March Madness ain’t. . .
cclesue
Posts: 420
. . .fun like it used to be. . .
It’s just another clearance sale where the DAZ folks are doing the same old same old. Way back before the Hivewire folks deserted, March Madness was a hoot!! Way back then I guess, the “Nordstrom style” folks took over the J. C. Penneys of Poserdom and the neighborhood store became a big-box sort of thing ruled by big city marketing rather than the local merchant that had his finger out to measure the wind. Heck I remember the day when I was just getting started with DAZ, back when the first thing I bought was the Mill Dragon figure seen below. I was having trouble with the whole Poser thing so I went down to SLC and walked in (no receptionist) and asked a bunch of guys huddled around a table (hashing out the future of DAZ no doubt) where I could get some help. They laughed and pointed out a guy back off in his own little cubby. He immediately dropped what he was doing and gave me twenty minutes, helped me much, and invited me back “anytime”. I should point out that his project at the time was the very beginnings of DAZ Studio.
Can’t do that sort of stuff now. Have a problem, start a ticket, and wait in line that is getting increasingly long, sorry to say.
Anyway back to March Madness perhaps the merchandizers need to go back and review the Madness “way back when”. Back before DAZ&Company became The DAZ Corp. Sadly, I’m betting, too few remember those days.
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Comments
Seems to me that most of the prices in March Madness, just dropped the new items down to the normal new sale prices from six months ago. Prices have gone up several dollars per item from what I can see. I don't begrudge the vendors a pay raise, I am sure they totally deserve it. But its just not what I would call a Madness sale.
It's still ealy in the sale, but it does feel like a really tepid start compared to previous years. I'm espcially disappointed by the fact that the main promotion... get a free G3 base figure... hasn't changed after four straight days. It's a great deal if you don't already have them, but for those us who do, it's getting rather tedious.
I remember those day and back then there were many really crazy deals and antics. The deals were so wild that sometimes I wondedered how DAZ managed to stay in business; and the crazy deals weren't just glitches either. It was great fun !
Still waiting for Darius 7 to show up in that list of core figures! Why is he not included??
Sales seem to me to be aimed toward newer content buyers than old timers like me. I have a lot of stuff so I'm more picky about what I buy.
Since the deals on older stuff of 40-50% is pretty ordinary, whilst the same deal for new stuff is better than normal, it could be argued that it is more aimed at long term buyers than newbies. Newbies have little, so want stuff cheap, regardless of if the item is actually new or not. Old timers generally have most of what they want from the back catalogue and are thus looking for new stuff (albeit they are much more picky, as you said)
Good point. For me, it's more a matter of want vs need. I may want a lot of the pretties, but I don't exactly need them in a way newer users might.
Biggest gap in my runtime at the moment is Genesis 3 (not too interested in Genesis 8), so tasty deals on that content is going to catch my attention. Darius 7 is at the top of my want list for G3, which is mostly why I'm here whining about his absence.
At least they haven't started off with another of those checkbox promotions. Most of the customers hated those, and they would give them up after about the first week. (But the people who played along got to keep the extra discount for the duration of the sale.)
yes, I'm so glad they did away with those daily stacking discounts.
I own all the gen 7 base figures except for the Thorne ones which I don’t want.. I’m afraid bonus sales don’t really have much to offer....
It's so true that you can't make everyone happy, LOL.
Based on previous MM sales, I am only expecting some new content, not crazy giveaway prices. I am on vacation starting Sunday with a nice bonus burning a hole in my virtual wallet and I bought 6 items today, so I am content with what MM brings at this point.
There's year-round madness nowadays; so, it takes a lot more to make March stand out. There are two-hour "glitch" sales that are crazy enough for me. But the good old days of personal help and pointers from Chris are gone. Still, there are a lot of things that have improved greatly (just not tech support).
I've been buying the new character bundle deals. ..
I now have Edward 8 in my cart ..with 3 cheaper add-ons to provide discount, and 3 G3 pro bundles ... only problem, the PC+ coupons do not work, either of them ... but its a much better deal than anything madness so far. Like many, i just buy what looks cool ..I don;t need anything at this point in my buying splurges, having purchased so much I couldn't use it all in my lifetime even if I tried real hard.
Bad thing is that if I buy the Edward deal, that is it for me until April. Unless there is something way discounted, 70-90% off, I doubt I can afford anything at all during the lack of madness sales.
Yes, as has been pointed out, basically the same deals occur everyday at DAZ anymore. So far, madness is just like every day at DAZ., so to be mad, it has to be greater than 70% off for sure.
I agree on the everyday sales scenario making us really jaded with discounts. As for the 70% off, I can't see that being feasible without PAs packing up their stores and going elsewhere or quitting altogether.
Even Rendo has lowered the discounts they used to have, wonder what the factors are behind that.
