by: Crystal Falcon on June 19th, 2007 at 5:17 pmHear! Hear! I agree with you 100%
As for the texture image of the outfit, yes, I could make one of myself. However 1) I’m at least as lazy as the designer and 2) they had to make a texture for the ad so why not put it in the distribution pack?
I do have a mini pet peeve along these lines. It tweaks me that designers use fancy schmancy names for colors. Instead of naming a color “blue”, they name it any number of synonyms. This is only a mini pet peeve as I append a basic color to the name of the folder or an item (if a multicolor pack). This makes searching for an outfit that is “blue” easier. From there, I can decide what shade, variety, or flavor of blue I want.
Posted by: Mickey Rooney on June 20th, 2007 at 6:53 amAs an avid shopper carrying around a giant whopping inventory, I agree with much of what you said. (As a side note, I’m curious how many items a “power shopper” carries in their inventory. Is that taboo info?)
As a designer & shopper carrying around a giant whopping inventory, I have a different opinion on a few of them.
Landmarks:
I hate when LMs are included. Because of the “ARGH Pop-Up!” factor when buying. Because store coordinates are rarely ever permanent. And because I have a GIANT inventory, the last thing I need are 150 LMs to the same location. I tend to shop a lot from the same places over and over. The first thing I do is delete any LMs if they are included. If I do forget where I got something, it’s easy enough to check creator and look them up.
Ad Textures:
I included these for a time. I quit. Not because I’m lazy. It takes no time at all to drop that sucker in the box along with the merchandise. I quit as soon as the scammers started defrauding newbies with boxes labelled as secondhand (CS) Item - Colorname that were decorated with a photo obtained through a purchase from me, but which sold nothing more than flat white default slider clothes renamed to something they were not. I would LOVE to have a photo of each item, but I don’t fault designers for not including them anymore, as I certainly won’t. Instead, each time I buy something new and try it on that first time, I grab a snapshot and drop it in the box so I don’t forget.
Now I have the urge to organize my inventory. Anyone wanna help?
Posted by: Starley on June 21st, 2007 at 1:19 pmActually landmarks and ads don’t pop up when you buy them, only when you unpack them from a box. If the vendor sets the item to sell it’s “contents” you’ll be delivered a folder (as I’m sure all designers know) and the only time the LMs and pics open is when you open it.
At least that’s my experience. Maybe I’m bugged and am the only one that this happens to.
Posted by: Me on June 23rd, 2007 at 2:31 pm