Marketplace Changes

[Digital]

So in reviewing how the Marketplace can grow and be more profitable and useful, it will probably change in the following ways.

• Members may submit files to the marketplace as paid files. They will upload the final copy they are selling, and can also upload a watermarked one as well which people will see as a preview before purchase. The final copy is stored securely.
• They may set a price that they want for the piece. TGL will only take a small 3% $+0.30USD fee to cover payment processing fees, at this time TGL is only interested in covering what PayPal wants to charge for fees, nothing more. No fees, 100% of sale to artist.
• The files will go up in our marketplace, and anyone member or not may purchase (allows greater coverage of marketplace sales).
• You account will receive a credit that can be withdrawn via PayPal at anytime. Or you may communicate with me if you require some other form of payment method.

The reason for this is to provide a more meaningful way to provide promotion of our marketplace, as well as make marketplace transactions direct and simple and consistent. It also gives us some additional neat functions that I feel may provide some value to our content creators  

What if I want to offer to finish the piece for additional cost? Or offer something extra?

You can place such in your description as well as tagging yourself in there as well as a point of contact. This way individuals can contact you and you can handle this externally if needed.

If you are selling a service, the Looking for Work forum will still exist, this covers only the selling of a completed project.

Can I edit this marketplace item?

Of course. You are in charge of managing your marketplace items completely, TGL doesn't enforce any rules or regulations on how long a listing has to stay up or what licensing options you have to give purchasers.

What does this give us that is different then just a forum post?

1. It allows purchasers to get the item immediately instead of waiting for you to be online. This should promote more sales.
2. It also allows those of you who may want to start to offer packs of images or assets to do so, while requiring your purchasers to renew their licenses to continue to get new updates. Say you want to offer an asset pack of items. Initial cost is $15, you can state that every 3 months, the purchaser would need to pay and additional $5 to continue to get your updates. You can then update the files in the marketplace listing and update it's versioning, while continuing to make money.

I am excited about the ability to be able to offer packs of images.

Before we jump into this as a practice, I want to get some feedback and let you guys ask questions. This will probably start as a small beta to see how it feels to both our content creators, and how it flows to what we are doing to market it externally too.

[SingSong]

I'll respond to this as if this forum is already super big with a large amount of members (because the fact that this is a new forum is a deterrent as we all know).

I will critique your plans as a former aspiring freelancer and as a buyer:

1. I'm trying to understand... is the marketplace going to be separate from the main forum? When you say "they may set a price that they want for the piece", I'm assuming that this is inputted into the system and not just written in text?

2. So you are taking "3% + $0.30, because you are accepting the initial payment (thus incurring the Paypal fees)? Then you gift the money to the artist, so they're not hit with fees? But in the end, it evens out?

1 hour ago, Digital said:

The files will go up in our marketplace, and anyone member or not may purchase (allows greater coverage of marketplace sales).

I just want to say that the original reason I joined a forum (you know the one) was to buy something from the marketplace. I may have forever remained a lurker if I didn't have interest in something I saw. My assumption is that if people want a piece of art enough, they will make an account, so I wonder if you're only benefiting the lurker-types with that feature and if it will lose the forum some members along the line, too. I don't have anything to back that thought up, but it's just something to keep in mind.

 

In general, I find this system to be too complicated to be worthwhile.

 

As a seller:

From past experiences, I'm thinking I'll probably have to end up having to deal with the buyer anyway, because they want something changed or want something else, too. I also don't see the benefit of having someone transfer the money to me if the fees are the same.

As a buyer:

I do like the idea of receiving the image immediately after payment, but I also am pretty patient, so I don't need that feature. But I do like the thought that images could easily be searched through by tags (assuming you'd add a feature like that), so the marketplace would be better organized.

 

What I could see this feature being used for is to sell asset pack licenses (meaning multiple people can have the same one), and then artists get a cut from every one they sell. And that would work well with this type of forum. I don't like the thought of this type of marketplace being used for every small sale, because I just think selling individual pieces one time is something artists can manage themselves, and a forum marketplace functions well enough for that.

[Hare]

Agreed with SingSong. This seems like a good feature for licensing thing! Maybe a 'stock' image database for game developers wherein TGL keeps track of thumbnails and files (which are submitted by artists). Then anyone can pay to use them, a portion of it goes to the site and a portion of it goes to the artist. 

I've seen forums that made people pay a percent of any sales (like how I posted those $5 sketches), and I never wanted to sell anything because of it. I don't like to do any commissions or full copyright sales unless it's a free marketplaces and know a lot of artists ho would agree. A good chunk of the people I refer are artists looking to start out for the frst time selling their work (or who are maybe a little more seasoned, but not professionals). Non professional artists tend to not make much money as it is, so they will seek out free marketplaces. Telling them a small percentage goes to the site may not seem like a big deal, but is a pretty bad selling point. I don't think they'd join or stick around after finding that out.

I'm happy to donate and pay for premium features, and have ads, don't get me wrong! =D And for a gallery of images you can pay to use on a royalty basis would be great. I'm just not a fan of garnishing commission or full copyright sales on artwork. It seems like it would discourage people from joining and participating. 

[Digital]

I was replying to @SingSong stating that in retrospect that I was going to remove the fee, since I went through it and figured it didn't really apply in the end, which would make it a free market.

So if this were to be managed not as a replacement for selling customized products, but as a place to sell preset assets (that you don't intend to modify in any form and plan to sell as-is), is this viable, or do you still feel this detracts or takes away from the ease of just posting a thread and doing stuff manually?

To cover SingSong's questions:

1. It is part of the Downloads area, however upon adding a file, it will automatically create a forum thread as well, so there is still continuity. Adding a file is as simple as creating a new thread.

2. See above, the fees will be removed so it is a free market.

Just to note, I am okay not taking this route. I wanted to post the idea and feel it out with you guys, since well - you guys are the guys using it!  

[Hare]

I think is very visable for premade assets! Way less complicated and still allows the free markets so it won't discourage people. The assets could help attract people to the site in a different way. =D 

Just throwing ideas out there too.

You could simplify the payments even more by having an asset collection that's available to premium accounts. They could download whatever they want while they have the monthly subscription. Though this might reduce income and if you don't mind handling the payments, maybe not. Or have a discount for premium members. 

 

[Digital]

1 minute ago, Hare said:

You could simplify the payments even more by having an asset collection that's available to premium accounts. They could download whatever they want while they have the monthly subscription. Though this might reduce income and if you don't mind handling the payments, maybe not. Or have a discount for premium members.

That would have to be up to artists, they would have to be willing to allow their assets to be available to a premium member without payment. That would be a harder sell. I could probably offer a discount or such though instead so there is still some benefit to the artists submitting files.

[Hare]

7 minutes ago, Digital said:

That would have to be up to artists, they would have to be willing to allow their assets to be available to a premium member without payment. That would be a harder sell. I could probably offer a discount or such though instead so there is still some benefit to the artists submitting files.

Yeah, that seems like a problem with that.

[Digital]

For the moment, we will stick to using threads. Perhaps we can discuss later when/if there is a better need.