Some of you, like me, will be currently finding emails arriving encouraging you to switch your Second Life Marketplace items from the outdated (in their words) Magic Box and onto the wonderful world of Direct Delivery. Merchants are encouraged to switch to Direct Delivery as soon as possible, although if you’re selling items for which you don’t have copy permissions, you’re pretty snookered as Direct Delivery doesn’t support items for which the merchant has no copy permissions.
Direct Delivery has pro’s and cons for merchants. Linden Lab inform us it’s faster and more reliable in terms of delivery and I don’t dispute that. However people have experienced problems with Direct Delivery, such as not being able to drag their items into the merchant outbox.
I’ve migrated items to direct delivery and didn’t really experience any problems, however other merchants have had issues, so be wary, maybe try one or two items before going for a big bulk change.
The one big thing missing from the email is a deadline, there’s no mention of when magic boxes will be switched off. One thing that might help to push people to switch would be a deadline, another would be a figure on how many people have switched.
One result of Magic Boxes finally being closed down will be housekeeping, whether that’s by the merchant themself who decided it’s not worth listing some items or whether it’s simply down to merchants who don’t really pay attention or aren’t bothered, not bothering to switch over.
Now if you’re a merchant and you haven’t yet switched over, you should have all the information regarding migration to Direct Delivery. However, if for some reason you haven’t received the email, here are some useful links:
Knowledgebase – Marketplace Direct Delivery Migration Guide.
YouTube Tutorial – Direct Delivery Essentials:
YouTube Tutorial – Converting Item Boxes To Direct Delivery Folders:
The Commerce Team have stated that MB migration / switch-off is “indefinitely” postponed. See the October “update” in the Merchants thread sticky.
This appears largely down to the fact that they cannot fix the current issues which exist with DD as it is.
That’s going to be an issue then, I was reading a thread where a merchant said he will delay switching for as long as possible and I’d imagine there are plenty more like it… I’ve been delaying on my alts.
The no copy issue does look like it won’t be fixed.
Sorry,
The notice on the postponement was in an September update. It and all updates on progressing fixing DD and MB issues were removed after Rod Humble promised “upping the tempo” of Commerce Team communications. When the October update was posted.
There have been some frankly utterly misleading and unhelpful communications from CT members on the entire issue – such as comments passed on tickets blaming merchants for their woes because they haven’t migrated to DD.
Leaving aside the questionable nature of doing so when handling genuine issues merchants are having – the Commerce Team member placing the blame (Dakota Linden) also points to a JIRA which relates to – wait for it – problems which relate directly to the use of Direct Delivery; so hardly a recommendation for using it over MBs.
Frankly, the e-mail smacks as desperation as much as anything else.
…and the text in the email is a complete cut’n’paste of one of the earlier announcements, reinforcing the notion that nothing has happened since then. If this was the wording they used when they had no clue why their software was failing randomly, seeing it again here doesn’t exactly instill confidence.
I think that’s why some people are holding off, those active in the forum are aware there are issues and see nothing new.