Resources: hippoVEND: Limited-Edition (No Copy) Product Selling

The servers in hippoVEND (version 1.6 and above) have the ability to sell items for which you have transfer but not copy permissions — what we call “limited edition” products. Imagine the scenario: you buy a job-lot of ”Squirrel Toasters” from the maker in bulk and want to resell them in your vendors. This is now really straightforward. Just follow these simple steps ...

1. Turn on limited edition selling mode on your server by editing the ‘_config’ notecard and ensuring that the following setting is configured.
   
   LIMITED EDITION ITEMS: Yes
   
   Then reset the server and turn it online.
   
   
2. Create an object (a simple prim will do), and rename it so it ends in ‘_master’. Add it to your server’s inventory as you would any item. (Please note this is case sensitive: so use “_master” not “_Master”!)
   
   
   
   
3. Next, add the inventory items you have transfer but not copy permissions for to your server, ensuring that each is named the exactly the same as the object in step 2 but ends in “_<number>”, e.g. _1, _2, _3 etc. etc.
   
   
   
   
4. Load inventory from the server to the website in the normal way. You’ll notice the server reports that it won’t send the items in step 3 to the server, only details of the ‘_master’ object.
   
   
5. Go to the hippoVEND website and define a product in the normal way, picking the ‘_master’ object as the inventory that will be delivered.

You can now start selling products. Every time the server receives a request to deliver the ‘_master’ object, it will find the lowest numbered individual object (those you added in step 3 above) and will send that to the customer instead. It will then count the number of individual objects left and update the website; so if you look at the inventory list for this server, you'll see something like this ...

Please note: don’t spread limited inventory items that supply one _master product across multiple servers. Keep each _master and its associated inventory in one server, or the counts may get confused.

Advanced Functions

There are two further options in the server’s “_config” notecard that apply to selling limited edition products. They allow you to choose to receive an instant message (IM) and/or an email when stocks of any limited edition item (e.g. the items loaded in step 3) fall below a certain level ...

IM OWNER WHEN STOCK DROPS BELOW: <number>
e.g. IM OWNER WHEN STOCK DROPS BELOW: 4

EMAIL OWNER WHEN STOCK DROPS BELOW: <number>
e.g. EMAIL OWNER WHEN STOCK DROPS BELOW: 4

If using email, you need to also ensure you provide an address, like this ...

EMAIL ADDRESS: bigcommerce@wibblewobble.com

We strongly recommend that you use this function to ensure that your server never runs dry of supplies. If it does, customers won’t get a refund when they buy, but they will get an IM telling them that stocks have been exhausted and to contact you for a delivery or a refund — we suggest you try to avoid this happening, as it only irritates people! (You’ll also get a warning IM yourself).

Note that when a server runs out of a limited edition item, it will tell the website to make the linked product inactive — but this won’t remove it from vendors inworld until you update them.