I’m pretty sure you’re all aware that I’m an avid shopper. I would even go so far to say that I could be classified as an expert. I like quality and I’m not afraid to pay full price for something I want, but I also love a good sale and bargain. In short, I have embraced shopping as a vocation.
With that established, I am about to climb firmly on my soapbox and have a mini-rant. So grab your popcorn and beverage of choice and settle in. This is a list of my shopping pet peeves – in no particular order, other than how they popped into my head. It is also not comprehensive; I have no doubt a few annoyances will pop into my head shortly after I hit Publish.
1. Boxes within boxes. While I would prefer to have my goods delivered to me in a folder that requires no unpacking, I understand that boxing is a requirement for some vendor systems and Marketplace. However, once I have that box ready to open, I am not going to be pleased if there is a duplicate box inside that requires yet more unpacking! This is especially frustrating if the box is nestled inside a folder, leading me to believe that I have already gotten to my treasures, only to be faced with another box that needs to be cracked.
2. Not knowing whether to rez or wear the box for unpacking. I am thrilled that so many creators have moved to a wearable box or bag that you can click to open (or it does it by itself when it is attached). After years of being conditioned to rez a box to open it, so as not to have an unwanted accessory in the form of a parcel on one’s head, I am slowly beginning to automatically ADD the box to my person to open it. However, in many cases, this is done as a guess since I have no instructions on what to do with said box. PLEASE, add the word WEAR in the item name if I’m supposed to put the sucker on my body to retrieve the contents. I would be happier if REZ was included in the title of those clunky packages that don’t have an unpacking script, but I will settle for knowing for sure which objects I should be wearing to open. And please be consistent in how you pack your items. If you are going to use a wearable packing box, do it all of the time. It’s embarrassing attaching a bulky container to oneself that requires rezzing when you have been conditioned to wear a package from a particular designer! Oh, and if it is something tiny and wearable, like a necklace, and it isn’t boxed, DEFINITELY put WEAR in the description. I’ve chased more than one little bauble around the floor, trying to pick it up since I didn’t know it wasn’t packaged (this happens fairly often with gacha prizes).
3. If your box has to be rezzed to open, be kind on Land Impact. While I have plenty of prims to play with, not everyone does. I do adore a creative delivery box; I have used several to decorate over the years. However, if you’re going to get fancy, please be considerate of Land Impact! There have been plenty of times in my SLife that I have had to go to a sandbox or remove items from my own parcel to rez a box. By all means, give us something pretty and clever to look at, but with the advent of mesh, there really is no reason to package your goods in a 43 prim parcel! (Yes, I have had a delivery box with that many prims.)
4. List permissions on your vendor add. This is especially important when you use a vendor system that uses the Pay function instead of Buy. There is literally no way to tell from an item in a vendor what the permissions are. I want to know if I’m getting a one-rez item or if I can copy to my heart’s content. And I really want to know if it is mod – I just gnashed my teeth today over a chair that was giant size once rezzed only to discover I could not shrink it down so that I didn’t feel like a two-year old swinging my feet a metre above the floor. Guess where that went? Yep, straight into my trash.
5. If you’re selling mesh clothing, have a demo available. I just won’t buy mesh clothing that I can’t try on. Even it is at a sales event. Even if you swear you are using standard sizing, I have learned by hard experience that not all standard sizing is created equally. This is especially true of the alpha layers. An otherwise gorgeous outfit can be wrecked if the alpha cuts outside the clothing layer or if it doesn’t cover enough to prevent elbows and shoulders from peeking out.
6. Mesh hair makers: PLEASE give us a note card that includes the head dimensions you use! You know, I don’t really mind adjusting my cleavage and breast buoyancy to make a top or a dress fit. Your bust size is usually determined by the size of mesh clothes you wear, anyway (I’m not talking Lola’s here). But when I have to start messing around with my head to get hair to fit, I draw the line. Changing the head size, forehead dimensions, head roundness, and so on can drastically change the look of my FACE. While I have changed my body shape fairly radically over the past three years, my face has stayed the same. I need to know the head size for rigged mesh hair so I can make a decision on whether it is worth the risk to changing my head shape to make it fit. And alphas aren’t always the answer; an alpha doesn’t cover the hairline on the forehead.
