Professional tips for selling on cgtrader

Discussion started by LoneCloud

Hello

I'm new to cgtrader but i've been 1-2 years on TS. I quit the squidguild and have to wait 30 days now to upload on other websites. In the meantime i keep modeling and try to prepare for selling other places.

I see prices are set pretty low on cgtrader but i don't wanna go under my prices.

Do you have any tips or experiences you want to share, perhaps from former squidguild members who did the same thing? How are sales compared and are you happy with your decision?

i'm curious if i made the right decision. I don't like being stuck at one place.

Kind regards

Answers

Posted almost 4 years ago
3

Welcome :)

Regarding prices, I keep them the same as I do on TS. Low prices are a sign of either; low quality, stolen content or not understanding the market price. So I advise sticking to your prices if you understand your worth.

Im not a former guild member but I do make about equal sales on both platforms - which in hindsight was a good strategy to add exposure to my models. Some people shop on one platform or the other or both.

Good luck, and looking forward to see what you contribute.

LoneCloud wrote
LoneCloud
Thank you very much :) i def won't set my prices lower than on ts ;) I still want an honest price for the work i do but when searching for models you get alot of underpriced ones. For example 40 dollars for a unique detailed vehicle is way to low imo. do you have alot of customer messages to go lower in price or is it mostly just a sale you get immediatly?
3DCargo wrote
3DCargo
Never had a customer ask me for lower prices yet. If I did I would just tell them to wait for the major sales to get some percentage off. Loyal customers I would happily give discount vouchers however.
Posted almost 4 years ago
2

I agree with the said above and had similar experience.
I was in the SquidGuild, but left TS entirely around 10 months ago - average sales are similar on both sites - the higher royalty rate here helps a lot.
There are really a lot of low priced models here and most of them are stolen.
CGT looks determined to solve this problem, so hopefully prices will start to normalize in time when thieves get banned.

LoneCloud wrote
LoneCloud
I see, so sales are about the same for you? Why did you left TS entirerly? i'm planning to sell on both sites for now, even if the royalty on ts is horrible.. i do get a decent amount of sales there. I'm just curious how its gonna go here :)
trimitek wrote
trimitek
The main reason to leave TS for me was the fact that they had stopped banning thieves and started to protect them - if you were regular in their forums you had probably seen the proof I had published there - nobody from their team dared to explain or deny that, there was just guilty silence, so I decided that I don't want to support such site with my models. Here I had my first sale within a week since I started uploading. A friend of mine had the same experience. Your models look nice, so I suspect you will have similar experience.
3D-Singh wrote
3D-Singh
Yea I had anexperience thief selling my content on TS, They can't do anything. ie they can't make decision on who is rightful owner even after I gave them all the proof, working files etc. The only way is to go to court but I'm not in US so that's impossible and not worth it for a bunch of cheap models. My only solution in the end is to release those models for free as a sample for my other models. On CGtrader they helped me remove the stolen contents after I provided them with all the evidence of ownership.
Posted almost 4 years ago
2

https://www.cgtrader.com/forum/general-discussions/what-makes-cg-trader-better-than-turbosquid

this topic sums up pretty well why many people leave turbosquid.
trimitek is not exactly the only one. i am also considering leaving there.

LoneCloud wrote
LoneCloud
i'll take a look thanks!
Polymath-Maniac wrote
Polymath-Maniac
its quite a old topic, but most is still relevant. and if you go down far enough there are also new replies with new complaints.
Posted almost 4 years ago
1

I started to upload to TS but nothing sold for a month ((( As I can see number of preview and full preview are much better then is here. But sales on CG are present, on TS are not... The prices are the same

Posted almost 4 years ago
3

Welcome. I don't know how you would fare in TS, but if you are an honest person as you seem, willing not to give your work away, don't expect many sales here. I hope I'm wrong, because your models look good and are well presented, well licensed, with a reasonable price ... I'm sorry to be so negative, but my opinion is, that only the cheats succeed here, with the approval of CGT. For example, according to statistics, searching with the keyword car, and ordering the search by number of models, the first is sport car, with 3,103 models. Only 32% of those models are priced above $ 40 and the sales percentage of those models is 22%. Of that percentage (22%), some of the sales are phantom sales such as the audi sold 3 times in 15 days for $ 400, or the stolen cars from Squir for sale for $ 2,000 that I mentioned in this thread:

https://www.cgtrader.com/forum/general-discussions/unbelievable-sales-of-stolen-models

The belief that CGT is determined to end fraud is just that, a belief, because the truth is, that while they sometimes rush to eliminate cheats, they allow them to come in a few days again. There are several threads in the forum about this, for example:

https://www.cgtrader.com/forum/general-discussions/cheater-removed-4-hours-ago-is-already-back

As I already demonstrated in another thread, CGT earns more, eliminating a cheater who has already made several sales, (at low prices), of stolen models, (because he keeps 100% of the sale when he eliminates the cheater), which if sales had been made by the original author at a higher price (because in that case you would only earn 20% - 25% of the sale, depending on the reputation of the seller). As long as stolen models continue to be offered at prices below their value, the authors of those models are less likely to sell them, and the statistics confirm this.