Last year's extra discount on old items was a good idea I think. It gave a great discount, but not on every item, just old ones that probably don't sell too well anymore anyway. Such sales increase the income of the PAs, I think, even though it's a huge discount.
40 to 50% off for new items seems okay-ish to me.
But as a newcomer, it's kinda hard to understand why stuff for ancient figures (Vicky 4 and Genesis) has still basic prices way up in the clouds. Yes, of course, that stuff can still be used...but for someone who just started recently, it means to get away from the "easy living" of the more modern figures and start digging for tips how to make that old stuff work. In some cases, that's probably about half as much as building that item from scratch (...at least for a newbie), but still those things cost as much as the newer stuff...
Recently there was this "get x items and each reduces the cost by 10%" for Vicky 4/Genesis Generation stuff, which was a great deal for OLD stuff.
So, for a newbie like me, there would be quite a lot of old stuff that would be interesting... if it would come for a decent price. But 40 or 50% off for a Genesis item that might or might not work properly on G3/G8 figures doesn't sound that interesting, when the base price is $ 20.- or more...
So right now, nothing mad about the march yet..
Ditto. The only Genesis 3 figure I don't have is Sunny (and don't want...already have like three or 4 other G3 Thorne figures that all look alike...lol).
Men. I want men. Men men men men, manly men men men.....
;)
cclesue, I miss those time as well. Please remember the vendors or PAs, are still Moms and Pops trying to keep our small business alive. Daz has grown and yes they have changed in many ways but Studio is still one of the best and fastest programs out there for what we do. And it has been maintained far more than other programs with new features and updates. Best of all it's still 100% free!
But I know what you mean about prices, they have gone up. Some so much I pass on things need, at least until I can't do without. I really hope everyone can find at least one thing during the sale that gives you back that old feeling.
Well, first of all, it's a proven fact that people are far more likely to buy something with a high price tag that's been heavily marked off "on sale" than the identical item at the same rate as the "regular" price. JCPenny's learned that lesson the hard way with their recent experince in trying to convert to a "low everyday price" model. Hence, DAZ's policy of keeping the suggested prices high and running constant crazy sale prices makes sense.
Beyond that, as far as the V4/M4 generation goes, you have to remember that those "ancient" figures are still the go-to character bases for a large percentage of the people who use Poser rather than DAZ studio. For those folks, all that older product is still the "state of the art", so even if DAZ isn't making new items, they still have a large market to sell to. As for Genesis, it's a bit pushing to call that one "ancient" tech given that it's only seven years old, and the single major technical innovation that's occured since Genesis original launch, Iray, is something that can added on to any item with the addition of a shader. More importantly, there are still things that unisex nature of Genesis makes simplee that aren't as quick and easy to acheive with the newer generations of figures, features that are especially useful if you're into crowd generation or creature creation.
I have many fond memories of the old Daz. I stumbled upon Bryce in 2006 because I wanted to learn how to make sci-fi themed desktop wallpaper. I downloaded Daz Studio 1.0 shortly after and that was it for me. I loved the sales back then because they were straight forward, no-strings-attached propositions. You were never required to buy an over-priced item or items in order to qualify for a sale price on the item you really wanted. Since this marketing strategy has become the norm, I have bought much less. I just find it irritating and choose not to participate most days. I also remember being thrown a store voucher whenever the local college basketball team won a game! The flow of new products into the store was slower back then as well. While I haven't been happy with the store for quite some time, the technology has improved dramatically and thus the quality of the renders and the shortening of the work flow. So I guess I take the bad with the good. Would never want to give up features like auto-fit, subD, smoothing modifier, install manager, iray and dforce.
Huh. Faveral's Medieval City is *that* old? Sure holds up well for its age. I still use pieces of it from time to time.
My biggest complaint is that these sales almost always offer bonuses I already own. Oh look, get a new figure ... too bad, I them all already. I do know that DAZ throws those of us who regularly spend our money with them a bone every once in awhile for purchasing a lot, but it does get annoying that are bonuses but you don’t get one. There has to be a way to give people bonuses based on content they don’t own.
J
March Madness 2007 was a good one
got the attic entertainment room for just over $3 there was a message only specific buyers got it cheaper probably cause bought stuff day before and there was another item that day got cheaper cause bought other stuff
And I always thought computer years were like dog years, with one being equal to seven human years...
I also always love "proven facts", as they show so great differences to personal experience so often. So it's a proven fact that people rather have a 40% discount on a $ 30.- item they don't need, than a 20% discount on a $ 5.- item they don't need either? In my experience, people are rather willing to spend a smaller amount for something they buy with an "I don't really need it, but for that price I'll take it anyway" attitude, especially, when for the same amount of money they would have to spend for the expensive one, they would get a couple not really needed cheap items...
