I love RDNA, but since I don't use a lot of females in my pictures they don't often have stuff that interests me--they do have a lot of nice things too.  I've bought a lot of light sets and the Terradome and other stuff from them.  They used to have more stuff for male figures though and don't seem to be carrying very much these days--I did get Tool Boi there though and a few other male characters for M4.   The only reason I said Content Paradise is because it is the content site that belongs to SM--it also sells content for their other programs.  I wouldn't be adverse to them merging with RDNA though and wouldn't mind seeing Content Paradise going bye-bye.  They do have some exclusive items though--like stuff for the Chunk toon character.

I'm having a hard time thinking of many examples of "loyalty" among consumers.  It seems to me that people almost always tend to choose the best deal they can find, as long as searching for it doesn't take more effort than it's worth.  I tend to pick the same brands of toothpaste and shampoo, for instance, because it's not worth my time to find others I will like -- unless someone offers me a good deal on something new or different.

The only exception I can think of is the Apple/PC divide. 

I wonder just exactly how many "loyal DAZ customers" have never bought any 3d content anywhere else, because it seems to me that simply buying a lot of stuff does not make one particularly loyal (any more than sleeping with someone frequently embues a person with a particular degree of fidelity).  I would think that exclusivity would be a necessary component of loyalty.

Then again, maybe in the age of internet forums, "loyalty" means: "Not publicly talking crap about a business." I wonder how valuable such a trait is in one's customers.  Is it as valuable these days, especially for internet based businesses, as the traditional exclusive shopper sort of loyalty?

Whatever the other changes, I think the loss of the money back guarantee is the most significant. That probably set them apart to some degree and it was always IMO, a powerful point in their favor. I have no idea how much revenue they may have 'lost' over the years because of it. Maybe it was a money decision or maybe the new boss just didn't cotton to the idea.

lmckenzie wrote;

Quote - Whatever the other changes, I think the loss of the money back guarantee is the most significant. That probably set them apart to some degree and it was always IMO, a powerful point in their favor. I have no idea how much revenue they may have 'lost' over the years because of it. Maybe it was a money decision or maybe the new boss just didn't cotton to the idea.

DAZ still has the 30 day money back guarantee. Where do you come up with this stuff?

Coldrake

The definition of loyalty is a difficult one, especially in the present finacial climate.

Outside of the 3D world I have in interest in computers and, when the weather is good I have a live steam model railway in the garden.  In both cases I buy from small shop and the raliway one requires me to drive almost 100 miles passing many similar shops along the way.  I do so because they were good to me when I started the hobby and I have been buying from them for over 10 years.  I can get a better price on line but not the advice or the support.  I do buy from other suplliers but only after checking with them and seeing if they have a supplier.  I think that is fairly loyal though not exclusive.  In the case of the computer shop his pricing is keen and although more expensive than the Internet they are not greedy and his prices for things like cables are realistic.

Working in retail am quite accustomed to people coming into the shop for advice and then leaving and I know in most cases that they will use that advice and buy on-line, a fact of life these days.  Where they go for advice when all the high street is shut I am not too sure.

Of course buying for Poser and Daz is all On Line but there is still the choice.  For example some of the items at Content Paradise can also be purchased from Rendo and Rendo gets money every time in such cases and that is because they run forums like this and should be supported.  Maybe not loyal, or exclusive, but I do try and give my custom to those who I feel support their customers.

At the end of the day if you don't like one companies customer service either vote with your feet, your wallet/purse or both.  Companies should earn our custom not take it for granted.

Quote - A thought:-

As a Poser PC member can you remember when your voucher would be used within a day or two of the start of the month?

Then it would take longer and longer to use it.

Then it would get near the end of the month and you would still have a full voucher.

All the best.

LROG

Yup. I let my PC membership of several years expire last year as I hadn't been using the vouchers. It was just costing money.

I have no problem spending my voucher every month, there's always something on my wish list or a new product that I want to use it towards.  Not to mention big discounts on a lot of things for PC members.  I get my money's worth.

I think if Daz developed a line of Poser only content and had a separate Poser store it would help.  They could develop a couple of premium Poser weight mapped figures and stuff for them and then everyone would have something.  My whole point is that I don't know how many additional miles one can wring out of M4 and V4 before everyone gets totally bored with them.

Quote - lmckenzie wrote;

Quote - Whatever the other changes, I think the loss of the money back guarantee is the most significant. That probably set them apart to some degree and it was always IMO, a powerful point in their favor. I have no idea how much revenue they may have 'lost' over the years because of it. Maybe it was a money decision or maybe the new boss just didn't cotton to the idea.

 

DAZ still has the 30 day money back guarantee. Where do you come up with this stuff?

