{{{And remember, there are other ways to compete besides price.}}} Oh, sorry, am cooking dinner and got scatter brained and forgot to address this point. Indeed, there are other ways we could compete besides price alone. We could go into the Porn business. But so far we have chosen to stay clear of your territory Diane out of respect for you and the customer base you have worked your arse off building.

Mehndi,

Providing a safe and sane community for people to share works of adult art is no guarantee of success. We have witnessed the stumbling of one such site recently.

I consider your belittling the efforts of the many fine artists at Renderotica with a shock-word, while appearing to praise DSI, to be a tactic unbecoming the discussion here.

I have not belittled any of the artists at Renderotica Diane. Where are you getting this from? It seems to me you are sort of in a crotchety mood, and looking to twist everything that is being said, no matter what it is.

.

I can't understand why people would pay to purchase products. Think about it. Some of us buy twice as much (at least) when products are cheaper. And purchase textures in the $20.00 range. We're still here. And I like doing business with those who offer a little goodie every month. Makes me want to spend my dollars there. Of course i'm going broke!

It runs on a similar principal as price clubs like Costco or BJ's Wholesalers. You purchase a yearly membership, and get to shop in their warehouse. The average price for most items is comparable to the weekly special price of a sale item in a regular store, and many times you can find high end items at wholesale...sort of like factory outlet shopping, but you pay for the convenience of not having to drive halfway across the state to get to it, and you have both grocery and department store type merchandise under one roof. On top of the normal savings, there are weekly or monthly sales. People pay to shop there because they get trusted brand names, at low prices, in volume.

The reason we chose to not go with a pay membership model for the Pro Club was frankly to keep matters a bit simpler both for us, and for customers. Just pay for what you want, whenever you want it, no strings attached :) This also frees up the developers in the Pro Club development group to be able to work more at their own pace, and not feel like they have to meet a production quota in fear we won't have enough in that area of the store every few days to meet the promises made in any sort of paid membership area.

hence why I bought a platinum club membership at DAZ. I mainly bought it knowing I would get a discount on the upcoming V3, and there was a bunch of V2 stuff I had been dying to get that got put in there. But I will need some convincing before I renew it though... lately the offerings aren't as interesting for me. They are high quality... just not my thang.

Well that cinches it then. I'm either going to scrape together the 69.95 by October or not get it. The 7.95 a month did not bother me when I though the $5 vouchers could be used on it. But due to recent events, paying 7.95 a month for something that I can't use because I need more money for it won't happen. I'd rather spend my little spare money on more substantial things. I have to agree with the downward spiral thing...internet boom caused alot of us to get training something that put much of us out there. Ah Well.

Merchants seem to be under the impression that the market is flooded with crap. The truth is that the market is rich with excellent stuff too! It is not the customer's responsibility to worry about the merchant making a living. Especially when some of use FOOD money to purchase Poser stuff. I'm not complaining because I've made my choice. Poser stuff is more important to me than shoes (I only have one pair and that's all I need right now anyway LOL). If any store makes us pay a fee for the privilege of buying stuff, I won't join. Platinum is different because it's DAZ and they are the suppliers of the main figures we use which makes the discounts very valuable.

One way to attract more people to buy products is to increase the market place for people to sell the products they create with Poser. If people know they can sell art,tee shirts, mugs, images etc. they will purchase more supplies to create with.

my experience is that those things don't sell well. Maybe art, if its really good. The t-shirts, mugs etc... knickknacks ... not really.

As a merchant I'll just ad that there is definately an OVER saturation of VICKY and VICKY related poser products in the "poser market" and the situation will only get worse because posers marketbase is likey to shrink NOT grow in the future. Poser5 is most assuredly the last version of poser we will see from curious labs :-/ and I have seen NO concrete assurances from DAZ that" Daz studio" wiil be able to use All of this existing poser content that exists out there.

I agree. I spend a lot of time building techniques and spend money buying addons and textures for use in Carrara. Poser is just a posing app for me. They should have worked more on the interoperability of the program with others and less on the gimmicks.

Oops, I have no noticed of the existence of this thread, otherwise I wouldn't write this one:

Just my opinion

Cheers!!

