decline in CGTrader sales
Discussion started by startsevr
what going on ? last months, decline in CGTrader sales, what is the reason? site update?
Answers
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Hmm, I literally joined the night before last and have 20 models up. I guess, reading this, I'll have to be somewhat patient for sales.
I also sell on the Unreal Marketplace and have a two-month old Sketchfab account. The UE Market's sold well for quite some time but seems to drop in May, quite specifically, for me. Otherwise it's consistent.
Do you mean in May only or May and the rest of the year? I've been learning UE4 and making an environment for 2 weeks now wonder if it'll be worth it.
There just aren't many sales in May. Seems pretty consistent for the rest of the year.
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I see no effects from any updates or slow summer, no decline at all. Sales steady as a rock, same as year before, a bit better actually. Images still top rank in Google also see no effects there.
Big factor is category your in, if your in crowded category's then its probably normal you get mixed results. Summer will probably have some influence, lots of people go on vacation so that will have some impact.
But to the people with multiple accounts I would say look no further, especially those on the two big ones (Turbosquid versus CGtrader), swinging your own clients between these two is a big factor. You can get lower ranking on both sites and influence the Google results, that's probably main reason you see big up and down motions between both accounts successes (your competing against yourself).
Note, you will never rank as high on both platforms then someone serving all clients and direct marketing efforts to here or exclusively on Ts.
Keep in mind there are no special Ts clients, all Ts clients are at same time CGt clients, its only 2 to 3% of people (a small shrinking crowd) that never purchase outside of Ts. Its very few people and not worth swinging own clients for them. You are literally losing money on clients you swing to the 60% account and the risk of lower rankings on both sites and mixed results in Google. If you can add the 60% cut on top of products on Ts then its not that harmful to have an account there, if not, then its just pointless self sabotage.
For a while I even considered making my models on CGt as expensive as on Ts (also add 60% to them to avoid price cut-downs on Ts), but then tell in CGt descriptions people need to use the price offer button to get “guarantee” best price (under the Ts radar). But it just struck me how messed up I can make things for myself, its just not worth it to deal with Ts, its to expensive in every way.
I'm not sure if that's right, about the multiple accounts. I did not sell more when I was only selling on cgtrader. My sales about doubled in total when I started to sell on sketchfab too. Some people are lazy and just go to their main source, and if they find what they look for there, they don't look further. What are your percentage values based on? I wish it was true, though, it's far easier to just maintain one account.
@blobfortress, My findings are based on my own sales and rough estimates from figures found on website statistics (its a patch work of information and my personal interpretations of it). According to web statistics both websites get between 5 to 6 million visitors per month, Ts get most (around 6 million). Its not 11 million users in total, I would say its roughly 1.8 million users visiting both sites multiple times per month (mostly the same users). Ts has some more accounts, it's longer there so they have the head start advantage (hens reason why they get some more visits per month, my estimate is the extra million views are made by around 200 to 300k more accounts on Ts). My quest getting to some better view on the situation started about 3 years ago. It started with a very blurry view that became a bit sharper in time, but its still not totally clear jet. What is totally clear to me is that when I did some test with my accounts (made my item 60% more expensive on Ts) there was a 50 to 50 ratio decline on Ts and increase on my CGt account. Just a few kept purchasing my more expensive Ts models (around 3%). Then came price guarantee and I closed my account on Ts and lost those 3%. 4 to 5 months later my CGt account did so well I started making more the when I had the two accounts, this last 3 months its actually 25% more then when I had two accounts (have a bit more new 3D content now but not 25% more). Note Ts is not that bad in selling models, its just bad for making money there because Ts takes the money, that's different here. I believe focusing my full attention to this account is what makes it more successful in terms of position and Google ranking, etc. Sketchfab is a different place, it indeed probably has its own clientele. If you have that type of content then its probably good to be on it. I’m not on it because its easy to download the models. Yes those people do not have the license if they do so, etc. Most probably don't care as long as they are selling models there, but I don't like its that easy to download the work for free. Maybe my view on that changes over time, but not now.
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Same here. I have a serious decline too. I believe, it is something about the last update. Some of my models images hold leading positions in Google Images search before and seems like it was main traffic of my sales. Right now it lost positions and TS previews of my models ranked much higher than CGtrader ones. Seems like something was done in CGt database what caused Google robots to drop images positions.
As a result, TS gives me better sales right now than CGt for first time in several years.
I agree with startsevr , for me, for July only, sales are very very low on CGTrader, and, in the same time, sales grow on TS , it's completely reversed from a usual situation
But obviously the sales seems to resume on CGT, so we must keep hope :)
I don't think they will for me and some others. With the update, my models stopped being shown on first page when searching for the general keyword. Page 3 is hardly a place anyone goes. Hell, even the guy selling a low quality rip-off of one of my models has higher page rank now, which is totally beyond my understanding. His profile is not filled in, he has no reviews, almost no reputation (from which I can guess he sold the model 18 times at max, otherwise his reputation would be higher), he has ONLY this one model, and the listing is very minimal: https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/character/fantasy/chibi-male-character
So if anybody understands how the new algorithm works, I'm all ears.
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