Could Daz Store let us rate/review products?
Bright Shadow
Posts: 63
I was surprised this isn't possible since it's been a standard online shopping feature for so long. Even if it's not common in the 3D modeling community, it's a chance for Daz Store to be even better.
There are benefits to buyers and content creators:
- Money for quality. It drives sales to the best content creators, encouraging them to create more and leading to higher overall quality.
- Convince me to buy. If people have loved a product, I might be willing to buy it even if I'd hesitate in a feedback-less environment.
- Feedback for creators. If a product has frustrated buyers, this is a great way for content creators to learn that. A creator might overlook a single unhappy email or post. But if (for example) a tutorial vendor repeatedly reads that people are frustrated with audio quality, they know what to focus on next time.
Given a choice between a shopping site with reviews and one without, the one with reviews usually gets my money.
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Comments
It's been suggested before, and there are arguments either way.
Would it be restricted to only those that bought?
Would it allow those that bought and returned?
Because those that decided not to buy, might be valuable input, but it can quickly become a mess.
Just having a rating system doesn't take into consideration the price at which it was purchased, or the reason someone returned.
Folks can come on the forums and see if a product has a thread, and what customers are doing with it - potentially more useful imo. Even if there isn't a thread, a poster can start one.
Check the forums when a product releases. Some of the PA's start commercial threads which they post images and take feedback.
Well even Turbo Squid allows reviews & a most of the products there are overpriced and not functional for the intended audience of consumers so that DAZ 3D doesn't have reviews is a surprise.
It's be as simple as integrating a review function in DAZ Studio after the return date has expired so really there is no compelling ethical or technical reason why there is not a product review system implements for the DAZ Store.
While it sounds good on the surface, there have been instances on other sale sites where negative reviews have mysteriously vanished and there were issues with the product in question; I'm not saying that DAZ would allow that to happen, but I suspect they may not want to take that chance.
This leads to a possible can-o-worms that DAZ probably is wisest in not opening.
For example (based on observations at another site) 100 people purchase a product; 95 are happy with it, but don't bother to rate or comment, 2 make suggestions for improvement, and 3 leave massively negative comments. So the comment count shows 5 - two with suggestions and 3 that didn't like it - and we (the prospective purchasers) don't have a clue on how many people have not rated the product.
And we won't get a clue on over-all sales count - that info is for the PA and DAZ alone. That's also why there would be no chance of a mandatory comment/rating on prior purchases before allowing a checkout with a new order.
I support fully the idea of allowing reviewers to review products they buy and include a star rating.
I respect the concerns. As a customer I'd much rather have standard ratings and reviews if possbile, and online vendors commonly deal with these problems.
But let's assume that for various reasons Daz isn't open to that.
Our fallback is a forum-style system, which could certainly help. The current setup poses fairly fatal usability barriers:
So... very much a needle in a haystack.
I'm just hoping for a clear place where I can find people discussing product's quality and use, and where we can give feedback about it.
But again... for me as a customer, conventional reviews and ratings would be the awesomest option.
I've been checking (in the last few days) amazon and HMDB; both had reviews for products I was interested in, but there were far too few reviews for me to consider them really.
Anything less than (as an example) a hundred ratings, I don't consider viable; not becuase of the points raised in the reviews, but because people always have issues, and those issues are valid for them, but maybe not for me.
With enough raitings I begin to get a feel for the product. How long would I need to wait for that same confidence with Daz products? Not because I don't trust Daz products, but because 3D products here are purchased by a number of folks who are new to 3D; their inexperience may affect their rating - I don't know that and so can't take that into consideration. We're back to the waiting game again..
I can return a product in 30 days, and no questions asked.
... That is vastly superior to any rating system.
Good point. When there's a small number of numeric reviews, that's of limited value, especially since it's easy for people for/against the item to "stuff the ballot box". A lot of Daz products wouldn't reach higher review counts.
Even without numeric reviews, having a clear place for commentary would help. When an Amazon product has just a few reviews, the comments and questions are often helpful to people considering the product, or to those who've already bought it.
