I know, I know. It takes a LONG time to sell a model, but how do these random models get on the trending page with almost no views?(no offense if its yours:)) I just want to know some secrets!
The system for trending models looks at frequency of interactions (in time) at moment of going public, no secrets. The only secret is maybe most of those trending artists have a network and at moment of publishing they pull in as mush views as they can from that network.
Regarding your low sales;
My personal view is its due to having few models and at same time having items that are in heavily overcrowded category.
You can get knowledge about what is in demand if you use the Analytics tool,
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI_HpXuPWms) create for those categories and you get lots of sales.
@PrintedReality, I closed my account on Tutbosquid after price guarantee madness went up, its a very expensive platform and now they restrict artists from adding that cots to the product, that's just total madness. But they can be as cray as they want when people don't realize it (or care) and keep supporting it. Anyways, few sales I had there added up here, so in my case clients just follow where my stuff is. It proves clients have at least two accounts (or they make one), they are not loyal to one platform, I lost no sale closing my Turbosquid account. Your very likely loosing money if you sell on both sites (not exclusive with Turbosquid), on other hand, its unwise to go exclusive in a time where more opportunity’s open up for sellers.
If you run Website analyses on Turbosquid and CGtrader, you discover they both get around 5 million visitors per month (Ts get some more but allow me to elaborate later why this makes no difference).
The main thing to keep in mind is there are not 10 million users out there, (one half Ts users, other half CGt users) they are just the same people, its 5 million “same” people that both visit Ts and CGt every month. They all have multiple accounts and they buy where they happen to be and have some items already in the shopping cart. What they do is hopping back and fort searching and comparing content on both sites to see where they get best match on what they need. If they happen to be on Ts and have some items already in the basket and encounter some nice stuff on CGt then they just continue to checkout at Ts and then login to CGt to get that additional item (and visa versa). The thing is if your items happen to be in the Ts basket at that time then they are not gonna be added in the CGt basket (why would they, price is same right?).
Likelihood where a given user is going to check out is almost 50% ration now because CGt has content Ts has not and vise versa. However, there is small discrepancy towards Ts, 53% of times a user will likely checkout at Ts and 47% of times a user will likely checkout at CGt, why is that? (note this does not mean you have 6% more chance selling on Ts)
The small difference is due to fact that Ts has been around longer and they still have a considerable amount of exclusive artist and in addition still some work from non exclusive artists (priced same as elsewhere now), so the content is not evenly distributed (Ts has still a small edge on that), however it does not make a difference, users login to the CGt account if they encounter content they like and is not available on Ts.
If you sold something on Ts its not that you could not have sold your item here at CGt, you just have chosen to sell it on Ts and influence your own believe system, that’s all. Ts is not particularly better at selling your items, its just the old habits of the users (in decline now) plus people that keep selling on both sites. This influences the small discrepancy and likelihood where a given user is going to check out with your models at a given time.
Lastly, do not believe Ts has some hidden clients that never discovered CGt, that's just silly.
Just leverage the better royalty to successfully compete with Ts and clients will more likely checkout with your models here.
@interateCGI I don't know where you took those statistics from. Assumption that there is 5 million users with multiple accounts on TS and CGTrader cannot be right. I don't think that there is a specific number of your sales a month and you are choosing whether you will have all those sales on CGTrader or both of those. You seem to be assuming that every sale comes from Google search and then buyers decide whether they go with CGTrader or TS. However I don't think it as simple as that. For example the important factor is the positioning of your models on each of those website. If my model is on page 5 on CGTrader and page 2 on TS then obviously I have a better chance of selling this model on TS.
This month I have 2x better sales on TS (last year I had much better sales on CGTrader). I have a lot of my models still with higher price on TS and even though they are getting sold, so no, those buyers obviously didn't see my models on CGTrader.
@PrintedReality, for clarification, it’s around 5 million “visits” on each site, not 5 million multiple account holders. Don’t have correct numbers on total accounts but for CGt its around 1.5 million fresh accounts (https://www.tctmagazine.com/3d-printing-news/cgtrader-reaches-1-5-million-users/) according to this news article (I believe its also on the blog here somewhere). I bet you they all have Ts account as well (active or inactive).
Ts has probably some more accounts but again I would argue it does not matter. Note Ts was there way before CGt and lots of old accounts are still there but not active (also lots of people left after price guarantee, those accounts would still register but they are mostly inactive).
You do make the choice, you are swinging your own clients.
@Shermandini, the problem of your position here will not change if you keep a profile at Ts, sales is most important factor to get better position, if you direct your clients to Ts then that is where you get better position and more sales. Just ask yourself where do you want better position? Its not wise to compete with your own less expensive profile against an expensive one (you lose money). Keep in mind they also compete in Google ranking.
Its perfectly doable to get all your sales at the place you want and not lose a single client and earn more, I did it.
I wouldn't listen much to what iterateCGI says abut TS, he sings that same anti squid song for years. Yes they are bad, they treat sellers like scum and pays pennies for our work, but if you think that if you'd close you shop at squid, sales in cgtrader would increase significantly, then you simply deceiving yourself. Customers won't follow you. With few rare exceptions, they don't know who you are and they don't care about you. If they're shopping on squid, it's not because of YOU and if you withdraw your models from there, they will find another model there. If you're making very unique, bespoke models, then to some degree customers might follow you and search for YOUR models. That can be partially applicable to iterateCGI and Printed Reality. But someone with generic models, will loose all the sales at squid, the moment they close the shop and none of them will transfer to CGT. I have pretty established position at TS and sales goes at par with cgtrader. It brakes my heart to see how TS is literally robbing me, but i know for sure that i would loose good portion of my income if i'd close the shop.
I have never really bought anything from any of these websites, but I have downloaded a few free models from many sites for my game project. I just find what I need and leave, if it is not there I make model myself, but how will uploading on multiple sites harm my sales, when I am still testing and figuring things out. I can't really make decisions until I sell a few models.
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