Anyone use Decimator in Daz to reduce vertex count?

[fear_the_potato]

So - I think I'm not using Decimator correctly. Let's say I export a pair of pants from Daz to Vam - it's coming in at 70K for vertex count. I go into Daz and reduce the vertices using Decimator. I then save a new DUF file, import it into VAM, and my vertex count hasn't changed.

I must be missing a step somewhere...am I supposed to create an LOD file and do something with it? Thanks so much!