Sales discontinued
Discussion started by CGmano88
Hello everyone, I have recently suffered from a terrible decline and a halt in sales, although I am presenting distinctive and new models, and some of them are at the top of the search pages, but to no avail. I get meager amounts compared to the effort I put in. Have we really come to the end of this work?
Answers
I'm the opposite. 2022 was stellar for me. There was a positive blip for the month of March, but a sharp decline afterwards. I guess it depends on what customer's needs are, as they are ever changing. I predict a roller coaster for the remainder of this year and the next.
You might want to think about diversifying your portfolio.
You only have 6 models, nothing to expect at this point @Hhazemosman001. Once you get to at least 100 you can start checking your stats, what sells and what doesn't. Also think about it from the buyers perspective, I assume you have chosen your niche (games/archviz etc), once you understand what your customers are looking for then build those items. Keep the quality high and be consistent.
99% of other vendors too. Even if having better folios than you.
Seismic3D gave the most real answer: "CGT's marketing spend decreases, sales decrease.
CGT's marketing spend increases, sales increase." For some niches (e.g. jewelry printables) the same drop was in 2022. But at 2022 CGT was in partnership (or sponsored...) with Meta as supplier of 3D models for useless "metaverse". I guess Meta revisited their thoughts about "virtual universe fiddle-diddlies-bells-whistles" and gives less money... (But my opinion looks more like "conspiracy theory")
Why this happened in one moment? In bad times there must be decrease in sales. "Decrease" is not zero. Also if there inflation occurs, people have to make offers with discounts, but no offers for three months. Like no one needed anything now....
@djkorg just few clicks to update algorithms, scripts or just one marketing managers decision and voila... Greed and dumbness has no limits.
Ok, changing algorithms.......but what the profit has CGt from this move? No sales - no profit. For what they done this? Also as I see other marketplaces have the same tendences, so I think this is due to inflation and AI revolution started last year.
0
Also, other sites such as turbosquid have decreased sales terribly. I did not understand whether the reason is the huge inflation that the models market is witnessing, or the crisis that the world is going through, or the most dangerous thing is that artificial intelligence will replace us haha
1
I was hesitant posting here, because for ~14 years in the 3D market I saw a lot of people complaining about low sales regularly..
The majority of them were either with small collections or too specialized, but as a whole even those with big collections have low months.
I had those too and thought what is happening now is just one of those bad luck months.
Seeing @djkorg post (and his collection) though, made me wonder is this really the beginning of the end?... because for those 14 years I had low months,
but never ever had a $0 month ... April 2023 was the first one and up until now, I didn't get even a single sale..
So I started to wonder - is the site broke?.. or maybe something in the industry had gone terribly wrong?
I guess we are about to see.
0
The only thing is sure this is not problem of 1 marketplace but overall across all platforms.
Sometimes I am also thinking wheather customers are more and more buying models from big sellers (studios) rather from single smaller artists. Maybe they have bigger guarantee about model quality and customer support.
I am thinking about it when I see how for example "Squir" and other very big sellers are still getting the same amount of pisitive reviews. If the sales were decreasing also the amount of reviews would decreasing.
Also probably market is rapidly becaming oversaturated by low-poly models and by models of standard quality. Maybe customers are more and more searching for exceptional top quality (for example extremely detailed car models of 99% accurancy).
And look how for example Hum3d started selling models with subscription on their site. So maybe if some customers know that they will need more cars models they will rather pay the subscription (which means big disount on all single sales) rather than buying the models from other artists.
In other words the competition is extreme and the big players in this field are maybe providing some extra value to the customers than small single artists.
"...customers are more and more searching for exceptional top quality..." "More and more" sounds like ramp, like gradient, like slow decay, but not clamp. So customers can't buy regular quality till March 2023 and after 1st of March began to want extremely detailed stuff. It's abnormal like someone turned the switch....
@djkorg - for me March was way below average, but I was still getting sales up until 4th week of the month - nothing after that. Kind of similar experience, but delayed ... it doesn't look natural to me too though.
