A merchant's view: SLX, OnRez and the alternatives
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
In a world where we all see different angles and perspectives I have invited Peter Stindberg, owner of Babel Translations (Second Life’s premier translation company), co-owner of GREENE Concept sculpt furniture and also the business analyst for ~flirt~ fine jewellery, to give us his take on these events. -- Trinity Dechou
At the time of writing of this article, I have 150 items listed both on OnRez and XStreet SL, spread among 3 companies I own or am involved with. Those items generated a 5-digit revenue during the time they were listed and therefore selling on OnRez/SLX (as I still am inclined to call them) is a not-to-be neglected part of my business endeavours. One of the businesses I am involved in does not offer transferable items, so we officially encourage users to use one of the web portals to gift someone with our creations. Some merchants report that OnRez performed better for them, some merchants reported that XStreet SL provided better results - for my businesses both performed more or less the same.
Using OnRez and XStreet SL as a merchant
One of the biggest problems using the web services however is creating the listings. Dropping the items into the dropboxes provided by both seems easy enough, but the task of making the product description and web listing is immense. I would not call either web backend ideal, but the OnRez backend is way more advanced compared to the SLX backend. With the OnRez backend, you can easily bulk-edit product listings and the use of AJAX technology allows for parallel image upload. The dropboxes themselves try to detect duplicates, which is meant well but if you offer two versions of a product with different permissions, you need to use two dropboxes - that took us some time and a support call to find out. The only real downside I found in the OnRez system was that offering an updated version of a product requires you to make a completely new product listing. Last but not least, OnRez did not charge commission from merchants, and their advertising options were not only lower priced but also ran twice the time of the comparable Xstreet SL offerings.
The Xstreet SL interface on the other hand looks a bit outdated. Bulk editing items is not really possible, but at least you can adust some parameters on an overview page. Managing large amounts of items was really a stressful task - the implementation of the "templates" a while ago was a little remedy. Still doing mass-listings on SLX requires some planning to make it halfway managable. Mass edits on SLX are a task you really don't want to do... Updating an item on SLX wiht a newer version is pretty simple though, as you only need to select the new item from a drop down list in an existing listing.
Both platforms miss a tool to cross reference listings (for example multiple pieces of a jewellery set) - it's a tedious process to first publish the individual listings, then copy all their listing URL'S, and then going back into the individual listings and add the cross references.
From a merchants point of view my hope is that Linden Lab will incorporate the best features of both platforms, so that listing items will be a less time and work consuming process. From a shoppers perspective there is in fact not much difference between the portals - OnRez looks nicer but is rather slow, Xstreet SL looks more homegrown but has more merchants and the site is much faster despite OnRez using Akamai global caching services.
My wish list for Linden Lab would be:
- Create powerful bulk-editing tools, so that listing and editing of multiple items gets easier
- Eliminate the need for users to sign up or verify with XStreet SL
- Improve the transaction download or...
- ... splice the XStreet SL transactions into the regular transaction history of SL
- Link the L$ balances in-world and on SLX
- Make uploaded textures on SLX available in-world, and make in-world textures available for web-based product listings on SLX (yes, you can keep your 10 L$ fee for that)
- Maybe think of ways to tie classified listings into the process
The alternatives
First player that comes to mind is Apez.biz - a web portal you probably have never heard of, but which in fact is older than XStreet SL (which started in December 2005). Apez offers a wide range of services and their website is quite confusing, but in fact the timing could not be better for them as I got word from Apez that a relaunch is imminent. Submitting items to Apez reminds a little bit of submitting items to a HippoVend server. The backend process could be streamlined a lot, but the technology is all there and in place. With over 15,000 registered merchants Apez.biz is in fact about twice the size of OnRez, but it seems their PR got neglected a bit in the past as they are not very well known. However their web backend offers many useful features, for example maintaining several virtual accounts (e.g. "personal", "business A", "business B", "alt") or the ability to send L$ from your own account(s) to any avatar in world - a feature I had missed dearly in the past. What is even more important is that via the apezAPI, a merchant can incorporate their own personalized webshop on their own website, and by this offer offline-selling right from the branded website.I did not have many items listed on Apez, but those I had sold steadily. I shunned the work of listing 150 items on a third portal, but this work seems now to be much more well invested. A merchant who does not want to keep all their eggs in one basket is well advised to take a closer look at Apez, and in fact, during the time I was writing this article the number of merchands on Apez.biz jumped by over 30.
Some number crunching on the official merchant directories of XStreet SL and OnRez - courtesy of Rika Watanabe - provides some astonishing results. In public, it is always speculated that SLX is much larger than OnRez. And with 16,683 merchants featuring 705,252 products - an average of 42 products per merchant - this is truly an impressive size. In contrast, OnRez features 8,718 merchants with 337,427 products and an average of 39 products per merchant - so more or less exactly half the size in merchants and products, but the merchants on OnRez seem to be more the "power merchants". The picture gets complete if you look at Apez.biz, which features 15,934 merchants - almost as much as SLX has - but only lists about 100,000 products, equalling a meager 6 products per merchant.
