like hot blooded, tundra, daring.

i'm not clicking on all these things to find out.  if anyone cares, you're losing atleast one possible customer.

not gonna complain about it any more, it is what it is.

I agree. I've got several purchases that were not clearly marked that I can't use because of software variations.

Maybe I'm just thick but I've seen products where it's hard to even work out what the product is, never mind who it's for. I click on a pretty promo image called "sublime for enchanted" or some such (ok, I made those up) and I have to dig deep to figure out whether it's hair or a texture or a character or an outfit or expressions or poses or what.  

Part of the problem is promo images with too much irrelevant detail in them, there's often no focus on the product itself. We don't really need to see the figure's shoes in the promos for a hair prop...

Quote - Maybe I'm just thick but I've seen products where it's hard to even work out what the product is, never mind who it's for.

If your thick, then so am I. If someone can't even get it together to make it clear in the promo image what the item is, and if appropriate, which figure it is fore, then it's it's unlikely to be a quality item, and is probably not worth having.

Using the product title alone is pretty much useless as a guide to what it is.

But on the product page itself there is (usually) an accurate description of what you get and what you need. Are you suggesting that ever product title should include the words, for example, "Hair for V4" or "Clothes for M4" or "Textures for Steamy Bride for V4"? Is going to the product page now called "digging deep"?

yes.  the "Textures for Steamy Bride" doesn't need the V4, but the "Steamy Bride" does.

So the product title under the thumbnail should be "Steamy Bride Texture for DAZ Lolita Rose for V4, A4 and G4, for Poser 6.0 or higher"? Rendo will need to make their Marketplace pages a lot bigger LOL.

I was looking at a few hair products today, not one said who it was for. I might assume that it was for V4 since most stuff seems to be but looking at the catagories it might be fore several different different models. Since I found a texture for a transmapped hair I don't know how well you can trust those.

And a quick glance at the MP shows some products that are named thinks like "StoryBrook Hair V4, A4, G4, Miki4".  But having a simple line just under the promo pictures or even somethingon the picutre (and the MP thumbnail) would work too.

With as messed up as the organization is in the MP you would think venders would want to make extra effort to make sure customers know what they are getting. That is unless they want to be deciving and try to get people to buy stuff they think is for one character when it's for another.

I think if the product in an add-on for an existing product, hair/clothes textures etc., there is an assumption that the prospective buyer knows who the original item is for. Which is often not the case. You do sometimes need to do a bit of searching. But stand-alone products (usually) indicate what character they're for. It's in the vendor's interest to do that if he/she wants to sell it.

Quote - Are you suggesting that ever product title should include the words, for example, "Hair for V4" or "Clothes for M4" or "Textures for Steamy Bride for V4"? Is going to the product page now called "digging deep"?

Imagine if you went into a supermarket and every product on every shelf had just a name and a picture of a happy, smiling family on it (the equivalent of the pretty girl with big eyes and pouty lips on every rendo product). And to find out what each product was you had to read the small print "This product contains: ...." or the instructions for use. 

The aisles would be full of puzzled customers trying to help each other "No, I don't think it's a breakfast cereal, it says you have to cook it so maybe it's a cake mix or something". 

"Does this look like sugar to you?" "No, I think it could be a laundry detergent refill, but I can't see what type of machine it's for"

There is a certain level of assumed knowledge that negates sugar sellers having to print "Do not pour into eyes" on every packet. Likewise, Poser consumers are well aware that items for sale are made for specific use and it's up to them to turn the packet over to see if it suits their needs. Does anyone buy a car or house or anything based on a picture of it without a little further investigation?

Are we actually that lazy and spoon-fed to expect a product thumbnail to include every detail regarding its use? Yes, sometimes you do actually need to apply the extreme effort of clicking on the thumb to get more details. Five seconds of your life wasted LOL.

All I'm saying is that "Sublime for Enchanted" is pretty meaningless to me (and, I suspect, to many others who don't buy every single product as it arrives in the what's hot section). Calling it "Sublime tex for Enchanted hair" would be a lot more helpful.

Quote - There is a certain level of assumed knowledge that negates sugar sellers having to print "Do not pour into eyes" on every packet. 

But is printing 'sugar' on the packet too much to ask?

Quote - Does anyone buy a car or house or anything based on a picture of it without a little further investigation?

Are we actually that lazy and spoon-fed to expect a product thumbnail to include every detail regarding its use? Yes, sometimes you do actually need to apply the extreme effort of clicking on the thumb to get more details. 

If I'm shopping for a car and I see a product called "Summer fun"and the thumbnail shows a car on a driveway it would be nice to know (without clicking on the thumbnail) whether the product is the car, a squeegee for washing the car, or the driveway paving, or the house in the background.