This was reaction to djkorg
In my case I do not see that the sales would completely disappear this or previous month rather I see how selling 3D models is becaming less and less profitable every other month and year.
Yes....I am here from 2013 and there were different seasons from super high to super low(10% from the normal) and this was understandable, mathematically correct. Even in times of covid sales were decreased to 50-60 % from normal, but now it's just a black hole
@djkorg I was thinking the same thing. 3 months without a single sale for almost 500 models collection with good quality and variety is very unusual. For me it's almost 2 now.
@trimitek You have good models but most of your models are from home decor or furnishing category. Also some planets, older (already outdated) mobile phones, some flash-lights etc. This is (especially the furniture) very saturated and extremely competitive category with minimal perspectivity into future.
I would say this is not sufficient level of portfolio diversification. To have really stable and more frequent sales it is necesarry to have much more wider diversification for example into more technical models categories - for example vehicles - cars (modern electromobiles), ships, trains, helicopters - or into technological or medical equipment categories. Or fully animated animals - there are many ways. And rather more complex and generally models which are not easy to create.
Times are bad and doing chairs or older mobile phones is not the best way to become successful in this very hard bussiness. Try to do models which correspond to modern technological trends.
@zabotlama - all points are correct, at least in theory. I mean, It's true that big part of my collection consists of models that are past their time, but that was sufficient enough for relatively stable income - at least until 2 months ago. Your advice about what to add is also spot on, however in the current market investing the time to build complex high quality models is just not worth it for me. The return that I got even from the HQ vehicles that I had made in the past (and those were selling for $299 back in the days) is too low compared to the return I get from freelance projects. Now with all of this undercutting reaching it's peak (you can see HQ models below $10 added daily) investing time in making 3d models for sale looks kind of pointless.
@trimitek - You are also right. Yes in these undercutting times it is question wheater time investment into doing complex HQ models will pay off. I think that partly yes because serious (professional) customers will not buy extremely underpriced models (it is big risk that there is something wrong) and they will pay higher price if they have some guarantee of quality.
Otherwise I have no idea how your sales could suddenly completely disappear. This is not my case - this month is not so good so far but sales still continue. I only see long-term decrease in selling profitability - for example year 2022 was worse for me than 2021.
@zabotlama - Yep, I think average profitability goes down for everyone and it's normal, because of the increasing competition and lowering prices. For the market as a whole there is probably not much change, but to individual sellers things are most likely only going to get worse.
-7
Everything repeats, partially or completely, but nevertheless.
https://www.cgtrader.com/forum/general-discussions/no-sales-on-cgt
8 years ago there was no AI, retopology, texturing and the whole pipeline looked completely different, but as now there were artists who had no sales at all.
Why should the end come now? All this is nothing more than a temporary period, successful for some, less successful for others.
8 years ago there was much more lower competition and professionalisation. In other words 8 years ago there was very easy to do models which were selling very well (of course also with some worse periods) but what we see now (in recent year) it is total game changer. Also the inflation and rapidly growing living costs make our bussiness totally unprofitable. Selling 3D models online is the only business where the prices are decreasing instead of increasing at least to cover inflation. What a paradox bread and milk and all services are more and more expensive, 3D models are more and more cheaper. I give our bussiness here 3 maximally 5 years - then it will be on the same level as 2D images photo-banks.
There was no such terrifying situation 8 years ago.
If we consider the most pessimistic scenario in which AI will force all artists from the market and from the industry, at least one question arises. What will Autodesk (for example) do with their 3ds Max and Maya? Just close like XSI? This is hard to believe. You can rather believe that an asteroid will crash tomorrow and destroy all life than Autodesk will simply stop supporting these editors (at least after 3-5 years).
No.
I refer to your initial post here.
It´s not about artists that got no sales at all
You know it! we know it too!
Please don´t try to brainwash us, and don´t try to make dump apes out of us.
We are to intelligent for that.
