I’ve been on a crazy shopping spree lately – seriously, I’m out of hand. But let’s not talk about that right now, let’s talk about just a few things that I find annoying when I am shopping. This is just a list of things that irk me, things I’ve kept in the back of my mind for just such a post! So, maybe I speak only for myself, we’ll see I suppose, but here are some ways to lose money real fast!
1. Put labels on your clothing. Be it a brand name printed across the clothing item, or a funny little logo placed indiscreetly, or in some cases, even an actual PRIM attachment on a clothing part or accessory. This is the fastest way to get my brain to shut off and my purse to clinch tighter than my asshole. The very millisecond that I see a label or logo on clothing/items I immediately skip right over it. I refuse to buy items such as these – I won’t do it. I don’t want your store name on my tits or ass. And if you create accessories that are mod (no-mod accessories? see #2) you can guarantee I am modding the fuck out of that thing as soon as I get home and I’m ripping your silly dingle-dangle logo off of it anyway. I understand that the increase in logos and labels on items lately is due to and in direct-relation to the increase in content theft, but as an alternative, why not stick it somewhere a little more discreet, or simply make it more discreet – period.
2. Make accessories no-mod. I’m not going to lie and say that I will always avoid no-mod accessories, because sometimes I just HAVE to have certain things. But it’s surely a way to make me pause and really debate if I actually do need it that badly. I will almost always pass it up if it’s a new store I haven’t purchased from before (or seen on someone else in-world), because then I’m unsure of how sizing looks, and if it would fit properly without modding, etc. Even if I purchase, often times, the no-mod accessories end up sitting in my inventory unused once I get pissed at not being able to: resize, tint, or take off extra parts I don’t need. One of my favorite things to do is take an accessory and tint the hell out of it (and sometimes certain pieces just *need* full-bright on), my second favorite thing is to pick it apart so that it’s totally custom and unique to me.
3. You probably won’t lose money on this one, but this is just something I would personally enjoy more of. If at all possible, please put your items in a folder, so that when we purchase, we receive the contents in a folder, properly named, in our inventory – that way all we have to do is drop that folder into the proper top-level folder and voila! I hate when things are boxed. Call me lazy, whatever – but I hate having to drag it out of my inventory, rez it, delete/take it, and THEN get to the inventory sorting part. I understand that sometimes you have to box things, I understand that sometimes as a creator, that’s just easier on you – but I want you to make it easier on me because I’m selfish. :p If you could, please include a landmark to your (mainstore) location – oh. my. god. I cannot understand people who do not do this? Why wouldn’t you? It’s one of the easiest forms of advertising and getting repeat customers at that. And lastly, if you could include a picture, even if it’s just the vendor image you use in your shop, including a copy of that in the folder would be so nice – that way when I go back to that folder months later, I can recall, easily, what exactly is in it. Yay!
4. Bling. Bling goes almost hand in hand with no-mod accessories. If you put bling in something – I will buy it ONLY on one condition – it HAS to be mod. And even then, I will often skip right over it on the simple basis of it being bling. Ew. Why do you do that? Even when you include bling with the on/off function, I hate having to type that every time the shit decides to kick on. I also don’t like having to rely on modding to destroy the bling altogether. I’m not sure who in the world ever thought that bling was cool and neat or even attractive – but …hello…it’s not. Get over it already. Besides, now there is a new function for you to abuse – glow! Yahoo! I actually don’t mind glow, but I’m sure some of you will make me grow to hate it – I’ll add another number when that happens.
5. Use texture-changing, button activated vendors. Okay, I’ll cut you some slack in some cases – I understand that sometimes you are cramped for prims and so you stick as much as you can into these push-button vendors, I get that. But, if you can, please, please avoid them. They’re really annoying, laggy, time-consuming and I’m just too lazy and impatient to deal with them in most cases. I want to pop into a tp drop-zone, wait the mandatory 5 minutes for things to load, and then turn in a full circle, have a full-on clothing-gasm and start buying. I don’t want to wait 5 minutes for 5 vendors to rez, and then proceed to click thru each one invidually, 50 times, and wait another 30 seconds or more for each new texture to load. Noe. Don’t do this to me, please. I’ll get bored quickly and I’ll leave in the first 10 minutes without ever seeing half of your inventory.
6. This is just another personal peeve one – but if you are a content creator, why won’t you put your store location somewhere in your profile? Picks. Classified. Where ever the fuck you want to put it, just put it there. I do a ton of my shopping in this order: see someone wearing something cool, right click and inspect something cool, click view creator profile, tp from their picks/classifieds. Guess what? If you don’t have it in your profile, often times, I just won’t take that next step to hunt it down in the search. It makes no sense, marketing/advertising-wise for you not to have it in there and it just makes it so much easier on us, the customer.
7. Have a lame-ass customer service policy. Okay, I get it, it’s all LL’s fault, not your’s. I DO understand that as a content creator myself, believe me. But after this long, we all know, it’s just common place for you to take responsibility for LL’s fuckups, and take responsibility for your customer’s satisfaction and experience in your shop. You better believe that if I happen to pull up your profile prior to purchasing, and notice that you have something like this in it, I won’t be buying from you: “I am not responsible for transaction failures, there will be no refund or replacements on failed deliveries, etc blahblahblah” – Are you kidding? I could almost understand this a little bit if the items in question are trans-okay, but if they are no-trans, what’s your problem? That just sounds like you are lazy and if you want to say you have far too much business and that you’d spend all day taking care of this kind of stuff if you started allowing it – well, duh – that’s your job. You don’t complain when you get our money. If you don’t want to provide customer service, or simply can’t – stop selling, put your stuff out for 0L, or hire staff to help you with that issue, if you are making that much damn money you can afford to pay them to handle the headache of your customers.
8. Last but not least, and I’m putting this one in here for my honey. Heh. Make your doorways too short for taller avatars so that they can’t even enter your shop. Yes, it has actually happened – and more than once. It’s actually kind of funny considering the number of avatars that are freakin giants, but yeah, apparently some content creators are shorties and make their doorways to the scale of their own avatars. I mean, I find it amusing myself, walking in under the wire at 5′8, but I don’t think Law finds it very funny to hit his head on the doorway and be stuck outside while I snickle at him and continue shopping. 
Okay, it’s getting late and I think I’ve bitched enough to cover the whole week. I couldn’t let Law show me up on my own blog. :p Have fun shopping!
doveswanson