But maybe competition might arise from a sector that is on nobodies radar - from one of the large vending system manufacturers in SL. I recently spent a lot of time adopting the HippoVend system from UK based Hippo Technologies. The process of filling the vendors and managing product listings on a web backend is very similar to the process required for the web portals. Since Hippo Technologies system is used by a large number of merchants in SL, an open web frontend offering the items of countless HippoVend systems would start with a massive number of objects. Andy Enfield was kind enough to answer to this suggestion on my behalf, but - for now - his answer is little encouraging:"The purchase by Linden Labs of both OnRez and XStreetSL leaves a huge gap for a potential competitor to come into the market. Web stores are something I've stayed away from, not wanting the headache of dealing with running the financial services required, but it'll be interesting to see if some new company emerges into the potential gap. Collaboration may be the way to go --- it might be interesting to see what would happen if a new web store partnered with an existing vendor maker (either Hippo (one of the Grid's most popular) or any other) to marry inworld and offworld merchant services."Tapping into the thousands of merchants and the millions of products being offered in Hippo vendors should be an attractive asset. I really look forward if this open invitation by Hippo Technologies gets taken up by someone.
Conclusion
So what is the bottom line? For the time being, I think it wll be business as usual. Most serious merchants are represented on XStreet SL anyways - so nothing changes for them unless Linden Lab changes the way in which XStreet SL works drastically. And I doubt they will. Currency traders, for which SLX was an "insider's tip" in the past, will focus on other 3rd party exchanges trying to get a better deal there. The Electric Sheep Company who operated OnRez was rumoured to abandon SL for quite some time. Of the merchants who were on OnRez but not on SLX, a portion will transfer, and another portion will use the opportunity to stop web sales altogether. For shoppers, not much will change - there might be slight improvements down the road like syncing the user databases so you automatically have an account on XStreet. For merchants, most likely all will stay the same, but ther eis potential for improvement. For market sanity however I hope a new competitor will arise, and my money is on Apez.biz. And therefore my encouragement goes to the readers - merchants and shoppers alike - to sign up with Apez since a market (any market) needs competition.
I'm glad to hear Apez will to some updating! I tried it about a year ago, and compared to OnRez and SLX it indeed was not handy.
I'm deleted all my items on both sites a little while ago since I wanted to update whatever I thought was worth keeping, and start again under a new brand name.
Probably the best way to go right now it to transfer, but closely follow any type of (unattractive) changes of Xstreet SL in the next couple months, learn how to properly use and benefit from all Apez has to offer, and (if possible or desirable) combine strengths with other creators under a single brand name.
Great post Peter!
Apez is sorely in need of an update, I'd agree with that: slow, buggy (including script errors that dump to browser window), two well known vendor hacks they've never bothered to fix, a colour scheme designed by a colour-blind muppet in a paper bag ... etc. etc. But anything can be improved: personally I think they should go back to first principles and rewrite from scratch, rather than rely on PHP Nuke (which is where the security flaws lie).
Excellent article Peter!
I'd like to add a few things in regards to apez.biz. Me and my partner Snap used to run and operate [SLCI] in SL till late last year. At this time I been using apez for a good 2 years and got to speak with Cenji. The result was that we agreed to merge [SLCI] with apez (well before todays news) to add our products and work to apez.
Now apez has grown on me over the last 2 years and over the last few months there has been major improvements in both system stability and security. We also released new versions of auto-lease, i-vend, control-demon in this short time and we're working on all sites to show SL residents what the apez system can really do.
At this time there is so many features that are not well documented or linked in the relevant places, that it puts new users off.
Very little people know (or use) the apezAPI, easybuzz to integrate your listings to your own site, sheduled payments to others by date,time, revenue sharing, customer groups, vendor groups, and all the other settings one only comes past when clicking on the link behind bank..payment...account...sheduled... you know what I mean.
The security flaw Derek is talking about is also long gone. There is only very little left of the original php-nuke portal, which is also used by Xstreet btw. It was used to build the site on and has since this time undergone massive changes.
This is also one of them reasons why you can not just simply login to the portal cms, play with the stylesheet, save it and it is live. Or have a staff member with little php knowledge be able to post news on the main site.
At the moment, and in the last 3 months there has been a lot of changes around apez and the infrastructure which might not be visible to the user but has been done.
We're currently discussing priorities in tasks but you all need to keep in mind that apez is no xstreet or LL and we do not have the funds to turn around and just hire 2-3 additional developers to push changes forward faster.
However, in the next days and weeks you will see changes to the wiki, the way apez.promote works, news on the apez.realms (sims) and some other things I'm not free to discuss here at this point.
As for people saying "LL bought Xstreet, let's run to apez" or any other....