7. Display new releases in an easy-to-access location. I really hate seeing a new release advertised on a blog or Flickr, excitedly heading to the mainstore to buy it and having to traipse halfway around the sim to find what I am looking for. If you can’t place it at the landing point, please offer a TP board or at least directions to where the new stuff can be found. If I can’t find it within a few minutes, chances are I am going to get frustrated and leave.
8. If you are running a popular sales event, make the layout user friendly. Up until this point I haven’t named names of offenders. However, I had such a terrible experience at The Season’s Story earlier this month that I am going to use it as an example. Granted, I went on the first day and it was very busy, but that doesn’t change the difficult layout. First, when landing, customers were faced with a long trek up a snow-covered hill, down the other side, through a stream and up another hill just to get to the sales area. When I arrived, there were 23 people on the sim. Busy, but not at capacity. It still took me over five minutes just to run the gauntlet to get to the goodies. Once I was there, I stationed myself about halfway down the path and cam-shopped the entire length of the row. But there were items that I couldn’t find; and I wasn’t the only one. I heard several people in local chat asking where a certain item was and I hadn’t seen any of them. As it turns out, there was another sales area that you needed to access by a bridge. If there was a sign pointing this out, it never rezzed for me…or, apparently, for the other frustrated shoppers. Yes, it was a beautiful sim. But the point of being there wasn’t to take photographs; it was to buy the wares of the creators who I venture to guess had paid dearly to have a place in the event. I wonder how many sales were missed, simply because of the confusing and frustrating layout.
9. Getting hit by a group inviter every few feet. Hit me once when I land; I don’t mind. I’m not about to join your group simply because you invited me (my group real estate is very crowded). But if I get hit by an invitation every time I move to a different area of the store, I’m probably going to either mute the spammer or just leave. And I probably won’t be coming back.
10. Not having your name as creator on items. This may not be a big deal to most shoppers, but to a blogger it is extremely frustrating. More and more often I am running into (Unknown) as the designer listed in the Properties. I do my damnedest to credit every item I blog and it drives me crazy having to come up with creative ways to find the maker. Oh, and if you are using a template, please create a root prim with your name so the template creator isn’t the one who is credited.
11. Keep your mainstore SLurl updated in your profile. I don’t trust landmarks. I delete almost every one that comes with the item I have purchased. Why? Because Second Lifers have a transient existence and I have landed in the middle of someone’s bedroom more times than I care to count by using a stale landmark. When I blog, I go to the creator’s profile and check for the location of their store in their Picks. I’m not sure about other viewers, but with Firestorm it is as simple as standing at your landing point, bringing up your Picks, clicking Set Location then OK. A few seconds is all it takes to keep up to date with where your store is this month.
12. Central landing points without a TP board or directional markers. OK, as a sim owner, you want to give all of your tenants the benefit of foot traffic. I get that and I even respect it. However, if your sim contains dozens of stores with multiple streets and alleyways, I’m probably not going to stick around long enough to find what I came looking for – especially if directional beacons aren’t working. A TP board or set of directional signs (sorted alphabetically, thank you) with the store names might be a bit of a hassle to keep up with, but chances are tenants will stick around longer if customers know where they are located. And while I am perusing that board or signpost, I might just see another place or two I want to stop by for a bit of window shopping…or, more likely (knowing me) some actual purchasing.
I think I’ll stop at an even dozen. Feel free to jump on my soapbox and rant away in the comments!
