How one feels about IK's shopping experience may be a generational split. If you're over 40, most of your life's retail transactions have been simple: choose a product, hand over the money. No games.
 
Like most consumers, I prefer that model. It's worked for thousands of years, serving every market from Wal-Mart to your pot dealer to buying a book on Amazon. Vendors who think they can improve the process by re-inventing the wheel do so at their own peril.
 
 

My sole experience with IK came at the very beginning of my return to music, when I purchased a version of Band-in-a-Box. BiaB installed a couple of IK products...which drove me nuts. I never thought I'd hate a company's in-app self-advertising more than I did Cyberlink's, but IK's was just awful. I could never figure out what was usable, what was demo, what I needed to use the product I'd purchased (BiaB). I wound up downloading and installing a bunch of their demoware. I got so bad, that, along with the pre-Win95 UI and architecture of BiaB, I just uninstalled the whole mess.
 
Since then, I have never considered another BiaB or IK product, nor will I. Too many good products at good prices from good people who are EASY to do business with.

TheMaartian
My sole experience with IK came at the very beginning of my return to music, when I purchased a version of Band-in-a-Box. BiaB installed a couple of IK products...which drove me nuts. I never thought I'd hate a company's in-app self-advertising more than I did Cyberlink's, but IK's was just awful. I could never figure out what was usable, what was demo, what I needed to use the product I'd purchased (BiaB). I wound up downloading and installing a bunch of their demoware. I got so bad, that, along with the pre-Win95 UI and architecture of BiaB, I just uninstalled the whole mess.
 
Since then, I have never considered another BiaB or IK product, nor will I. Too many good products at good prices from good people who are EASY to do business with.

My experience with PG Music and IKM have both been the opposite; good, positive experiences with both.  Using ST inside of BiaB is pretty straight-forward, with only a minor fiddle at each startup.  I've never seen an ad in ST unless I explicitly click the shopping cart button.
 
AmpliTube is a different story.  VERY obnoxious trying to see just the stuff you already own.  T-RackS is much easier.
 
Yeah, the BiaB interface is yuchy.  Which alternative to BiaB did you settle on?

Going to throw my $0.02 in the kitty    
 
I agree with the OP that the process of purchasing is too convoluted.
I've been put off buying newer IK plugins because of this.
I do like the TRacks plugins (LA-2A, 1176, Pultec, Brickwall Limiter, etc).
IMO, They're some of the better native offerings.
 
I bought SampleTank (and other VIs) for iOS, but (for my purposes) they're too limited to be of much practical use.

• There's not a dedicated "live" host like Forte' or Cantabile
• CPU power is limited compared to PC/Mac
• You have to connect a real audio/MIDI interface

 
In the end, the logistics and "state of technology" are close... but just not quite there (for me).
It was quicker/easier to setup a (real) workstation keyboard.

BobF
... 
Yeah, the BiaB interface is yuchy.  Which alternative to BiaB did you settle on?

I've been using ChordPulse for prototyping, and like it. I'm currently evaluating Sundog Scale Studio for chord progressions. I never did intend to use BiaB for song development. I bought it on a recommendation and it was more than I needed or wanted at that time. I found it a bit overwhelming for a beginner, but it did provide a good learning experience with respect to navigating the death-by-a-thousand-choices that is audio software.
 
Also, I didn't mean to imply that IK apps were popping up ads. BiaB installed a bunch of demoware that, of course, wanted to become paidware. I wasn't clear at all at that time on the concept of a software 'rack' that could hold multiple 'apps', and got quickly confused between what I was told I needed for the training course I'd purchased and what was real and what was 'Memorex' in the IK apps.
 
And, geez, I really hated the BiaB UI. Back in my early engineering days, I was writing real-time multitaskers in assembler that ran under DOS (I had to deal with a serial communications protocol that had LEGAL parity errors; that sucked), so was very familiar with PC app architectures. And BiaB's was (and perhaps still is) stone age.
 
That doesn't mean that users can't get great beneficial use from it. Not at all.
 
But it does mean that I just couldn't connect with it, was never comfortable with it. So, when you're fighting a tool, it's unlikely that you'll achieve much with it.
 
And there is guilt by association. BiaB are the ones who installed the IK nightmare on my PC. BiaB was easy to uninstall. Getting rid of all of the little IK bread crumbs took awhile.

BiaB installed zero demoware on my machine ...
 
ChordPulse is a cool tool for sure.  I wish there was more style flexibility, but for $20 ...
 
Sundog looks interesting.

I have yet to have had a bad purchase experience with IKM. I couldn't care less if I can't resell because I chose the less expensive route to purchase. I have, as yet, not had the desire to get rid of any VST/VSTi I have purchased from anyone with two exceptions.
 
1. I offered Alloy 2 during the Ozone 7 Advanced sale, but it was never bid on.
2. When I received the (at the time) PSP Everything bundle on a charity bundle "bid" on KVR I transferred all my PSP plugs to my son (for free).
 
FYI: This past year BIAB had updated their UI somewhat. I've never really "struggled" with their UI. I guess I'm just more flexible than some. 

IK_Multimedia
[please do note that for those who don't feel Gear Credits are the right choice, we offer the option to buy with other payment methods like credit card and PayPal.  The gear you were looking to purchase is available without the need for Gear Credits.  You can use JamPoints on those purchases too, if you are not so inclined to use them toward the purchase of Gear Credits.
 
 

 So I can buy directly with a C.C. instead of Gear Credits.  I did not know that.

I decided a while ago I'm done buying from IK for 3 main reasons:
 
1. The overly complicated buying process

I appreciate your feelings on that, please do note that for those who don't feel Gear Credits are the right choice, we offer the option to buy with other payment methods like credit card and PayPal.  The gear you were looking to purchase is available without the need for Gear Credits.  You can use JamPoints on those purchases too, if you are not so inclined to use them toward the purchase of Gear Credits.

I think that speaks for itself on that issue. Buying things is very confusing if you have credits and points. I know I had a huge pain of a time trying to figure out how and where to make my purchases at. IK really needs to simplify this.
 
2. Reactivation Credits... bad business practice all around. Bandwidth costs next to nothing these days and there are ways of lowering the costs of transfer even further. This is just a way to make extra coin from existing users. The ways I've seen the company defend it as well has been nothing short of pathetic. Luckily for me, I keep backups of my products but if anything ever happened (God forbid), and I lost everything, I'd be expected to penny up.
 
3. Trying to find products I own within a plugin and using said products. As BobF mentioned, if I want to see just the stuff I own, I can't do that. It still lists everything even if I don't own it. Okay, fine. What really gets my goat is when I own a product and go to load one of the presets only to be met with "The current preset uses models which are not installed". Seriously? You pack in presets that use other presets that require purchasing? Get bent, IK. :\

bitflipper
How one feels about IK's shopping experience may be a generational split. If you're over 40, most of your life's retail transactions have been simple: choose a product, hand over the money. No games.
 
Like most consumers, I prefer that model. It's worked for thousands of years, serving every market from Wal-Mart to your pot dealer to buying a book on Amazon. Vendors who think they can improve the process by re-inventing the wheel do so at their own peril.

...and that's why we offer that model too.  OP had the option to go the Stealth Limiter page, click "Buy Now" then checkout and get the serial.