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DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
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© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.Daz 3D is part of
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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They have the right idea... I think Ill follow suit. Bai Felicia.
PS: I stand by all my statements... for the record.
Most of them don't bother with the forums, and let DAZ handle any interaction with customers for them, or they interact with customers elsewhere.
Actually that happens more then you realize. I've worked for Toys R Us and Dollar General and at both places I would get those customers who complained about the prices of the items in the store. the one big difference is that I was only the cashier, not the creator of said item, nor the owner of the store chain. I could do nothing about the prices, nor did I have the knowledge enough to explain why the things cost as much as they did. Here we can gather information from the ones who create and sell these items, and therefore get an actual reason why things are the way that they are.
And if you saw the numbers of people that have actually downloaded any of my stuff you'll see that I even have trouble GIVING 300 items of each thing away. LMAO. I do feel for the vendors, I really do ;). Not only is it labor intensive work, it's dog-eat-dog as well. I used to be a vendor. I disliked it so much that I'd rather just give the stuff away. I like making it, don't like selling it ;).
Laurie
The introduction is still the largest factor in unit sales.
What do you do about a false perception that is driving those complaints and concerns? In the case of this thread it is driven by a pretty limited number of new products and is not reflective of the store as whole. The idea that products are up 80% for example. Or that prices are dramatically higher than last year when in many cases they are pretty much the same. I just looked at the store of another PA who does characters and their prices are pretty much the same as they have been for over 2 years. So not only are some products lower priced many are the same price that they were 2 years ago. How does one react to that? Prices are lower or the same but people say they are going up too much.
Sony no, but shops that sell the products, yes.
Was that an intentional nonsequitor? I think the point is that that the bulk of sales happen when the product is new, the price is the lowest, and the PA's make the least amount of money which is the introductory period. After that, the PA's make more per unit but the number turns into a trickle. So if you don't make money during that early period, you are unlikely to make it later.
I don't think you're going to change their minds by arguing with them; that much is clear. Some people will simply "believe what you want to believe" as Morpheus tells Neo in The Matrix.
Let's see.. Today I bought Ron's Waterworks for $0.69 - Ouch those prices! How do they make a living??
Same way businesses make a living from selling all that stuff in those dollar stores, Wal*Mart and many other places.
"Same way businesses make a living from selling all that stuff in those dollar stores, Wal*Mart and many other places."
Have it made in china and buy a million of them so they are a couple of cents a piece? Not so much.
No. Valandar said that most people are buying items in deep discounts as much as 60%. Deep discounts as much as 60% don't occur for most people when buying items during the introductory period. Therefore, logically (according to Valandar's statement), most people are buying outside of the introductory period. This counters the usual PA statements that most sales occur during the introductory period. My logic is sound. I suspect some statements are benefitting from a dramatic effect modifier.
The key phrase is "as much as".... pretty much everybody receives a 25% or 30% discount on introductory products... some people save up thier Platinum Club benefits and wait for big sales so all of those can easily happen within the introductory sales period. Someone earlier mentioned spending two hours setting up thieir cart and losing it to a sale ending; I gather a fair number of people organize to get the best price . This is a lot like buying airplane tickets where you get the best price if you buy early and understand the discounts.
I honestly don't know where I am on this argument. I have complained for years that these sales are getting more and more insane, to the detriment of the future of the software. I have also complained about the "cute" sales having numerous unseen consquences. And, most recently, complained about the lack of disclosure on the sales.
I am happy to say that the last issue was initially removed from the forum, then re-instated when an official at DAZ admitted that there might be an issue.
I took advantage of today's sale and picked up the following items:
Airport Lounge
Retro Space Suit Textures
ParasiteX
Street Master Chi for Genesis 2 Male(s)
Earthquake
DG Iray Holiday Fabrics
DG Iray Fabrics of Asia Shaders
DG Iray Tropical Fabrics Shaders
DG Iray Sci-Fi Surface Lights Shader 2
DG Iray Sequins and Scales
DG Iray Sci-Fi Surface Lights Shader
Legendary Adventure Poses for Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 Male(s) and Female(s)
Stock price came up as $207. Store credit paid $62. So a discount of about 70%.
I used store credit, which also came at a discount, so in reality I paid $28. That means, overall, it was an 86% discount.
The point of all of this is... those crazy discounts that some people are saying aren't possible, really are.