Pretty stuff I’m wearing:
Outfit: {Indyra Originals} {Indyra} Chick Wish by Indyra Seigo
Shoes: tulip. Gladiator Sandals (Black) by Minami Susanowa (for Slink Flat Feet)
Necklace: Pendant Daisy White by Damen Gorilla (In SL Library)
Hair: /Wasabi Pills/ Lory Mesh Hair – Cinnamon by MissAllSunday Lemon
Skin: [PXL] Creations – [PXL] JADE SK Bare Lips MEB C2 by Hart Larsson
Hands: Slink Mesh Hands (av) Casual by Siddean Munro
Feet: Slink Mesh Feet (Av) Flat by Siddean Munro
Hand & Feet appliers:[PXL] Creations<a – [ PXL ] Slink Hand & Feet Appliers SK by Hart Larsson
Eyes: Amacci Gaze Eyes – Ocean Blue by Carina Larsen
Lashes: Mon Cheri *MC* “Falsies” Eyelash by Freya Oliveri
Pose & props: aDORKable Poses – Gacha Shopping Spree 9 by Adorkable Peapod (Gacha prize – NLA)
Pics by Peep 
LOL! I have even more and have been keeping a list ready for my next rant x
Oh, I’m not the only one! Yay! lol feel free to use my blog as your own personal soap box. Misery LOVES company 😉
Thank you for having the guts to say what I have always wanted to! Especially the box in box in box thing. And I’d like to add, a snap of the item in the folder would be kick arse so later when I want to mix and match it I know exactly what #!#% looks like without having to wear 50 of the designers other gorgeous items to find the one I want. Oh and the LM thingy USED to bug me, but I am old schooling it these days. I add the LM’s I can’t live without on my faves bar and deleted all the others and use search function when needed. I just deleted them again over the weekend and between them and the useless unpack scripts I wiped away 6000 items. / Great blog Peep! :** ♡♡♡♡
Thanks and omg how could I forget the photo thingy??? I’m pretty much the same since I have sooo many pretties in my inventory.
I still don’t trust LMs to places other than my home, studio and the club where I work. The chances of a designer who owns his/her own sim moving are slim, but I use the History tool in my viewer to land there (if I included the landmarks of shopping venues onto my Favourites bar I would need a screen wider than my house 😀 ) That said, when I post a SLurl in my blog, I want to make sure it is right. I trust the designers to make sure they have the latest location in their profile. Heck, if they don’t know where they work, how the ‘ell am I supposed to? 😉 And even Search takes a few days to update sometimes. But that is one of the sources I use much more than LMs.
If I saved LMs and unpacking scripts, I venture to say my inventory level would be well over 100K instead of the 73K it is now. And that is after I actually boxed up some stuff yesterday! Yes, hell must be frozen over if I spent time doing any organisation of my closet 😉
Oh! I just thought of another one, this time for H&G designers! If you’re going to sell me a lovely little setup of a table or bookcase or something with lots of little pretties sitting on it, PLEASE give me a version (soft-linked) that looks like your vendor pic! I may want to remove or rearrange, but if I have to place elebenty jillion little bits and pieces to try to get the look you so lovingly crafted I’m most likely gonna throw my hands in the air and give up. I’ve come across a couple of H&G creators lately who give you a soft-linked fully set up version along with the individual parts. I love this and I wish more creators did it! (Copy versions only, of course).
great post and am in 100% agreement with you on the pet peeves especially having no pic really annoys me as sometimes I do not wanna spend time trying it on ….. thanks
Thank you for chiming in 🙂 I was a bit hesitant to do this post, but I hope even a few creators see it and reconsider their sales strategies. But I figured if these things annoy an inveterate shopper like me, I can’t be the only one!
we can only hope that someone takes heeds ~ another is sizing with mesh even with demo they says its standard there is no way
Yep, which is why I always try a demo, if available. I’ve been stung by creators who I generally trust by one single outfit not fitting the way the majority do 😦
right in there with you… specially delivery boxes being primy. I find it comical that some of them have more prims than the actual product. Big fan of Add to Wear (Worn) delivery methods. And 100% agree with Event Layout and your example. That one really left a mark indubitably. ♥
Oh, I’m glad I’m not the only one who felt like I had completed a marathon before I even got to the shopping! Then playing hide & seek with half of the stuff? Erghhh…NOT a happy shopper!
