I stoped with everything IK because of what the OP describes. I have much better things to waste my time on. Too bad because the products are ok. I can't be bothered with it any more. And I don't miss it.

 
"However, I did learn that I could save some money by going through that (somewhat confusing) process they have set up."
I like what Grem said. Though having been in sales I know you should never make it harder for people to give you their money. Have it in stock; make the sale. I only hope the IK guy doesn't argue with what he's hearing. If a certain percentage of people disposed to buy your product don't buy it or are unhappy because of a convoluted process then it's good business to try to get that percentage back in a buying mood again. It doesn't bother me with IK but I hate being a a store and the girl asks me if I have their rewards card and wants to tell me about it. This reminds me of a pretty funny time at check out. My dad was still around and he like the prunes in a glass jar and no stores around there are had them. He found a store that did have them and asked me to go there and ask for the manager and get 2 cases of stewed prunes. It didn't seem like it would be a problem but when I went through  check out with 24 bottles of stewed prunes the young girl and her young guy bagger started laughing. I tried to explain they were for my dad but I don't believe I made any converts. I walked out of that store as the most constipated person any of them had or ever would meet. In there eyes. They were for my dad. Really.

I have to agree the op´s criticism on Ik´s
bying and installation routines.
That already took too much hours of
my valueable freetime,sometimes that´s  labourious, specially the installation process.
But to be fair, the quality of the Fx and Vst(i)is really good (I like amplitube and the tape echo ),
the customer support quick and the prices compared to 
competitor´s OK.
 
 

Mesh
IK's selling prunes? When's the Group Buy?

We have them regularly.  *rimshot*

sharke

When claiming my free compressor from IK recently I found myself going around in circles for ages before I finally worked out how to get it. Not a good experience. And then I didn't like how it installed the whole T-Racks kaboodle in demo mode, thereby taking over the whole "T" section of my plugin list. I had to manually delete all those other plugins, not good at all.

I'm with Sharke on that one. 
And like others here, yeah, I find check out a pain. 

sharke
I have to say I find the whole IK "system" convoluted and overly complicated too. You should never have to once think "what's going on here?" when purchasing something from a site. You should never find yourself in a maze of pages and logins or wonder whether or not you've actual bought something.

Too many companies go nuts with their own quirky "proprietary" purchase and installation systems and I'm sure it makes perfect sense to them over at HQ, however many of these systems just leave the customers scratching their heads and wondering whether it might just be a lot easier to buy the equivalent product from another company, one which just lets you purchase and download in a couple of clicks. Look at how many people post frustrated pleas for help in installing Waves stuff.

When claiming my free compressor from IK recently I found myself going around in circles for ages before I finally worked out how to get it. Not a good experience. And then I didn't like how it installed the whole T-Racks kaboodle in demo mode, thereby taking over the whole "T" section of my plugin list. I had to manually delete all those other plugins, not good at all.

I agree.  I just installed ATI2016 yesterday.  Every time I start it, I'm presented with a login prompt so I can have access to the cloud services I'm not subscribed to.  I should've stayed with Macrium ...
 
Point is that it seems every software vendor wants their software to have a place of supreme prominence (along with resource consumption) as if they aren't the very minor part of my overall system that they truly are.  Delusional Software?
 
I like my IKM stuff, but they do make it as intrusive as possible.  Maybe they think they can agitate us into making more purchases.
 
 

IK_Multimedia
You can "purchase and download in a couple of clicks" through the IK web site or Custom Shop too.  I'll relay the confusion that is reported in this thread, though, so perhaps changes can be made if necessary for the users who find it confusing having the option to click "Buy Now" on the site or "Buy" inside Custom Shop.  We made a video about using Custom Shop a while back and it still should be pertinent but I will also have HQ review that video and see if there's a way to lay it out in even more simple terms.  Thank you for the input.

 
I find this incredibly arrogant:
 
"... so perhaps changes can be made if necessary for the users who find it confusing having the option to click "Buy Now" on the site or "Buy" inside Custom Shop ..."
 
"... I will also have HQ review that video and see if there's a way to lay it out in even more simple terms ..."
 

