They do try to bargain for a lower price for Barbie's? But no, I have never worked that kind of retail. I jsut see general "I don't want to pay more than $5," "Well, the platinum club sells it for 1.99, why can't they" and "I am waiting for the half off platinum days so I can buy it for only .99 because 1.99 is too much" coming into play a lot more. These are general examples and I made up the words but the statements I have seen a lot. I am sorry, $5 is not the haute couture of poser. It is loosing money for the merchant. I am sure that most people are willing to tell what they do for the renders. I make sure I never do any postwork on mine if possible. Since we have to dress the figure, if there is touch of poke through on the outfit that I am simply clothing the figure in, and it doesn't relate to the product, I might touch it up.

"I am waiting for the half off platinum days so I can buy it for only .99 because 1.99 is too much"

I don't think it's that 1.99 is too much. It's more like "Why pay 1.99 if you can pay 0.99 instead"? It may be "only" $1, but you're buying a lot of items, it adds up. I confess, I bought something like 150 items during the last $0.99 sale. But I didn't really "save" $150, because I bought a lot of items I wouldn't have bought otherwise. Not because they weren't worth $1.99, but because I wasn't sure I'd use them. But during the sale, if there was any chance I'd need it, I bought it.

Don't take it personal. It has nothing to do with the quality of the item. It's just that few people are willing to pay $5 if they can get it for $1.99, or $1.99 if they can get it for $0.99.

I do think DAZ regrets those $0.99 sales, though. They trained people to wait for them, and I suspect it hurt their bottom line. Steve says there will be no more $0.99 sales. Though of course, many people don't believe him, and are still holding out.

Yep .. I understand that ... Those sales just made it harder to charge anything for products. But people want more and more for less and less so it just gets under my skin a touch. I have never had anyone come up and say anything to me but it just seems to be a increasing attitude.

Interesting thread. My .02 on it as a Poser content creator? Whne this does not make enough to make it worth my time, I'll do something else, pure and simple. I LOVE doing poser stuf, and love that I have "fans" that eagerly look for my products. But I do this as our second income, and if a product does not perform decently enough, I'll stop doing something along those lines. Excelletn example, as I've mentioned before, is my Sal Adventurer set. Sal is supposedly Dark Whisper's most popular Wacky World character, yet the Sal set is my worst selling product to date. (It's been around a year now.) It's got plenty of fun stuff in it, yet it performed very badly. As a result, I shelved 3 or 4 wacky world projects, because financially, they wouldn't be worth the time it took to create them. That makes me sad, because I LOVE toon characters. And a smaller price dos NOT mean you'll sell alot more of anything. I haven't seen any practical correlation at all to price/performance. And a $5 product price is a slap in the face to a good content creator. (Bearing in mind, that Rendo or daz will suck up 1/2 of that money). If a product takes you 3 weeks to complete, and only sells 50 units in a month, then that means you've just worked at about $2 an hour. I'd walk away from a real job that offered me that much, and I'd walk away from doing poser content if I ended up in that situation. I'm a chep bastard, and will squeeze a nickle until the buffalo shits (one of my dear departed Mom's favorite sayings), but if I want something bad enough, I'll cough up the dough for it. I think opart of the probelm is that there is a LOT of low cost drek out there, and it makes it harder to locate the real "gems". Topically, over $40, and I really need to justify a purchase. Under 30, and I'll think on if I really want that item. Under $20, and if I'm interested in it, I'll buy it before intro sales end. Under $10, and If I'm interested in it, I'll probably et it within a day or so. Under $8 (and if it's cool) Plonk it hits my cart, and my Hard Drive. But new items have to be different enough to make me want them. Yet another character, pose, or texture set, and I'm on to the next item. Give me something with style, and I'm all over it. (Lady Little Fox, Dark Whisper, and a few others come to mind...) And some of the best conetent creators DO leave for long periods of time, when this isn't worth it.. Both Anton and Neftis come to mind. What happened to Curio, and his great stuff, like his Ent, and Majestic Dragon? And yeah, there are always other artists waiting to fill a "gap" from someone leaving, bu tthere's no saying if they will have the same creative talent, or technical expertise. That takes time to learn.

Curios been working as a lead 3D artist for a game developer,he poked his head in the Daz forums a few weeks ago

cool.. I was wondering what happened to him...

Don't get me wrong here --

I greatly appreciate all of the hard work that's put in by our talented Poser merchants. And I firmly believe that they should be well compensated for their efforts. No merchant should ever feel that they aren't appreciated -- at least from this quarter.

My posts are in reference to my personal purchasing habits. By no means can I claim to speak for other individual customers. After all, for some few customers money is no issue at all. They could dump $10,000 on Poser content before lunch, and not even notice that the money was missing. While other customers have a tough time coming up with $12.00 a month with which to buy a single character package.

Most of us -- I suspect -- are somewhere in the middle.

But I can make observations regarding general market trends. For those few merchants (I can probably count them on one hand) who are good enough to regularly charge $30+ for their products -- and sell lots of product: I'm glad that you can. After all, I am a firm believer in capitalism. And in maximizing profit.

However: please keep in mind that the other side of the capitalistic equation applies just as strongly: most potential customers will give at least cursory attention to looking for a deal........and good enough deals can attract more buyers........and more buyers can mean more money in a merchant's pocket. Without the need for high prices to turn a profit on a per-unit basis.

shrug At least that's the way that I do it. I feel safe in stating that most people probably behave in a very similar fashion. And if I were a merchant -- I'd consider an awareness of my customer's buying habits to be to my advantage.

So thanks to all of the incredibly talented people who have taken the plunge into providing the rest of us with good things to feed our Poser habit.

I'm grateful. And I'm willing to pay.

But only for stuff that doesn't tip over my internal price vs. value meter.

Message edited on: 12/15/2005 22:45