If comments/questions/discussion could be better supported, it could help give potential buyers a better sense of the product. Even if that just means more clearly directing people to someplace in the forums where they're likely to find discussion about the product, it would be an upgrade to the shopping experience.
I also fully support the idea of allowing reviewers to review products that they bought and include a star rating.
I'd want numeric reviews, and having a clear place for commentary. Like what product doesn't work well when combined. Like clothing that doesn't follow the body underneath.,
It could help give potential buyers a better sense of the product and be an upgrade to the shopping experience.
Yes, it does.
BUT its a can of worms that DESPERATELY NEEDS TO BE OPENED.
I have spent THOUSANDS of dollars here over the last 10 years. Most of the products are pretty good, some need SERIOUS improvement.
The biggest area for improvement (on the bad products) is CLEARER PROMOTIONAL IMAGES. A great many show several products that are NOT INCLUDED in a way that implies they are. (the most common being the use of a consistent HAIR on Character Morphs, but lets assume that we know that Characters don't usually come with hair... even if they REALLY SHOULD. Also one EXPECTS characters to come with TEXTURES, though quite a few are missing key parts therein. Sadly, most of the Characters sold appear to be little more that a slight tweak of the geometry and if we are lucky a base skin we don't already have. What exactly am I buying here for $20??? I already have HUNDREDS of Facial Morphs purchased, what makes yours worth getting???)
Many of the products used in promotional images AREN'T EVEN AVAILABLE THROUGH THE DAZ3D STORE! (that's a violation of PA ToS)
99% of the time they DO NOT DISCLAIM at the bottom "Products used in Promotional Images", in fact the Notes area on most products is COMPLETELY BLANK. (Most notably again on Characters, show me 1 entry in the whole store where a Character Morph product lists/acknowledges the HAIR they used IN EVERY PROMOTIONAL IMAGE for their product. Same goes for Outfits used to promote Characters, they almost never credit the outfit/link to the product)
Often the REQUIRED PRODUCTS/COMPATIBILITY section is errored/missing key information (this translates to problems with the DAZ Install Manager), such as a certain Ron's brushes product that says its compatible with Photoshop CS through CS6, and that it has separate installers for for CS6+ and CS5- . The Product only defines CS6 and CS5 - so in order to use it with older versions you HAVE to lie to the installer and tell it that you have CS5 installed (and point it to the version you do have) -- there is another like this that requires you to define a program path for Photoshop 7.0 (aka CS0), even though the description says it works with newer versions (7.0-CS5)
While I appreciate the large quantity of products made available through the RuntimeDNA merger, most of these are THE WORST OFFENDERS. The promotional images ARE STRETCHED AND SQUASHED because they were designed for a smaller preview and different Aspect Ratio. Most products have ONLY ONE PREVIEW IMAGE. (and its TINY) Many products are sold PIECEMEAL - showing an entire outfit ensamble in the (only) preview picture, but only selling the shirt... or the shoes, belt, socks, watch, ring, necklace, etc. Many do not clearly indicate what they include. Some are sold as bundles, but do not have BUNDLE INCLUDES or INCLUDED IN BUNDLE entries linking the products together and giving you credit for purchases so you don't buy the same item twice by mistake. This information DESPERATELY NEEDS TO BE UPDATED (as an existing PA you wouldn't even pass review with submissions like these, it has brought the overall quality of the store down.)
And how else are we to motivate authors to provide better descriptions of what is included, if not by giving them feedback with public accountability.
I realize how intimidating this is, and as I have been entertaining the idea of becoming a PA I appreciate what this means for sales. It means sales will go UP, because shoppers can have MORE CONFIDENCE in what they are buying. And yes, for those few products that are deliberately ambiguous and misleading, there may be a decline- but overall sales will only grow from better TRANSPARENCY and ACCOUNTABILITY.
And yes, ratings for products that are OLDER THAN METHUSELAH and still asking NEW PRODUCT PRICE will decline over time AS THEY SHOULD, product lifecycle should be pushing content for generations 1, 2, and 3 out or seriously discounting them -OR- the products COULD BE UPDATED to work with newer generation models.
