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The problem is that you can't assume that just because an item in on a wishlist that someone will ever buy it. I used to use my wishlist as a place for "items that I might be interested in if they go on sale, but I'm not buying right now." Needless to say, that list got pretty full, pretty quickly, and a lot of those items sat in it for years. From a PAs point of view, it would be like listening how people on the forum keep saying to make more male products, yet the sales numbers never seem to go up.
Instead, what the DAZ sales have trained me to do is to only look at brand new items and those which are on sale. If I'm going through one of those big-uber sale categories, I'll use the wishlist as a temporary holding area while I pop items in and out to see how the work with the stacking discounts. But with a few rare exceptions, I'll then delete all the unbought items once that sale is over.
When I have time, I go through an artist's page and wishlist what I like so when their store goes on sale, I have the little hearts there already. Great to do while waiting in doctor's offices, at the DMV, etc...!
400, Is that all? LOL
If PAs could see the total "hearts" for each product in their store, they would know what is popular. But if they keep doing what is popular, they may not come up with something new and imaginative and be as creative as they could be...
I seem to recall it being said that Daz3D tracks that, not sure if the PA's see that info directly or via being told by Daz3D, but that the rate of wishlist items turning into sales is not that high, so it isn't a very good indicator of what to make.
The fact is, even the primary competition for DAZ3D has sales on products on that site, but the prices, and thus the percentage of the product price that goes to the vendor, are lower there to begin with. And from what I've read from vendors that sell on both sites, the prices on products on the other site don't really help sales as significantly as some buyers would like to believe.
Since several posters in this forum has specifically noted they don't buy unless it's on sale, and are slacking off on their buying because of the higher prices, even with introductory sales, I can't see how this is "speculation as fact."
And yes, Walmart and Target do have the occasional big sales, but you're missing the point. Their overall pricing structure is based on already *discounted* prices, not full list. Sales are on those prices, not an artificially high manufacturer's list. I would have thought the difference here is more than obvious.
Here's the thing: the pricing structure that Daz uses is a corner with paint all around. It's what happens with this model. They can't change it now, because that would be wholly distruptive. So as I said at the start, this is what we got. Get used to it.
Exactly. Some of the most talked about products here have been entirely new ideas, not just rehashes of what's worked before. At a certain point, the PAs -- and Daz, too, as they are the largest provider of product based on total number of items available -- just have to take that leap of faith.
Which is precisely why there are certain things I'm willing to buy when they first come out regardless of the discounts or lack thereof for certain items. I've had to drastically tighten my financial belt in recent months. But, there are just certain items for which I don't think there are enough products and I do my level best to buy them if they are something I really want as soon as possible regardless of discounts. It happened just this week, a product came out by a vendor that I love who makes great products and while I enjoy using the versions he makes for the females, when he makes something for use with the males, I have to snap it up. I want to make sure my sale counts as a vote so that he, hopefully, continues to make more products for the males and I know that may not happen if I wait until it is no longer new and goes in Fast Grab or some other sale down the road! I'm sure in a few weeks that product will be significantly cheaper, but, if I wait, the next time we beg him to have a comparable item for the men, he might not think the numbers are there to make it so I buy it now and I send a message that, yes, this is something that was needed and that I want more products for the men. Hopefully, there are enough people doing the same so the numbers are where they should be to send that message.
+1
And I think I know exactly which product you're talking about! (Went in my cart immediately, bought and downloaded earlier today.)
Probably! It's downloaded, but I haven't used it yet! I'm sure it will get some use tomorrow, though!
To me, Daz list prices make perfect sense as a good deal - if you are using them in a commercial capacity, i.e. taking full advantage of the licences offered. For those that are only using items in a hobbyist manner, we have to wait a bit for the same things but then pick them up at very nice discounts if we pick and choose our timing carefully, putting them into hobbyist pricing ranges. Since there's always something on sale, and pretty much everything is on sale sooner or later, it mostly works out.
Seems like a great tradeoff to me.
(The same sort of theory works for PCs: if you are trying to buy the latest high end pieces then of course you are going to be priced out. Building a midrange system via parts works out many times cheaper, and many of the jumps in generations haven't actually helped much so would be money wasted.)
