Male Clothing Content Dead?

Leana

ioonrxoon said:

Yes, but are there 100x more people who will buy it? If there are only 10x more people who do, you may have sold more copies but you've actually lost revenue.

There's way more to pricing a product than just saying "if it's cheap more people can afford it".

How many people do you think would be in this hobby if an item was 150$? How many small businesses, like book cover and comic creators would find this to be a viable investment?

The same thing that keeps being said about motivating PAs by buying early applies to the customers. 1.99 items and the likes are that motivation.

The ability to afford a large amount of items is the only reason I'm in this, and I'm sure it's the same for many others. If I could afford 5 items a month, I wouldn't be here in the first place, no matter how enjoyable it is.

Sure, I'll buy an item on release when I like it enough, but the only reason I'm doing that are the other 50 items I got cheap which allow me to make the scenes that I want with it.

I'm not saying items at $150 should be sold here. We're most certainly not the target market for those. But there is a market for those items, and contrary to what the post I was answering to suggested, adressing that market can be much more profitable than selling content here.

Write Idea

Leana said:

I'm not saying items at $150 should be sold here. We're most certainly not the target market for those. But there is a market for those items, and contrary to what the post I was answering to suggested, adressing that market can be much more profitable than selling content here.

I agree with you 100% that there is a small group of the customer base that are willing to pay top dollar for more detailed clothing.  If you look back on page 7, I suggested the same...

Write Idea said:

What would be a gold mine opportunity for PAs is to create a Nordstrom-type 3D retail for this type of customer.  Not just mens, but high quality stuff in general.  Maybe on-par with KitBash3D.  From what I've seen, they have highly detailed merchandise that rarely goes on sale (maybe a BOGO here and there/or a 50% off sale--which is BOGO).  DAZ3D customers know their sales, so of course we are going to wait around for a better sale, unless we really need/want it.

... if PAs want to create this type of website, I'd become a shopper there.  Albeit spartanly, 'cos I can't really afford to drop $150 casually for one item.  I know the PAs in the DAZ community create amazing products, and if what we have now is good quality, I can only imagine the next level might be.

ioonrxoon

I honestly don't know if there's better money to be made that way, but I don't think so. Sure, if you take it on one item, it may seem so, but if you have 100 items for sale between let's say 15$-1.99$, I doubt the total you would get from selling 150$ items would even come close to what comes from the 15$-1.99$ range.

Also, it's important to note what those sites offer. If they're aimed at gaming and come with interactive licenses... you're looking at 150$ full price here as well for an outfit with a texture pack with the interactive license for them.

kyoto kid

Sade said:

kyoto kid said:

xyer0 said:

I like the more textures idea. That would instantly multiply an outfit, but I'd want Shox-Design/Luthbellina/Sade level quality for them.

...indeed particularly for the DO items. as often I find that much of the detail is in the actual texture file while the mesh itself has fewer material zones. For example I have a pair of running shorts that has different colour for the waistband and edging however the entire mesh has only a single UV map which makes creating you own textures somewhat pointless.

If you drop me a line in private, which outfits you want see with custom texture sets, ill do it in my free time

...thank you.

Give me a little time to go through my library as much of the clothing I have is DO/Daz+ products since I am on a very tight budget.  

Ascania

ioonrxoon said:

I honestly don't know if there's better money to be made that way, but I don't think so. Sure, if you take it on one item, it may seem so, but if you have 100 items for sale between let's say 15$-1.99$, I doubt the total you would get from selling 150$ items would even come close to what comes from the 15$-1.99$ range.

And you would be wrong. PAs have spoken about their numbers here before and shown that those prices do NOT generate enough additional sales to offset the loss of revenue per item sold.

kyoto kid

frank0314 said:

scorpio said:

kyoto kid said:

...the one factor Europe has over the US is better transportation alternatives than the car. So it's quite possible to live in a smaller town with lower costs but still be able to get around.

...

Not neccassarily true at all. I live 7 miles outside a major city and my rents are higher than the city and puplic transport is terribly. Its also very expensive to travel on public transport in the majority of the UK.

