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Poser - OFFICIAL F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2024 Nov 26 6:57 am)
Subject: Anton, I know you are here somewhere!!
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You can only buy platinum club only products if you are a platinum club member. You can't use vouchers to buy platinum club products. You can only use vouchers to buy Daz original products (not stuff brokered for anyone else) However, if you do have a platinum club membership, you get a discount on the Daz original item which is applied even if you pay with a voucher instead of real money. (I had a voucher from a competition myself the other day, so I had to check) Hope that helps, Shanna :-)
Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com
Boy, that is awfully confusing isn't it? Well, I've corrected the gif for now so that you won't be confused anymore. ;) That product CAN be bought with normal vouchers. It cannot be purchased using a Platinum Club Voucher (meaning the $5 voucher Platinum club members get if they're on the new $7.95 per month payment plan). Hope that helps clear things up. Steve Kondris DAZ Productions, Inc.
And Anton, could you also tell Daniel to please put the Koshini and Ichiro gudes up when you get a chance? I feel like it's been forever since I made them and no one's been able to download them yet. Even Littlefox said she'd write to him and still nothing. Thanks. :) SnowS
my DeviantArt page: http://snowsultan.deviantart.com/
Â
I do not speak as a representative of DAZ, I speak only as a long-time member here. Be nice (and quit lying about DAZ) and I'll be nice too.
Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=1316691
"*68. Back to your Questions,.. by SKondris on 7/3/03 11:48 Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com Ok, we're about to send out a newsletter promoting the new setup and all the additional privileges gained by having a Platinum Club Membership. If you want to be up on all the latest happenings with DAZ, or get the first scoop on upcoming products, or have full-access to a Members Only Gallery and lots more, then becoming (or staying) a Platinum Club Member is a must for you. The new setup is going to destroy the barrier to entry of $100 that's always been a problem in the past. No one will have to save up $100 to become a member any longer. We feel that's a huge benefit to many of our customers. The ability to pay a much smaller monthly fee of $7.95 a month is much easier for most people to handle in our current economy - if you take advantage of the monthly $5 voucher, than your monthly fee drops to $2.95 a month. It doesn't get much cheaper than that, folks. :)...*" This would be the post I'm referring to; and the source of my confusion over the difference in the vouchers.
Ah, I see how that could be easily misunderstood. In that post I was trying to illustrate how the monthly fee of $7.95 is diminished by the $5 voucher value if you actually use it to buy some products. That's $5 that you wouldn't otherwise have, etc. But I did not mean it to sound as if those $5 vouchers could be used on the monthly payment itself. The Vouchers are only good on DAZ Original products, not on the platinum club membership, just like always. Sorry for any confusion, Momcat. Steve
Steve, Why are you restricting the $5 platinum club vouchers? Since they expire monthly it doesn't seem likely that they will be useful for long unless you're planning on releasing a whole lot of new DAZ Original low cost items outside of the Platinum Club. Having these be restricted against purchasing Platinum Club items makes them a whole lot less attractive of a proposition. Why not just let people use them as vouchers period? I understand needing to restrict them to DAZ Original Content, but the way you seem to indicate that it works now means a PC member will almost always have to spend extra money to use the $5 time limited voucher every month. That just seems like manipulative marketing hype and leaves a bit of a sour taste in one's mouth. It's awfully convenient to be able to say 7.95 per month but you get 5.00 back in the form of a voucher so it really only costs you 2.95! Except since the vouchers are so limited that they will often not be useful to members it's not really like getting 5.00 back. For a company that otherwise seems so good to their customers, I don't understand the need to restrict the vouchers in this manner especially when it comes off leaving customers feeling manipulated like this does. In case you're taking note of customer opinion, obviously I vote for not restricting the new PC monthly vouchers against DAZ Original PC items. Let a credit from DAZ be useful against any DAZ item. If you can't get around this restrictive PC voucher thing then at least don't have them expire at the end of the month so people can save them up and get something worthwhile outside of the PC without having to spend extra to use the vouchers. My .02 Frank