THANK YOU! It reads like my own list and to be completely these reasons have curbed my shopping to minimum, events I usually skip and if I really need / want I shop marketplace. That said not all designers list or update that always either so, I just do not shop.
Funny how the brain just fills in the gaps. I didn’t even miss the “honest” until you pointed it out 😉
I’m a fairly resilient shopper and while some of these peeves will prevent me from going back to the offenders’ stores, I am always willing to keep trying 😀
Don’t get me started on Marketplace…that’s a whole ‘nother blog post right there!
errr completely honest it should have said!
You list reads like mine except I do not wear anything. I have lost pieces of outfits here and there wearing the box/bag. I got so frustrated when I was a noob I finally IM’d a creator and she told me to rez instead of wear and by golly I got all the pieces then. I have never worn anything since. I am just set in my ways though lol. Maybe things have changed but I am not taking the chance. Thanks for speaking up.
I occasionally have that happen (the missing pieces) and I do rez the box and open it manually in that case. I just find the wearable method tidier; I don’t have an extra box to delete from the land and I don’t have to worry about the LI of the delivery box. I’m getting low on prims at the homestead since I started decorating the latest (additional) house lol
Great post Peeps! I so agree with all of these and especially the snapshot of the item and not only for clothes, but also for furniture. I am sure that I have a few more, but my tired brain can’t recall them right now.
I think this is also part of the reason that I am shopping less and less, plus earnest hopes that I can bring down my inventory that is at 117k. Personally, I am also beginning to love the creators that use the HUD system.
Ack! And I thought my 73K was bad! You just gave me incentive to do more shopping lol
I am kind of split on HUDs. I love them for texture changing, but for the ones that give the outfit, I usually end up forgetting to delete the clothes when I take them off and have more stuff in my inventory. Then, of course, since I haven’t properly filed the HUD I can’t find it if I need it again. Just one more lesson in poor inventory management from lil ole me lol
Amen!!!! I agree with all of the above and specially with 7,8,9 and 11. I usually abandon any attempts when and if I find myself on a quest to locate the store it self and then have to go on a mini adventure to find the vendor that actually has their new items. I do understand sale tactics. I do understand juggling lay out and prims even. But honestly I do not care to much. Often I just want the goodies and get out. As for the invite spam that for me is an imediatly tp away from that store. Its madening.
However the biggest peeve I have are indeed events. At times it’s an almost direct attack on my graphics card (and I do have up to date stuff tyvm) even when in the lowest of lowest settings and then you have to go on this search to find that one stall you want. Pffff.. I’m a lazy bugger. So I save oodles of lindens.
Great post Peep! ❤
lol I have to admit that I persevere at events, even if it means going back later on. As long as I pick up one or two items and some demos, I’m happy. I take it as a challenge 😀
However, I do not feel like I should have to run an obstacle course worthy of a Marine Seal just to get there!
I wish that major high volume and popular events would put direct tp ports at their landing so we can land locate the store we want and get out of the landing zone without making ourselves and those around us miserable. That said I do understand that the sim designers go to great length to make a wonderful venue but I don’t want to walk all over to find the store I need. If or when I have time and really want to see the sims I will return .
Yes, yes, YES! That was another beef I had with The Season’s Story. I tried to double click tp to the second sales area and ended up back at the original landing point, which meant another slog up and down the hill to try to get back there. Major GRRRRR factor! That goes back to my point about having a central TP board (or a few scattered around the sim, even) that allows me to see every store there. Yes, I may be looking for a specific store, but I might see something else that piques my interest.