Yeah it may be cheaper if you live in the city than the burbs, but how well do you get along with crime which is typically on even given year 300% higher than in the burbs. I'd gladly pay extra for being safe. At one time I had 3 jobs to be able to afford it but it was worth it knowing my family was same. There is only one side of the city here where there is less crime and the crime rate is about 100% more than it is here in the burbs. If I wanted to buy a house here in the burbs I'd pay at min $110,000. In the city the avg going rate is around $35,000-$50,000, why, crime

...sounds totally the opposite form what has been happening here in Portland since the late 90s. Many people on low incomes were pushed out of the central neighbourhoods to the burbs if not even outskirts. With that transition, crime and violence actually increased in a number of suburban areas as gangs re-staked their territories there. In spite of the increase in hearing what sounds like gunfire where I live, it has still been relatively safe compared to what I see on the news in the outer areas..

Part of the recent issue with gangs returning to the central area now and then is that the downtown is still seen by many as a place to avoid unless absolutely necessary That never used to be the case here until all the protests (some which turned violent) peaked in 2020 and homeless issue got out of hand afterwards leaving the city centre looking like a ghost town with boarded up shop fronts and encampments in different areas. .A number of businesses also closed for good due to the pandemic, leaving behind vacant buildings that have become targets for taggers.  None of this is causing a decline in housing costs in the area though (just received notice of a rent increase where I live).

As tough as it is on the budget, I'm consigned to staying where I am as the area has a very high "walkability" rating and transit is very accessible.  Without a car (which I cannot afford on my income) I could never live out in the burbs even here where we have one of the better transit systems in the nation.

 

Mada

Write Idea said:

Leana said:

Write Idea said:

Leana said:

Noah LGP said:

Diomede said:

Noah LGP said:

Strangely Second Life Marketplace have a lot of male content (322348 matching items found in Men's Apparel category, it's 10 times the whole Daz3D Shop).

The most of items cost less than L$500 ( $1.56 )

The amount of women's apparel is many times men at the Second Life Marketplace.  Not strange at all, seemingly.

 

"Strange" compared to Poser / Daz in 20 years. (Second Life was released in 2003).

 

Of course expensive items sell less than cheap items, it's certainly not profitable to sell $150 or $500 male outfits at Turbosquid.

If you sell a $150 item you earn $150 if you sell 1 copy. If you sell a $1.50 item you need to sell 100 copies to earn that much. So selling expensive items can actually be much more profitable than selling cheap ones, especially if the market is small.

There are still a lot more people who can afford that $1.50 item rather than the $150 item.

Golden Rules in Retail: "Angle to interest" and "stack in deep and sell it cheap."

Yes, but are there 100x more people who will buy it? If there are only 10x more people who do, you may have sold more copies but you've actually lost revenue.

There's way more to pricing a product than just saying "if it's cheap more people can afford it".

Depends on what said item is, actually.

As someone who worked years in retail, I can tell you, it's a much easier to sell something if it is "less expensive" ("cheap" doesn't exist in retail--at least to the customer).  Quality over quantity, as the saying goes.  People want quality, but not at the price quality costs, so they end up settling for quantity.  At my old job, we had up-market and down-market cookware.  All-Clad was the best in my store; it was $699 for a basic set, and very good quality.  Went on sale twice a year--if that.  You'd be able to sell a few over the years without a sale, but more when it did.  Though, there was this really-really-really horrible cookware set that had the same pieces for $39.99 on certain sales (I think it was $100 SRP).  When the sale dates hit, those crappy doorbuster pans were flying off the selves. while the All-Clad was collecting dust.  The catch would be, those people buying those $39.99 cookware set were in the next year buying a whole new set.  Then you'd be able to talk them up to Calphalon or Cuisinart.

As posters and artists have stated in this thread, if the customer base wants more menswear of quality, then start buying it when it comes out rather than waiting before it goes on a super sale.

@Mada, just have to say, love your clothing (own over a hundred of your products!).  And as someone pointed out, more texture packs would be a brilliant idea to solve the problem.  Here's a business question for you... why does it seem like more male product sets have the extra textures sold with the original product why females don't? dForce Corsican Raider Outfit for Genesis 8 and 8.1 Males comes with the textures, while dForce Corsican Raider Outfit for Genesis 8 and 8.1 Females does not.

Glad to hear you like my outfits :) As for your question - if I had to speculate on why the difference in texture sets it would be down to sales. Traditionally texture sets sells about half of what the outfit sells (IF it releases at the same time as the outfit). If the male outfit already sells so much less than the female version, adding a texture set for the amount of sales is not worth it and just fills up a sales slot - its better to just roll it into the main set and make the male set more attractive to users.