I hardly ever buy Poser content, partly because I find it a frustrating to have to wade through the all the stuff that doesn't interest me in order to find the things that do. So it's because I'm lazy? Fine.

It just takes a click on the thumbnail to get the main page.

Then you can see what it is for.

Whats so hard about doing that?

All the best.

LROG

paganeagle, that's the point. Some products don't do that. Others you have to read though 3 paragraphs of hype to find out what it is. People are asking the vendors to make it a little more clear up front what the product is.

Not the mass majority. Most do give the info on the first page. Plus the text underneath should give the info.

Not hard to follow that info.

If in doubt open the Read Me file.

The one thing that can confuse people is the use of a MR skin. If it NOT allowed to be used on Free characters, then this should be prominant on the main promo image.

Sometimes I have had to do a double check in the read me for the actual things you can and cannot do with a certain skin as it was not shown in any of the promos or the promo text.

In the end, it is just a few seconds to find things out.

All the best.

LROG

Lets work with the example shown:-

Steamy Bride - Lolita Bride

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/steamy-bride---lolita-rose/96577

Now, it kind of gives it away with the title, but even n the Promo image on the page it does say it's for Lolita Rose.

Looking further down the promo page it says:-

Product Requirements: V4, Lolita Rose outfit by Rhiannon (RMP), Poser6 or higher.

So, that's at least 3 times Lolitia Rose has been mentioned.

Further down the page it says:-

LINK to Original Model :

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=96478

Now, how hard can that be to follow. It even gives the link to copy and paste.

Now in FireFox I can just highlight that link and go straight to the page:-

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=96478

That must have taken less than 10 seconds to read and go to the original file that it is a texture set for.

Not particularly hard to do.

All the best.

LROG

Diary of one poser hobbiest shopping

some shopping experience friendly names:

Neila Hair V4-A4-G4
NavyGirl V4/A4/G4/S4
Chains V4/A4/S4
DZ HenleyTop for M4H4Guy4

i read the product title to see what it's compatible with, whether it's in the text or written in the thumbnail, either works for me, and read the price.
if it passes my criteria i'll click on it to find out more -
i'll give a thumbnail promo the benefit of the doubt since 200px can only do so much

by this time i've been in the store over 30 minutes.

am i going to start clicking on mystery thumbnails?  NO.

for every click, there's a page back click and waiting for the store page to repopulate.
i don't have every single available figure and software. i'm not going to waste my time, as valueless as it may seem.

next, i'm busy with the math, deciding how much i can spend on my hobby this week and how many of my w/l items i can squeeze into that amount.
and after a quick side trip to check the fastgrabs and latest real-deals,
make my final purchase decision for the week.

I'm with obm890 and MistyLaraPrincess all the way. I can't understand why some vendors don't appreciate the simple and obvious facts that they have pointed out. But at the end of the day its up to the vendors. If they can't be botherd to put essential info up front, then I certainly can't be bothered to go digging for it.

Yeah, if you want to sell, you've got to do good marketing.

That's why there are so many advertising companies... :biggrin:  

I guess I can understand how a product named "Sublime for Enchanted" could sell to a certain demographic... regardless of exactly what it is.

It's certainly unlikely to reel me in though.

But I guess that's just down to the sheer volume of products that seem to be named in this abstract way.

If the vast majority of products had really no-nonsense, descriptive names like "Something Barely Passing as Underwear for V4", "Moustache for M4", "Slightly Improved Belly Button for V4" and a product popped up in "what's new" called "Sublime for Enchanted" it might catch my attention...

However, talking about obscurely named add-ons now... even if I did already own "Enchanted"... which I most likely don't... I've probably forgotten I do, anyway. So "Sublime" is likely to pass me right by ;-)

Which might be a shame.

Maybe I would find the Peruvian Train Conductor's outfit for M4, that has been named "Enchanted" and the "Sublime" texture set, featuring train company colors and logos for the whole rest of the railway systems of South America, to be an excellent addition to my runtime.

It gets more confusing when, as is often the case, the add-on / texture set is for a product being sold at Daz, or in another entirely independent store... or is no longer being sold!

Maybe Rendo should have a personalised product suggestions feature / list... compiled on the fly, based on what I already own... that could tell me when add-ons for stuff I already own (obviously just the stuff bought here, I guess) are available?

Yeah. Completely agree. It's not that hard for a product title to say what it is or what figure it's for. There's so much additional rubbish (no offence to the vendors) going on round the sides of every page that I can't be bothered wading through the store just to find out the basic product info.