Don't be silly and keep your SL business in mind. We welcome anybody who does want to use the apez services, but don't forget the exposure your products will get being listed on a LL run marketplace. The things LL can do with the Xstreet code and the google search are something any serious merchant will not let slip by.
Regards,
-Wise
(Apez Public Relations Manager)
I'm still as of this morning able to get various html/javascript/browser errors on the Apez site, as well as what looks like Ajax requests timing out and freezing. Likewise the server bug with iServ's -> still getting script errors when I run my server inworld: an issue that Apez support were never able to help with over a year ago.
Don't get me wrong: I think Apez has **potential**. But you need a complete site rewrite, a new developer, a user-interface person on team etc. Until then, the endless hassle is simple not worth it: good luck for the future, but right now, Apez is not suitable for serious use imho.
Hey Derek, I dunno about your "past apez experience", since we merged with apez late last year and I can only speak for now and not what used to be.
What browser you using, and what html/javascript errors you get on which pages? The ajax issue is being worked on, since it has been located and narrowed down.
As for the iserv, are you using the latest ivend version that has been released which had been updated and than also compiled for mono. I suggest you get a fresh ivend package from the owner update kiosk at the apez emporium.
As you said Derek, there is a lot of work to be done, however.. as the apez system and services stand, they are full operational and a lot of bugs have been fixe din the last 3 months. You're totally right about the site re-write, but this is also a task which needs quite some considerations, planning and than time to implement.
-Wise
Hi Wise,
I've used Apez on and off for three years or so --- more "off" than on, especially since the move to Ajax (which was rushed and which you didn't have the development talent for, as one of your development team admitted on the forums). So, glad to hear you admit a total site rewrite is needed. That's helpful, and honest, but needs doing.
I'm on the current iServ version (not the Mono version, which still gives me errors half the time on rez, but that's to be fair SL issues, not Apez's).
Example web page error. Just loaded the main Apez page to see: Featured Space-for-Lease: &ownedby=Bill+Stirling">Seaside Apartments
Why are variables bleeding through to the display text? Bad coding? That'd then lead me to ask what the MySQL coding is like on the site and whether my items, money, etc. is safe. Get the basics right first, and the rest will follow!
Nice article Peter.
Anyone interested in a summary of the immediate plans Apez has should check the announcement here.
@Derik - the browser problem you're experiencing has been reported by three other people in the last year. Honestly, we've not been able to determine the cause, but it is something different between your browser and the common browser setups in use. We test under IE6 & 7 on Windows, Firefox on Windows and MacOS X, Safari on Mac OS X and iPhone and we cannot reproduce that particular problem. It is likely due to quirks in the underlying content management system (or what is left of it) - which was once PHP-Nuke (the same version used by XstreetSL coincidentally). My guess would be your problem will disappear once the new CMS is in use.
Of course, we're well aware of what needs to be addresses - but we're no LL or Google and don't have a huge development team behind us (yet! :) )
Nice and deep post Peter,
I do agree that there are lots of opportunities now presented by this gap created by LL, by shutting down OnRez and by some merchants - not happy about the whole turn of events.
This is definitely going to be interesting to see the new fight arena between vending/shopping platforms, as these opportunities presented themselves. Some contestants are well established already (Hippo, Apez, JVend) some are new and freshly entering the arena (metaLIFE) I believe some are in development and will soon be joining.
Very interesting indeed to see what the outcome will be, what alliances will be formed, what kind of innovation will be brought, any new concepts etc..
I've used apez and been on the apez site using ie 7, firefox, and opera on both windows vista and on linux, and I've never seen any of the issues described.
I continue to have flawless transactions and have never had an error on the page.
Maybe perhaps not tweaking your browsers or using third party software and running virus scans and cleaning your system once a day may help derek.
Sounds to me like an issue thats somewhat isolated.
There is also http://www.slapt.me now entered the arena a few months ago, with forums, a wiki and an easy to use interface. It is rapidly growing with both items listed and merchants.
About slapt.me
slapt.me was formed in April 2009 in response to the lack of an Independent shopping experience for SL and its residents. It is owned and founded by 3 residents, whose skills have enabled them to create a shopping experience, that you are already used to but with extras we have seen you ask for.
The teams skills vary from programming and scripting, website development, design and marketing to customer service with blue chip companies.
The Founders recognise the fact that some SL residents want a truly independent site to sell their products from and a site that will listen to the needs of its clients and wherever possible, integrate them into slapt.me.
slapt.me will always treat its clients with the respect they deserve and always understands that the customer is king. We see you the client and us at slapt.me in a symbiotic relationship with each other, thus both of us benefit from each others participation, a positive sum game.
Mission Statement
slapt.me is dedicated to bringing new and creative ideas to the SL market place, both in your product offerings as well as in our marketing events and our forums. We will continue to develop our unique brand positioning for you our clients, to continually maintain and grow our solid brand recognition, and to adhere to high quality customer service standards. Because everyone wants to have fun everyday, slapt.me will continue to offer something for everyone with fun always in mind and we will never censor you or your products.
