3d Model Minimum Prices

Just a clarification:

TS's staff request to increase the price of a model, if that price is under $7 and if a member/ seller TurboSquid makes a report ...
If CGTragder doesn't encourage informers, I think it's better this way.

If prices here are lower, it's, maybe, CGTrader does not take 60% commision ... But that's just my opinion

It has probably something to do with the payment method.

As the money goes directly to the seller's account, there are direct fees involved. If the price is too low, probably the transaction won't be possible. TurboSquid keeps the money and pays once a month, so the amount is usually higher than the taxes involved. Plus, they charge the royalts directly on the sale, of which probably cover also transaction taxes.

I'm just speculating, but it seems like the most reasonable explanation to this issue.

Turbosquid is a pyramid scheme and it is full of hypocrites up top in the management. Although it is true that they say you can sell stuff at 1 dollar it isn't actually true. You can price your models as low as 1 dollar but then when it starts selling they force you to raise your prices. It is the worst website there is for selling models. The management also bullies all the new modelers the second they start making money. The only people who make money on Turbosquid are those who joined when the site first opened and are at top of the food chain. Yes they make a good living but then everyone else gets bullied unless they follow super strict guidelines which make it impossible to sell anything. Yes it is full of snitches on there too. Also unless you sell a certain amount of models and go up in rank your models aren't searchable. There are ways to get around the system through smart tagging but if you get caught they can kick you off the site which is what happened to me. They also stole all of your models no questions asked. Once they kicked me off the site for using my odd tagging system I was locked out of my account without being able to download my files from their website. Apparently if you read their online contract they can do that... Beware of Turbosquid!!

Turbosquid is also super buggy when it comes to uploading your models... again they have very annoying guidelines for what you need and they keep changing the interface on you not to mention that you write a description or other text and sometimes it doesn't save the info so you have to keep re submitting the info... super frustrating website to used no matter how you look at it.

Let's be honest.

TurboSquid is still the CG product sales site that allows a large volume of sale.
The support team is quite powerful, I have nothing to complain about.

But .. it's true that some practices are strange. As sales returns, customer complaints may doubtful beings, but always TS Money Back (with the amount of our sales course)
But also, they may give our products completely free for some "privileged customers", and they call that : promote "3D industry"
(I got this case yesterday!)
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But apart these "little mysteries" I will not 'spit in the soup "as we say in France, TS remains a very important 3D marketPlace.
And my income increased regularly, so I'm not complaining.

personally, I think CGTrader match more to the 3D industry future, as TS similar sites

My point is not really about how good or bad TS is, I am personally am not a fan of them.
My point was really about being able to price models appropriately. If we need to sell an item that is between 1 and 6 dollars, we can not do it. This is unheard of on all the download sites I know. I class GGTrader as an online 3d Supermarket and like my local supermarket I do not want to buy (or sell) a tin of beans for 7 dollars. I buy music, kindle books, stock photos etc, all all with no minimum price restriction, and these businesses are making a lot of money.
This does not mean I will put all my models up for 1 to 6 dollars, it doesn't. But I believe a lot of income is being lost in this price range and I think CGTrader should find a way to implement this.

You are right Flat 3D however I believe that CG trader is trying to avoid the undercutting of the market by not allowing people to create a so called 1 dollar 3D store model shop where they can sell models that are worth 400 dollars for just 1. For a while I did that too on Turbosquid and I was making quick money like you wouldn't believe and it was great but at the same time it wasn't fair to all the other 3D modelers. The biggest issue on all 3D selling sites is that it is nearly impossible to get a regular cash flow stream from selling your models unless you have about 400 of them in your data bank and of excellent quality because when you have just a handful and even if they are of top standard the clients don't seem to want to use you all the time. The other issue is that clients need different models at any given time so if you only sell one thing it is hard for you to get return buyers... This industry is a bit of a mess really because there isn't a real standard of doing things properly and this hurts both the buyers and the sellers.

Another huge issue with 3D models is the lack of a bench mark or real market value chart. When you sell your veggies or other products at the super market you can count on knowing that the fair value of an item such as a coke bottle is around one dollar fifty per bottle. Each store may sell their bottle at a variation of 1 dollar 50 but usually they will all be around that value. There is no such quality control for 3D models so then a car made of 100 k polygons could be worth the same amount as a box chocolates based on what the buyers need yet it takes a about a week worth of work to model a decent quality car when you can make a box of chocolate in a day.

With digital content, unless you are making exclusive work for someone, I don't think the time it takes to create something comes in to it. It is all about volume. Can you imagine if an author took a year to write a book and said this should be sold for a years salary, of if films that cost thousands to make took that attitude, they would not sell. It's all about volume with all digital content from phone apps to music to books etc.
I would rather sell volume for a lower price than not sell at all, which is what happens with most 3d models.
Once you have made your 3d model you can sell as many as demand requires without you doing any more work.
It is up to each person to decide for themselves how they price their work, but I personally will be sticking with lower prices which so far has worked for me. You will have a much wider audience than just pandering to the big corporates who are the only ones who can afford the high end stuff.