There is a reason why there's not so many texture packs released now than for example 10 years ago... it fills up the store, and usually is very high in MBs and takes up a lot of QA and testing time. There's only a limited amount of exposure on the daily releases page, so filling that up with items that sells less is not good marketing (my personal opinion from what I've seen over the years). I would actually be keen to see a separate release section just for texture sets - and bypass the problem of cluttering up the main sales page that way.

As for the cheaper items - keep in mind that while that $1.99 is great for customers - for the PA that is then getting split 50/50 with Daz - which takes it down to $1 per sale. Even at 600 sales you're only getting $600 for several weeks of work. Its simply not worth it. The only time it works is if Daz outright own the item and then eats the costs - which they often do. The Platinum Club can offset that against the subscription money they get, normal PAs don't have that luxury.

Second Life - as far as I know it takes a lot less time to rig outfits for Second Life than for Daz so its possible to sell for cheaper. By the time you fixed all the JCMs and distortions in the full body morphs, as well as making sure the outfit works properly in all poses - a couple of weeks are gone. I often have to make the decision that as much as I would love to add all those open/close morphs, collars popped and down, sleeves rolled up and down - the time is simply not there and I will never recover the cost of another week spent doing that. If I want to keep on making outfits I have to set a cut off point for when I start working at a loss, and instead start working on the next outfit. :)

nonesuch00

MelissaGT said:

SickleYield said:

Noah LGP said:

SickleYield said:

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, lol. https://www.deviantart.com/sickleyield/journal/Why-isn-t-there-more-male-clothing-754344432

dzheng come back because I purchased all the M4/Genesis clothing in 2017.

I think when an artist is talented and creative the risk is lower, the customers support him/her in long term.

The cost of living in the United States for a single person averages around $2800.

And that really depends on where in the country one is...here in Connecticut, once things like rent and food costs come out, that's just not do-able if one wants to live on their own (without family or government assistance). 

Even in urban areas that are considered not expensive in the US, like midwestern cities like Louisville, Cincinatti, Indianapolis, $2800 a month is the aftertax income you need to pay rent in mediocre or even rundown apartments, pay back loans, maintenance, and gas on a vehicle that isn't going to break down on you every other month, all your vehicle, home/renters, dental, vision, and medical insurances, and to eat out while on the job because otherwise you're going to spend the 4 hours you have left of the day after returning home from work cooking that day's supper, and the breakfast and lunch for the following day for almost the entire 4 hours. Life is expensive when you have to pay everybody money just to enable to spend 2/3rds of all your waking hours earning that money for the conveniences that make your spending that 2/3rds of your time working even possible. Cozy bed though when you finally get to it for those 8 hours. It's so expensive and crazy! 

jjmainor

High prices were mentioned in regards to Turboquid.  Some of it is because a lot of artists want their cutomer to be the professional who needs the asset immediately for a corporate project with an unlimited budget.  They want that customer that will buy the first thing they see, and they hope that thing is theirs.  You can't explain why it might be beneficial to sell cheaper to more people because they don't want to listen.  They're the ones whining endlessly about TS putting their stuff on sale, and they've been whining endlessly about their sales falling ever since TS started running sales a couple years ago.  To be fair, some post screenshots of their accounts and they can make decent money doing this, but many don't.

Noah LGP

So there is no option. Create by yourself or convert existing content from Second Life or OBJ from 3D shops.

Conversion is an easier task than start from scratch, Transfer Utility and dForce simulation are good tools.

Mada

Doing it that way is also an opportunity to learn how to rig, build up the skill and software and then eventually sell your creations. :) It is how I started out.

Gordig

If you want male "character actors", figures with interesting faces who are not supermodel beautiful, Kooki99 has been knocking that particular ball out of the park lately. Their female characters are also interesting, but more typically beautiful than their recent male figures. I'd love a female counterpart to Esteban or Joachim. I guess we have Spows for that. Spows women also tend to have atypical body styles, and they've got some good male figures as well.

kyoto kid

...ach, one of the ones I really like in Kooki99's store is the first one (Richard) but he's G8.1 which I don't think will transfer to G3.

maikdecker

Gordig said:

If you want male "character actors", figures with interesting faces who are not supermodel beautiful, Kooki99 has been knocking that particular ball out of the park lately. Their female characters are also interesting, but more typically beautiful than their recent male figures. I'd love a female counterpart to Esteban or Joachim. I guess we have Spows for that. Spows women also tend to have atypical body styles, and they've got some good male figures as well.