Also - since the free gear deal for our 20th gear is still going on, and there was some confusion there, here are the instructions from the 20th Anniversary page and if these steps don't work, please let support know:
 

This giveaway is valid through March 31. To get your gear all you have to do is:

Log in to your User Area or if you are a new user create an IK account

Launch either AmpliTube Custom Shop, SampleTank Custom Shop or T-RackS Custom Shop

Log in to Custom Shop

Then click on either "GEAR" or "SOUNDS" and then click "Restore my gear" or "Restore my sounds"

(note the "all you have to do" part is quoted from the page, and I did not write that so please do not be offended by it)

cclarry

IK_Multimedia

Mesh
IK's selling prunes? When's the Group Buy?

We have them regularly.  *rimshot*

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! 

I'm with you, L.
Too many prunes being (t)rimmed :)

I have a great deal of IK stuff purchased over the years - to be honest though, much of it is getting old and I have not upgraded - partly because it still does what I want (such as my stand alone Ameg Bass package) but also the whole purchase routine / custom shop process is a pain.
My version of Tracks is V1 I think, but I don't use this at all now. There was NEVER a proper upgrade price that I was aware of - I spent a lot of money on this when it first came out but unlike other manufacturers I never saw or was made aware of a proper upgrade offer / path.
Amplitube is V3 I think and use it occasionally. I don't want to upgrade that as it involves the Custom Shop and I don't want my version to stop working!
I did upgrade to Sample Tank 2 and that was mainly to allow all the other stuff like SampleMoog to work - Sample Tank 2 itself  is all a bit meh I think; I  have not really found a use for it.
One of the main reasons I have let IK stuff "wither on the vine" is the convoluted purchasing process, so IK, here is another person who does not particularly like your current purchasing model, such as the custom shop downloading all your stuff (as described above) I hate that with UAD but their stuff is essential to me, so I tolerate it. 
This does not mean I would never purchase another IK product, but it would have to be pretty special for me to bother.
Nigel
 

People don't have to spend money on something and they don't need to have any reason at all to hold on to it. Why give them a good reason to? I bought my first Eventide product a few weeks ago (Black hole, and I love it). I have made peace with authorizing to my computer and not an iLok. But the iLok was why I didn't buy anything before. And Waves WUP. Another offender. Why spend all the time and effort researching and developing a good or even great product and then reducing the amount of potential customers and irritating a percentage of the people who buy? Make a product too good for me to pass up; then get out of my way so I can give you my money. Do that for long enough and you get something called customer loyalty. That's the 180 of what we've been talking about.

I don't think it's that frustrating for IK. These types of complaints have been raised since they released the custom shop and at every turn they make the procedure slightly more complicated with jam points, usually higher cash prices, some products being able to be bought with gear credits, some not (new mastering product), really strange MAXX bundles that don't entice any existing customer to upgrade.

I like their products, own most of them, and personally don't have an issue with the activation etc. My biggest complaint is that the pricing is not always consistent between the various payment methods. E.g. They push gear credits and then have the cash price on sale without lowering the gear credit price. I wish they would combine the gear credit and jampoints and stick to one method.

All these posts had me currious...
 
Logged into my Custom Shop account.
Saw the deal for TRack Max upgrade ($299 minus the $77 I had in JamPoints).
That was too good to pass up.
No gear credits involved (that's the part that I personally don't care for)... and it was an easy checkout.
Install was also easy... as it was one pass (one SN) of the IK Authorization Manager.

IK_Multimedia
Also - since the free gear deal for our 20th gear is still going on, and there was some confusion there, here are the instructions from the 20th Anniversary page and if these steps don't work, please let support know:
 

This giveaway is valid through March 31. To get your gear all you have to do is:
 

• Log in to your User Area or if you are a new user create an IK account
• Launch either AmpliTube Custom Shop, SampleTank Custom Shop or T-RackS Custom Shop
• Log in to Custom Shop

Then click on either "GEAR" or "SOUNDS" and then click "Restore my gear" or "Restore my sounds"

(note the "all you have to do" part is quoted from the page, and I did not write that so please do not be offended by it)

Thanks for the reminder. I had forgot about this. I had been wanting to pick up the Stealth Limiter. Done.