In all fairness, RO does test products before they put them in the store. But so does the vendor test before they submit to the store if they're worth their salt ;o). And RO (I believe) only tests for file path errors, missing textures and the like.

Back when I was a vendor and when RO raised it's cut to 50/50, I voted with my feet and left. I went to PoserPros. The cut there was 70/30 in favor of the vendor which I thought was more than fair. But it was a site also run by people who were vendors themselves and so didn't count as much on what the site itself made. This site counts on the dollars they rake in from the sale of the works of others and nothing more. There are hundreds of vendors and thousands of buyers. The monies that the actual vendors get is a mere pittance of the work they put into the product.

Let's say I make a product. I charge 10 bucks for it. I sell a grand total of 20. I get a hundred bucks from my cut, which on the surface sounds good. But when you total in the hours and hours of work it took to create the product in the first place, the end hourly rate is less than minimum wage, which is sad. So, it's either jack up the price and maybe sell less items, or devalue the work even more and sell it for less in order to sell more items. In the end, it hurts the vendor by the 50/50 split much more than it does RO since RO does not depend so much on what one vendor makes because they make from multiple vendors. And all by an automated process which costs them only bandwidth, server storage and maybe some programming now and then. Something, I might add, they would pay anyway because the forums also must work ;o). In the end, the scales are always tipped in the site's favor. I'm not saying they shouldn't be, because that's why Tim and his group started the site store in the first place. It's a business and should make money. But you have a site who's vendors are pretty much at the mercy of it's store's owner. Since RO makes the rules, they can keep taking and taking and taking until ultimately their vendors flee for greener pastures. IMVHO, they are getting close to that point right now. In my mind, the site can run as many sales as it wants if they think the promotions will bring in the buyers, but to then take that from vendor who had no input in that decision is just, well, underhanded and sneaky. After all, since RO's gig is to change the rules as they go, chances are most of the vendors already here never agreed to that bit before becoming a vendor.

It all just smells to me. But like I said, I was a vendor once. So I tend to side with the vendors. I was a waitress once too, and I always give a big tip ;o)...lol.

Laurie