I'd suggest renaming the vouchers to avoid confusion. The Platinum Club vouchers don't work on Platinum Products. Ick! Talk about confusing people! Perhaps you could have 2 different namesfor the vouchers. DAZ vouchers - good on any DAZ original products no matter where in the site they are, and DAZ Premiere vouchers - good on any DAZ original items in the Premiere section. If you're part of the Plat Club, you get the DAZ Premiere vouchers. Contests, etc. earn you the regular DAZ vouchers. I will admit, I really don't like the quick expiration on the vouchers you get from the monthly Plat Club fee. Some months there aren't that many DAZ original items released in the Premiere area. Again, I'd like to see some of the Plat Club items also offered in the Premiere area at higher prices. Or you could do what you did originally, offer the entire set in the Premiere area, and smaller sets in the Plat Club. Even if you bought it all in the Plat area, you still saved vs. buying in the Premiere area. (The fairy wing texture sets, for example.) This not only gives the Plat people a way to use the vouchers if it's a light month for DAZ original Premiere items, but it makes it more likely that people without a Plat membership will have some of the Plat items so people who make add-ons for the items will have a bigger audience. Cheers! And go home - it's past your bedtime! ;-)
There was intended to be a new type of voucher for use in Premier and Special Interest that new PC members would recieve monthly and a free bonus if customers felt they wanted to use them. These new class of vouchers were accidently set to be usuable on PC items mistakenly, turning almost three out of four new items in the PC each month into frebbies. this was never intended for obvious reasons. Standard Daz vouchers are still usable as they have in the past. I caught this mistake after the misinformation was already communicated but the weekend had begun already and the staff had left. What some of you are now seeing is that the programmer has reset the new monthy Bonus vouchers to work in the stores there were originally intended being Premier and Special Interest. Regards, Anton Content Creator Daz3d Platinum CLub --------------------------------- My sole job is to make stuff for the Platinum CLub. Though I may do some items for Premier like I did for V3, all PC items are exclusively PC. The "in-house" production team supllies Premier.
-Anton, creator of
ApolloMaximus: 32,000+ downloads
since 3-13-07
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the
face of truth is concealment."
Anton, Are you saying that the ability to use DAZ vouchers for DAZ Original Platinum Club items negatively impacts your compensation? If so, I see the need to restrict them. If not, I still see no reason to restrict them. The PC certainly turns out much more than four items per month and the key word in almost three out of four is "almost." It would only be two "freebies" per month and the marketing hype would have us believe that they aren't really free - we're paying 7.95 per month to get them. Anyway, if the concept of the new PC vouchers being usable in the PC negatively impacts your compensation plan, then at least they could do away with the time limit or extend it to 6 months or something to make the PC vouchers truly useful. Frank
I wish you would put a voucher faq section on your site. I recently got a $50 voucher from a competition and was told I could not use it to buy platinum club stuff at all, but only Daz original products from the Premier section. As it happened, I didn't have Vickie (but I do now and was very glad to have my pc discount thank you :-)) so I was happy to get her this way. I've still got about $5 hanging around because I couldn't spend any more this month. What kinds of vouchers you do, and what they are good on would be a useful bit of information to have on site. Different names would be good as well. Shanna :-)
We do turn out more than 4 but usually only 3 or four are Daz items. the others are brokered for the texture artists Lisa, Merrilyn, Moyra, or Laurie. They are exclusive to the PC but are still brokers. The free monthy $5 vouchers can't be used in the PC cause it turns 2 items into freebies. This is way too much. A Voucher is never intended to make an item a freebie..not to even mention two items or more. The Vouchers are indeed useful. There are lots of things in the Premier area that are Daz made and people don't own. They may be buried under brokered products but they are in there. The only reason there are so many PC items is because I and Michael Lane are making them. We don't get help from the Premier Production Team. If we stopped to make items for Premier we loose time making for PC So basically if you want more Premier items that will just mean me taking an item I would normally provide to you for $1.99 and making it up to $24.95 in Premier so you can use your $5 voucher. The vouchers are mmade to expire becuase they would be too