  

Coldrake

 

 

read the posts by Skondris in the 'new website' thread at daz commons, he clearly states that product returns will result in store credit, NOT a refund of money ( which is actually contrary to Utah business/consumer law)

 

Actually with software even store credit is something that people really can't complain about.  I can't tell you how many times in the past I bought buggy software and could not get any type of refund.  With some companies once you install it on your computer you're out of luck.  I bought an older product at Daz laz month that didn't work right with the current Poser or Daz Studio and they gave me a store credit  and I used it for something else and I was very happy with that.

Quote - Actually with software even store credit is something that people really can't complain about.  I can't tell you how many times in the past I bought buggy software and could not get any type of refund.  With some companies once you install it on your computer you're out of luck.  I bought an older product at Daz laz month that didn't work right with the current Poser or Daz Studio and they gave me a store credit  and I used it for something else and I was very happy with that.

It is really up to each individual custromer to decide if a voucher is acceptable, providing it is clear that this is the case before purchase, particularly as this is a change in the terms.  If it is indeed against the law that is another mattter.

I agree with you about the software, I purchased some software years ago and only after I had used the trial.  The software would not work on the same system in any way.  Customer Services response was 'tough' and even said I should not use the trial as an indication that the final release product will work.  Not sure why they even bothered with a trial unless it was to get the public to do their testing for them.  End result - no refund, however I have never purchased any software with that companies name on it since.  If fact I have my own 'blacklist' of companies that I will not buy from under any circumstances and happliy some have been removed because they have since gone bust, so I suspect I was not alone.

I didn't know about / pay proper attention to the full refund terms at Daz to be honest...

I might have been tempted to use it to return the Genesis Evolution Morph package, which I got some time back, before realising the the DS4 CR2 exporter only put out a lo res mesh...

LOL ;-)

Meh, never mind... I'll probably still use that for dialling up lo-res background characters to populate crowd scenes with in Poser...

...naked crowd scenes.

I jest, I can dynamically cloth them... or whatever.

Otherwise, I should say I've got a fair bit of content (much of it older... e.g. MilHorse/Dog/Rhino... and including V4 / M4 Complete bundles) from Daz, which I'm perfectly happy with and which is of substantial use to me within Poser.

Anytime one buys any type of software there is always a risk.  I remember when Poser 5 came out it was no bug ridden that it was unuseable until the 3rd service release pack came out.  It took over a year for the bugs to be worked out, by the time the last service release pack was out Poser 6 had been released.

I also had a couple of versions of Roxio that were unuseable and crashed on my system--that wasn't cheap either.  If you think about it though the vendor only has a customer's word that they actually removed the software from the computer and isn't using it after a refund is given--if it was a download then there's nothing physical to return.

I remember I bought a full copy of XP Home Edition after Vista wouldn't run properly on my PC thinking I could downgrade--I broke the seal and tried and it turned out that you could only downgrade if you purchased Vista Professional or Ultimate--not the Home Edition.  I'd already broken the seal on the box--I could not return it to Best Buy--so I ended up having the sell it online in order to get any of my money back--since it was unregistered software I could do that.  A lot of times, though, it is difficult to sell even very expensive software and not have licensing issues.

Quote - It is really up to each individual custromer to decide if a voucher is acceptable, providing it is clear that this is the case before purchase, particularly as this is a change in the terms.  If it is indeed against the law that is another mattter.

Yep, that's an interesting point.  Here's a cut and paste from the UK Trading Standards website, regarding internet sales.  According to English law (Scottish law may be different) a customer is allowed to change their mind within 7 days and get a refund.  The fact DAZ are in the US isn't a factor here.

"Your rights when buying over the internet are the same as when you buy goods from the high street. However, you may also have additional rights under the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000. In most cases, you are entitled to a seven working day cancellation period during which you can change your mind."

I believe Scots Law dictates that if a customer is unhappy with goods they have bought, up to 7 years after the initial purchase, they're entitled to be sent a bottle of this stuff by the retailer:

http://www.thedalmore.com/shop/product.aspx?ShopItemID=15

That said my grasp of some of the finer points of Consumer Protection within Scots Law is a bit hazy...

EDIT: By the way, I am strangely on topic here for once, because the link is to something  old that has recently been released as new... get it? I just did ;-)

I'd definitely be happy with zip installers.  Amazing that they are doing that, after Kevin or whoever it was came over here saying it was impossible.

Will you have to use zips, I wonder, or will you have a choice?  Cornucopia3D gives you a choice of .exe or .zip, so it's obviously possible.