Of course, as long as there is a need for those ancient figures and stuff DAZ will have no need to lower the prices. That just makes those items less desirable for those people, who don't really need them, but might want to buy them anyway, if they were cheaper. As those wares are purely digital and need no materials to be produced, they nonetheless would be the perfect example of "how to make more money by selling a product cheaper" as the number of potential - "I don't really need it, but it's so cheap I buy it anyway" - customers might be a lot bigger than the number of people buying it on a high price.
In the end, it makes no difference for me for three reasons:
Oh yeah, the "cycle of pain" that was MM in years past. Scads of items for a buck or less.I miss the super cheap deals, but I know Daz is doing the best with the resources on hand.
Yes. You're trying to think it through locigally, but purchase decisions aren't based on logic, and you're looking at it from a customer standpoint and not the vendors. You think "I want this and I'd buy more if it were cheaper" but the store doesn't care about that, all they want to know is "how do I make the most money overall?" The relative value of the Everyday Low Price Vs. the Deep Discount strategy of maintining a high Price and running lots of high percentage point sales, has been a major point of research among retailers for many years and there's a lot of data to back up the benefits of methods. ELP works best when the product being sold is an openly available generic commodities with a wide general demand (like bread or apples) where there is a constant steady demand, especially when there are multiple vendors selling what is essentially the same product. In this case there is an advantage to maintaining a lower price across the board as the goal is simply to get people into your store vs. the competitors. However, as the items become more individualized and unique to a given vendor, studies show that a low everyday price actually reduces demand for the item for a variety of reasons, the most common two of which can be summed up as "that's pretty cheap already and I'd only save a small amount even when it is on sale, so I'll wait to buy until I actually need it" and "that's so cheap compared to other, similar products, so there must be something inferior about it or something much, much better than the other ones." See: http://independentretailer.com/2016/08/18/deep-discounts-or-everyday-low-prices-which-strategy-do-consumers-prefer/ if you want a more in-depth explanation.
As a simplified example, however, consider that a basic 7 pair package of men's Fruit of the Loom briefs sells less than $10 at any WalMart while Duluth Trading sells a pair of their "Buck Naked" brand of similar briefs for nearly $20 ($19.50! Each!!) The WalMart Fruit of the Loom model works only because people are in WalMart all of the time anyway buying bread, apples, ammo for their assault rifles... things that people have to buy on a weekly basis... so WalMart counts on the fact that those apple eating gun enthusiasts might pick up a package of underwear at the same time, especially if it's out on the end of a counter in a big dump bin with a happy face sign showing the price. However, Wlamarts profit on those briefs is going to be extremely slight and they have to sell a lot of them to make the amount of profit that Duluth makes selling a single pair. And even if Walmat runs those briefs for 50% off, the perceived savings is only $5.00 total, or less than a dollar per brief.
Duluth Trading, on the other hand, runs a very focused business model that's much more like DAZ's... they sell a highly specialized product and to make a sale people have to make a concious decision to visit their store. If Duluth used the everyday low price model and priced their briefs at $2.00 each, most people would look at what they have, think... okay, I know what they've got and maybe I'll come back the next time I need underwear. If they're hardcore undewear enthusiasts they might come back every week or so to see what the latest releases in Boxer fashion is, but there'd certainly be little incentive for those people to go through the full DT store catalog every time. Or they might just buy it at WalMart because it happens to be convenient and, hey, underwear is underwear.
Instead, by running regular ads and promotions for high discount sales on a limited number of products with a higher perceived value... like today they've got those same $19.50 briefs on sale for just $12.99 and the $24.50 Boxers on sale for $13.99... that's a significant discount and a strong incentive to go to DT buy boxers NOW! And, needless to say, the customer's perception is actually that they're "saving" more buying one pair of DT briefs than they are buying 7 pairs of Fruit of the Looms. It's sounds illogical but as the recent JC Penny's debacle proved rather conclusively, that really is the way people think.
+1
Instead of it only happening twice a year, its now year 'round. So instead of saving up for two big sales, we're spending more all year.
Can we change that to "the way some people think", because although I'm not to happy about it, I also belong in the global category "people" and I definately do not think so. Like, for example, I don't buy at Wallmart, which can easily be explained by the fact, that there is none close to where I live. But even if there was, I wouldn't, as I prefer quality local food products and do my clothes shopping, whenever something I usually wear is degraded/damaged enough to be replaced, on the interwebz. And for the new clothes, I have my favourite internet shop, where I know the price and quality of the product suit my budget and taste.
Yeah, I am a special snowflake... german, old and seeing advertisement only as a way to amuse me, but not as something to give me information about what's the best to buy...
What counts in the end - for me, personally - is that my money stays where it is when the offer doesn't fit my needs/budget/etc.
I shop wherever things are least expensive. I will buy things at Walmart, target or sears wherever I get a deal. I live in a wealthy area and can not afford boutique prices.