dreamsk
Visionary Blend
my one major criticism is the fact that Gaia should take into account that they have no refund system and think abt that for good reason: people pre-emptively buy gc thinking a release will be via gc and then it's direct buy. that s**t ain't cool and now the user can potentially be out money. i'd like there to be some sort of system or symbol saying an item will be gc only or direct buy before it proper screws someone over.
What are you actually suggesting here? The promo page had a direct buy tab, although I'm not sure if it was properly up to date or not since they didn't have the last day until...the last day. Having s**t organized should have happened, thats for sure. Now I don't understand why users would buy gc preemptively not even knowing anything about the sale. I don't really think that kind of mentality should be rewarded, especially when it's going to cost Gaia paypal tax to reverse the sale ( Gaia is never going to do refunds for real life cash for this reason ) . Eat the gc and use it at a later date, it is highly unlikely that there will be NO items someone would want to buy eventually. Or B) why not just buy gc when you can confirm what shop its going in for what amount? There's always direct buys with sales and rigs, don't set yourself up for failure when you don't have to. It was user error, and while Gaia didn't help by being vauge, Gaia certainly didn't put peoples credit cards into the paypal machine.
Assumptions makes an a** out of you and me!
I think the big issue actually lies in the fact that we aren't given the schedule for the sale at least 24 hours in advance. There's nothing wrong with buying GC ahead of time for the sale; I know some people that start saving up in early October, at the latest, for the BFS. That's been something done for years not only during BFS, but the summer sale as well. It's a good idea, given how extensive these sales are and how pricy they can be between all of the different releases we get, and how these sales are notorious for ticket sales/bundles with tickets, like what we had this year.
Direct buys in sales like this is still a fairly new concept. It's not something that is entirely a habit for people to factor in because it's only started to be a major system over the past year or so. But also, people have been very adamant with opposition to direct buys in these sales, largely because no one is given enough notice. People that either have saved up GC for weeks/months for the sale or people that can only have a certain budget to spend on Gaia basically get screwed over because they hadn't been told well ahead of time that some items are only direct buy. So now people with saved up GC have to fight the MP or trades to get those items, and people with specific budgets are forced to choose between getting a lot more GC for their money with the bonuses and the like or spending part of their funds strictly on one or two items. And it sucks for the consumers for this reason.
Let's just use this sale for an example: the schedule was found out probably about 30 minutes before the sale actually went into effect. When you looked at that schedule at first, the direct buy items were
NOT on the schedule under the direct buy tab. They weren't under any tab except for "all". So it gave
NO hints as to what they were being categorized as. This is where the suggestion of having a proper symbol on the items would also help, because we've all learned that the schedule system we have right now has been bugged all sale. But guess what happened at midnight? Sale started, and that was the first time people were learning about the direct buy items. Schedule was fixed shortly after the sale started to reflect this, which then just rubbed more salt onto the wound, as it were. So again, people were pissed off to find out about the direct buy items at such a short notice.
Gaia isn't going to give refunds for GC bought ahead for these sales, and yes, people can just use it for something else down the line. However, what Gaia should try and do is give us the schedule earlier than waiting until the sale begins so we can properly budget and not waste our money and/or be screwed out of buying things we'd like because they categorized them into a different purchase system. 24 hours notice, at the very minimum, can make a WORLD of difference for consumers, as well as for morale for the sale overall.
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Still a little bummed about the direct sale items, but I know we'll see some pretty recolors in the future :3
✨ AND THAT'S A WRAP ✨