I think that the biggest problem with high base prices and deep discounts pricing model is, that high base prices scare away new customers. When average joe takes a look at the shop, it really gets scary. I'm afraid that after that first look in the shop lots of potential customers leave and never look back. Over $100 for pro-bundles, $20+ for dresses etc. is just too deep price for most hobbyist. I haven't been here for that long yet, so I remember that feeling really well. Remember that new customers have no knowledge of stacking discounts, frequent -50% Daz Originals offers, march madness or PC+ memberships or anything like that, they just look at the $.
Also I honestly think that some items are priced just crazy. For example something like $20 for pair of earrings sounds ridiculous to me, when I can get Stonemason set for $35. Of course, now that I've spent more time here, I know that I can get that pair of earrings for $5 eventually, by stacking discounts etc., but I still just don't understand what's the point of pricing yourself out of the market? By the time that product's price drops to reasonable levels. there's been several competitors released, and if the customer buys any of those, original PA get nothing. I mean zero, nothing, nil, zilch. I think that if the price the customers are willing to pay is $5, the base price should be around $7-8. It's close enough, so that customers grumble and moan a little, but many will pay it. If not this month, then they can save some and get it next month. Also you don't need constant marketing gimmicks to do sales. Now that the base price is $20, customer and vendor are so far apart, that there's no chance of making that sale without massive discounts.
All and all, I'm not an economist or anything, but I think that high base prices slows customer base growth, which is never a good thing, and double harmful if you are dealing in a niche market in the first place. But now that Daz have already taught their existing customers to hunt and stack discounts, I have no idea how Daz could change this behavior anymore. Old habits die hard, and by that I mean, at first we would be thrilled to get those earrings for $7 when they are released, but how long would it take before we would return to our old habits? I won't buy anything unless it's -50% etc...
I try to look the product and $ instead of %, but I too fall for great discounts every now and then. I have to admit, that I buy products that I have very little use for when there's nice campaign and I can get it really cheap, so I suppose that current pricing model kinda works too. Personally I think the prices are above my price-limits, so I try to hunt discounts and make good deals that way. I only buy new products if I have immediate use for them, otherwise they go to wish list or I just forget them completely.
That's a good point. I'm very used to hunting and stacking discounts, but when I first looked at the site I was initially turned off and spent quite a bit of time figuring out what generation to buy into and what one or two things I could buy for it to actually be worth it, etc. I bet many don't even spend that much time and just leave. Maybe the hope is that they instead don't think and click buy, but many won't.
It'd probably help if commercial and personal licencing were priced separately, though I suspect that might be considered "too complicated" to put into effect - or not really viable.
Few years ago, when I started learning Blender, I watched Vids (mainly by Jonathon Williamson) made some notes of the shortcuts he was using as they came up; a lot of what one does, will be a relatively small number of shortcuts. This means adding new ones will be simpler as they appear.
I'm spending way less (some of the reasons I've explained elsewhere) but certainly price is having an affect. One aspect in Daz's favour. The refund policy makes it less (much less) of a risk, and so has on occasions encouraged me to buy something to try. Generally I like to come to the Forums for input first as I prefer not to return.
There's a thread at rendo; and one here. Also a forum for it at rendo too.
My understanding is the bridge for Daz Sudio and Carrara are both in private beta.
I hear that.
I've seen this before, and ignored it; this time however, I'm commenting as I feel there is a slight contradiction here; or something that makes my 'something is wrong' bump itch. :)
- Sales outside of a certain period are ignored.
- Later data is not ignored, but it isn't as useful or timely; this is the contradiction, and in part it relates to the first too.
Perhaps better information, not data; data is useless until it has been processed into information. Further, how it's processed can affect results, and miss highlighting important information.
I imagine that there would need to be a long period of time of collecting wishlist data to turn it into useful information; I further spectulate that there would be a need to tailor the data-processing according to the individual wishlists. I bet it would be really useful to have, but the amount of effort might be beyond Daz's resources.
Many large companies have more data than they can effectively process.
Mine never goes above 100; I keep it for items I expect to buy within 6 months. I frequently 'down-size' it.:) Yes, delete items from it.
I'll compare items from vendors and decide if I want both, as an example, or if only one will do.
I keep wishlist large just so when sales come up I can easily glance at my wishlist and see if any 'stuff I'd like to get someday' happen to be part of a deep discount.
As for turning away new customers... I don't know, the fact that DS is _free_ is a huge turnon. And having a large forum section outlining all the free stuff you can find.
I sometimes wonder how far I could get relying on freebies and stuff I made myself.