Kooki99 has quite a few great male figures... too bad the ones that would interest me - and even come at prices that would put them into my reach - come without textures for the "private parts" (or "anatomical elements") and the conversion program that makes textures out of the torso texture map doesn't seem to work for G8.1 figures... so they end up in the "really nice, but I can't work with them.." category.

frank0314

kyoto kid said:

frank0314 said:

scorpio said:

kyoto kid said:

...the one factor Europe has over the US is better transportation alternatives than the car. So it's quite possible to live in a smaller town with lower costs but still be able to get around.

...

Not neccassarily true at all. I live 7 miles outside a major city and my rents are higher than the city and puplic transport is terribly. Its also very expensive to travel on public transport in the majority of the UK.

Yeah it may be cheaper if you live in the city than the burbs, but how well do you get along with crime which is typically on even given year 300% higher than in the burbs. I'd gladly pay extra for being safe. At one time I had 3 jobs to be able to afford it but it was worth it knowing my family was same. There is only one side of the city here where there is less crime and the crime rate is about 100% more than it is here in the burbs. If I wanted to buy a house here in the burbs I'd pay at min $110,000. In the city the avg going rate is around $35,000-$50,000, why, crime

...sounds totally the opposite form what has been happening here in Portland since the late 90s. Many people on low incomes were pushed out of the central neighbourhoods to the burbs if not even outskirts. With that transition, crime and violence actually increased in a number of suburban areas as gangs re-staked their territories there. In spite of the increase in hearing what sounds like gunfire where I live, it has still been relatively safe compared to what I see on the news in the outer areas..

Part of the recent issue with gangs returning to the central area now and then is that the downtown is still seen by many as a place to avoid unless absolutely necessary That never used to be the case here until all the protests (some which turned violent) peaked in 2020 and homeless issue got out of hand afterwards leaving the city centre looking like a ghost town with boarded up shop fronts and encampments in different areas. .A number of businesses also closed for good due to the pandemic, leaving behind vacant buildings that have become targets for taggers.  None of this is causing a decline in housing costs in the area though (just received notice of a rent increase where I live).

As tough as it is on the budget, I'm consigned to staying where I am as the area has a very high "walkability" rating and transit is very accessible.  Without a car (which I cannot afford on my income) I could never live out in the burbs even here where we have one of the better transit systems in the nation

We just got a rent increase the other day too. Going up $25 again. We'd find somewhere else to go but this company that just bought our complex owns all the complexes in town now.

frank0314

PA's wouldn't be doing this if they were only making $150 on a product that took them a month to make. Out of say for arguments sake a pack made $150, after the big discounts (at min. % on a regular sale) that are now given, the PA gets paid $26 of that $150 for selling 75 units at $1.99. Depending on the item and catagory it's in, 75 can be really hard to get in some catagories. Is that really fair to the PA that just spent a month or more to make that product and only get paid $26? 

cherpenbeck

Glad to hear you like my outfits :) As for your question - if I had to speculate on why the difference in texture sets it would be down to sales. Traditionally texture sets sells about half of what the outfit sells (IF it releases at the same time as the outfit). If the male outfit already sells so much less than the female version, adding a texture set for the amount of sales is not worth it and just fills up a sales slot - its better to just roll it into the main set and make the male set more attractive to users.

 On the other hand, there were several outfits I only bought after seeing the textures packs (sometimes on the other site with R...). The textures sold me the clothing, as the model didn't look attractive enough without. But with the textures- instant buy for both the texture pack and the model.

WendyLuvsCatz

I convert a lot of imported obj files from other sources to DAZ clothing myself

and nearly always male clothes

Noah LGP

WendyLuvsCatz said:

I convert a lot of imported obj files from other sources to DAZ clothing myself

and nearly always male clothes

 

You can also customize the content by removing polygons with the Geometry tool, resizing/adjusting some parts and creating morphs.

At the end you will create something that nobody else have.

richardandtracy

frank0314 said:

PA's wouldn't be doing this if they were only making $150 on a product that took them a month to make. Out of say for arguments sake a pack made $150, after the big discounts (at min. % on a regular sale) that are now given, the PA gets paid $26 of that $150 for selling 75 units at $1.99. Depending on the item and catagory it's in, 75 can be really hard to get in some catagories. Is that really fair to the PA that just spent a month or more to make that product and only get paid $26? 

