How to Choose Between Copy VS Transfer

Original photo by sabeth718 / Ray

Are you using the right permissions for your product? How do you weight out the benefits of different permission settings?

One great thing about selling in Second Life is that objects have built-in permission settings to reduce misuse. Copybot aside, it works pretty well most of the time. The three available permissions: Modify, Copy, Transfer are all very straight forward in allowing what the next owner can do to your creation.

Most products in Second Life have either Copy permission or Transfer permission, but not both. Otherwise, you’ll be giving it away for good. Lets take a closer look at the benefits between Copy VS Transfer.
 

I’m going to leave out discussions about the Modify permission because it’s typically a matter of preference. You can have Modify on or off regardless of whether you choose to have Copy or Transfer permission. Whenever possible, it’s better to allow customers Modify permission. Turning it off doesn’t really offer much protection these days, except for scripts.

Benefits of Copy Permission

User convenience – By far the biggest benefit of having copy permission. I won’t even consider purchasing items such as furniture if they do not have copy permission.
Inventory backups – Second Life is a work in progress. Sometimes, things just randomly go missing. This is where a copyable item is far more resilient since you can make backups.
Less re-delivery abuse – Unlike transferable products, giving a customer another copy of the purchased product can’t really be abused.

Copy permissions are generally suited for furnitures, houses, and tools. Basically stuff for personal use.

Workarounds
A gift vendor is needed if you want to automate the gift giving process. Unfortunately, gift vendors often depend on external sources to look up avatar keys for delivery. It’s not always easy to use or reliable.

Benefits of Transfer Permission

Gift friendly – Gift vendors are no substitute for the convenience of dropping an item into a friend’s profile. Transfer item can also be re-gifted multiple times.
Repeated sales – Non-copyable items have a higher potential for repeated purchase, if it’s priced reasonably. Price it too high, it’ll just look like a rip off.
Less refund abuse – Refunds are very straight forward with transferable items. Offering a refund is the quickest way to end the conversation with any disgruntle customer.

Transfer permissions are generally suited for toys, pets, and humorous items. Basically anything social or of temporal value.

Workarounds
When selling transfer only items, it helps to include multiple copies or variations to add convenience. Some store owners allow exchanges from transferable to copyable version by request.

 
Offering Both Versions

You can certainly offer two versions of your product side-by-side: one copyable, one transferable. Personally, I recommend picking one or the other. Offering both versions is creating more work and adding unnecessary decisions for your customer.

 
Which is Better?

The cop-out answer is, it depends.

I’m not going to leave you with such a crappy answer. My shop contains items that are copyable only as well as transferable only. Whenever possible, I prefer Transfer permission over Copy permission. You can get almost the same convenience of copyable versions by simply adding extra copies.

Second Life is very much a social environment. Items sell better when it flows easily in this social context. From my experience, the demand for sending gifts out weights the demand for copyable backups. Your mileage may vary.

What permissions do you use for your products? Why?

-Todd