When Is A Bargain Not A Bargain?
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
Do you go to the dollar stores in your neighborhood?
Come on now, be honest — unless you don’t have one near you, you probably do, at least for a few things. Dollar stores are big business where I live. They seem to be popping up all over like daisies after a rainstorm. Some of them are “everything for a dollar” stores, and others have some merchandise that is more than a dollar, yet still a good bargain. With the economy in the state it is right now, they are becoming more popular, even with people who never went to them before. I even saw a K-Mart dollar store recently, so even Sears sees the potential of drawing in bargain hunters.
In Home we have a sort of dollar store as well at x7. The catch is that you can’t visit it until you have spent much more than a dollar to gain entry there. At present, they have fifty-four dollar bundles in their bargain basement area of the store (the Specials section.) Many of these are things that cost a great deal more when they were originally created. All of them are bargains, because you get a lot of bang for your buck as they all consist of several pieces of either furniture or clothing or active items that are outdated now. The actives all take twenty-two slots, so I doubt many people would buy them now in the regular store, and this is a way for Sony to squeeze a few more dollars out of Home’s consumers. It must be working. I know I have bought a few choice pieces myself — my latest is the Rattan furniture set.
Home’s dollar store?
Selling virtual products in bundles has become a normal thing in Home’s stores. Back in the beginnings of Home, this was a rarity. Now it seems to be everywhere, and includes not only furniture and clothing, but estates and furniture bundled together as well as things like Lockwood’s new game Lock-a-doodle and all of its add-ons.
Bundles are everywhere, but when do they become not such a bargain after all?
I love a good bargain as much as the next person — maybe more so because my budget is tighter now than it has ever been. But there are many times in Home that I wish the developers would have thought about the economy and not given us things only in bundles. I know several people who might love a particular item they see in the New section of the stores, only to decide not to purchase it because it only comes bundled with things they don’t like or want. I know I have done this as well, I am going to have to really want something in order to purchase things I don’t and add them to my already over burdened storage area.
Bought this, great bargain
There are many developers who don’t do this. They offer everything both ways — either buy separately or together. I think that the developers who don’t are losing money that could have come to their coffers, albeit at a slower pace than making people buy a larger bundled pack for more.
When it comes to bargain bundles in Home, I think Juggernaut has set the standard. Many of their products are sold this way, yet also sold separately to give the consumers a wide range of choices. This is a great thing, because in Home, choice is king. The more choice you give us, the happier we feel about it.
Many of Juggernaut’s bundles are a huge bargain when bought together. They include many small, well-designed active items, and are always a lot of fun. I have bought quite a few of them because they make it worth the expenditure by giving me things I want. They also give me a great feeling of confidence by giving me the choice to buy only the pieces I want, like the Piñata I got recently.
Want the skirt, not the rest
Granzella has a lot of bundled items in their stores, but you don’t get the choice of buying them separately. Lately they have offered some in separate items, but there are still a lot offered in bundles only. Because of this, I haven’t bought several items that I wanted over the past year. I think that Granzella would benefit greatly if they went back and put these clothing items out as separates. I know I would go back and buy things I passed up months ago if they did.
With the time window for profit being such a small one in Home for these developers, I believe they should rethink their sales strategies when it comes to bundles and always offer items both ways. Their profit margins will grow substantially if they do this in the week or two that they have before people move on to the next best new thing to hit the markets.
May 8th, 2013 by Burbie52 | 6 comments
Burbie52 is a 62 year-old published author and founder of the Grey Gamers group within Home. Born and raised in Michigan, she has lived there her entire life, with the exception of a twelve-year residency on the Big Island of Hawaii. She enjoys reading and writing, as well as video games, especially RPG's. She has one son in his twenties.
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yeah i kinda wished that Granzilla did the Succubus outfit items seperate the boots are nice in the collection but wanna buy jst them on there own really not every outfit also
Agreed. You could say that GZ are almost shooting themselves in the foot with their bundles, I’ve had my eye on a white shirt they sell for ages, but they insist I take the god-awful quarter length trousers, manky sandals and stupid hair style if I want it so much! Heh, sorry GZ but I’d rather do without than have those affronts to fashion even hiding in my storage!!!
The thing is, the U.S is actually very lucky with the deals it gets. It’s one of the many benifits I used to justify coming over to it. If you look through the EU stores, you won’t find half as many bundle deals. Most things are sold seperatly over there, which in turn, obviously makes EU Home a more expensive experience.
There are some fantastic deals that can boost someone who’s brand new to Home so much, it’d make an E.U Home veteran jealous; the 100 items for a dollar packs, the bundles and freebies from X7 and then there’s just the everyday bundles you guys get in the normal stores.
$50 dollars in U.S Home can give a new user well over 300 items right off the bat, but I dare you to try that in E.U!!!
Ditto on the GZ bundle strategy. The Homeling Collective has decided that the white Gang Leader skirt is an acceptable uniform choice for officers. But you can’t get it without buying the entire Gang Leader bundle, making it a $3 skirt.
I agree too. The idea of selling only bundles hurts as I too have avoided buying some things because I did not want the whole set, and there is an also.
When they offer only bundle packs, you often don’t get a 3D preview, so one can never really see how it looks on an avatar. I avoid buying a lot of things because they were bundled as I would buy so much other stuff if it were separate. Good read.
P.S. Recently here in southern California, it came to light that the discount store, “99cent store”, wanted to put a store on Rodeo drive in Beverly Hills. The locals screamed and objected, then corporate said, “Hey, this is our largest grossing store nationwide, bringing in over $12,000,000 a year”…yeah Burbie, everyone likes a bargain.
Until Home gives us folders to organize items [fossils, anyone?] no more bundles for me. Scrolling past t-shirts and mistakes I’d be happy to toss makes wearing what you do like a tedious trudge. Not too mention the strain on processing and bandwidth.
Even if I need all 7 pieces of the clown robot set I often prefer à la carte: to get the red pants from set 1 and the blue shirt from set 2. But i never buy the bundle of all 5 sets to get them.
Besides, how many black shoes and pants can a guy be made to buy just because the shirt he really wants can’t be had without them. Please send Granzella a permalink for this article because they’re an inventive asset to Home, much in need of your well-stated insights on the NA market.