I often ask myself why all these smoke candles again and again and again from your side?
After all you seem to be a truly intelligent and nice person, but sometimes your show an ugly face again and again. Why?
You know EXACTLY! it´s about vendors (even not talking about myself but vendors doing that wayssssssssss longer than me) who had their sales on regularly basis! period.
These peoples had their sales on regularly basis like for many years, every month, every week. And than suddenly everyting aprubptly stopped!
What would you think being in their shoes !!!???
What would you ask CGT?
About what would you complain?
About what would you discuss with others?
And about what you would try to find productive conversations and answers and solutions?
PS: I talked to CGTrader about the so called "moderators"............... and I assume you are one of them. They told me people like you are active when threads are ongoing that have nothing to do with 3d. So, all that here, has nothing to do with 3d???, but what... let me guess, a bit "criticism"? I know that methods already from the COLD WAR done by the russians. Don´t overscrew that methology CGT because you make too much noise in this direction, and I don´t guess it´s your intention to censor and shut up your vendors and the constructive thinking of people. I don´t like russian style censorshipping.
I don't know with whom from CGTrader you communicated about "moderators" but I did not plan to arrange censorship and criticism in this discussion. All fears and negative forecasts in my opinion are exaggerated, that's all.
-6
If there's a single artist who doesn't see the point or just doesn't have the resources for creating models that can compete with studios, why shouldn't that artist team up with 4 or 6 (for example) other artists who have the same problems? One account, collective models, all payout divided in equal parts between all authors.
you talk like a Pfizer lawyer to the shot victims. Don´t overscrew it! some individual designers offer cool and usable things that Squir and co. does NOT. Of course, also those studios have the right to be profit oriented and I don´t see any reasons why they should fck up their pipeline and stop producing. I even would be glad to work for them if good payout. Legit business, image studio. But it´s mostly it´s about the prices and lees not be able to produce. People are producing such a big and nice content and are not able to sell it these days. Without SEM,SEA,SEO.... I honestly am very afraid 2023 starts to be the year in which only *one-man-shows" will survive. Everyting gets harder and harder. This year starts to get truly awful for individual artists.
3
@jaguarbeastproduction Sorry, but you sound like someone without much experience in selling 3d models.
It seems like you don't really understand what we are really talking about here.
It's about time invested vs. return in $
Teaming up with other artists (which will never work anyways) is not going to change that, it will only create more problems and I'll not even get into accounting.
Big studios will have the same profitability (time vs.money) if they only specialize in making 3d models for sale (and I'm sure they don't).
Every experienced seller will tell you that making a model that is really profitable in this market is very rare and even if you manage to
do that, guess what happens?
It rises in search, copycats notice it and in a week or two there are 10 copies of it for $2.50.
It happened to me (several times) a few years ago when I still had illusions that making 3d models for sale may have a good future.
And yes, you will lose sales, because even if the customer have doubts that this $2.50 model may have problems, it costs almost nothing to try, and if it's really that bad he will just ask for refund.
What other options? Creating a subdomain and sell content by subscription (as Envato for example, with its Envato Elements). This is even more difficult and also raises many questions.
Freelance - projects for customers.
As far as I remember, not many users are delighted with Wildcat here (for example). And with 3D projects too not everything is as smooth as we would like. Although, of course, for someone this is an option, yes.
-2
I will tell you something sad and at the same time funny. I recently said to myself that I have to be creative and bring an idea and design that does not exist in the models. I worked on this model, but all I gained from it was wasting a lot of time in exchange for views and some comments. Hahaha. A friend of mine was right when he said that their field is 2D. There are profits, and that our field is a 3D society in which there is fatigue
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/exterior/cityscape/scifi-low-poly-cartoon-city-4600fbd6-2279-414a-859a-cb5e442eb961
mixed feelings about that idea. Already being a time ago 10+ in 2D too and it´s honestly quite overcrowed, mostly more eminent than 3D and extremely over-competitive. 3d is still tge thing you need some "extra" twists in your brain, don´t forget about that fact.