Luis, not everyone here can reach your thread, as it is in a closed forum. Can you re-post it here please? Thanks :)

Oops, I thought this thread was is the merchants forum too. LOL Sure ... here it is, just as I've posted it in the Merchants forum, It has as subject "Digital WAR?" ----------------------------------------------------------- Hi all: I want to relate a true history that happened years ago, when I was a child - many many years ago. LOL. In the little town where I was born, we had 3 theatres, one covered for winter and two more without ceiling just for summer time (3/4 of the year in my country). Well, in winter there was no problem, only one owner got all the money from the customers, but in summer every one of the cinema owners, thought about the way to get the maximum number of people into his theatre. At the beginning, one of them planned to put on better and newer movies than the other, and indeed, his idea was very good. Almost all the people began to go to his cinema. Then the other put on 2 movies for the same price as one and in that moment the fight began. Every morning, in the main street of the town, both owners put a big poster with the advertising for the movies for that night and a chalkboard with the schedule and prices. Well, the following is just the truth of the facts that happened. The prices of the ticket for both cinemas was 100 for example. The owner of the first cinema put a price of 90, then the other owner changes his chalkboard price to 80, then the other to 60, then to 40 and .... well to cut a long story short, the end result was that one of them wrote in his chalkboard the incredible price of 0.00. The main bar of the town was just at the other side of the street and you can imagine the laughs and comments of all the people there. It was saturday and the bar was full of people. People said: And now what? This is the end, the other owner can't do a better offer. 2 MOVIES FOR FREE!!! . Well, they were mistaken. In about 15 mins the other theatre owner appear and laughing like hell, delete his old price (I think it was 10) and taking his chalk he wrote: Today 2 movies for free and the company will give a soft drink to every person that comes to watch our program. :) And this is the end of the story. A TRUE STORY!! And now, why have I related this? Well, the Poser community is going in the same direction as the cinema owners. First there was Daz with the Platinum market, then RDNA with lots of articles for just $2.50, now Poser Pros with the new Pro Club to just $2.49. PhilC with his $1.95.... What the next? Buy 1 and get 10? Or maybe if you get one of my articles for free I'll give you $5 for your trust? I think we are burning the Poser market. From here I request all merchants to stop this price war, Otherwise, very soon the Poser market will disappear. I propose that none of us put prices below $5 in any one store and of course, that price would be for a simple prop, small texture or just a few poses. For the rest of the models, we must request the appropriate price. IMHO I think that the only ones harmed here are us, the artists, the creators of the products, that after passing a lot of time working on a project, we have to sell it for almost nothing. If we deduct broker percent, taxes and in my case the loss from the rate of exchange, what do we get? How many articles do we have to sell to get proper compensation for our hard work? There is nothing more to say, I will remain keeping my prices at an appropriate level and I hope that all of you do the same. If things dont change in the near future, I will have to say goodbye to this fantastic community to continue selling my creations in another more productive markets. That's all. Any suggestions or comments will be welcome!! --------------------------------------------------------- You are welcome Mehndi!! :)

I have read this thread from top to bottom which is unusual for me LOL. I usually lack the patience to follow a thread to its conclusion. From the point of view of not having much of an income I find the buyers market attractive but having been in business in the past I can see major problems arising from the mode of competition which has arisen. Certainly there is a glut of merchants at the moment and prices are ridiculously low. But seriously it hasn't increased the amount of things that I buy. I still look around for the merchant who has the quality of goods that I need and if there is something more expensive I try to save up for it until I am able to buy it. The glut of products has not necessarily increased the quality. I think it is terribly unfair if someone spends hours making clothing or props and then is forced through market pressures to charge such a low price. It equates to working for cents per hour. Where in any other industry in the western world does anyone work for such small recompense.

Unlike most production items, however, the same thing can be sold over and over again. It takes up the same amount of space on the shelf whether one or a hundred are sold, it doesn't spoil, and it can be sold a hundred times over. What kills a product is the fad of the moment that overwhelms another fad of the moment. The market is volatile and depends on the whims of the latest "in" thing. But that's not unusual in a business based mostly on vanity rather than need. (Very few people could be said to "need" a Vicky 3 outfit...that's an idle want, not a necessity to life no matter what drama we all like to engage in.) Yes, I think the merchants should be paid for the value of what they create, but it's not the same as other industries. If a person sells a real car, it can only be sold once and then a second car has to be built from additional materials which is an additional cost. A virtual car can be sold over and over again without any additional materials needed. I have also noticed that while the prices have gone down, the size of the packages have also become smaller. That's fine with me. A large, expensive package with only one or two items in it of interest to me is not cost effective; a small package which has the same two items in it will be picked up. The market drives the industry. The vendors who can't afford to stay in business will end up moving on to more profitable areas. It's sad but hardly a new story.