The PC changes don't sound very appealing.  My current subscription runs to next April.  Not sure if I should ask for a refund or just let it run out.  I've been a member for 10 years.  The voucher wasn't the big draw for me.  It was the discounts on DAZ originals.  But there's less and less for a non-DS user to buy now, and even the deals for DS users don't seem to be as good as they used to be.  Allowing vouchers to be used on PC items would be good, though. 

Well there are conflicting accounts here--frankly after what I read from other posts I rather doubt it.  What's wrong with the installers anyhow?  I think they are easier to deal with and then if you accidently install to a wrong directory you can uninstall it and reinstall correctly.  With zip files you have to hunt down all the folders and manually delete them if you don't want something somewhere.

Quote - I'd definitely be happy with zip installers.  Amazing that they are doing that, after Kevin or whoever it was came over here saying it was impossible. 

Quote -  

I don't think the official line was that it was impossible but that Daz would never move to zips.  It was in the brief official thread here at Rendo where they were explainig they had not abandoned their Poser customers.  I am sure one of the reaosns was about the licensing in that you have to accept them as part of the installer with the present Daz method.  There were other reasons given but it was clear that they would never do such a thing as move to zips.  I know my thought at the time was that the whole explanation could have been a lot briefer - 'over my dead body'.

If this keeps up they might also have a change of heart about not giving DAZ software away for free anymore.

Quote - Well there are conflicting accounts here--frankly after what I read from other posts I rather doubt it.  What's wrong with the installers anyhow?  I think they are easier to deal with and then if you accidently install to a wrong directory you can uninstall it and reinstall correctly.  With zip files you have to hunt down all the folders and manually delete them if you don't want something somewhere.

One problem with the installers is that you do not know where or what they are installing. Many of the files installed are to do with Daz Studio and even links to the Daz web site.  That may be OK for some but I have no need for such files.  I accept that installers may be better for some and I am not pressing for them to be removed but a choice for zips would be an improvemnet in my book.   Using something like WinRAR I can look at the content of the zip folder and copy only what I want to the correct folder and therefore I have no need for an uninstaller.  I like to populate my runtimes with the files I am going to use and nothing more, not populate it with what a particular company or Vendor decides I should install, whoever they may be.

Let's not forget that the installers are sometimes rendered unusable by changes to the Operating System of whatever platform.

Not to mention they are slow, and require many clicks and often changes of directory.

Quote - What's wrong with the installers anyhow?  I think they are easier to deal with and then if you accidently install to a wrong directory you can uninstall it and reinstall correctly.  With zip files you have to hunt down all the folders and manually delete them if you don't want something somewhere.

I hate installers because they are so slow.  If you've bought a lot of products, the installers take forever.  Unzipping is much faster.  Worse, sometimes installers refuse to install where you want them.  For awhile, DAZ forced you to install things into the main runtime, because their morph injections didn't work properly if you installed it to an external runtime.  But there was a fix for that, and many of us used it, and continued to use external runtimes.  But DAZ's installers wouldn't allow you to install to external runtimes.  You had to install to the main runtime and move everything over, or "trick" the installer by putting a file called poser.exe in your external runtime.  

I re-installed V4 yesterday, and had to deal with it again.  It wouldn't install into my new V4-WM runtime, because there was no Poser.exe file in it.  I've also had serious problems installing other figures because the installer was looking for something it couldn't find.  I ended up having to do things like edit .ini files to get it to install.  That's easier?  My anklebone.

Why are they suddenly having to make all these changes and adjustments to their pricing and store benefits? I thought their software was award-winning and ground-breaking and everyone wanted it. 

Curious...

~Shane 

"I thought their software was award-winning"

the Genesis platform did win the innovation of the year in "3D world magazine"

"and ground-breaking"
Well within the niche market of poser&Daz figures a "new approach"..... perhaps

"and everyone wanted it."

Not sure I ever saw that claim in any of their ad copy
They did claim to be "in discussions"with pro app makers
( Autodesk etc.) about incorporating the genesis platform into their pipelines,
but I doubt those "discussions" achieved much on that front.

Cheers

Quote - "Quote - "I'm not sure of what to name it, but Daz seems to have discovered and frequently utilized the opposite of good customer service. Seldom have I seen a company so set of a course of alienating it's customers."

I honestly don't think DAZ is in any Danger of "losing" any significant amount of customers with their store policies.

The for this is obvious.

Where else is there a viable alternative at this point in time??

Maybe some people will drop the monthly PC Club thing but they will still buy from there

To "leave" DAZ is to Leave the latest Vicky& Mike(genesis) and all of the really Good &new content.

Good news about the Zips though as the installers had become quite a problem on the Mac side with OSX 10.7  I had heard.

Cheers
 

Don't bet on not continuing to hemorrage customers. 