powerful if they stacked. Daz's products are extremely complex to make. And Daz' low prices, $1.99 downloads, freebies. storwide sales etc are already all extremey generous. The site must remain profitable. Despite what some would love to have you believe, the entire community customer base is now well below 10,000 people. The idea that there are 100,000 peole out there is not true. When i was a broker I was fortunate enough to be the highest selling broker in the community. The most of any one item I have sold to day is around 4000. Most people never ever break 500 for one item. There are those that do but there are fewer than 12 brokers in the community that do out of 100's that make products.. I know people what more and more coupons and cheaper and cheaper products but there becomes a point when you end up going to low and cripple your business. I know everone has there own ideas on what they think would be "best". Though things may seem unorganized right now, trust me. I got your back. Just go Platinum and stay Platinum and your world will rock dispite what some would say. Anyway, just wanted to explain the "why" to how things work the way they do. It just comes down to limits. As a broker I did very well with my $59.95, $49.95, and $39.95 products. I find it hard to believe there is still an issue being raise that people are being cheated by paying $1.99 regardless of the menbership. Regards, Anton Content Creator Daz3d Platinum CLub ---------------------------------------- Crescent, The forums became too hostile for me after awhile so I pulled away. As a result I think communication has suffered. Unfortuantely there has been some poor communication of misinformation I am desperately trying to get corrected. Frank, There are restrictions because the products have to generate a profit.
-Anton, creator of
ApolloMaximus: 32,000+ downloads
since 3-13-07
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the
face of truth is concealment."
OK. I understand what you're saying Anton. I'm not looking for everything to be free and I'd absolutely rather see DAZ stay in business. It just seems like an odd way to handle things by having multiple types of vouchers, etc. I'd still like to see the time limit on the PC vouchers extended at least a little bit. Keep up the good work. Best, Frank
Anton, Some of us understand deflation. It is a terrible downward spiral. If people expect prices to keep dropping until products are free, or nearly so, they don't purchase anything. If nobody purchases, businesses go... drumroll... out of business. Japan has been in such deflationary doldrums for maybe 3 years, and even the global economics experts can't figure a way out of it. The US is set for deflation as a whole. I've been watching it happen here in the communities: a steady erosion of prices for months now as people expect more freebies, more things cheaper, and more sales. If one merchant puts her entire store on sale for 20% off, another will put his store at 25% off. And so it goes until nobody can earn enough to pay for the cost of making and hosting these items. A couple of years ago, it was rare to have more than a hundred items on sale in the Marketplace... now there are 661 items, which is far too many to search through... and this is after the warehouse and culling by staff of those things which don't sell. IIRC, there was more than a thousand sale items in there just a few weeks ago. :( The worst part is that folks now think that a couple of dollars is a fair price to pay for an item. The Platinum Club at $1.99, PhilC at $2.99, RDNA at $2.50, and PoserPros at $2.49 all contain special items made for that price, and dependent upon volume. In the retail world, they are "loss leaders" and "special values" designed to get people inside a store to shop for other merchandise too. If I bought a promotional teakettle at Macy's for $5, would I expect everything in the store to be sold for that price? No! Every item has a different maker and a different production cost. That same paradigm translates to these online stores. Even if every item is ultimately vertices in virtual space, the time, care, experience of crafting that item varies, and has a value. It would be terrible if greed and shortsightedness brought down an industry where we know most of the producers and distributers. Carolly
Well, gripe about lowered prices all you want. There is still only X amount of dollars to spend by everyone whether the prices are high or low. It is a buyer's market out there. Best quality at the best price will win out as always. The only thing that will happen is, as in any market situation, the merchants who don't sell enough will eventually drop out. Then there will be fewer products and the prices will eventually creep up. As for the voucher thing, DAZ took a simple concept (the Platinum Club) and has now complicated it beyond reason IMHO. I plan to go for the one shot renewal and let everyone else worry about their monthly charges and vouchers.
