On May 6, 2022, Seraphim launched a survey to get views and opinions from consumers about home and garden stuff.
The claim was that it was an opportunity to influence creators and designers providing them with quality information.
Who were the creators and designers behind the surveys?
After doing the survey, I wondered how the questions would give us influence over anything at all.
The questions were not bad. It was just how they wanted us to rank them that made it a pointless survey.
People have commented about not understanding why they had to rank from 1- 9 and this response was copied and pasted a few times:
“The purpose of the question is to determine a definite ranking of the items, not an evaluation of each individually. While all aspects are certainly equally considered when purchasing H&G items, we are curious at what point one aspect of the purchase outweighs the other aspects. All accurate data is valuable in this survey.”
Let’s dive into the questions.
Please rank these items in order of importance to you when purchasing PG items. 1 is most important and 9 least important.
- Animation Quantity
- Animation Quality
- Texture Quality
- Brand Reputation
- Mesh Quality
- Land Impact/Prim Count
- Price
- Customer Service
- LOD (Level of Detail)
Brand reputation would be the least of my worry. Reputation does not warrant quality products/services in Second Life.
The same goes with customer service. Unless you come across a problem you have no idea what the customer service is going to be like. Not only that, Second Life residents are to afraid to complain as the creator might ban them, so best not to say anything is a common SL response for bad customer support.
While it is nice to know which store provides good customer service, ultimately you don’t want to have to deal with it.. but shit happens sometimes.
Price is also a hard point because there are no standards for pricing in Second Life. You can buy the same thing sold by different people with different price tags. Price is linked each individual’s budget. We all come to Second Life with different pockets. What I find cheap or a fair price, my sister will think it is outrageously expensive.
Texture quality and mesh quality are important factors and some brands have set standards, so I always expect the best and as such my expectations fall short at times.
LOD is important. One of the reasons I finally got rid of my last house was because of its bad LOD. Taking a picture of it was almost impossible. Zoom out a little and the windows would disappear, the doors , etc.
Land Impact/Prim will always be a problem, but it depends on your prim allowance, therefore it is up to the individual’s land capacity.
If you live in Linden Lab home with 354 Prims allowance, of course Prim count will matter more and shopping at Nutmeg store will be out of the question and while Apple Fall will be the dream ….
On the other hand, if you own a homestead or even a full region chances are that you’re not too worried about the Prims.
Either way the lower the Prim count is, the better it is as long as quality is not affected.
Then we have animation quality and animation quantity, and for me quality wins all the way.
The same questions were asked for Adult furniture.
All of the above would apply to Adult furniture. The main difference would the importance of quality animations and quantity.
Although with Adult content, add-ons such as INM, Lovesense, and compatibility with Physics, Aeros and the V might be important factors when buying furniture.
Is your preference to have higher LOD/LI items or faster rezzing lower LOD LI items
I would go with LOD and I don ‘t have a fast computer. Can we have both?
How often do you purchase…
Houses
Skyboxes
Bedroom Furniture
Kitchen Furniture
Adult Furniture
Dining Room Furniture
Lounge Furniture
Outdoor Furniture
Small Decor Items
Landscaping Items e.g Trees, Shrubs, Land Forms
Children’s Furniture
Daily, A few times a week, Weekly, A few times a month, Monthly, A few times a year, Annually, I do not purchase these items.
I buy when I feel like it, when I like something enough to spend my Lindens on.
Thinking about your current main home (if you have more than one) What is the Land Impact for your parcel/region?
I have no idea how this question is relevant to anything.
When you consider your last few Home and Garden purchases were they… *
- Planned purchases
- Impulse purchases
- I have not made any recent purchases
- Other:
With relation to impulse purchases specifically. At what amount are you most comfortable impulse shopping? *An impulse purchase is something you would purchase while seeing it at a store that you didn’t intentionally go to that store to purchase *
- <100L
- 100-149L
- 150-199L
- 200-249L
- 250-299L
- 300-399L
- 400-499L
- >500L
My impulse purchases fall into each category. Since it’s an impulse purchase, I don’t know what I am going to buy and how much it is going to cost me. So many events …. too many events….
- Yes
- No
- Maybe
Absolutely not. Actually I do but only if it’s a brand I know. I don’t need to demo furniture from Chez Moi or Loft & Aria because the creators don’t seem to change them and are good.