Yes, 30% is the regular discount for new items. Valandar said "deep" discount and his example figures showed 50 - 60%, which is what normally occurs in sales when items are outside the "new" period. That's why I said "interesting" and followed the logic.
I fear we are entering a semantic wormhole here. If you buy a single new item on an average day, you get a 25 to 30% discount. Generally for most weeks, if you buy more, you get a bigger discount if you buy more than one item. Very quickly, one can get to the "deep" discount range without touching Platinum Club benefits. Yes, you probably almost never get a 'deep" discount on a regular new item if you buy it singly but the PA does take the hit when all that stuff compounds. It doesn't have to be everyone or even the majority of buyers for thouse discounts to affect the PA's bottom line when a best seller only sells 200 to 400 units.
As far as the intro sale price being what things sell for.. Not so much. I have a product that is new and I just looked at the numbers. Exactly 1 person paid the 30% off price. It looks like a couple of people only got that 30% + 10% off. The intro the price is 15.37 and the average price paid was 11.28 which is a few cents over half price. There were about 8 people who had ended up paying 9.98 so they got the product for less than half price during the intro. So on average most people got a discount between 45-50 percent during intro. I know I always do sales projections on discounts that high because it helps prevent tears later.
I have a note on Sony televisions, as they have been mentioned a couple of times. Sony's TV division is practically dead. As it turns out, their high prices actually WERE a big turn off to consumers. Imagine that! Sony lost millions of dollars on TVs. Actually, billions (google it.) Have you been to a store shopping for TVs lately? I bet you had a tough time finding Sonys in your favorite store. Sony drastically downsized the division as a result to cut the bleeding. Price is the biggest reason. Vizio came in and disrupted the whole industry by under cutting everybody. Their TVs may not be the best, but they are often "good enough." They certainly are better than the TVs that are often in their price range. Everybody else either adapted, or died. And Sony didn't adapt very well. That is a vital business lesson, you either adapt, or your business dies.
I once wrote that Daz needs to try to be the "Steam of 3d," and it seems they have taken a step in that direction by discovering the the power of the discount sale. Steam became quite famous for its sales, and Steam had a direct impact on the entire industry. Now you find games on sale before they even release, on all platforms. This was unheard of just a few years ago. The power of the sale was the biggest key to Steam's explosive growth, and PC gaming has rebounded, from a time when many people said that PC gaming was dead.
Steam didn't happen over night. Valve created Steam over a decade ago, and players HATED it. Steam was absolutely reviled for a couple of years. At first the store was highly currated, like Daz (some would say how Daz used to be, perhaps.) At first Steam only sold Valve's own games. But it started taking on new publishers, and it grew. And the sales started happening. Steam would sell major games at 75% off. Sometimes even 90% off. This was something entirely new, nobody did it like this before and on this scale.The Steam sale became an event. Players started buying in. Gamers who had consoles started building PCs so they could get in on the action. You could easily make the claim that PC gaming is cheaper than console, even though a decent rig might cost $900 or so, and that's all thanks to the absurd deals that Steam offers. In time Steam opened the store up. Games became much less currated, but the store has practically everything now. Everybody wants to be on Steam. All the major publishers have games on Steam, even if they have their own store. There are still exclusive games, yes, but not a ton of them. Steam went from being a very small store to the largest digital distributor of PC games in the world in less than a decade. And in that process they changed the whole gaming market around. Steam's sales and other practices have been copied by other stores, including mobile.
What does that have to do with Daz? Everything. Daz has found the power of the sale. Its addictive. I think they are just as addicted to it as customers, lol. And that is fine, for the most part. Ultimately the MARKET is going to decide how this turns out. If PAs are not making money, then they will go elsewhere to places that don't discount their products so much...OR they will see a boost in sales as more people buy them and do the same or better. The same applies to Daz. If they are making money doing these sales, and seems they are or they would stop them, then they will keep doing them. If it lowers the cost barrier for some people to enter this as a hobby or whatever, then that's even better. I wonder what Daz's "churn rate" is on customers. If this is truly growing or if new users are just replacing old ones who quit or cut back.