CGt probable don't want to get in a position where the data management cost gets higher than the revenue it can generate?

Imagine, If you have lots of big data files for 1 dollar and a large part of them don't sell enough, then you will probably have considerable loss in data storage costs. Data storage and server time cost have come down, but there is still a cost.

There's some second point to make here, when Ts started its marketplace way back, the data storage and server cost where very high comparing to today. However, the 60% commission still remains the same (while the operational cost must have clearly come down) and the service have not improved/changed over all this years.

In the past, when one run a high profile web service, one needed a server infrastructure that could handle peak moments of traffic. This meant one normally needed a very large server beast that most of the time would sleep. Cloud services that provide scalable solutions can handle traffic more efficiently and save overhead hardware cost. Today we have large data management services providing these scalable solutions (e.g. http://aws.amazon.com/ and https://cloud.google.com/).

This means companies do no longer need to invest in expensive server infrastructures to maintain a high profile web service.

Ps. 3D models is probably not a volume driven marketplace (like music, film, etc), however part of it may become so. ( I hope)

iterateCGI what you said makes a lot of sense which is why I have noticed lots of people are creating sets of objects to sell in bulk like Costco does instead of selling one item at a time.

Flat 3D also makes an excellent point. Not everyone cares about selling to the top corporate game or movie companies because they only want high end models that are fully rigged rendered textured etc. On the other end not that many people actually have a need for 3D models unless they are students or low end studios which usually can't afford models unless they are in the range of 0 to 70 bucks possibly 100. We need to find a way to get people who aren't in 3D interested in using and buying 3D models. 3D printing has helped in this regard but it isn't enough... fact is not that many people know how to used 3D programs and have no used for 3D models. What would be awesome is to build connections with companies that make TV commercials because they need models like Coke Cans etc... which are easy and fast to build and they are better funded. Bringing 3D models to the average every day consumer is what would really revolutionize the industry and make it profitable. If only one could sell at your local Walmart...

It is true, the 3d model market, at this moment in time, is not as consumer driven as other digitlal content, however with all the new and improving technology being developed such as WebGL (http://www.flat3d.co.uk/wp01/blogzine/webgl-3d-model-viewer/) and the expanding number of phone app 3d viewers, with increasingly rich features, becoming available, (for examples do a google search) I believe there will be an increasing demand for a consumer library of 3d stock, priced for the consumer, and I don't think this will take anything away from the high end existing business to business 3d model market.
Like other types of digital content, the trick will be knowing what the consumer wants in order to get your 3d models to the top of the sales charts.

I think the success of VR will also play an important part in making the 3D market bigger.

What is VR? Do you mean Virtual Reality? I am pretty sure there is a big market for custom videogame content like instead of using a particular Street fighter character you could fight as yourself or you could import your favorite character from a different cartoon into the videogame. Interior designers sometimes need furniture or floor plans to be built but the issue is that 3D needs are not widespread enough to make this industry profitable or needed enough. 3D content is not like food, housing and other types of necessary infrastructure. People can easily live without 3D. Until 3D becomes an essential part of life it will always be a volatile industry. There just aren't enough customers compared to 3D artists working in the field.

Websites like Amazon, Ebay, Toyota etc... should all be 3D centric with 3D views of all their products toys, cloths, cars etc... to make the buying experience better but fact is they don't care because it is easier to shoot videos or photos of products and that is faster and cheaper then hiring 3D artists but most importantly faster. Speed is the most important thing in any job industry. Producing high quality products at a fast rate is key but with 3D that just isn't possible because if an artist over does it they just burn out or develop carpal tunnels, back problems etc... In other words 3D is pretty much obsolete or not the preferred method of doing things. Until 3D art becomes fully integrated into the well funded industries it is always be difficult to make a real living out of it for the majority of artists. There will always be a lucky few doing well but the majority will struggle.

Struggle is an essential part of life.

Just imagine how previous generations struggled and the mind will ease.
We never had this kind of time in the hole human history, where there is accumulation of so many technology, information and opportunity's. We have vast connectivity to the collective human knowledge and the potential for creation, innovation and collaboration has never been so big.

Perception can deceive the mind in thinking there are restrictions, but the real reality is, there is much less restrictions then 20 years ago and people where making things nevertheless. We are evolving at a relentless phase, and new opportunity's are growing every day. It's just that the mind sometimes is cluttered and blinded by problems and so it can't see this facts very well.

I indeed meant Virtual Reality (VR), this is such an nice example of new opportunity's. It's going to be mind blowing to see what we are going to create with this medium. Just think of what we can do with it, it's a whole new level for creative expression, human interaction and information exchange/learning.

Social media giant Facebook acquired Oculus rift for 2 billion dollars not so long ago and most large electronic manufacturing companies are all working on VR hardware and software. The amount of activity on this topic isn't possible to follow-up anymore. It is also worth mentioning many target mobile platforms and that HP is working on this ultimate (probably others also) computing system called "the machine" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcmsby8jDKE).

So, nothing but good news for 3D content creators, good time to start and get as good as you can be in designing and creating 3D content, I'm pretty sure it will not be a waste of time.

would like to order less than 10$, there was nothing