- Yes
- No
- Maybe
Same as for PG.
Which sources do you regularly use to find information about items to purchase for your home?
Creator’s In World Group
Creator’s Facebook
Creator’s Flickr
Creator’s Instagram
Creator’s Website
Home & Garden Flickr Groups
Facebook Advertising Groups
Home and Garden Bloggers & Photographers
Seeing an Item at an Event
Seeing an Item on Seraphim
Seeing an Item on another promotional website
Other Social Media
Second Life Magazine
Word of Mouth or Recommendation
Seeing an Item in world at a destination/photogenic region
Second Life Marketplace
Options for each of the above:
Often
Sometimes
Occasionally
Never
My first source is mainly Flickr, then Seraphim. We are limited with groups, but of course the groups I am in will let me know about new stuff. Occasionally I might see someone wearing something or an item while out exploring. Marketplace is more when I need something specific.
When purchasing general furniture how important is…
Fatpack Option
Each item sold separately
Scripted props
HUD based texture options
Not at All
It’s a nice option
Vital
I have no opinion either way
Fatpack is nice option if it is going to be cheaper and worth it, which doesn’t happen that often. Each items needs to be able to be bought separately. If there has to be props, they need to be scripted and can you please add Experience? HUD based texture is a yes.
When purchasing adult furniture in Second Life how much do you value the following plug ins?
It’s Not Mine Plug in
Physics Cock Plug In
Lovense Plug In
It’s Not Mine Plug in
Physics Cock Plug In
Not Important
Important
Very Important
No preference
All of them are important. The only optional one might be LoveSense.
How important is seeing furniture, houses or decor in world prior to purchase? Scale 1 to 5
Important as I like to test before purchase and I don’t trust pretty pictures.
How important is a teleporter/experience to assist you find an area in a store? Scale 1 to 5
Not a deal breaker, but making whatever makes my life easier when shopping I’ll take it.
Please rate how important these are in the entrance to a store.
Social media information
Customer Service Information
Giftcards
Blogger Application Information
Store Layout Diagram
Store Policy Information
Group Gifts
New Release Information
I don’t care
Nice to Know
Very Important
The only thing that really matters to me in a store is not having to look for the re-delivery system and maybe links to social media, mainly Flickr.
Do you buy and decorate your own home or do you rent fully furnished? *
Buy and decorate
Rent Fully Furnished
I don’t use a home in Second Life
I tend to decorate myself but since I have a rental estate I can say that half of my tenants like to decorate themselves, the other half wants a decorated home.
Do you own a Linden Home? *
Yes
No
Yes, I do and it’s empty.
What types of houses would you be interested in purchasing in Second Life
Contemporary
Cottage
Lake House
Medieval
Ranch Style
Colonial
Georgian
Victorian
Asian Influenced
Farmhouse
Other
Very Likely
Possibly
Unlikely
Never
A really nice average size beach house made by Onsu is all I want.
What size houses are you most interested in purchasing *
Small 512-2048 plot
Medium 2048-4096 plot
Large 4096 plot
Family Home
Skyboxes
Size of the plots is not as important as the amount of prims. It also depends on the size of the home.
Conclusion.
There might have been more questions, I can’t remember. That is all I wrote down when I decided to blog about it, and since then the survey is long gone. I don;t even know if a winner was announced as there was a prize for entering the survey, nor have I seen any results/outcomes being posted about it.
Meanwhile, my previous blog post may provide some feedback if that may be of help to any receptive creators and designers …
All in all, I cannot figure out how any of these questions can influence creators and designers into anything, can you?
What are your thoughts on some of the questions? And if there was one thing you would like to tell creators and designers what would it be?
Thank you!
I was the first to call them out on how stupid their survey was and get a super snippy reply back from one of the co-owners before the other owner came in and tried to smooth things out, I think they thought they were being clever but they weren’t, they don’t seem to understand how surveys, or people for that matter works, but you answered pretty much all questions how I would have if they had given us the opportunity.
Btw, the original page is here, but the survey itself has closed sadly, and you’re right, there was no announcement of winners, not that I would have won since they kindly removed my responses (thanks for that Kes, I’ll keep my opinions private next time)
https://www.seraphimsl.com/2022/05/06/seraphim-home-garden-survey-with-8-chances-to-win-l5000/