Trimitek is right that prices are normalizing. Thieves now sell their models at a more reasonable price, hoping to go unnoticed, such as this one:

https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/car/luxury/fiat-2800-torpedo-1939-3d-model

or this one, published (and reported), 1 month ago:

https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/car/luxury/chevrolet-confederate-4-door-phaeton-1932-car

The cheater is likely to make sales even if the price has risen, because it is still cheaper than the original. So
CGT, (when I eliminate the cheater) and the cheater (until I am eliminated), will earn more, but the author will continue to lose sales and for so much money.

Other cheats who succeed in CGT are precisely those who break the exclusivity agreement with TS, such as this one:

https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models?author=Pradipta-D

It is logical that it has numerous sales here, because it sells the models at half the price than in TS, (it has almost 11,000 reputation points). It also uses pirated software and some models are even from DAZ. CGT is also aware of these infractions, reported for months and easy to verify, but the cheat is still here. This user has scammed TS thousands of dollars, not only with the sales he has made here (of which CGT has taken his part), but also with the percentage that he has overcharged TS for exclusivity, which he does not comply with.

Another important part of CGT sales are counterfeit jewelry and models for all kinds of uses, (without editorial license), which infringe the copyrights of third parties. CGT does not control the licenses of the published models and says in its regulations that it is the sole responsibility of the sellers, but the truth is, that allowing this, harms their reputation and by extension honest sellers, because it attracts unscrupulous buyers and over everything alienates quality buyers, which also affects sales of the other models.

On the other hand there are the mountains of junk models and the many tricks that some users use to highlight their models. That together with the painful search system, they remove visibility to other quality models and therefore sales options.

This it is the sad reality.

LoneCloud wrote
LoneCloud
I'm glad you gave your honest opinion. I will test cgtrader for about 6 months and see what it does. If its like you say i can always join the guild again on ts, i make pretty good sales there but I just felt bounded to ts only, thats why i'm very curious about this place. Lets see what it gives. I'll def keep that in mind :)
Posted almost 4 years ago
1

(http://community.foundry.com/discuss/topic/142735/turbosquid-vs-cgtrader)
(https://www.cgtrader.com/forum/general-discussions/cgtrader-vs-turbosquid)

I was selling on both sites but left Ts the moment they introduced best price guarantee and forced me paying for the hefty operating costs (was adding that on top of my models there).
Note, my CGt account was getting most sales at that time.

My experience tells me the majority of clients are small independent studios, freelancers, students and hobbyists. They care about what things cost and actively compare and look for best deals. They are not loyal to any particular platform (Ts has proven they know about this because they copy CGt discount strategies, etc.) everyone has multiple accounts and compare these day’s.

CGtrader is all for serving the larger community and knows about this diverse clientele.
You can serve big budget studios here and use the offer button if you want to alternatively serve individuals. CGt focus is on serving the designers and brands itself as a CG trading platform (its name says it all). It brings an open and communicative cost effective platform that provides effective tools/services for publishing and presenting/selling CG works. Besides that they leave it to the artists how they want to use the tools to present themselves and the market to sort things out.

Its a very cost effective solution.

Turbosquid on other hand delivers a restricted non communicative platform, its totally not cost effective and its focus is more on its household name and branding the works form artists as Ts content. They focus on big budget studios that don't care what something cost, who look for exclusive well curated content and value a household name. The problem is those are few and thus Ts is delivering a service that is far less cost effective for majority of artists/sellers and clients on it. Now that CGt is here to deliver what the majority needs, Ts knows they bring little value to the table and are in big doodoo. In a struggle for solving the problems they are copying CGt but keep selling the service for same hefty price and let artists pay for it.

The problem is Ts has no value proposition anymore in big shadow of CGt, they would better stick to own strategies and set focus on curated exclusive content only, that would be a way to make difference and bring back again its own value proposition.

Whatever you do, don't make the mistake competing against own accounts, because if you do, it will divide your audience over multiple links and compromise your ranking power on both platforms (note, you have a fixed amount of clients you would divide and swing left or right).
Remember, there are very few Ts clients that do not own a CGt account, Ts want to make people believe they have large crowd of loyal Ts clients (its not so).

Also note that providing same content on multiple links, those links will compete in Google ranking. This is something I began to experience myself. At times my CGtrader images/links would be on top in Google ranking and at other times my Ts images/links would be on top. Now its all links to CGtrader that are on top because my Ts account is gone.

Just know your content is a two way street, if you put it somewhere on the internet it will get views/traffic, then the platform and Google picks it up and ranks it accordingly and in turn sends more traffic to that location. You better decide upfront where you want that secondary traffic to go.

My experience learned me having a Ts account cost more on multiple levels.
I’m very happy with the results having my CGt account as the main focus.

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