"From here I request all merchants to stop this price war" Nice try :) In the 'real world' that would be collusion and price fixing. And that is illegal.

Luis, I am glad you stepped forward to speak in this thread, since you are one of the Master Level artists I was speaking of earlier whose situation I am intimately familiar with, and who may indeed someday leave us all the poorer if you pull out of the Poser Industry due to the Depreciation of the Poser Economic situation. I had not felt comfortable naming names, and am glad at least one of you have come forward to speak. Thank you :) In the Poser Community, somewhere along the lines, we all began to live "The American Dream", if you will pardon that expression. You know what The American Dream is, don't you? Find something you love, and then twist it, and strangle it, and torture it, and warp it, trying to make more and more money at it, till you neither love it anymore, nor are making any money at it. It seems to make some feel uncomfortable to have it put flat on the line and said that most Poser artists are making less than 3rd World Sweat Shop "slaves" for their work. I have never been one to avoid the nasty truths just because they are uncomfortable. Though it is true Dialyn that poser assets can indeed be re-sold countless times, if you ask any of us you will find that is really true only in "theory". Products do indeed have a cap on how many they will sell. And that cap is pretty low for most people. The vast majority of merchants whose actual sales statistics I am familiar with sell less than 20 copies of a product in it's lifetime. Again, this is probably the result of too many products in the market, a glut of competition that results in the "needs" and "interests" of the consumer shifting elsewhere more swiftly than in the old days when there was simply less to be had. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer that I can think of. It would be splendid if it were possible to do as you suggest Luis and not set any prices below 5.00 irregardless. But so long as the competition does so, if we do not, then we will slowly wither on the vine till at last the day comes we cannot afford to pay our staff anything, pay our hosting and bandwidth costs, and shut the site down. The problem with the Poser Economic situation being what it is is that we are actually beginning to lose some of the best artists out there. As I said, in this climate, the only ones who can survive in the long haul are the very small minority of Poser Dragons who sell large quantities of goods no matter their prices, these are the ones Anton mentions, and the novice Poser Artists who produce a sort of newbie level work and feel that their sales are just great if they are making 5.00 a week. There is getting to be less and less of a middle ground. And yet, I have no answer. I cannot find the answer no matter how I struggle to think it through. The Great Shaking Out is almost upon us, and perhaps we can hope the market will improve once it is over, but somehow I have my fears it wont... it will just be made up of the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer, and lots of "crap" in the marketplace, interspersed with the few rare gems left. Blech. Now I've gone and depressed myself again :) I had better get back to doing this texture before I begin to cry.

Well, it's not as if the product wears out either. If I buy a car, I have to buy another one eventually. With Poser stuff, I only need to buy it once. Unless the file corrupts or my hard drive dies, I won't buy it again. That's why I think the small packages have an advantage...especially when they build on other things. I love the clothes packages that let me pick and choose what I want. I don't need any fantasy wraps /fantasy outfits / fetish gearin my collection...but I am always on the search for realistic clothes. If I can buy one without buying the other, I'm buying the smaller package instead of the larger one with the stuff I'll never use. I think the vendors are coming to the point where they need to not only do what they themselves like but also be sensitive to the demands of their audience and decide how they want to target themselves. Okay, we now have a hundred Koshini outfits and textures. Shall I (as a merchant) focus on Koshini outfits and textures under the theory that the Koshini will last as a demanded item, or should I diversify to capture the non-Koshini people? Yes, I'm the fetish queen in my marketplace...shall I keep on making fetish stuff because that's where my fantasies take me, or should I make a few items for the non-fetish people in the crowd so that they know I can think outside the crotch? There may be no need to change if you have a steady market, but every reason to change if you see business as usual is not doing the usual business. And there will always be a market for fantasy / science fiction/ pin up / fetish stuff. I'm not saying that. But what a merchant has to decide is if they can continue with the same old focus or do they need to explore outside of the box of their personal preference and prejudices? I'm not saying one is better than the other, but I do think you have to think about where the market is and if you want to follow a fad or set a style of your own. There are some merchants out there that I buy from regularly, and check out regularly for new items. There are others that have predictably stuff I don't want so I never go back to their store UNLESS I see them break into a new area once in awhile. It's up to the merchants. I can't create my own stuff. I have to buy to keep my graphics fresh. But what I buy depends on what you make available to me. It's that easy. It's that hard. I sure don't envy anyone trying to make a living in this marketplace. Again, this is a vanity market driven by wants instead of needs. If people have reduced incomes, they are going to have to buy less of the "wants" and focus more on food, shelter, education for their children. That's just the way it is. If people have increased incomes, then they have more money for play. Of course there are people making their living with what they buy here. I don't envy them that task either. It's got to be a tough market for everyone and not just a few.

