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kylanth
Member Posts: 22 Arc User
Either STOP the Flash Sales, or have them be 24 hours so people with schedules different than yours can take advantage of the deals. This is the second time you've done a flash sale from 10am - 6pm PDT. This is also the second flash sale I've missed and would have gladly taken part in, if not for your poor timing.
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24 hours would at least give everyone an equal shot from that perspective.
I've missed a few flash sales in the past because the window of opportunity is so small.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
This is true. However, the OP does have a point. Cryptic is hurting the potential sales they could get, with the timing. This doesn't mean it should be a 24 hour sale. Though, why not a 10am-6pm sale and a 2am-10am sale? This would cover the majority of times for most players.
This would be the best way to manage the flash sales in this manner.
Those outside the US, especially in Europe, get a much wider window for these at the times that they run. 10 AM to 6 PM PDT is 6 PM to 2 AM BST. That gives the very Western Europeans 4 hours in prime time after work to take part. 3 hours for CE time and so on.
In the US, EDT gets the most time to participate with up to 3 hours of prime time, while the other time zones get less, down to really none in PDT, since you're barely getting home from work at 6PM if you work a standard work schedule.
At least in Australia, everyone has the ability to do a quick check before leaving for work or school. The worst places have the whole thing happen while most of them are asleep. UTC+4-UTC+6 right now would likely never know that there was a sale if they didn't leave the announcements up after it was over.
I do agree that it should be longer, at least 12 hours so that people don't sleep or work through the whole thing, but preferably 24 hours, so that everyone can have the whole of their non-work/non-sleep hours to check in, I just disagree that the US gets the best of it when they clearly get less of the typical free time than most of Western Europe does during the sale hours. Those lucky people in Eastern South America who are at UTC-3 get the best of it, starting at 3 PM and ending at 11 PM, assuming DST is in effect.
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Yes, but they also like to save money when they can. Which is what the flash sales are about. Extending it out to 12 hours, or double for 16 hours, would increase the sales. Because then you're reaching more of the player base with it.
But then ones does have to remember....
The ones that don't will be those who earn far too much for what they do and see money as a way of keeping score against the other overpaid folk.
After the last flash sale fiasco a lot of people were asking for it to be a 24hour thing but as that would make sense it'll never happen.
All they'd have to do would be to set a timer for it to start and end, input the item with sale price and flip the switch. Then if they really wanted to make people aware this same system would put up and automated blogpost and launcher message the day before and remove it once it was no longer relevant. It wouldn't even have to mention the item in question just that something will be on sale.
Basic sales techniques are not rocket science and yet to cryptic it seems like its closer to quantum theory.
Now granted kael is apparently on paternity leave but I find it hard to believe noone was told to cover his duties. And even then an automated system should be something simple enough for even the worst work experience minion to handle.
In this case Cryptic should care a little more since people are complaining they aren't able to participate in the sales and decide not to buy anything at all. These really should be 24 hour sales so all time zones can participate if you are going to advertise for all time zones.
Retail stores have always had a version of flash sales. Well, maybe not always but at least for the last 45-50 years (I'm not old enough to remember further back than that) . Kmart called them blue light specials, other stores have other names but the name doesn't matter, the concept is the same. A sale, whether on everything, or only one item, that is only valid for a short period of time and is not announced in advance, meaning only a very small percentage of the customer base has a chance to take advantage of it. In the case of Kmarts blue light specials and just last week, a Walmart special sale, it is only the customers that happen to be in that store at that time that even hear about the sale, much less have a chance to take advantage of it. Other times it comes on the radio "today only, from 1-4 PM (insert store name) is having a sale on X"
Much as those of us that miss out might hate it, decades of experience shows that flash sales obviously do help a companies profits or they wouldn't still be doing them.
Oh we aren't debating that. We all know these things happen. K-Mart was, and might still be good, for the Blue Light Specials. But they generally ran those on an open to close basis. Which for K-Mart use to be 8 AM - 11 PM. The flash sales like you're talking, the short time frames, now generally only happens at bars and restaurants. The today only part, happened back when most radio was live, not so much of that now.
What we're discussing here is the time frame. It's about reaching more of the player base with it. You know, just extending the time frame, or adding a second flash sale a bit later that day. The advertisement can stay the same.
The only flash sale they've had that I didn't get to take part in was the one for inventory and bank slots. That was because I didn't have the Zen at the time. I believe they also did one for Doff expansions, that I'd like to catch as well. The ship ones, meh, I've never bought a ship in the first place. A sale is not going to change that.
That doesn't work so well when they're all in the same 8 hour time period, though. It just becomes getting people to pay attention to the game from 1700 to 0100 UTC. If you wanted people to pay attention all of the time, you'd have the sales at unpredictable windows.
But TBH, if you know they always appear at the same time you must already be paying a lot of attention to it. I didn't know that. And I bet a whole lot of other players haven't noticed either.