The vendors probably spend a lot of time trying to come up with a unique and appealing product name. The sheer volume of stuff over the years means they come up with some pretty interesting names to try to differentiate themselves. Unfortunately, that means a lot of them are opaque to say the least. The really should be a way to get some basic information that doesn’t necessarily mean adding it to the name. It would be nice to hover the thumbnail and see at least whether it’s texture, mesh software etc., what figure it’s for if applicable and application compatibility e.g. Poser, DS etc., and version number. Maybe some better filtering options are needed as well.

Just a subtitle field, that always appears under the name in listings, as well as in the detail page, would do the trick?

I few weeks ago I suggested that the MP at least have release dates for products - bunkus.

Good luck with that.

the trend doesn't seem to be changing.  guess that means they aren't listening.

i came here after the V3 to V4 transition days, but it's pretty easy to tell them apart.

V4 to V5 look so similar, is V5's face a lil wider? 

or is it the camera adding 10 lbs, lol

This thread brings up so many of my quibbles with the marketplace here, and elsewhere.

Really, you would think that vendors would want to sell their products. But not all sellers see it that way. When I was designing a website for my MIL's business, the most common screen resolution was 800 x 600, particularly at offices. But my MIL had poor vision and an enormous screen. She refused to permit any design that accomodated a screen smaller than 1024 width and insisted on 16 point fonts. The result was hideous. When I tried to explain the relationship between accessibility and sales, she said that she wasn't interested in doing business with customers who still used small screens because they would doubtless end up being problem customers who constantly needed technical support to do the simplest things.

Well... okay... if you are running a business alone and don't have time to spend hours on the phone helping people reset their passwords over and over, this actually kind of makes sense.

But it's silly to have that kind of attitude and then complain that only a few vendors can make any real money. I bet one of the reasons this is the case is that those few vendors know how to do good, quality promo renders, keywords, product titles, and useful descriptions.

Having said all that, in the end, I stopped browsing the marketplace. These days, I buy from my favorite vendors, and sometimes by "word of mouth", but that's it. New vendors hoping to get established would have to do something very special to get my attention these days.

I gotta agree with the general concensus.  Vendors are their own worst enemy.

I have started making freebies (I am converting a bunch of free M3/V3, M4/V4 poses to non-DAZ characters), I'll happily take input from other buyers.

What do YOU feel is the best way to package & advertise freebies?

It looks like you may be limited to one image for free items so I'd like to see as many of the poses from a set without making them too small. They probably don't allow animated gifs, but if they do, that would be an alternative. Obviously include which figure(s) they're for and try to have a descriptive title - e.g. 'Shopping Poses' as opposed to 'Spending Spree.' :-)

A lot of vendors probably aren't into the ins and outs of marketing. It might pay the site to do some tutorials on keywords, making good promo renders etc. or even provide some kind of marketing assistance service. Someone could do that independently though whether they could make any money at it is open to question.   

A marketing tutorial is an excellent idea.

--

I do recall an article explaining the "core fan" theory of marketing. The idea was that content creators (in this case authors and bands, but applies to this as well) should spend most of their time creating with their "core fans" in mind.

Core fans are those people who buy just abbout everything you make. I'm a core fan of a couple of vendors.

If you think about it, it makes sense. If you create 5 items a year which sell for $10 each, and you get to keep half that, then 1000 core fans will put food on your table, and you do not need to spend much time expanding your marketing. Just enough to replace those fans that drop out of the market from time to time.

The point of the article was that chasing after endless expansion and more and more new customers isn't necessary for the individual who needs only $25 - 50k year. It's a strategy designed to fuel corporate profits, and may not be appropriate at all.

Keeping that in mind, if you are a new vendor looking at the successful vendors (who have an established "core fan" base), you might think you can get away with the sort of stuff they do. After all, your core fans know which figues you create for and they are used to your crazy naming conventions. They don't need all that extra info.

Trouble is: new vendors can't use the same strategy until they've got their own fan base, which likely takes a couple of years of hard and efficient marketing work.

--

So yeah, again. a marketing tutorial is an excellent idea. :)

This still doesn't explain why RO refuses to reveal release dates for marketplace products, something that would be very useful for buyers wanting to know if they're purchasing a 10 year old product or a more recent, or even new one. There's no way of telling.

Isn't this also "a strategy designed to fuel corporate profits" at the expense of buyers, or am I reading this wrong?

Quote - like hot blooded, tundra, daring.

i'm not clicking on all these things to find out.  if anyone cares, you're losing atleast one possible customer.

 

not gonna complain about it any more, it is what it is.

Renderosity was getting too much business. They need to cut their profits in half.  I don't see what the problem is.

Quote - This still doesn't explain why RO refuses to reveal release dates for marketplace products, something that would be very useful for buyers wanting to know if they're purchasing a 10 year old product or a more recent, or even new one. There's no way of telling.