It's a really bad thing to promote models on topic like this.
-1
you see? it´s like a *new* virus... some vendors will write *this month was indeed bad for me..." and so on and so on. Even when I experienced after getting in touch with some that most of them already claim MASSIVELY! about loss of sales since EXACTLY! the beginning of January this year (2023) - knowing that... I puke like a heron on the "thsis month... is really not good, this month... is not good for me...., this month... is a BAD month...." and so on and so on and so on. THIS MONTH? boys& girls! please!
-2
I do not promote my models. If I wanted to, I would have done it elsewhere. Here originally, most of them are sellers. Do not think that you are smarter than everyone else.
I am talking about an issue that is more important than promotion, which is the drop in sales for most designers, including my friends in the field
Posting link to a model on the topic is a PROMOTION, THE END. You are the one who is trying to be smarter than anybody else here.
3
Sales and marketing are the same across all industries. Some you win, some you lose. The more you research the better position you can be to determine if your sales technique is working or where you need to pivot from. Don't worry about 'saturated categories' or what you 'think' is useful, find out what people are looking for and BUILD THAT! As for copy cats, why is that even a concern? If I want a 'razer' mouse then ill buy one from the razer store, I don't go to amazon and find a cheap alternative because I know its bad, I will end up sending it back for a return on my money. Either position yourself as someone who provides quality products or bail out because you cannot provide the quality that's in demand. This goes back to the old 90/10 rule, 10% of people earn 90% of the money, why? Because only 10% of people put in the effort to make it, and they make it damn good. If you are judging your sales month to month you are already lost - judge it by your annual income - this goes back to what I said at the beginning "Some you win, some you lose".
CGTrader insists game development drives most of the sales, but that was a comment that I've heard before Covid.
"Find what people are looking for and BUILD THAT!" Isn't that easier said than done?
It certainly is easier said than done @TazMan2000. I invested a significant portion of my sales income into research and while it wasn't cheap it was worth the return on investment.
3
Well, I am glad I am not the only one. I have seen a tendency downwards in my sales for the las 7-8 months, with the last 2 being the worst. I am really worried. I started selling models in 2017, and since then, as I uploaded more models, the sales kept going up every year. But so far, the tendency for 2023 shows that is going to be my first year of decline in sales, a big decline. I have a ton of work-in-progress models, but I am doubting if it is even worth keep going with this business, or if it is time to jump the wagon... Though times!
2
I believe that part of this problem is due to the system of tags and suggested products at the bottom of each product page
First, the site does not allow me to save the tags I want (after saving the changes, the product tags return to the previous state)
Second, at the bottom of each product page instead of displaying the rest of the related products
Displays unrelated products of others
While this was not the case a few months ago
I had a talk about tagging and exact-search and broad-search with Julius from CGT, and he explained me that they have coded something new for that, but it´s as I understand more about the search algorythm.
Normally similar items should be displayed at the bottom (as options), but sometimes assets in trend are also displayed. You can tak it as you want, but CGT has the right to pick and to display at the bottom both strategies I´ve mentioned.
In terms of tagging, title is the crucial part, less the keywords. The first 2 words in title, or 3, are the with the biggest weighting for the results (as far I understood him).