Dialyn brings up a point I would be interested in opinions on. I spend months on some of my morph packages. Roxanne, for example, comes with 178 head morphs and 65 faces (among other things). In this time of declining prices, I too have wondered if I should change strategies. So, my question is, do more people prefer single character packages (without all the morphs and faces) at lower prices, or do you prefer the large packages at the higher price? Currently, Roxanne sells for $25.00, and you get the above plus, which works out to about 65 different characters. So, do people prefer all 65 characters at $25.00; or do you prefer 65 separate characters at say $5.00 (Renderosity's lowest allowed price) a piece? Personally, I feel $25.00 is the better deal, but do others think so? Of course, this assumes you have interest in characters, but consider the example for any type product. Beth

Beth....I honestly think it depends on the customer which they would prefer. Some people like buying in bulk. They will use all your amazing morphs and they find value in that. But someone like me will only use a few of the morphs...so it isn't as interesting to me. What you might think about is doing a test...a mini-pack of your favorite morph/faces as an introduction to what you do. Maybe 2 or 3 of Roxane and 2 or 3 of Boris, and see what happens. Offer a small discount (is that possible?) if someone goes on to buy the full package of either or both. Does that strategy produce sales or no? There are always new people coming into the forum...the question is how do you keep getting your product out in front of newcomers, as well as finding ways to hold on to old customers with new products. I don't envy you the task.

The Platinum design wasn't enevitable. What was inevitable was that people would copy it. At one point I was going to leave Daz as a broker and open my own store. That was when I designed the formula that is the Platinum Club. When I told Daz I was leaving and showed them the PC, they expressed that they wanted to find a way for me to stay. What was decided was that I would be hired to bring the Platinum Club to Daz instead of me doing it alone. However there are some things you should know. The Platinum Club cannot successfully be copied. If a stores copies it, it will cripple them. It was designed to be impossible to duplicate. See it succeeds through a specific formula and design. Each aspect is crucial. If portions of the formula are removed the whole thing crumbles. The reason other stores, except Daz, aren't doing well is because the Poser community is too small now. The amount of content is not what is causing it. Bad products aren't the reason eaither. See I saw this coming years ago and planned for it. Copying the Platinum Design will not save a broker or store. It will just accelerate closure. Take it from the guy who designed it please. best everyone go about doing things as they have. The Platinum design will just do unrepairable damage to other stores if they try to imitate it. Decide what you want but don't say I didn't warn you. Personally Daz brokers in Premier are still selling well into the 100's and beyond despite the times, and Daz is always happy to take quality brokers. Regards, Anton

Anton, with all due respect, whats good for the goose can also be good for the gander ;) So far, we are finding our Pro Club to be quite a boon to PoserPros :) Thanks for the idea!

:) Well best of luck to you Liz. My Pleasure.

it's kinda a myth that joining the pclub your getting items at $1.99. your not. through the year you would have to buy about 150 pclub items for the price of each item to be $1.99. i find it funny after reading this thread that people would have an expectation that becuase PClub is around and items are $1.99 that it's some how lowered the market and people have had to lower prices to compete. the less items you buy over a year at pclub, the more your spending for those items, more than $1.99 i mean. I know that I did not buy all the items in pclub offered so far, I've roughly spent about $6.00 an item using the pclub. I know i got my moneys worth on those items i bought, and all the V3 discounts, the M3 discounts that I'm sure will come, the DazStudio discounts next year as addons come out etc.