But there are still some issues. While Daz says they take the "industry standard" of 50%, and that may be true, the fact is that it isn't standard in another 3d area, gaming. Steam, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Good Old Games (GOG,) and many others take 30% of sales. Many of these followed Steam's lead in how to split revenue.That is pretty large difference. Of course, many games have publishers, which take their own cut first, leaving the production studio with a different figure, and these deals vary wildly depending on how much the publisher fronts you. But if you self publish content, you are netting 70%. I know Daz gives top PAs a better rate, taking 40% instead of 50%, but I'd like to see Daz do that for everybody. It would push other stores to do the same, or risk having their venders go to Daz. And then they could give top venders an even better cut. This would also allow PA's to charge a bit less, and still come out with more money than before.
With Daz having the largest store and all (and is their software,) they are in easy position to do this, and make PAs very happy. As this industry grows, it will pay off in the long term. I think this will become a real issue moving forward in the coming years. If Daz wants to grow, they need their PAs to be making money.
I am so impressed with Khory. Gave solid facts. Thanks for backing up statements with actual figures!
@Khory. I'm sorry if you got the impression that prices in your store, or DAZ store in general, has gone up 80% from my post. I thought it was quite clear that I was comparing the products I linked in the post, and their prices. PAs always say that prices are not increasing, and then I listed Raiya's newest item(s) vs. her previous items. Also in the other paragraph I compared bundle prices, and did not see that 80% increase there. As far as I know, I did not mention you or your store in my post at all, unless you take the fact that Raiya really increased her newest products prices as an attack against you or your pricing methods. English is not my native language, and if you and other english speaking people really got the impression that it's 80% increase in every single PAs store from my post, my apologies. I try to be more careful what I write next time.
@outrider42, I'm one of those gamers that hated Steam, and it's part of the reason I refuse to use DAZ Connect. Yes, Steam has its good points, but the need to have a gaming computer connected to the Internet for any game to "phone home" to verify that I really have permission to run the game I want to play does not make sense unless it's an online game to begin with.
I'm not trying to pick a side here it is what it is. Plus this may have already been mention. but its just my observation.
Look I respect the fact the PA's do this for a living some are better at it than others. Some products sold here at very high prices are also worth the price. I try to buy things I like when they come out if not then they usually sit in my wishlist a very long time. So I can understand why the PA'S demand the prices they do.
On the other hand I have noticed in the last few month that there has been a very large increase in Venders or PA'S here just by looking at the venders list the amount of vender here have increased at least by 400% maybe more with rdna being added to the mix., that equals more competition in the daz store .. that has to translate into fewer sales for the PA'S that have been at daz a long time. just because there are so many more products to choose from & more competition . So of course they try to make up the loss with increasing their prices. I get it. I would too if I was a PA.
One thing though here in the USA Competition & free markets is a good thing, it keep prices lower. so with out all these extra new venders showing up at daz . I would only imagine the prices would be much higher with less choices.
Now on a personal note. I would love to buy new releases I like when they come out , and relies its not the PA's fault, But my disposable income has not kept pace with inflation and has reduced my spending greatly. so that is the main reason I choose to wait for drastic discounts. Not so much because I am cheap(because I am). But because I just don't have the money like a lot of other people here other wise we would not have this thread. . so I would imagine the daz store & vendors has to stay dynamic to stay alive . Yea prices seem high too me too. . But I think its mostly because I have not had a raise in 3 years. so the trickle down effect is that the PA's get less income from us customers(like me) and more complaints from customers(like in this thread), and have to deal with more competition in the store. I sure am glad I am not a vender depending on trying to make a living off what I sell here. because it properly like me they have not got a raise in a few years too. we may not like it But Its just how simple economics work really.
Peace
I'm a hobbyist. I have a budget. I'm a PC+ member and I utilize my coupons. I also leverage my wishlist. If an item is released that I want , I will purchase it if it's within budget. If it's not within budget, it will go on sale eventually and if I still want it, I will get it then provided that another PA has not released a similar product for a price I can afford in the meantime. That's the beauty of having a marketplace such as is provided by DAZ3D.
Now in the past we have had other forum discussions where some of the PA's have made statements regarding how little return they get off a product when it's purchased during a sale v/s purchases made during the new release period or when a product is not on sale at all. There are two things I would say about that: a) That's the cost of doing business. B) No matter when I purchase an item, the PA gets their percentage.
As to the hobbyist v/S professional discussion, I would simply state that the graphic arts industry is a tight and highly competitive industry across all of its areas. Thus there will always be many many more hobbyists than professionals. The professsionals may have the bigger budgets but it has been proven over and over again that the hobbyists WILL spend the money if the pricing is in line for them to do so. Those smaller percentages can very quickly add up to decent income.
