I had been thinking of reopening my store in SecondLife when I heard that LindenLabs had bought both OnRez (my preferred retail partner in SL, formerly known as SL Boutique) and Xstreet SL (formerly known as SL Exchange). As soon as I saw it I thought it was bad news, and I’d been meaning to post a note about it here but RL kept getting in the way.
I have to say that I’m very disappointed that we’re losing OnRez, and not just because I had things set up with them already. I had looked into Xstreet back when they were still known as SLX and I had decided that setting up products and shopping with Xstreet was a pain in the rear, and while I had some of my tees available through them using them was definitely not a preference so I closed my account with them. Silly me.
But LL has once again decided that they know better than their users (see also Dazzle, voice and Age Verification) and the site with the better seller experience seems to have lost. Now before I can start selling my shirts online I have to find a new vendor system since the OnRez vendors will go silent at 5 PM Eastern Time (2 pm SL Time). I have Xstreet’s magic box, but now I have to find a vendor to help me show my products inworld. Peng used to use Apez and I think I’m going to have to check them out. I hear their free vendors took a surcharge out of every sale, but it could end up being easier to work with than Xstreet.
I doubt seriously that I’ll have my store reopen in time for Valentine’s Day, but I’ll see about getting at least my SL tees available for the start of spring. Of course my Bad Moon Rising and Lagalicious tees won’t go back on sale since I already know LL won’t appreciate the humor of the tees. Granted, they won’t like how Peng and I used the hand logo, but I don’t like some of their decisions and this businessperson would put them back on sale if not for the fact that LL would probably ban me for selling them.
You probably won’t see the inSL logo on my shirts anytime soon. Every time I change an image for a tee, whether it’s a new template for a tee or a promotional picture to sell a tee, I have to pay an upload fee. I really don’t feel like having to create over 50 new promo images just to include the SL branding.
Alas, poor OnRex, we know you well. I hope some of your devs end up coming out with a more user friendly retail system than what Xstreet has. Like a better mousetrap, the better stsyem will definitely get customers.