Studio being free (along with Genesis bases) is pretty key - I feel like what isn't highlighted nearly enough is how far you can get with just the free starters and the Body and Head Morph kits. From my experience at least, I only discovered those parts later on after I'd bought a pro bundle and a bunch of other things. You could probably make a lot more using only the morph kits and things like Zev0s utilities than you could buying a few different finished characters (you still need textures though.)
That said, it really depends on what your goals are. Finished characters are great if someone just wants a character to fill a slot without the time investment of making their own exactly to their own specifications etc. For myself these days I am hesitent to use characters like Victoria etc. because they are so recognisable as those characters, and would rather use custom morphs, which you can set up a decent collection of relatively cheaply even today.
It's really only if you are going off either wanting all the new things or whatever the front page throws at you that you won't be set up particularly well for value etc. I think.
DAZ has actually tried the "lower base price and less sales" strategy for a while a few years ago. Since they went back to the "sales of the time" strategy my guess is that it wasn't as successful as they hoped....
As if being an economist would lend credence to your predictions? Practitioners of Voodoo could learn a few things from economists.
Although I admit there is a difference. Economists wear suits instead of feathers.
Good to know. I can definitely see it working better overall - though I think that it's still valid that it's bad for newcomers that don't know better, when you're desperately trying to bring new people in.
Yeah, I see how that could sound contradictory. No sale is ever ignored. We (PAs in the general sense) do look at long term sales data. Let's say:
"Sales outside of a certain period are not very influential to the PA in determining what products they should make more of."
"Later data is not ignored, but it isn't as useful or timely to the PA in determining what products should be worked on next."
Which goes back to my point that there is a reason to buy products on release, if you want to see more things like it. How motivating and impactful that reason is, is up to everyone to decide for themselves.
The main problem with the "lower price and less sales" strategy is that when an item's price doesn't change you have less incentive to buy it right now rather than later (unless you really need it right now, of course).
DAZ had the same problem with PC items before they introduced PC+: items were always $1.99, even on release, so people had a tendency to think "I'll buy it later if I need it, it will still be $1.99".
Right and I shop that way too. What I'm saying is that the problem I see for new hobbyist customers is not really knowing about the system that we all know about, and so wind up intimidated off the bat by new product prices. It's not really an easy thing to fix though I don't think? It's not like you can put a banner up saying "hey don't buy stuff now wait for later" xD
Then again PAs all seem the most focused on their new release sales so there must be plenty of people buying that way, even if the forums mostly suggest otherwise.
Right, PAs are focused on the new release more than anything. I don't think anyone goes into the process of making a new product hoping it will sell 500 copies in two years, and be fine with only 20 copies on intro. That is not a sustainable way to run a business. Only those with very large back catalogs, or other sources of income, could afford to do it anyway. Some PAs will even pull new products from their catalog if the intro sales were bad, so those products don't even get the chance to see how well they might have done over the long term. Here is the funny thing though, the products that seem to have the most staying power over the long term, are also the ones that sold well on intro.
Again, I'm not judging anyone's buying habits. I've bought stuff on intro as a "more like this, please" vote, and I've also wishlisted things for a sale. I definately understand that 3D rendering, as a hobby, can be very expensive and some people have no choice except to wait for extreme sales.
I'm not sure it was so much a strategy as going with the market norms of the time. We now live in a world where there's one less major 3D assets player, so the competition has narrowed. Higher prices are expected in such a situation, and that seems what we have. There are now many single products coming out in the $40-60 range, whereas not long ago, this was the rare exception, and primarily the domain of multi-product bundles.
Sales strategies must be constantly retested, or they cease to be of value. That's been my point: how to Daz retest this stuff? They can't easily do blind A-B tests with a random selection of customers. Some of them will compare pricing here on the forum.
I'm actually not all that adverse to price high/sell for less as a general concept, but I personally dislike the gimmicks. I tend to just ignore them, and look for the straight deals. It's how I operate my professional life, and I prefer it in return.
It's pretty obvious when you lay it out like that: a good product is a good product, new or old, so looking at something that did badly early and saying "that probably won't do well later" is usually going to be fairly accurate.
I get the idea of buying to vote for more of that content, but I'm in the camp of "tiny tiny budget" - I don't object to any of the prices; I simply can't afford them. I like the big sale system because it lets me still get things eventually, and since for me the choice is buy discounted or don't buy at all, the end result is positive for PAs anyway.