Personally, I pretty much have all of the daz stuff from the premiere section that I want. Anything I don't have is stuff I likely would never use anyway. Sooo...unless Daz is planning to put out a new item in the Premiere and Special interest categories each and every month, the $5 voucher is a throw-away for me. By that token, if I decide to renew my PC membership when it comes due, I'll be using the "pay all at once" option. If that option isn't available for some reason (don't see why it wouldn't be, but you never know, weirder stuff has happened) then I doubt I would renew. Kate (who really is NOT very happy with places that keep her CC info on file, especially online)
I would suggest allowing the 5 dollar vouchers to be good for at least 45 days, so that there is a little overlap. If there's something in the Premiere section that costs $29.95 I'd be a lot more likely to buy it if I had $10 in vouchers. :)
Calypso Dreams... My Art- http://www.calypso-dreams.com
{{{{The worst part is that folks now think that a couple of dollars is a fair price to pay for an item. The Platinum Club at $1.99, PhilC at $2.99, RDNA at $2.50, and PoserPros at $2.49 all contain special items made for that price, and dependent upon volume. In the retail world, they are "loss leaders" and "special values" designed to get people inside a store to shop for other merchandise too.}}}} The invention of the Platinum Club did indeed change the Poser Economics landscape, and from the perspective of a site owner, store manager, and also production artist, it is for the worse. When prices were set at 1.99 in the Platinum Club, with the clear apparent motive of driving other businesses literally out of business perhaps if they could not compete, it HAS indeed forced other businesses to either find a way to meet those prices, or come as close as possible, or slowly starve to death. Perhaps the idea was that Daz has deep pockets due to many years of business, and so can outlast, outwit, outplay the other brokerages long enough to see us all go broke due to the 1.99 prices. But, as someone said, unfortunately it has now become a buyers market. A buyers market made by Anton, God love you my friend. Expectations have been changed on what one should get for what price range, and not many merchants will be able to survive this buyers market in the long run. Anton was correct, there are only maybe 12 to 20 production artists out there who produce enough sales per item to still manage to tighten their belt and survive it and hope for better times in the future. I do not think better times in the future are going to come to pass in the deflationary economics setting that the Platinum Club created. So, now you all begin to see the outcome of a year of Platinum Club existence. Other sites and artists, to survive, are going to take the Platinum Club on head to head, toe to toe, cheek to cheek, and jowl to jowl, in a rabid attempt to survive. Deflation will continue. What is worse though, is that I know some REALLY good artists, Master level artists, who will soon leave this business since they can no longer afford to support themselves or their families as they once were able to, unless things change. This was a genuine job for them, and a real source of the income they lived off of. They cannot afford to wait to see if the market improves whilst they lose their houses, and their children go hungry, and medical bills hang over their heads. Soon... there will be two types of artist left. That 12 to 20 or so of the Elite Dragons, those who CAN compete with Anton.... (and he knows who they are ;)) and the artists who as one lady recently said to me, "I know what I made is crap work. I don't care if it is crap, since I have to sell it so cheap anyway. I never intended to be as good as you." I could have wept, just wept to hear such resignation in the face of the economic situation in the Poser market. There once was a time when artists could take time to produce masterpieces, and know that they could get enough compensation for time invested to make it worth their time and energy and the costs of production such as software, hardware, electricity used, etc. Those days are gone. No matter how good something is, the Platinum Club reset peoples expectations to believe it should be given away to them for nothing. Loss Leader sales? Sure, that is the theory. And it works pretty well in regular retail business. You know, come buy the teakettle for 5.00 and pick up 150.00 worth of other items you find you want and need too. Unfortunately the Poser market is not regular business, and it appears that on the whole, these 1.99 range products are merely teaching customers to want ALL products to be priced like that, irregardless of what they are, the hours invested, the quality of the product, or who made it. Just my 2 Cents as a broker, store owner, and store manager. And NO malicious disaparagement or disrespect meant to Anton, whom I adore as a personal friend.
While I can understand why you might feel that way, I don't agree that it has to be like that. I was a customer long before I became a merchant. I won't buy crap no matter how cheap it is, just as I refuse to produce crap, no matter how little I am paid. I also refuse to devalue my work. Discount programs can work to the advantage of the artist. You use them to showcase your talents. If I buy a discounted item from a merchant that turns out to be crap, I will never buy from them again. If I purchase a brokered item from a savings club, and I find the quality to be excellent, I am quite likely to be on the lookout for other products by that artist, and will be more than willing to pay full price for quality work.