BS... Poserworld has a successful subscription site for a long time. Platinum is merely a variation of the subscription service. Instead of paying more up front for unlimited download like you would at Steve Shank's place (who did it successfully first in Poserland I do believe), you pay a bit less up front, and pay a small fee for each download instead. Its definitely copyable, and I would even say Platinum in some ways is a copy of Poserworld... the deal is that its not copyable if you don't have a good team to create good content that keeps people interested in paying for it. As for others doing it the way RDNA and Poser Pros does it... we call that loss leaders in the retail biz. Personally, I'm to the point of dumping my Platinum Club membership and paying for a lifetime Poserworld one... as I'm finding more to my liking at Poserworld now.

Attached Link: http://www.virginia.edu/economics/Workshops/Theory/Loss%20Leader%20110102.pdf

Exactly, MachineClaw. I got my moneys worth definitely in the time I've been in the Platinum Club. Its really been wonderful. But now I see too much fantasy stuff, just for V3, or cartoon stuff that doesn't interest me whatsoever. That's ok if people like lots of fantasy and cartoon stuff, its not my thing. Steve does a lot of real world clothing, he makes it compatible for V2 as well as V3, he makes more scenery and straight out props, he does a TON of historical stuff that I absolutely adore... its not a slam on the Platinum club, merely that I don't think I'll get my moneys worth in PC like I did this year, next year... and I may get more for those dollars if I pay for Poserworld. Its not personal. Its just business :)

Anton, all the attitude in the world can't make what you say true, just because you believe it. :) In truth, PoserPros does NOT lose money on any single ProClub sale. It's actually not a "loss leader" in any form. It is possible to price items at that level and still make a nickel or dime per sale, as we give the ProClub merchants a 75% cut. As to Platinum Club being more affordable ... in one year's time, you would have to buy 234 Platinum Club items to get their "real" price down to PoserPros' ProClub price of $2.49. That takes into account the $29.95 startup and $7.95 per month cost. Of course, they haven't even released that many products for Platinum Club yet anyway. :) Yep bijouchat, it's just business. :)

read the pdf, you'll find that loss leaders actually make money, not lose money, if you do them right. It is what its called, its simply a business tactic. Brick and mortar stores do it all the time, it didn't get invented here. :)

Loss leaders make their money in offering a popular product that will sell in high volume to recoup their cost, and in drawing people into the store to make additional purchases... hence the name. They only make money to recoup their production and advertising costs if the products are popular and sell in volume. They do make a certain amount of profit per unit sale, they are never priced under what they cost to produce. Not if you really want to make money with them, anyway. Platinum is not a loss leader, its a subscription service.

in the pdf, they have an excellent definition for loss leader: loss leader: A good that is priced below its marginal cost. Marginal cost being the usual profit margin. The products are not priced below the production cost. Which would fit with everything that Russell has said about the ProClub. there's no question that's what the Real Deals and ProClub are. Now, this isn't a BAD thing in my mind... its a smart thing, really. :)

Don't forget that the Platinum Club isn't just about the items in the Platinum Club section. It's an automatic 30% discount on all! Daz original items. So say Premiere or Special Interest Daz stuff comes out... it's already on sale usually at 30% off... The Platinum Club gives you another 30% off on top of that. I got V3 complete, hair bikini Active Wear, etc. and Mimic 2 Pro for a low, low price.

yes, I know it is a 30 percent additional discount. But you get a discount every time they release something new, if you buy it when it comes out. when you work out the math, the price of the Platinum club does not work out if you do not buy enough items from it. I did at the beginning, but I do not see the content now that would justify the cost again.

Thanks for the link bijouchat. And you're right. My thinking on "loss leader" was apparently a little off. The "loss" is not necessarily a true loss, but a lower than normal profit margin. Excellent reading! Thanks!

