Second Life Marketplace Direct Delivery FAQ

What is direct delivery?

Direct delivery is the new, more convenient system for delivering Second Life Marketplace products to recipients as well as helping sellers more efficiently list products on the Marketplace.

What impact will direct delivery have on Marketplace buyers and sellers?

We have significantly enhanced the user experience to make it easier and more intuitive to purchase and receive Marketplace goods. Some of the specific benefits of direct delivery include:

• Recipients will no longer need to accept delivery of an object in order for the item to be successfully delivered inworld. The item will be automatically delivered and the recipient will be notified of the delivery.
• Recipients will not need to rez unboxed items in world to use them. Merchants may still choose to box items for sale with direct delivery, but will not be required to.
• Rolling restarts will not result in failed deliveries.

Will direct delivery affect a merchant’s personal inventory in the SL Viewer?

Direct delivery will access ONLY two folders in the merchant’s personal inventory. These folders will be system folders and appear under the root inventory folder in all viewers that do not provide special treatment for these folders.

• Incoming Items: Items delivered to the recipient will be placed in a special incoming folder in the recipient’s inventory.Items will now be delivered to the root of the incoming folder in a folder from the Marketplace, as opposed to in a box as was required with "magic boxes." Sale and delivery of boxed items will still be supported with Direct Delivery as well.
• Outgoing Items: Items the merchant lists on the Marketplace will be retrieved from a special outgoing folder in the Merchant’s personal inventory and copied to the merchant’s Marketplace inventory. Note that outgoing items will be COPIED, except in the case of no-copy items. Merchants listing no-copy items (the merchant does not have copy rights) will be warned that those items will be moved as opposed to copied as an extra check to prevent accidental moves. When an item is delivered, it will be delivered from the merchant’s Marketplace inventory--in world inventory will not be affected.

What about unboxed items inflating inventory size?

I’m concerned about unboxed items arriving in my inventory and inflating the size. Have considerations been made to sync performance and potential inventory loss issues?

Yes. For products listed on the Marketplace using direct delivery, the number of objects per folder will be limited. This will require merchants selling large numbers of objects in the same listing to box objects within their folder hierarchy.

Will merchants need to keep adding one unit to no copy item listings each time one unit sells?

No. We have simplified this process and created a mechanism for combining units that merchants may choose to use.

Will it be communicated to purchasers whether an item will be delivered boxed or unboxed?

Yes, a mechanism will be provided to allow merchants to communicate this information to the purchaser.

Will a Viewer update be required to view and access contents of the incoming and outgoing folders?

No. These folders will appear as system folders under the root inventory folder on viewers that do not treat these folders as special.

Will direct delivery be supported by third-party viewers?

Yes, it will be supported by approved third-party viewers, in terms of delivery. (In other words, no third-party viewer development needs to occur for direct delivery to successfully deliver items to consumers.) If third-party viewers choose to support listing items on the Marketplace, they may use the API that will be provided to allow this. Third-party viewers will not need to use the new API if they just want to treat the incoming and outgoing folders as regular system folders.

When will direct delivery be available?

Direct delivery will be entering beta this summer. We expect the beta period to last one to two months. Once it is completed, direct delivery will be available to all merchants. We will be sure to keep merchants updated on the upcoming launch on the commerce forum. No direct delivery changes will be deployed to production until the launch of the beta.

Can I choose between direct delivery or "magic box" delivery?

At launch time, merchants will be able to choose whether items will be delivered via direct delivery or "magic box" delivery. "Magic boxes" will eventually be retired, but there is not a firm date set yet.

What about gifting, ANS, and so on?

Working with the beta merchants, we are reviewing and testing the way various current functionality will be addressed with direct delivery:

• Automated Notification System (ANS): ANS allows you to integrate Marketplace notifications with your back-end operations either via your website or scripted object in Second Life. It will be replaced with a similar functionality in direct delivery to address the same goals and will use the same format as is currently in use to ease migration.
• Gifting: gifting will be supported with direct delivery.
• Limited quantity items: sale of limited quantity items will be supported with direct delivery.

When will Linden Lab provide more details on direct delivery?

At least two weeks before the beta starts, we’ll provide more details about how direct delivery will work, including details on the API.