does the new epidemic really affect sales?

yes

It probably will affect sales negatively in the short term because most people will not have the expendable cash flow, and even studios could get shorthanded or close completely for a while as people continue to get sick. On the bright side, it could keep people indoors and on their computers more, which means more online shopping and digital spending rather than traditional shopping. Hopefully, we see the later. Only time will tell.

The measures to stop it affect economy, so most likely yes.
We will see how bad.

that right

People need the money for disinfectants and soap now (if they still get some), lot's of food to throw away later and the very most important: toilet paper! ;) Buying like apocalypse is starting right now....

Biggest financial crisis in our generation incoming.

During global financial crisis 2008/09 my income was big and fat as never before and never later. It was hilarious: my employer had no money to pay salaries, but I had and got lots of customers that wanted to make various golden shit. They was afraid to invest in businesses and/or papers (like stocks or currency speculations), but wanted to freeze part of their money to precious metals. So I had no regular salary whole autumn 2008 and winter 2009, but got much more from freelance.

I hope todays "coronacrisis" will repeat the same scenario ( if I'm not wrong prices of precious metals are already rised). But at this moment it's just foggy hope. Because statistics shows sad picture: for unknown reason I had abnormal sales and custom projects on CGTrader in January and February and very bad sales/views dinamics in this month (Marth).

Art has a healing effect on me so in stressful times I create and look at more art.
It eases my mind and provides focus on something positive towards the future.
I believe people usually get most creative in challenging times (at least some of us?).

Anyways, some art websites have reported an increase in traffic so I'm probably not the only one experiencing this effect?

Just keep living and do the best you can, what is out of your control is simply out of your control ;-)

In my opinion everyone will forget about this disease soon. Nothing will happen.

If past crisis has taught us anything, it's that you can't predict people.

It might depend on your clientele. If you sell mainly to studios, then yes, income will drop because studios are going into lockdown. If you sell mainly to hobbyists, then income might go up as people are at home and looking for distractions, on the other hand, people would be afraid of their own income, job loss, etc, so they may hold back on any discretionary spending.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm just doing exactly what I was doing before this. Sales will either go up, or down, or stay the same, doesn't matter. Either way, at some point it will be over until the next thing comes along.

Rivaling marketplace has posted quite interesting article with some insights into current situation. You may want to read it if you're not too allergic to octopuses ;]

@skapricorn, i think you need to be registered at TS to see the article. If you are registered, then go to your dashboard and see news section - should be the latest article there.

Yes, if you are registered there, then you can find it in their community blogs. It was a good read.