Anton: "See it succeeds through a specific formula and design. Each aspect is crucial. If portions of the formula are removed the whole thing crumbles." One more point ... if your "specific formula" is so crucial, why did DAZ change it this year? Does the whole thing crumble now? ;)

"yes, I know it is a 30 percent additional discount. But you get a discount every time they release something new, if you buy it when it comes out." But if you buy it when it first comes out you also get the 30% off on top of the discount. I think you missed that. If DAZ is not having sales anymore that will be bad for them. If I miss something on initial release it's very very rare I'll buy it later. Which means I won't get addons for it either. And that also affects other stores who sell addon products for DAZ stuff.

"The Platinum design will just do unrepairable damage to other stores if they try to imitate it."

Sounds like an "old wives' tale along the lines of swallowing a watermellon seed will grow a watermellon patch in your stomach. Or desperation to keep an idea from spreading and taking a chunk of change away from the original. ;^P

not a old wives tale at all. If stores adoptided the Wallmart sales practice they'd be out of bussiness. or took one casinos stradegy to their own it wouldn't work. if you look at the price structure of sales and figure in broker fees and look at Daz you can come up with a general formula that Anton is talking about for the PClub. it won't be THE formula, but it would be ball park, and you can see why it wouldn't work at other poser stores. his statement is pretty much on the money. now, stores aren't gunna open their books, give away stradegies, or secrets. it's a bussiness, they are their to make money not give it away. all the speculation in the world boils down to speculation. if you buy stuff at daz on a regular basis, and those products are Daz creations, the pclub will save you money over a full year. it will make daz money and everybody is tickled pink and happy.

"Sounds like an "old wives' tale along the lines of swallowing a watermellon seed will grow a watermellon patch in your stomach. Or desperation to keep an idea from spreading and taking a chunk of change away from the original. ;^P" It's worse than that Illusions. Anton himself, just called my house literally screaming hysterically into the phone for about 20 minutes before he hung up on me. Nothing I could say calmed him. Not even pointing out that our Pro Club products support his Platinum Club product releases, and what is good for us is also good for him, thus good for the goose is good for the gander reference. I managed to take a bit of dication before I was too hurt and upset and crying too hard to type anymore. Some of the words he shouted at me are these: ====================================================== "If you try and copy the Platinum Club you will cripple your store. Don't go there. Only I know how to make such a thing work, you can't copy it Liz!" "You put Russell up to being disrespectful of me in public and accusing me of having attitude, don't lie and tell me you didn't!" "You need to snap out of this world you are living in because you've pissed me off royaly. When you are closed out, when you are working at Walmart Liz, don't say I didn't tell you so. I will ruin you!" "You have shown disrespect for the last time Liz." "I made you, and I can take you down. You will never work in this business again if I don't want you to." ====================================================== As an aside, I'd like to mention that Russell made his posts to this thread quite on his own, while I was sleeping, without any prodding or input from me. He usually does that ;) Then I get up to face the music! ;p If anything is influencing Russell it is the fact Anton likes to call our house at 3:00 AM our time, and sort of be a slight "braggy-bully" toward me in the calls in the past. Anton is way way out of control.

posting that is completely out of line too. tit for tat tatics and such just are so wrong. pushing buttons, screaming merchants, man people need to switch to decaf bad! haha screaming merchant sounds like a fun character, some D&D monster. reaches into a large bag and throws little blue packets to everybody "CHILL PILLS! Get your chill pills here! free chill pills!"

No Machineclaw, it is not out of line to reveal when a Daz employee is calling people and verbally harrassing and threatening them. For far too long those of us who have been treated this way by Anton, and there is more than just me, have kept this dirty little secret of his abuse silent. But we are not the guilty, we are his victims. It is time one of us had the guts to step forward and reveal what he does to us behind closed doors.

well its a TOS violation. what people do behind closed doors is up to them. what they do in a public forum is not up to them. civility and order are needed. I'm sorry that youve been hurt, it is unfortunate. but this this not the place to air it. if your having problems with a member, a employee of a company then there are channels to deal with that.

I am not attacking Anton, unlike his unwarrented attack on me. I am quoting his words to me directly. Facts spoken calmly are not a TOS violation. If he did not want it related, then he should not have done it.

Members and users are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that is constructive and respectful of others at all times. If Daz and Poserpros has issues, please take them to Daz or PoserPros. Renderosity is not the place for this fight. Please do not post what someone else said to you on a private phone call without permission from both parties Thanks Spike