Isn't this also "a strategy designed to fuel corporate profits" at the expense of buyers, or am I reading this wrong?

Well, all profit comes at the expense of buyers, doesn't it?

No company lasts very long if their business model is based on screwing over the customers. I doubt very much that this is a part of it here.

It would be nice, though, if release dates were included as part of the product info. But I also understand those merchants who worry that, with a date tag, their "old" products might not sell, even though they are still perfectly good.

Maybe som

e would be put off an older item just because it wasn’t the latest and greatest. From a practical standpoint, an older item is perhaps less likely to get new supporting add-ons like textures or morphs. Even stuff that was available may have disappeared for something past a certain point. It varies of course. Something like the Daz MFD probably has more staying power than the panty of the month.

Core fan sounds a lot like something by a guy named Rove. The fans tend to rebel if you want to try anything new, but such is reality.

What they should have (if they don’t already) is a good related items function. You should be able to see every made to go with item X without having to search. Adding release dates would be a bonus. Having a timeline graph showing the number of releases related to an item by date would be nice too. I doubt the vendors would go for that though.

I am with les and MLP on this one, how hard is it to put "Needs blahbalhblah for V?" in the first line of the product description, call me devils advocate but i wonder sometimes if product descriptions are deliberatly vague in the hope that you may purchase the product that turns out to be an add on  or texture set and then you are forced to either put it into the "basically useless items" runtime or purchase the product that you should have owned in the first instance?

Oddly enough, there is a line on all of the products page called:-

Product Requirements:

After this line it says (99% of the time) what is required, V4, K4 etc.

If this is filled in correctly then you can see straight away what the product requires.

BUT.....

If you cannot click on a thumbnail, then you will never find out.

The site obviously has a limit on the title of a product.

Perhaps the site shoulod have a individual shopper option so that users don't have to click or press anything on their keyboard.

Or perhaps they should send someone round to switch on their computer as well. LOL.

All the best.

LROG

i guess thats paganeagle off my xmas shopping list :), whatever happened to the customer is always right as a marketing attitude, I guess PE is saying the customer gets what he deserves :)

I don't think I'm on anyone Yule list. Lol.

No, I'm not saying either side is right or wrong.

But, why is it so hard to click on a thumbnail to see the main promo page?

All the best.

LROG

lol, i didnt say it was PE, all i am saying is that it would be far simpler if the first line of the product description of a vaguely labelled product stated "This is a **** addon/morph/texture pack for YYYYYY. Requires the previous purchase of xxxx"  rather than it being either at the end of or amongst the other product blurb. It doesn't inferr that i am too lazy, it just makes it simpler for the purchaser, the ones the vendors are selling to, to decide quickly whether to continue browsing the product or not. It's not that much to ask i would have thought. But that's only my opinion as a potential purchaser, so i wouldnt take too much notice of me.

It's an interesting concept, I'm all for clarity for customers. I hate to see things that say they are a tutorial etc. and you need nothing else.

Then....

You read the read me file (I always do to check) and it says, you need this or that high priced software.

If something IS required for the product to work correctly, then it should be listed.

Also, in the same respect, if something is NOT included, then it should say so in a decent sized font. Not those small little fonts saying, the hair or this or that outfit is not included. We all know, we have seen it too often.

Some things can be wittled down quite easily. Backgrounds etc. can be solved with the usual, any program that can open (whateve format it is in).

Other ethings can be a bit more vague. Again we have all seen them on various sites, not only here at Rendo.

One thing that may be hard to do is put a listing on the Promo thumbnail. Not bad when it is a simple title, but can you imagine trying to fit on a title of an item with all the characters it supports and the software it supports? You wouldn't see the actual promo pic. Lol.

In the end, the only way to really make sure is to click on the thumbnail to get the product page. It's just that one more click.

How many clicks would a possible customer had to do to get to the Rendo store in the first place from when they started their computer up.

It take a couple of clicks just to get the browser to load up. Lol.

As I said, I'm all for clarity, it makes it easier for the customer to bypass those items that do not interest them.

All the best.

LROG

"It's not that much to ask i would have thought."

No, it's not too much at all. On the contrary, not doing it is what seems rather clueless - unless there is some arcane marketing motive. I can see vendors maybe not realizing it but I would think the store would be all for enhancing the shopping experience. I would go with a roll-over so as not to clutter up the item name, but that's it. The whole idea of selling something should be to make the process as easy as possible, not to prove some sort of work ethic by jumping through unnecessary hoops. Some people are still on dial-up. Who wants to be loading extra pages though, when it isn't necessary, no matter how fast your connection.