The End of Sales Influence, and a New Beginning
posted ago by baron
Since phasing out the role of pre-sale influence in October of 2011, Quirky has offered a retail-oriented category of influence with the unambiguous title “Sales”. The role of this category is to help drive direct sales following a product’s retail debut: members who had participated in a product’s development would get the chance to purchase that product during its first two weeks in the shop, receiving a portion of influence in exchange.
Our intention in offering this influence was to reward users who supported an invention during its formative retail period, and hey, who doesn’t like saying “thank you” to someone for endorsing their product? However, as company that uses the term “makers” with pride, selecting and designing innovative products will always be our top priority, and as we’ve searched for ways to promote participation in development projects, it became clear that we needed to allocate more influence towards these rounds to affect the changes we wanted to see.
Because of this, the Quirky staff have decided to discontinue the allocation of Sales influence (this change will take effect immediately). Instead, this influence will be directly allocated towards development projects, such as community design and refine phases, and any leftover influence not used during development will be assigned to the evaluation phase. This change is not intended to punish or marginalize members who support Quirky at retail: on the contrary, you guys have done an incredible job, and initiatives such as the new social sales system and scan-based trading are intended to help you play a bigger role in driving Quirky’s sales, and being rightly rewarded for your efforts. However, the role of influence is to reward members who help bring a product concept from sketch to store, and this consolidation of influence is intended to emphasize that point, and to better compensate users who apply their hard work and know-how to refining our designs.
We hope that this change will help address some member concerns regarding the distribution of influence on Quirky, and will lead to a happier, more motivated community. It is also worth noting that any presale commitments from the pre-2011 system will still be honored. If you have any questions or concerns about this shift, shoot us a message at questions@quirky.com, or post a topic in our support forum.
Comments (20)
Michael Cavada
Community Design Phases have long been under-rated with meager amounts of influence. Raising that percentage to 10-15% would dramatically engage many more professional designers.
Ernesto Tan
I think that's better, because I'm more interested on participating design process than just naming the Product! Thank you Quirky!
David Veshapidze
So what would happen to unallocated sales influence of old products that are completed but not yet made?
Miguel Portela
Well i agree with the decision makes completely sense and is the correct thing to do. Said that i don't like it to much, but is more fair this way for sure.
Laura Folk
My only concern is not getting pricing influence. I always price items immediately and have taken screen shots of 95 percent of these, yet when I point this out I am told either items were never put into pricing or it was not in the seven days. Just not true, so I guess I feel cheated of influence when I put alot of effort into staying on top of it and contributing. Not sure what else to do or if anyone else has had this problem. I have contacted support about this more than once with nothing resolved. Just say you don't give influence for pricing or give it. Thanks.
Elizabeth Wingfield
Where are the comments? GS? How much avg influence would you say this shifts to Design rounds?
PattiD
KeithShirey
Much better! I tried getting involved in the design phase but stopped due to seeing little result with how much time I put into it.
Clinton Fleenor
This seems to make sense to me. When the pre-sale system ended and sales stopped affecting the process of product development, it was time for influence % to end too.
Michael Taylor
@KEITHs. - Little results how? Have you already won a design phase and just haven't been awarded influence yet, but are concerned with the little amount of influence you will receive? Or, are you just referring to the fact that you have had little results for people supporting your design and Quirky picking them?
Luke Decker
@Laura, I have not seen that issue on current pricing games but when Quirky first started the pricing game, they gave us a few days (maybe weeks, I can't remember) to price all current items to gain influence. I had priced every item in there and it didn't register all of them for some reason. I didn't notice until it was past the due date. @Quirky, regarding the change: Can we gain influence with the pricing game?
Coleen Fuller
Would be nice to see a chart of what gets influence and what doesn't. .
JonesAndJones
If we're reading this right, the only thing not getting influence is the "buying" of product when it first comes on the market, but all other phases still get some amount of influence. Makes sense.
Ruben Brito
Definitely like this. The scan based system seems kinda scary + fun.
Tony A
Community Design take forever to get some % is not like name or tagline, would be nice to speed up the %
stazy
Getting sales influence (presales and then buying within the 1st 2 weeeks) was a nice perk for the time I have spent on Q. Sad to see this go...
AliKira
I am also sad to see this sales influence go; however, provided that influence continues to be awarded for pricing and all other phases, I don't see a huge issue. That said, I do like the emails that people who helped with the development of products got when the new products were available as they really helped me decide to buy!
KeithShirey
@Michael Taylor- The little results I have seen is when trying to help design another persons idea that has been chosen. Although you made me see the fact that I actually haven't won a community design phase yet. Still, it's just a fact that the bigger the reward. The harder people try. It will definitely make me and others want to get involved more when we can get more for it.
Carol West
zymie
Lame