Talking real numbers here really identifies the scale of the problem - thanks. 75 items sold sometimes being difficult to achieve, and the effect of the depth of discounting on what gets to the PA. Becomes possible to see why on other non DS content sites the model prices are so sky high and why it's unreasonable for PA's living on DAZ income to consider it. Next thing to illustrate it would be the model life plot - here I have no real life data from sales, just experience with freebie download patterns, which are unlikely to be wildly different. In my freebies, I find the download rate drops to a relative trickle after 6 days. If there are 200 in the first six days, there will be 5-6 a day after that, dropping to 1 every 2 days six months in, where it'll tend to stay for over a year.

Here's a graph of some of my cumulative download profiles:

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/uploads/FileUpload/11/e151a917c7571a5153db49cc67e408.png. (For US readers, date format is DD/MM) As can be seen, there is a long tail, bit the angle isn't steep, so the daily download rate isn't high. The biggest predictor of the continuing download rate is the 6 day download quantity, as all the curves seem to follow the same general shape. Predictions taken earlier are less reliable.

BurstAngel

A male 2 or 3 peice suit is very hard to do. After getting back to real life sewing, I started to learn a little about tailoring .... OMG that is a huge rabbit hole. Both male and female tailored clothes have a structure to them, so the dforce suits don't look or hang correctly. but conforming clothes don't move well either.  A realistic 3d suit will most likely need to incorporate both in order to be look right. A good 3 peice is a holy grail for me, I'd pay alot of money for a basic suit and have add-ons for different styles.

Sevrin

Not exactly a clothing item, but why is KA Candy Floss only for G8/8.1F?

richardandtracy

Wearable preset aimed at G8 to fit it to the hand?

maikdecker

Sevrin said:

Not exactly a clothing item, but why is KA Candy Floss only for G8/8.1F?

After reading this thread I can think of several reasons:

• a version for G8/8.1M would have been to time consuming to rig
• a male version would have probably not sale number vs. production cost efficient
• the PA waits for customers to ask for a male version, as they aren't sure that a male version is needed/wanted
• the product is a hidden sarcastic comment on the current social patterns
• the product was supposed to be included in the Non-Fungible Persons Collection, but somehow didn't make the cut and got as a regular product instead
• all of the above

And for me there's also a totally different question about this product: why would people pay money for it?

WendyLuvsCatz

I admit to being confused by that one too considering the exceptional quality of KindredArt's usual products

but don't want to be rude

I do think something is amiss though seeing how Description Needs Description

I have a feeling it was meant to be a DAZ+ freebie 

Timbales

Sevrin said:

Not exactly a clothing item, but why is KA Candy Floss only for G8/8.1F?

This is an example off why the "male content doesn't sell" argument is not all on consumer choice.

AlmightyQUEST

Are you really telling me you would consider that to be "female content"? If it came with a smart prop for Genesis 8 Male and someone came into the thread saying "see, they released male content that matched the female content" would anyone here really say, yes, this is "male content"?

Timbales

AlmightyQUEST said:

Are you really telling me you would consider that to be "female content"? If it came with a smart prop for Genesis 8 Male and someone came into the thread saying "see, they released male content that matched the female content" would anyone here really say, yes, this is "male content"?

What I'm saying is I think this an indication of the lack of interest on DAZ's part to support the male figured they sell. This is a unisex prop that DAZ chose to only have labeled for G8F and G8.1F. the idea that there would be something in the store labeled for men only that is unisex is laughable. They made mustaches and put them on a female figure to promote them.

maikdecker

AlmightyQUEST said:

Are you really telling me you would consider that to be "female content"? If it came with a smart prop for Genesis 8 Male and someone came into the thread saying "see, they released male content that matched the female content" would anyone here really say, yes, this is "male content"?

I think nobody in their right mind would say that. Nonetheless the item - and (probably...) other items in the shop - is (/are) officially "classified" as "female content". Which, when one uses the official classifications to determine the number of male or female items, could lead to slightly wrong numbers in the end. Not many enough, though, to make any changes in the end...

Timbales

If you're filtering by figure, it won't show up. It's not an isolated event, either. I've seen other simple props like this that are unisex but labeled only for female figures. It sends a message, intended or not.