Ratings/Feedback will improve overall quality of Products and the DAZ Store itself. It will bring problems to the attention of the Published Artists and the DAZ3D Staff rather than leave them for unsuspecting Customers to find the hard way. As far as 30 days money back- its great in theory, but surely I'm not the only one here who has purchased HUNDREDS of products (while on sale) that I have not even tried yet. (at last count my install manager said 4000+, and that's not even counting the DAZ Connect or ShareCG products. To date, I've used/loaded less than half into a scene. And I've been a customer since Victoria 3 was new... which I believe is right around the time the store opened, as I recall that Victoria 1 and 2 were free downloads I used to tinker around with in Poser 4. )
A good way to handle feedback/ratings is in much the same manner as product submissions. Allow the Artists and Staff to review them first (and the staff can block them IF and ONLY IF they are spam or harassment, but the artists can only REPORT/FLAG them as Spam/Inappropriate- not actually delete them directly.) But this may be too much work for already busy staff.
Perhaps the best way is to require users TO BE LOGGED IN to an account that has been ACTIVE FOR AT LEAST 30 DAYS and has purchased something in that time. It might seem reasonable to limit review of a product to only those who have purchaased it, and yes for detailed comments that would be prudent. BUT for unfairly marketed/incomplete product descriptions this would be an easy out- for those at least users should have the same right to FLAG CONTENT AS INAPPROPRIATE/INCOMPLETE that the Published Artists should have for feedback/reviews.
In fact, perhaps that would be enough. A Star Rating system for purchasers, and a Report to Staff if the product page needs work. This, in turn, should go to the Published Artists first so they may try to implement the suggestion/correction, and thus not creating extra work for staff UNLESS the artist is unavailable or ignores repeated complaints. Once a product received a certain number of similar complaints, it could be forced into review by staff or artist.
Handling this in aggregate through ratings/feedback would REDUCE THE NUMBER OF TICKETS staff have to review about product complaints, thus saving the company money.
So, lets get that daburn can-opener out and get to FISHIN with them Worms!
It wouldn't need to be mandatory, but it could be properly incentivised. The number one criticism I am seeing of adding ratings is an inadequate sample pool, no incentive to rate past purchases.
A TINY monetary incentive may be enough. I'm talking on the order of around 1 cent per review, limit 1 per product, and only purchased products. The incentive should be to PROVIDE feedback, while not pushing for positive or negative.
The information is quite valuable to DAZ3D and the Published Artists, as it would be to ANY company marketing products. And a penny a piece is a hell of a bargain for that kind of information/user-generated-content.
From the users side, sure I'm not the only one who has spent their LAST DOLLAR in the bank in this store... and on occasion fallen PENNIES SHORT of placing an order. This has real value despite is low quantity. I could review 13 past purchases if it would make up the 13 cents I need to place the order before the sale ends tomorrow ;) (yes, I realize I have a problem... but its the kind of problem the staff should LIKE and want to encourage)
DAZ has overall sales information going back 10 years in their database, they COULD use the AGGREGATE data from that in conjunction with the reviews. Not only showing the overall rating, but the PERCENTAGE of purchasers who reviewed the product.
Honestly, I'd be happy if we could just get some PRODUCT STORE PAGES cleaned up/fixed. And a report problem feature on the product page could achieve that.
EVERY MAJOR DIGITAL CONTENT STORE/DELIVERY SYSTEM IMPLEMENTS A FEEDBACK/RATINGS SYSTEM. That is, except this one.
This is the ARENA that DAZ is now playing in. The others have it for good reason, the information is quite useful if utilized well. AND the other content stores mentioned above take a MUCH SMALLER piece of the pie, even though they provide the OPERATING SYSTEM AND INFRASTRUCTURE needed to use the content, as well as the MARKETING AND DELIVERY for the publishers. Come on guys, time to earn that 50%! ;p
(and that's not a state secret, its in the So You Want to Become a PA info page)
They also almost universally have In-App Purchases, which is something DAZ is now adding to DS4.9+ ;p
Oh, and most of their content is in the $1-3 range ;p
Just sayin... lol.
Regarding the stuff from RuntimeDNA with only one preview image: if it's a figure, I suspect most of the preview images wouldn't have been allowed due to nudity rules here, and older figures are more likely to be nit worth the effort to update them.
Regarding figures in general: morphs and skins are what vendors and most customers want made available.
Of course there is nothing stopping any third party from starting a site that reviews Daz products. Generally when it comes to reviews of stuff I'm checking into to determine what people think of it, the manufacturer's site tends to be the last site I go to, and I always seek out objective reviews first.
Now a rating system (5 stars, etc) could be helpful. On sites like Amazon when it comes to products, I tend to go with products with the highest ratings, and then read the lowest reviews first to determine if they actually have any merit to them.
While I've had products I purchased in the Daz store that simply didn't work, I've usually just ate it since they were most times bought on sale and even if they weren't odds were I didn't spend that much. When a thread showed up one day where someone else was having a similar problem with the same item, it occured to me that a review might just have saved everybody the trouble right up front.
McDragSoft you two posts are the perfect example for why a user rating system is a bad idea. Your complaints about promo images has no bearing on the quality of the product. What is included in a product is clearly laid out in the "What's Included and Features". The "Required Products" can be a bit glitchy but most of the time it is correct. As for former RuntimeDNA products they never had to go through DAZ quality control so I wouldn't touch the mwith a 39 and a half foot pole.
You what I wonder about is maybe 33% of the time i read a review on Amazon it's one of those get a free product and review it reviews & I'm like how are those even listed with the reviews that paying customers give.
This PA & DAZ review concern with bad reviews is unfounded really. You can read the reviews and Amazon and pretty much you have 3 types:
1. Sunshine blowers - everything is wonderful if LaDiDa Land and they heap praise profusely for fear of not being liked.
2. Legitimate reviews good and bad and well it is what is say it is but need to go overboard with praise.
3. Reviewers that seems to have some sort of vendetta against the makers of the product for some bizarre reason.
Great suggestion which I would love to see implimented but as far as negative sales comments goes...that would only be bad for business.
but good for customers which is the aim of successful businesses at least
I can kind of see his point about promo images, in that the promotional image on the main store page is your first view ofbthe product and one that doesn't look right doesn't bode well for sales. However, I don't expect very old products to be important enough to warrant new images; stuff that had just been released before the merger was announced is another story. His complaint about what's included may mostly be focused on the RDNA stuff, because most stuff that was already here and made within say the last 5 or 6 years is much better than older content is in that respect.
A bad promo image will generally result in a no-sale from most potential buyers, and that goes for old as well as newer items. If I can't see a product I intend to buy being shown at it's best, and the only image I have to go on is a lackluster or even bad pic (and yeah I include images that look like '90's poser efforts in that) then I'm going to pass. And for people who think that older items have past their prime, a lot of older items fill a niche that there is no newer equivalent to, if those products had up to date promo images many of them would sell quite nicely.
We have to remember that, for some items, that DAZ Studio and Poser in the era that the items were first released did not have the same capabilities that modern versions of those software packages do, and will be depicted as the software of the day was able to render them.
Taking that into consideration, but I'm also aware of the fact that items I had passed on , got a sale after I'd seen what those items were capable of looking like when I saw them utilized in a gallery pic, or some PA used an older item in their promo pic. If I was enticed to buy items I had completely written off, because of good, renders on the newer software, I have to assume other people would be as well.
Realize, I'm still a newbie when it comes to Daz so the idea of jumping hoops to get older generation stuff to look good, is not something I'm automatically able to discern at present by just looking at it in it's original state. I can get it to look good when I've been shown it "can" look good. Maybe some people like that retro look, but it can"t be that much trouble to add a pic done in iray or with an uberbase updated to show that the item still has some life in it; especially if you can get a few more purchases out of it.
I am sure that PAs are kept pretty busy building new products. It would take far too much time to expect them to go back and rerender promos of back cat stuff TBH.
So basically a determination is made as to how much a product is likely to make in a given time frame and once that is achieved (or not) it's basically written off and forgotten, and if the platform for which it was originally made for advances that's it. If it makes anything else fine; if not fine. That's a very interesting business model.
Realize that the gaming industry which bares some similarity to Daz holds a completely opposite attitude.
However we've gotten off the topic of the pros and cons of some type of rating system for products.
That is not at all what I said. I said that expecting the PAs, who are usually either a one person business or at most a 2 or 3 person collaboration, to go back and re do the promos for the older products would not be cost effective for them.. Quite apart from anything else it would mean them having to redo the material shaders if you want everything rendered in Iray, as the different render engines need the shaders compiled to match. So you are asking for almost as much work as the product took to produce originally, and for what? These are older products that you are talking about, and quite probably using older technology as well. Yes they are still useful, but hey are as they are unless the vendor decides to do a complete updated version, and sell it as such.
We live in post Ebay Amazon Google Play store times. RottenTomatos, metacritic...blah...
I live in a city where every mundane online delivery from $8.50 gadget to $1.90 frozen peas get commented reviewed and stars....
A facade of transparency and merit is not just an attraction or necessity for buyers, but also for marketplace operator to keep the best at the top and sieve out the subpar.
If Daz3D is afraid of competitive/ unreasonable trashing (they exist), then at the very least provide a LIKE/ thumbs up button per purchaser., and ask for comment per thumbs. That's the basic basic basic minimum!?
Actually, allowing stars and comments as "controlled outlets" will reduce the need to constantly police the forum for evil whining customers. That alone should make review+stars a good thing? lol
Actually, it's very similar in that older games (older content on DAZ) eventually are no longer supported while newer games (even if it's just the latest Madden NFL game) are what the software developet focuses on.
Most sites like that do not have an associated forum where potential customers can find information on the content they want to buy and interact with other users of the content.
These two things are not mutually exclusive:
1. Store owner encouraging reviews and customer feedback (even if the rating system is flawed)
2. Vendors choosing to actively interact with customers. (XYZ game marketer/ Logitech will even troubleshoot/ apologize on their Amazon comment section)
Even The Sims download site has open options to comment, Thumbs up and info on view count.
The most popular asset/ content/ shopping sites have comments, comments on comments, comment usefulness rating/ per person, Thumbs up/Like, 5 - 10 Stars, view count, download/ purchase count.
The lack of interest in collecting customer feedback shows either hyper-confidence or total insecurity. Without scientific feedback the supermarket will stock only junk food and other lowest common denominators.
Is total opacity a healthy and sustainable thing? Are Daz3D customers capable of judgement and fair reviews?
I think they are on the whole. I think the users and long term members should be given more credit and benefit of the doubt.
Who knows!
Having done PC Game modding, I'm familiar with such things; as I stated before, most such sites do not have any other means for the user and content creator to interact, such as this forum, so those things are useful for that.
See, that's the thing. I know there is data being collected by DAZ and the PA's; it's just not made available to the average user of the site. My thinking is that they want the buyers to base their purchases on perceived usefulness of an item, among other things, not on how many copies something has sold, or other buyers perceptions of how useful or not a given item is. With a forum and documentation site available on the same base domain, if they have questions about an item, they can come to the forums or look through the documentation to see if their questions have been answered already and ask if they haven't.
And there are also very, very small indie developers in the gaming field. And yet many of these small teams are the most communicative of all the gaming companies around. I wonder how they make the time? And besides, doesnt Daz do much of the product support anyway?
However, if this is such a difficult task, then why not allow other people to post their renders on the store page? Boom, problem solved. PA's don't need lots of renders to demonstrate their products.
I am sure you will counter with the old and very tired, "but then you will have noobs posting terrible images on their page, which is super bad." Yet this hasn't stopped other stores, your direct competition, from doing it. Many PA's do not even post a commercial thread, so what does a prospective buyer look for? This store is HUGE. There are a lot of completely forgotten products in this store. So a prospective buyer could make a thread of their own, but then they have to wait for a response. Also, this leads to many, many duplicate threads. How many times do you come to a post that is asking the same question about a product that has been asked before? You can avoid this with my solution.