If you are facing a drop in income due to increased competition, then in any market economy, the last thing you should do is increase the price, that is likely to make your income drop even more, as the competitors pick up even more of your business.
In a market led business a price should be determined with just one fact in mind, how will I maximise my revenue, where R = P * U, ie Revenue is R, P is price, and U is units sold. Generally as P rises, U drops, so you need to find the right balance of P and U to maximise R, which is not easy given all the dynamics involved. I am afraid in this kind of market the amount of time spent to create an item, or how desperately an individual artist needs the money is completely irrelevant, the only consideration is the price the market will accept for that item.
Refering to the number of people buying items, my view is that it is increasing. I can only guess, but I see this from the number of images being posted on various 3D galleries. I remember a time when looking through the new images on DA did not take that long, but now it takes ages just to scroll down the list of what people have posted in a single day.
Just because 1 item only sells 200-300 units does not mean there are only 200-300 buyers. How many people here buy every single new release? I am probably one of the more affluent buyers here (at least I never need to wait for pay day to determine if I can buy something or not), but I still only buy a small fraction of the new releases. I have no wish to waste my money on something I do not need immediately, so if I do not want it now (and I rarely do), I will either ignore it, or wishlist it for thinking about if it goes on sale later. In fact a lot of new releases I do buy are to trigger bigger discounts on stuff I do want.
Out of the pool of regular and semi-regular content buyers I would be surprised if even 5% of those buy any particular new release, so on that basis the pool of buyers could be as high as 5000 or so. I would say the increase in the number of PAs maybe a reflection of this buyer growth, although unfortunately that results in more competition for previous PAs, and those may not see an increase in revenue due to more buyers, because that revenue is now shared between more people.
I think to myself - "how long would it take me to make this myself - is it worth the $20?" It's worth it because it would take me 6 months or longer to make any of this content. The artists are also packing their talent and ingenuity and taste into their products. The content sold here is inspiring.
This. And people (at least in the US) who are self-employed also need to think about benefits like health and dental.
And this. I couldn't make my art if the PAs didn't make and sell theirs.
I didn't hear any PA complaints -- I heard a defense of their hard work. And I heard frustration that they're barely able to turn a profit. I heard that they often aren't in control of the discounts on their products. I heard civilized discourse, not complaining. Also, I also don't believe that the DAZ forums are truly representative of the customer base. People vote with their wallet. My total post count in these forums (even if we add the ones erased in the forum extinction when the website was updated) is exponentially lower than the money I've spent here. The best way to ask for lower pricing is to not buy things you find to be too expensive. If enough people do the same, the product becomes unprofitable and the vendor will adjust pricing. Asking vendors nicely to reduce prices is fine, but I can't imagine any business model that would subscribe to that as a baseline strategy. It's Econ 101. For any product, businesses charge the most that people are willing to pay for it.
It's human nature to complain that things are too expensive. But when things really ARE too expensive, they either go away because the business making it goes under, or prices adjust. Nobody would charge $125 for a bra if enough people weren't buying them to make them profitable!
You're welcome :) , the one I've watched was impressive, at the beginning of the car race, there are plenty of people dancing and all, I was really wondering how much ressources all these assets could use :) . In any case, great work all around on these, must take a *lot* of time to create. You should put a link in your sig ;)
This right here.
All of Daz's business practices and all of ours individually are driven by the market and the movement of money. Otherwise I'd be making nothing but monsters and multicolored men in drapey underpants. Singers of Chzor did all right; The Blue Ones did awful; Rigged Water Iray and Shackled are the most profitable things I've ever done so guess what, more novelty prop sets coming right up.
Similarly, Daz sells our products at the price calculated to earn the most. Too much and nobody buys; too little and people see our products as rubbish and still don't buy (a mistake other sites have made and that at least one has now rectified with minimum price guidelines). And they have overhead just like we do, and that gets added on as well.
I have no complaints about the pricing of my products, or about the people who buy them. Would I like more people to buy them? Sure. Do I think that large group of people not buying my products specifically are represented by forum complaints? Probably not. The forum asks for things that take twice as long to make but cost half as much, or that not enough people will buy.
*raises hand* I would like to ask for monsters and multicolored men in drapey underpants...