2
I know i'm late to join the discussion, but i always try to wait till the end of the month before drawing conclusions about it.Like for many participants of this discussion last month started with huge drop in sales for me. I tried to look for the possible causes of such decline and found that cgtrader announced changes on its search algorithm in April 28. I've looked at my sales data and found that start of my sales decline almost perfectly matches to that announcement. CGT says that now the search is governed by the AI, which by itself might not be a bad thing, but who really knows how it works under the hood. One thing is for sure, that it have changed what models are being show to the customers and it's no secret that if your models does not appear on the first page of the search results, you will have hard time to sell anything. So in essence one could assume that most of those who saw sharp unexplainable drop in sales recently, might simply have been a victim of new AI search algorithm and there's probably not much one can do about that. In fact, when cgtrader made that announcement, i tried to experiment with it for some time and try to search for my models. When i did short 2-3 words search, the results were as usual and my models usually appeared on the first page (with specifically tailored keywords), but when i did search for the same models with longer 4 or more words phrase (that's when AI should kick in according to CGT), my models were much further down in results, or sometimes even completely not there, despite the fact that i tried to chose the words that are literally in my model's name and/or tags. Apparently, for some reason i'm not in favor of that AI model. Maybe because i wasn't uploading new models in a while, maybe there are other reasons. Try to guess what's on the mind of that AI. Most likely cgtrader themselves don't know how it's working. So here you go, yet another example when AI, or rather irresponsible its implementation is stomping on people's lives.
P.S. for last couple weeks i see some increase in sales and the May for me turned out not that bad. Maybe AI is constantly training itself and not all hope is lost, but in any case i think we should prepare ourselves for even more unpredictable results in the future (not that earnings from stock model sales was ever reliable source of income :]).
I don't think it has to do with the search algorithm, at least not in my case. When I search for my model's keywords, my models appear among the first results. I think there is something bigger going on...
3
Yeah, soon we will see AI trucks on our highways, and then you know what will happen.
Seriously, I thought AI was already in place but for all keywords. An own search algorythm is already a sort of AI.
Also, I now use the keyword NOAI in my tags.
What I rather find very frustrating, I and I guess many potential buyers too, is that CGT is making too many maintenance breaks in this year. Right now again, Page Request Failed, UH, THIS IS AWKWARD, IT APPEARS SOMETHING WENT WRONG WITH THE PAGE REQUEST....
If I would be buyer I most probably would avoid CGT because of that permanently occuring unavailability or breakwdown.
Also neever seen that on another marketplaces, not one time! So I guess it could be a mix of everythying.
0
Looks like I had missed the announcement of the AI powered change in search, but it sounds like a logical explanation to my abrupt stop in sales.
Obviously AI doesn't like all of my models for some reason as I'm still at 0$ and my dashboard graph says - you are dead/game over :
https://i.imgur.com/av4dExa.jpg
1
Oh man.. I had just read the blogpost about this new feature
https://www.cgtrader.com/blog/introducing-ai-powered-similar-models-search-function
Unfortunately I must say that this idea may sound good in theory, but it is widely known and confirmed by marketing research that it has a negative effect on sales.
This:
"Explore More Options: Even when you find a model that fits your requirements, there might be others out there that could work even better. The Similar Models feature opens up a wider range of choices that align with your specific needs."
is a very very wrong approach!
Here are just two articles on the topic:
https://www.voucherify.io/blog/value-of-variety-and-choice-overload-in-customer-psychology-when-too-much-choice-can-decrease-sales
https://hbr.org/2006/06/more-isnt-always-better
I was referring to this article: https://www.cgtrader.com/blog/introducing-ai-powered-long-phrase-search the one that introduces new search algorithm governed by AI. The similar models search function seemingly does not alter search results and i actually like the idea, it's just as always, cgtrader's implementation leaves a lot to be desired.
I see. Just did some experiments with this - very mixed results for me too : / And I'm not sure if it's only me, but the site is also very slow compared to before.
5
Since no sales we should increase our prices.
The only propper consequence.
After covid lockdowns all car rental companies increased their prices like x3 times.
Also many another verticals did.
Now, no matter if AI or other reasons we all have also a business to run.
I did already.
-3
Thanks for that info @LemonadeCG, that does seem like a solid analogy.
@CGAmp, what a strange way to deal with things. If I were to imagine going back to the "Yellow Pages" which was a book/directory they released every year of all the businesses in your country/area, I would find it strange that one year they decided to re-order the pages, instead of A-Z they decided they would let the computer come up with a good way of organizing it. All of a sudden my AAA-Mechanic store is not getting the attention it used to I double my prices. Very weird way to deal with things.