The alternatives are to continue with Gen4, use the SM figures, use independent figures - I use them all.  The purpose of Genesis is to get me to repurchase content I already own.  Sorry, but I played the "replace all of your content" game back in the 80's with my RPG's and my wargames (Squad Leader to ASL, StarFleet Battles to Advanced StarFleet Battles, Europa, etc).

Most of that "new" content is just a rehash of Gen 4 content. 

Vise & Bitrock installers have always been a pain on OSX.  Some were designed for OS9, and DAZ never updated those, some were designed for the PPC architecture and never updated.

Quote - Well there are conflicting accounts here--frankly after what I read from other posts I rather doubt it.  What's wrong with the installers anyhow?  I think they are easier to deal with and then if you accidently install to a wrong directory you can uninstall it and reinstall correctly.  With zip files you have to hunt down all the folders and manually delete them if you don't want something somewhere.

Aside from what everyone else already mentioned, there is all the trash the installers leave behind. Some may leave listing in you firewall, that after gross amounts will slow things down. They all leave traces all over your OS (windows anyway) that you have to go route out, or just reinstall you OS fresh. I have loads of content from DAZ left uninstalled until I need it or am about to reinstal the OS. Windows 7 seems to need this much less than XP did so the list is growing.

Zip, right click unzip, where, done. I have only unzipped to the wrong location a couple of times, out of what hundreds of times? It's alot easier to remove the content from the wrong directory (being able to see where it is, from the zip) then, search all over windows for crums that are not listed where they are.

I think it's pretty clear what's going on:

1.  The new "management" at DAZ used to use this store software (Magneto) and insisted they change over to it since the existing store software is such a jumble of code and errors; and

2.  Magento is a physical product software package, i.e., you're shipping physical (crafts?) products to a person.  Since DAZ is a digital store, they are trying to shoehorn a product into a shopping cart not designed to handle the product.

So, I conclude, the software can't deliver EXE files, so ZIP files it is.  Unless DAZ is willing to do a complete system re-write to deliver their beloved installer files, ZIPs it is.  Because........DAZ bought a LICENSE to use the shopping cart.  They have no authority to modify it, since they don't OWN the source code outright.  Despite Randall coming in here just a few months ago, saying unequivocably that ZIPs would NEVER be the delivery method, here they are.  Lots of other things will be impossible to do as well - think about what you can and can't do when you check out at a Michael's Craft Store.

on edit:

Magento may be open source, so the lack of customization is even more puzzling.

Quote - Lots of other things will be impossible to do as well - think about what you can and can't do when you check out at a Michael's Craft Store.

Not look odd when in line with a bunch of old ladies, feeling like find Waldo nighmare. Paying 30+ bucks for stuff I'll never use, wait that part is the same.

Quote - > Quote - Lots of other things will be impossible to do as well - think about what you can and can't do when you check out at a Michael's Craft Store.

Not look odd when in line with a bunch of old ladies, feeling like find Waldo nighmare. Paying 30+ bucks for stuff I'll never use, wait that part is the same.

ROFLMAO!

My daughter spends a lot of time at Michaels buying traditional art supplies.  So it's not ALL old ladies.  There are some pretty, young girls in the line of old ladies.

Quote - > Quote - lmckenzie wrote;

Quote - Whatever the other changes, I think the loss of the money back guarantee is the most significant. That probably set them apart to some degree and it was always IMO, a powerful point in their favor. I have no idea how much revenue they may have 'lost' over the years because of it. Maybe it was a money decision or maybe the new boss just didn't cotton to the idea.

 

Coldrake wrote

DAZ still has the 30 day money back guarantee. Where do you come up with this stuff?

  

Coldrake

 

 3anson wrote;

read the posts by Skondris in the 'new website' thread at daz commons, he clearly states that product returns will result in store credit, NOT a refund of money ( which is actually contrary to Utah business/consumer law)

 

I have read the posts by Skondris. Yes he does state that product returns will result in store credit, instead of vouchers like you did in the old store. Vouchers have always been the default. In the old store if you wanted your money returned to your card, you simply requested it when you put in your ticket. It will work the same way in the new store.

NOWHERE did he or anyone else say you can't get a refund of money.

Nothing has changed in the refund policy except that instead of a voucher you will get in-store credit.

Coldrake

Quote - > Quote - Daz will have customers as long as Stonemason posts his wares there. Now, if that changes...

The bit about the zips is great new. I wonder if they will go back and repackage all of the old content that way? I'd re-download all my stuff just to get the zips!

 

ummm stonemason has a store on his site already where he sells some of the products he offers at daz ;)

oops was thinking of the wrong vendor ><

gotta love brain farts :lol: