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A lesson on price points..
oldkhemaraa
Member Posts: 1,039 Arc User
Yesterday was my 58th birthday.. Now I've reached the age I are, my demise cannot be for.. but I went and budgeted myself some extra money and I was going to get the KDF Pilot ship pack.
Price.. 6k zen
SO I went and I looked at purchasing Zen.. closest amount was $50 (5k zen possible 5300 zen with purchase bonus) Well that isn't quite at the 6000 zen needed for my planned purchase.
I could buy the $50 pack and spend a week grinding dilithium to sell which "might" make up the short fall of 700 zen.. But there are other things I want/need that Dilithium for in game.So that pretty much puts paid to that idea.
My next option is to dig out another $40 and get $100 wprth of Zen (plus any bonus amount).
This is just a game, and its not like I'm getting that much for my buck.
So lets see, the standard zen purchase amounts seem to always be just short of the amount needed to buy a premium item. This is NOT an accident. It's by design. It is designed to purposely get me to buy more zen then I need for my purchase.
And I don't like it. That is NOT a game I want to play.
I don't really have a great deal of extra cash these days.. Hell, when I hit 65 and start collecting social security I'm actually going to have a higher monthly income then I do now!
So.. SO..here's what it is.
Much as I would love to have those ships... I'm not going to make that purchase. The zen amounts for sale are not at convenient amount for this purchase. I'm not going to go spend extra money.
NO SALE. I owned a retail store for a good many years.. and NO SALE is about the worst thing you ever want to see. And your Zen store doesn't really give me a lot of options. I'm not going to wait for a ship sale.. or a zen sale or any of the rest.
I "WAS" ready to do business.. But the opportunity for that is gone. I can tell you the exact moment that the sale was lost. It was when I discovered that I would have to spend more then I had readily available to get what I wanted.
I have a strong feeling that PWE and Cryptic loose a lot of potential revenue over the exact situation with far to many of their potential customers.
You know its one thing if you have plenty of spendable cash... But even someone with plenty to spend could very well find them selves turned off by the pricing practices. I saw it happen at the retail level in my old store every day. My advantage there over what you have here is I could directly interact with my customer. I could turn a no sale customer into a product sold customer. You don't have that ability to turn a sale around with a little one on one time with a customer. You aren't set up to "cut a deal" with the customer to make sure you get the sale.
What I'm trying tell you guys is your sale and pricing strategy is costing you more money then its making you.
Stop trying to be cute with the customer. It turns customers off, and it pisses them off, and it leaves them confused. Angry, pissed off, confused customers are real difficult tp sell to.
Either set zen sales so customers can buy in the amount they need/want.. and to hell with bonus amounts... Your not gold farmers doing the in game RMT thing... your the game operator. You don't need to be slick... what you do need to do is be honest with your customers, and strait forward with them.
I need 6000 zen.. I can't purchase 6000 zen, I can purchase 5300 zen, or 10600 zen.. But I cant just get 6,000 zen. Well, I can.. I can make a purchase for $50, and a second purchase of $10..this is inconvenient.
And clearly your not interested in making it convenient for the customer especially when your selling what is essentially luxury goods. Virtual luxury goods at that. If you were truely interested in making the sale.. You would have zen packages available in amounts that would reflect bundle purchase amounts in the STO zen store in game.. you know, 6,000 zen, 12000 zen, 18000 zen. STO is the biggest money maker from what I understand of all of the current line up of PWE titles. You would think that you would be setting zen sale amounts based on what is needed for its game purchases. ANyone that sells luxury goods will tell you you either cater to the customer or they will either go somewhere else, or simply not buy.
When your selling a luxury good you MUST cater to the customers wants and needs. What your trying to sell them is NOT something they need.. It's something they desire. That makes it much easier for the customer to say "No".
Between the games technical issues, poorly considered price points, and fixed Point of Sale options, something could use some changing.
I'm not going to buy the KDF 3 pack of pilot ships now. PWE/Cryptic made it a little to inconvenient to do.
I think I may just go and order this instead.
http://www.atomicempire.com/item.aspx?item=138727&gclid=CjwKEAjwj9GqBRCRlPram97Xk3ESJADrN7Iec2tzXfZQ6GLjNMpVlbCyq111zshc_jwthkBmHmHGxRoChAXw_wcB
That is a model of the K'tinga class battle cruiser in a generous 1/537 scale, and very high detail. It'll take me a couple entertaining weeks to prep the kit, put in a lighting package, and assemble it.. Should sit on my shelf for at least the next 20 years baring accident.
I think its a much much better buy. Oh and.. the markup for the company making it is way way way less then what cryptic/pwe has.. At best a 50% markup over cost to produce, package, and stock in inventory. And they do keep a physical inventory. Something Cryptic doesn't have to concern themselves with.
Think about it please. I'd be really irritated to discover that STO ends up shutting down at some point because the bean counters got to cutsy by half, and cut them selves out of sales and revenue.
Khemaraa Iron Hand
Price.. 6k zen
SO I went and I looked at purchasing Zen.. closest amount was $50 (5k zen possible 5300 zen with purchase bonus) Well that isn't quite at the 6000 zen needed for my planned purchase.
I could buy the $50 pack and spend a week grinding dilithium to sell which "might" make up the short fall of 700 zen.. But there are other things I want/need that Dilithium for in game.So that pretty much puts paid to that idea.
My next option is to dig out another $40 and get $100 wprth of Zen (plus any bonus amount).
This is just a game, and its not like I'm getting that much for my buck.
So lets see, the standard zen purchase amounts seem to always be just short of the amount needed to buy a premium item. This is NOT an accident. It's by design. It is designed to purposely get me to buy more zen then I need for my purchase.
And I don't like it. That is NOT a game I want to play.
I don't really have a great deal of extra cash these days.. Hell, when I hit 65 and start collecting social security I'm actually going to have a higher monthly income then I do now!
So.. SO..here's what it is.
Much as I would love to have those ships... I'm not going to make that purchase. The zen amounts for sale are not at convenient amount for this purchase. I'm not going to go spend extra money.
NO SALE. I owned a retail store for a good many years.. and NO SALE is about the worst thing you ever want to see. And your Zen store doesn't really give me a lot of options. I'm not going to wait for a ship sale.. or a zen sale or any of the rest.
I "WAS" ready to do business.. But the opportunity for that is gone. I can tell you the exact moment that the sale was lost. It was when I discovered that I would have to spend more then I had readily available to get what I wanted.
I have a strong feeling that PWE and Cryptic loose a lot of potential revenue over the exact situation with far to many of their potential customers.
You know its one thing if you have plenty of spendable cash... But even someone with plenty to spend could very well find them selves turned off by the pricing practices. I saw it happen at the retail level in my old store every day. My advantage there over what you have here is I could directly interact with my customer. I could turn a no sale customer into a product sold customer. You don't have that ability to turn a sale around with a little one on one time with a customer. You aren't set up to "cut a deal" with the customer to make sure you get the sale.
What I'm trying tell you guys is your sale and pricing strategy is costing you more money then its making you.
Stop trying to be cute with the customer. It turns customers off, and it pisses them off, and it leaves them confused. Angry, pissed off, confused customers are real difficult tp sell to.
Either set zen sales so customers can buy in the amount they need/want.. and to hell with bonus amounts... Your not gold farmers doing the in game RMT thing... your the game operator. You don't need to be slick... what you do need to do is be honest with your customers, and strait forward with them.
I need 6000 zen.. I can't purchase 6000 zen, I can purchase 5300 zen, or 10600 zen.. But I cant just get 6,000 zen. Well, I can.. I can make a purchase for $50, and a second purchase of $10..this is inconvenient.
And clearly your not interested in making it convenient for the customer especially when your selling what is essentially luxury goods. Virtual luxury goods at that. If you were truely interested in making the sale.. You would have zen packages available in amounts that would reflect bundle purchase amounts in the STO zen store in game.. you know, 6,000 zen, 12000 zen, 18000 zen. STO is the biggest money maker from what I understand of all of the current line up of PWE titles. You would think that you would be setting zen sale amounts based on what is needed for its game purchases. ANyone that sells luxury goods will tell you you either cater to the customer or they will either go somewhere else, or simply not buy.
When your selling a luxury good you MUST cater to the customers wants and needs. What your trying to sell them is NOT something they need.. It's something they desire. That makes it much easier for the customer to say "No".
Between the games technical issues, poorly considered price points, and fixed Point of Sale options, something could use some changing.
I'm not going to buy the KDF 3 pack of pilot ships now. PWE/Cryptic made it a little to inconvenient to do.
I think I may just go and order this instead.
http://www.atomicempire.com/item.aspx?item=138727&gclid=CjwKEAjwj9GqBRCRlPram97Xk3ESJADrN7Iec2tzXfZQ6GLjNMpVlbCyq111zshc_jwthkBmHmHGxRoChAXw_wcB
That is a model of the K'tinga class battle cruiser in a generous 1/537 scale, and very high detail. It'll take me a couple entertaining weeks to prep the kit, put in a lighting package, and assemble it.. Should sit on my shelf for at least the next 20 years baring accident.
I think its a much much better buy. Oh and.. the markup for the company making it is way way way less then what cryptic/pwe has.. At best a 50% markup over cost to produce, package, and stock in inventory. And they do keep a physical inventory. Something Cryptic doesn't have to concern themselves with.
Think about it please. I'd be really irritated to discover that STO ends up shutting down at some point because the bean counters got to cutsy by half, and cut them selves out of sales and revenue.
Khemaraa Iron Hand
"I aim to misbehave" - Malcolm Reynolds
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
But STO is a luxury, so there are apparently sufficient people with a liberal attitude toward spending to keep Cryptic aloof from the normal economic cycles. I do know this: some of the players in my own fleets are not spending their own hard-earned money; they are living on public assistance... :rolleyes:
Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci
Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac
Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
Although, in fairness, I almost 'filled my trousers' again when I looked at the Microtransaction store in Neverwinter, which charges $35.00 for a single character mount. Not even account wide, just one character. It's crazy. :eek:
I wouldn't mind dropping some coin every now and then to support a game I enjoyed playing, but lately STO has become less of a game and more of a chore...
Which makes me question if I should buy things from the Microtransaction stores, or play with my now-obsolete Risan Corvette just to stick it to Cryptic for pricing themselves out of a sale. :P
Oh, OP, I'd say go with the K'tinga model, I've built Star Trek models in the past and they are definately a better deal than a few bits of data on a server somewhere. And I really like your signiture, Loved Firefly, gonna have to watch it again...:)
Though, with regard to purchasing more Zen than you need for the ships - you mentioned you couldn't convert your Dil to Zen because you needed the Dil...it's not a one way conversion on that Dil to Zen, the Zen has to come from somewhere. So you could take that additional Zen and convert it to the Dil you need - the Dil you can't convert to Zen because you need it.
It sounds like you kind of answered your own problem there...but yeah, they never updated their purchase options to reflect their new price points.
Best idea ever.
Corvette Armada 2015
*raises closed fist*
Or, instead of whining, simply buy $50 and then $10 and convert the remaining 300Z to dilithium on the exchange and then have even more dilithium for those 'other things to spend dilithium on' and enough for your ships. Oh, and you would still end up spending your allotted $60.00. Just sayin'.
I swear, anyone who thinks they have spend the next highest amount instead of one of the lower ones to make up enough for something specific is just looking for something to complain about.
That said, it would be nice if there were price points for purchasing Zen every $10. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 or, if there was a way to simply put in the amount you wanted. Say $35 or $55,...
P.S.
As noted above also, there used to be 5000Z packs, and the purchase options did not get updated so in fact, they are not trying to scheme anyone out of anything. Something simply got missed when the new stuff started rolling out. THey are not trying to force larger purchases. If they were, there would 3 price points $20, $50 and $100 and that's it. Then you would have to over buy to fill a need.
P.S.S.
It has become far too common for people automatically assume that if something someone says doesn't happen exactly as or when they said or as the listener wants, they are being lied to. If something doesn't exist to suit their exact need, they are being 'forced' or 'scammed' or 'pressured' into something else,..
Seriously, it's time for people exercise a little critical thought and simply accept that there is more than one explanation for almost any given set of facts. Your personal feelings or opinions on the matter does not necessarily mean that your interpretation of said set of facts is in fact the only, let alone the correct one.
"There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard
When the pilot ships came out I figured "Ok I want the kdf ships, and the Rommie ones would be nice though I don't need them with a Faeht in my shipyard, on the other hand I want to use two of the traits on my fed Risian corvette.
So that's 3 kdf ships, 1 pack so I'm effectively only paying for 2.
I want 2 fed ships so I may as well get the pack and get the third one as well.
If I'm getting two packs I may as well get the rommie one as well since it'll cost the same by getting the mega bundle.
Go to the store, 12000 zen, best I can buy is 10600 in the $100 purchase, which is also a daily limit so I don't even have the option of them getting another $20 without waiting for 24 hours.
that was on the day the pilot ships were released, I still haven't bought them and I'm not overly inclined to do so at this point. I'm half expecting the risian ship this year to be a corvette re-release with pilot spec after the recent news. So I'm just going to wait for a sale now if I get them at all.
Shame really, I do like the look of the KDF ones.
Um...so what exactly is the problem?
On the one hand - the ships weren't released on the day they were announced, so you could have had the Zen ready if you'd planned in the least.
On the other hand - you couldn't wait 24 hours to get the Zen you needed for the ships you wanted.
So er...uh...hrmmm...huh?
Cryptic screws up all sorts of things...why do folks want to blame Cryptic for other things?
In the end it saves me money, because I have time to talk myself out of getting them as the gloss wares off over time. Its not something that will stop me if i really want something, but it does stand in the way of impulse buys that Cryptic might otherwise get because the cost is higher than the max daily zen purchase amount.
Its not a problem for me really, its just a lose source of potential income for Cryptic because I highly doubt I'm the only person to have come to the same conclusion.
$100 is not the daily limit... I've spent way more than that in 10 minutes... the limit is closer to $400 last I checked (though not quite $400... I can but 3 $100 zen purchases, then that's locked out, and then followed up with several combinations of the smaller purchases).
Point being, you can spend $100 and $20, no problem.
RE OP: $20 + $20 + $20 = $60... simple math
Yo.. Core:
My man. It's not about spending, or not spending money. It about a pricing system for selling zen that gets in the way of selling. That gets in the way of your customer buying.
To counter your not terribly well founded argument. sorry man..
Now I personally have zero interest with maintaining any sort of zen balance, or selling zen, or selling dilithium. You do understand that the zen game is rigged? And so is the Dilithium/Zen market. And I'll bet you think its not rigged. Now don't get me wrong.. its a elegant system. And entirely legal. I admire the subtlety, but then again it's a FAKE market. You don't know who's zen or dilithium your buying. The interface does not tell you, even as an option. There is no transparency. Do you understand that this is because the zen/dilithium market is just another mini game?
I don't have a problem with it. Dude, Cryptic and PWI wouldn't be able to KEEP them selves from manipulating this little internal market they have the way its set up. What they're doing in the game is a big nono out in the real world.. like criminal nono. But because its using a transaction currency once removed from dollars.. (and they do not give you money for your zen balance should you choose to quit playing.. all sales are final!) its entirely legal for them to manipulate the games so called internal economy. It's legal... It's not terribly moral, but it is entirely legal. And the lack of transparency the studio and PWI has over lock boxes are even more so.
Its really amazingly obvious.. to me anyway.. and to a few other whom also posted on the thread from the looks of things.
If you want to do that, go knock your self out! More power too you. I've been there, done that, I got the T-shirt, and even a commemorative "collectable" plaque.
once again and closing with....
It's not about spending, or not spending money. It about a pricing system for selling zen that gets in the way of selling. That gets in the way of the customer buying.
.
Rayzee
excellentawesome#4589
torgaddon101
raeat