Sure rental companies, food, and everything else has gone up significantly due to inflation, covid, and other recent factors but you realize you are in a global market here? If I can buy an apple for $0.50 from my local shop and someone else is selling that same apple for $5, who do you think ill buy the apple from? Sure price your 3D models higher if you think you offer more value, but value is what you are selling. If you offer low value (you are relatively new to 3D) then yeah it makes sense, but if you have experience then what are you trying to achieve?
-3
Thanks for that info @LemonadeCG, that does seem like a solid analogy.
@CGAmp, what a strange way to deal with things. If I were to imagine going back to the "Yellow Pages" which was a book/directory they released every year of all the businesses in your country/area, I would find it strange that one year they decided to re-order the pages, instead of A-Z they decided they would let the computer come up with a good way of organizing it. All of a sudden my AAA-Mechanic store is not getting the attention it used to I double my prices. Very weird way to deal with things.
Sure rental companies, food, and everything else has gone up significantly due to inflation, covid, and other recent factors but you realize you are in a global market here? If I can buy an apple for $0.50 from my local shop and someone else is selling that same apple for $5, who do you think ill buy the apple from? Sure price your 3D models higher if you think you offer more value, but value is what you are selling. If you offer low value (you are relatively new to 3D) then yeah it makes sense, but if you have experience then what are you trying to achieve?
"Very weird way to deal with things."
Not at all.
The other way around is very weird.
It depends on if you are selling yourself as a cheap cunt or as a sophisticated high quality artist.
It´s on you and it´s indiscutable since it´s everyone´s individual choice.
I already made more sales after I increased prices as visa versa, and that confirmed my way to "deal with things".
I agree cheap is not good. I have also tested these things, increasing prices actually did me well in some cases, others not. I just dont think its a blanket situation. However looking at your models they are all quite cheap in general so yes they probably did need a price increase :) Actually I think you could easily increase the prices again at least 25%
"However looking at your models they are all quite cheap "
Thank you for your cynical insult:-(
Sorry I should clarify, what I mean is your helicopters are quite high quality renders and could easily be priced a bit higher. I was trying to give you a compliment mate.
Then sorry that I got you wrong.
After all self confidence lacks a lot when things don´t work out as they should.
No worries @CGAmp, all the best with sales!
0
I am too in a very bad phase since March 23...although I don't have large no. Of models.. 300 biker skull jewelry combining 2 accounts.. Coming to this post I realise that it's not only. Me... After AI search implemented.. I saw my models starting after 10th page.. Previously it used to come on first... Then changed the names, tags, etc. of the models to suit AI search.. But no benefit even it came somewhat earlier on the page.. But sale dropped and dropped.. This month.. I even don't have a single sales till. Now... I sell mostly jewels.. I wander how the sales are down for every category.. Be it jewels, movies, games, arch, etc. If it's due to inflation or market... It cannot be in every category... Because it's not possible that cg and jewelry both are different industry... Both suffers slow down at the same time., is it possible? Like cars and toys suffer slowdown at the same time... Can't believe it.. Anyways.. Let's pray to your mind to be calm... Thnx everyone for sharing info... Great people here... God bless everyone..
1
I also sell models on FlippedNormals, and I recently received an email from them, in which they told the community that indeed the sales in that platform had decreased for everyone, and they were sending that email because many designers were worried and were asking them what was going on.
So, this is not something only happening in CGtrader, I think it is something more general happening in the global economy.
I do wish CGtrader staff were more caring and gave us more information about the state of the market, instead making us guess.
Thats strange since my sales on Tubosquid have doubled every year, and continue to do so. Cant say the same for CGT since this update in April.
@madefun3d, it's nice to hear that there are marketplaces who actually care about their users. Thanks for sharing that bit of information with us!
@3DCargo, you must be stealing all my sales on TS then, because i'm having exactly opposite experience in that marketplace - my sales are halving every year since 2019. By now they are so low, that i'm seriously thinking about quitting that place altogether.
-2
Me facing same issue
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