Here is how you do this, and do it right for both the PA and the customer. Outrider42 has a plan:
1) The store page features everything the PA posts, first and foremost, it looks mostly like it does now. Any user content, like renders or reviews, and whatnot are in separate tabs, CLEARLY marked as such. This keeps the store page clean, and makes a very clear distinction between the different levels of content. Also, the store makes it very clear (in big bold letters,) that user submitted renders of products may not be of a certain standard. This reenforces the idea that the content you see in user uploads may not be the best use of a product. Any reasonable customer should understand this. User uploads face the same guidelines as the user galleries, and indeed the two can be easily linked.
2) Every user has their join date shown prominently, right below their name, for all to see. So now you know who the noobs are, and can have an expectation of what their quality may be. If you see a post from a user who has just a month of experience with Daz at the time of their post, you can probably guess any issues they had were user related. If you see a person with 12 years of experience, you might take their reviews and renders more seriously. This extremely simple information also lets users gauge their own experience. Like myself, I might look at users with similar experience to me, because maybe they are near my relative skill level. Being able to use a product is part of the process, is it not? Does this sound fair? Additionally, just like Amazon and other sites have starred reviewers. Daz can also have starred or trusted reviewers, again, reenforcing the people they prefer to be making these reviews and renders. You could even give the users their own reputation ratings, if Daz wants to do it that way. But make no mistake, this is designed to give EVERYONE a voice, and that is important.
3) Store pages have direct links to any commercial threads in the forums. This allows everyone to find a single place for any questions about a specific product. You can even dedicate a small sub forum to the bigger products that allows different topics. Do not force people to search these broken forums for commercial threads. You allow links to youtube videos, so what is the problem with this? These forums are a NIGHTMARE to navigate. I hate having to go to Google every single time I see a product I am interested in, but want to see what is up with it. Is that too much to ask? Is it really?
4) The store page needs a vastly better product discovery system. Keywords for searches need improvement. There needs to be more catagories. A lot more catagories, tags, and search terms. This sounds like a lot of work, right? So...let the users again help out! Let users create tags and keywords for store searches on products. Boom, problem solved. Oh, and allow users to sort by discount percentage.
5) Pay Overdrawn for her wonderful browser add on and give it placement in the shop checkout page. Or better yet, impliment the features her add on does into the store proper. And still pay her.
6) Add a free user upload section, again, similar to other stores. The stuff in here is generally built to help get new users started with some free content. We have lot of free content threads here, but they lead to other places. Keep those people here! Keep them on this site and keep them engaged. They will buy more! Show new people what they can do, right now, with Daz, not what a PA or 12 year vet can do. Reenforce the idea that "Hey, I can do this 3d stuff!" into new users minds, and they will buy more! Its about expanding your user base and fostering them along, every step of the way.
As others have posted, nearly every major online store has a rating system in place. That includes Daz's direct competition. This would help customers tremendously. It would even help PA's, far more than you understand. There may be some headaches, but don't you have lots of headaches as a direct result of not having this system in place? Think about it. Back to that comment where some people may leave bad reviews, well, people can leave bad reviews right here in the forums as well. A person may search for a product and only come into a complaint thread, and miss the thread that features more about the product. How does that serve the PA? How does that serve the customer?
The current system ONLY HURTS DAZ AND THE PA'S. I cannot stress this enough. USER REVIEWS SELL PRODUCTS. This has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt in every other store. This silly thought that you can tightly control your image by leaving users off the store page is part of what is keeping Daz as a whole down. What this actually does is keep new users away. It only keeps the status quo in place, the people who have been here forever. But new users are lost. There are certainly some kind and wonderful people in the forums, but they do not run the store. You cannot expect the forum to be the answer for every question, especially when the forum is so poor to navigate. And my idea allows the users direct access to the forum they need anyway, so the forum is still very much part of my solution. Sure, my idea is not perfect, but I think its pretty darn good, and I am pretty certain it would be a massive improvement over the current one. My solution would give new users an easier path. My solution allows this store the potential to grow beyond its current user base faster than the current one. More users=more money for both PA's and Daz. More PA's need to get involved and ask Daz to update their store (and forums.)