I have to say, I agree with Momcat. There are some vendors whose quality I know is excellent, and when I see new products from them I try to save up because I am willing to pay more for them. I love the special clubs/deals and low price stuff because I can then get other quality items that I normally wouldn't be able to afford. But if I get an inexpensive item and it turns out to be shoddy, I usually won't buy from that person again. Also, I seriously doubt that Daz "prices were set at 1.99 in the Platinum Club, with the clear apparent motive of driving other businesses literally out of business". Daz is a business. Like any other they need money to survive. They did something that was good for them- I doubt they 'planned' to send other people out of business. They just wanted to do the very best they could to hold on to their own business. Competition should make markets thrive.
Calypso Dreams... My Art- http://www.calypso-dreams.com
I think you folks are misunderstanding a couple of things. Competition does indeed make markets thrive. And the markets on the whole are probably not suffering. It is individual artists right now who are suffering. They are simply not being able to make enough on their products anymore, due to having to offer them so cheaply, to go on in this line of business. It is sad, but it is true. Also, inevitably, as the prices have to drop lower and lower on these individual artists goods in order to achieve sales, I fear an inevitable loss of quality, features, details that their products once included, since they cannot afford to invest alot of time in products that sell for the 1.99 - 2.50 price range. It is true that this buyers market IS good for you all as customers. Where else but the Poser community can someone buy the product of 10, 15, 20 or more manhours of labour for so little? Not even in the sweat shops in China and other third world countries. But it is not good for the merchants. It never will be. They must sell MASSIVE quantities of these goods to break even, and the massive sales are just not there except for a few rare talents in the field. It is an uncomfortable subject in general, and has been a source of heated debate between myself and at least one of my staff in the past... but I see the numbers of everyone's sales on my site, and am able to track trends through data mining. What I find is alarming for the outlook of the Poser market.
You're wrong, Mehndi. You're blaming the wrong person. A buyer's market comes about not as a result of lower prices, it comes about as a result of a glut of products in the market. The price reduction is a result, not a cause.
In fact a case could be made that the Platinum Club started because there were just too many stores out there. Maybe the opening of Poser Pros was the straw that broke the camel's back and caused DAZ to start the Club to get some of its business back. I'm not saying it is, but that's just as reasonable a way of looking at it as yours.
There are no guarantees, as I'm sure you know, and telling sob stories is a really cheap shot. Whoever that was who doesn't care about quality isn't going to sell anything, cheaply or otherwise.
And, as a customer, I really resent your assumption that I expect everything for cheap or free now.
It's unfortunate, but there are people out there who figure they can slap something together, sell it cheap, and if they make any money off of it, so much the better. It floods the market, making it appear that there's a ton of choices and pressuring good merchants to lower their prices to compete with the crap. There are also people out there who think they should be able to get everything free, or almost free, and who don't understand that people need to make a living off of their work. As with many things, it's the jerks who are ruining things for everyone else (merchants and customers alike.) With the economy sputtering, prices are heading south right now. It's not DAZ's fault, Rendie's fault, Poser Pros' fault, etc. It's a combination of factors that are mostly beyond anyone's control and people are doing what they can to survive. This is a thread on understanding how DAZ's new system works. Let's not turn it into something more than that. Thanks! Cres
"I know what I made is crap work. I don't care if it is crap, since I have to sell it so cheap anyway. I never intended to be as good as you." I found this statement pretty amazing...any merchant who thinks their own work is crap but sells it anyway shouldn't be selling anything. There are merchants everywhere who prove that you don't need to charge a lot for quality products; BAT and Baron Vlad Harkonnen being two good examples. I think that prices that low also might curb piracy, since not only is it hardly worth tracking down a file that inexpensive, but even if you're not satisfied with the product, it's not a huge loss. :) Just my opinion as always. Take care. SnowS
my DeviantArt page: http://snowsultan.deviantart.com/
Â
I do not speak as a representative of DAZ, I speak only as a long-time member here. Be nice (and quit lying about DAZ) and I'll be nice too.
