Vanishing coupons

babyeatindingo

Yesterday I had a message pop up on the site that said I had a coupon, and a good one -- 50% off one item.  "Fantastic," I said to myself.  And I checked to see if an expiration date was listed; it was not. The plan was to find something to use it on after work, but plans often fall victim to reality, and the reality was I worked a few hours late, and by the time I finally had a moment to open the store and find something after getting home and having dinner and cleaning up and such, I really needed to get to sleep. "That's fine," I thought, "I'll just do it after I get to work in the morning."

So, I got to work this morning, found something good, put it in my cart, entered the coupon code (I still had the message open on my phone from yesterday)... and nothing happened.  The message is gone, the coupon doesn't work, and DAZ just lost a big sale (and probably a lot more of them, frankly).

If a coupon is going to vanish in less than 24 hours, could there maybe, possibly be a note about that on the coupon?  "Expires tonight at midnight" or "Expires 26-July-2023 23:59 MDT" or something? Heck, even "TODAY ONLY" would work.

This is far from the first time I've had one disappear before I had a chance to use it, but it is the first time I've missed out on 50% off any item, and that's a pretty big disappointment.

PerttiA

If there is no expiration date, it is better to assume, it will expire at next Daz midnight.

SofaCitizen

What PerttiA said - I too always assume those expire at Midnight (in Daz timezone).

Also, I think it was said in another thread that the absence of an expiration date was very much on purpose - so not an ommision by mistake.

babyeatindingo

SofaCitizen said:

What PerttiA said - I too always assume those expire at Midnight (in Daz timezone).

Also, I think it was said in another thread that the absence of an expiration date was very much on purpose - so not an ommision by mistake.

But that's pretty much my complaint. In my past life working in corporate America where customer service was always our highest priority, the idea of leaving out an expiration date deliberately would've been pretty much synonymous with "I don't want to work here anymore."  I don't think that the money I spend at DAZ is in any way equivalent to the absurd amount of money some of my clients were spending for the design services of me and my team, nor did we offer coupons; but the idea of saying "Here's a discount!"  "Oh, too slow, you missed it! Better luck next time!" to even our small clients would have been career suicide.

Most of DAZ's discounts and sales are based around some basic marketing principles designed to trigger quick responses — "Buy this now, or it'll cost more later!" — and while I'm annoyed by it at times, I agree that it's an effective tactic. So with all of the sales that are tagged with expirations, whether they're partial-day "flash sales" or three-hour "lightning sales" or "today only" sales, having just one category of discount show up without any expiration listed is counter-intuitive, and seems like something that's either designed to be easier from a scripting perspective (making it easy for employees at the expense of customer service) or — much less likely — a deliberate effort to drive away customers.

And while it's not terribly likely that the latter would be true, that is the effect. I spend a considerable amount here, because 3D rendering lives at the intersection of what I do for a living and what I do for fun, and because I can afford it. And if I really want something, or especially if I really need it for a project for a paying client, I'm going to buy it with or without a 50% off coupon.  

But I can express my displeasure with this type of customer disservice in the time-honored fashion: I'll spend my money elsewhere.  Maybe for a while, until I'm less annoyed; maybe for a longer period. I've got the tools, skills, and experience to build most stuff myself, and choose to purchase things because I generally have a lot more money than I have free time, but maybe this will be the impetus I need to change that habit and be a little less lazy about producing my own content.  Time will tell.

Catherine3678ab

Over the years there is one shopping tip that holds throughout, IF you see something at a price you really want to pay for it, buy it immediately. "only once" in all the years I've shopped here did they ever come back to "some customers" telling them they removed the product from the library and if we still want said product to pay some other price. Only once. And I'm not going to forget this tresspass of what was so their normal motto. [hate breaking in new staff]