Friday, November 28, 2008

HATE.

The Blog's name is Love/Hate, and generally there will be far more love than there will be hate. Tonight though, something inspired a lot of hate in me, and this is a forum for things that anger me. I know this is something that angered a lot of other people too.

So what do I hate?

Disingenuous freebies/hunts. Also, just for the record, I don't want to hear your apologist "we should be grateful anything is given at all." bs. There are situations where that is correct. There are also situations where that is wrong. This is one of those "wrong" situations.

As much as some people like to believe, freebies are not just gifts for loyal customers. Freebies function as promotion, to draw people to the store, check out the wares and hopefully leave with something they didn't intend on buying. Promotion is important, of course, except generally you want the good promotion. Sometimes people don't really think this through when they are putting together a hunt, or freebie. More shop owners need to realize how freebies, especially HUNTS reflect on their store's image in the Second Life community. There are lots of things that can negatively impact a store's image in terms of these situations. Let's look at a few.

A) Packaging crap - A freebie is a representation of what is available in your store. It represents the quality of product available. Now, obviously, you are free to give whatever freebie you like, but if you're only going to give away outfits circa 2005, you aren't demonstrating value to the customer, or to anyone else. We have all encountered hunts where there was not a goddamn thing worth keeping, and you feel cheated. Please, don't sit there and say BUT IT WAS FREEEEEEEE YOU CAN'T COMPLAIN. Actually, I can, and will. I paid for that shit with my time that could have been better spent punching myself in the face.

B) I PUT OUT A FREEBIE FOR FIVE MINUTES BUT NOW I'M TAKING IT AWAY- Um what? I fucking HATE this shit. Even when I'm one of the few lucky ones to get the item it makes me so angry. It's disingenuous and kind of resentful of your customers. If you want to promote and give out a freebie, be cool about it, give people a REAL chance to get it. This goes for hunts too. HI I'M PUTTING ON A HUNT FOR TWO HOURS ON BLACK FRIDAY WHEN NO ONE IS AT HOME TO PARTICIPATE OR ARE SO LAGGED BECAUSE ALL OF THE PEOPLE TRYING TO TAKE PART IN THE HUNT is not cute. At all. I mean, really? It's like you really don't want people to benefit. It's unfortunate as well.

Christ, if you don't want to give out freebies, DON'T. Its as simple as that. There are plenty of stores that function that way, I don't shop there, but they survive regardless. I've made it a habit to only shop with stores that treat their customers fairly. Of course, I'll falter occasionally, but for the most part I give my money to vendors who give back. Vendors who appreciate their customers and realize that a happy customer is a happy Linden balance. Its really not that hard, I don't know why it has to be like this. I hate having to strike a store I like off of my list because of this shit. But you vote with your lindens, and my vote is for stores that are grateful for your patronage, and not resentful of it. Peace.

7 comments:

Sileny said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sileny said...

I agree with you 100% and I know a certain hair shop which will never get a single Linden from me again.

Also...welcome back bish!

Anonymous said...

You guys have one of the most imformative blogs out there. Thanks for being honest about how you feel.

I wish you could take it a step further and help us newer players out with a "what to avoid" area.

Just some words of wisdom from you seasoned players on how to spot stolen goods or maybe stores with a history of poor customer service.

Anyays thanks again.
Elliandra Parx

Sileny said...

Thank you for the response Elliandra, and I totally think that is a great idea.

In the Magika group the store owner sent out a note card detailing what to do when you think you've found a stolen item that I found very helpful.

Couple of ways to spot a stolen item:

1. You go to a store that looks hastily built, the quality of the items vary drastically, and a lot of really nice things are full perm. This does not always indicate stolen of course, but in this situation it is worth a peek around to see if you recognize anything.

2. Someone gives you an item or bunch of items free and says they're friend gave it to them and they're a bunch of ETD hairs or Redgrave skins or whatever brand that they bought full perm. Stores we all know will never sell their items full perm. (And ETD and Redgrave are some of the most often stolen items from I have seen)

3. If it's too good to be true, it is. A store inworld (you can ask me the name if you want) is giving out lots of gifts in their subscribo and group and has tons of sales and freebies in the store. The free items are totally amazing even though a lot of the stuff in the store for sale doesn't look very good quality. But oh our luck at them giving away such nice freebies even though their items for sale kinda suck! Boooo! It's because the free stuff (and the nice stuff for sale) has been ripped. It has been reported, but for various reasons that sometimes just doesn't close a store down.

4. OH! Also, check to make sure all the parts of a skin match...sometime the ears or another small feature will be totally different and you can tell.

5. One last thing, a lot of time ripped items have "newbie template linden" as the creator. So if you find a really nice item with that as the creator, i can almost guarantee you it's stolen

OK...hope that helped

Anonymous said...

I agree. There are a few places that I won't name that won't ever get a single linden from me for poor customer service, crappy hunts and freebies, and/or rude content creators and sales associates.

Sorrowburn Aeon said...

2-hour hunts make me want to punch store owners in the uterus.

Sileny said...

LMAO @ Sorrowburn hehehe