Snowsultan, the sad thing is, those very words were said to me about 10 days ago by a merchant who wished to sell a product in our store. It was their reply to me asking for a couple of small changes/improvements before we could feel comfortable with release. As I said, it really shocked me, and just made me want to cry even. Such a defeatist attitude. I can't fathom thinking like that. Even the items I am making for the Pro Club which are aimed at being marketed at a very reasonable loss leader sale price are the same level of quality I put into everything, or I'd not make them. My pride simply would not let me. I have not meant to be appearing to be attacking the Platinum Club. It was an inevitable idea and sooner or later was bound to happen in the current economy, no matter where it happened first. My frustration is with the current economy is all, and how to somehow find the words yet again to give encouragement on some level to the really good artists out there who see their sales going through the floor, unless they lower their prices far below profitability, and yet still face such massive competition there are not enough sales from loss leader sales to make it worth their time either. I get their letters and instant messages you see, and they are pretty sad and heartbreaking. Letters where they don't know how they are going to make it much longer, and naturally somehow I wish I could assure them things will soon turn around. But with the situation such as it is, I don't know how to make that reassurance anymore. shrug
I coulda sworn the answer, $69.95 for lump sum, was posted somewhere...
Calypso Dreams... My Art- http://www.calypso-dreams.com
Attached Link: http://www.animotions.com
Spit is exactly right. The downward spiral of prices is the result of the sheer glut of product and stores out there (new ones opening everyday). It is the symptom, not the diease. The disease is so many artists and stores fighting over a *very* small pool of customers. While these communities may seem large, they really aren't in the grand scheme of things. And the customer base is only a very small fraction of the member base of these sites. So, the answer is not continuing to scrabble, scratch and fight over those same small number of customers, it's expanding the customer base. Store owners and artists alike should be thinking about how to turn more people into customers. Heaven knows, Curious Labs hasn't done a very good job of marketing their product. (How many people in your lives have even heard of Poser?) DAZ Studio is planned to open up this market. In the meantime, though, we should all be thinking of ways to get new customers, not fighting over the same few and pricing ourselves out of business.
True, the glut of products has caused the customer spending power to spread thinner and thinner, and in a shrinking market it is turning swiftly to disaster. This is why things like the Platinum Club, then Real Deals, and now Pro Club were inevitable. A way to try to survive the glut of products and build up a stronger customer base. As to bringing in totally new blood into the Poser community, hopefully Daz's Studio will help with that, but right now the community seems a bit stagnant on that front, and not all of us can afford to run massive publicity campaigns such as it might take or visit lots of conventions, etc, to try to draw in fresh blood. I simply do not know what the answer is on the bringing in of fresh blood.
Attached Link: http://www.animotions.com
Which brings me to a question for Mehndi.You say you are concerned about the downward spiral of prices and what it will do to the artists and stores, as well as the general quality of items, yet you jumped right on the bandwagon by running continual sales and now your Pro Club with products at $2.49.
Wouldn't it have been better not to take the easy way out and come up with a better solution so as not to further this downward spiral?
And remember, there are other ways to compete besides price.
It has taken us almost a year to come to the decision to follow in the path of the Platinum Club. It has not been an easy decision to make or to implement. As for our Buy 1 Get 1 Free sales, they are just on big holidays, hardly continual :) They DO bring in new customers to our site, and that is proven through our data mining. So far our Pro Club is also bringing in new customers to the site, and that is good. That is what this is all about right now, a way to increase the site's customer base. We are not rich people, and our site draws a huge amount of bandwidth, and so we must find ways to generate enough income to support it, or it will simply disappear. There is no easy way out, not even the Pro Club and our Buy 1 Get 1 Free sales, no matter how much I wish there were. One thing that is certain in our Pro Club area, the quality is no less than in any other item we sell in the store. This is why we have so jealously guarded admission to this area, so as to be able to at least preserve that :)
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Gawd I am confused. Check out the info on the new butterfly top oage Conflicting, huh??? I wish they would make it all clear once and for all - I have a voucher from a contest and I doubt if I can use it on this. ???