Is plugin market going down?

[Michael L]

I agree with everything @planetearth said on the first page.
I like your plugins a LOT but I needed to demo them to hear how their sound and signal flow are different. It would be good if each product page showed (with a labeled diagram) what details to look and listen for, particularly for less experienced users. Show each GUI large enough to read it, use subheads to organise text, more descriptive nouns, less extreme adjectives and "plugin." Demo videos would be good too.
Your home page could give a visual overview, to help navigate quickly.
I like the contemporary style you were exploring in your earlier GUI thread, which made me change the GUI on your plugins to grey and soft green. I was surprised that your latest plugin had wooden end-caps and a photo!

[Soundplex]

Yes the market is saturated very well. At that point the developers start to copy from their competitors and selling it for a cheaper price. Only a few try to develop new concepts. Also there is that point where a company has served most of their potential customers. And I think Voxengo has reached that point.

I agree their ui is very outdated and because of that I never had much fun opening them. Although there are even worse ones Same for the website. I also don't know a reason why I should choose Voxengo over any other company. What is the USP?

Saying that I used Span and some other freebies long ago. But meanwhile there is better stuff I like more.

[thecontrolcentre]

I see people moving more towards iPads and apps, rather than computers and vsts. Apps are relatively cheap by comparison.

[Michael L]

I also don't know a reason why I should choose Voxengo over any other company. What is the USP?

Important point. I had to figure this out myself, but the website should show it front-and-centre. It tends to be buried in the text.

[stratum]

Being picky about inessential details is a sign of extreme market saturation. This is accompanied by a total lack of market existence in many other countries. The solution looks obvious to me, but it's a job for hardware developers and intelligent marketing folks.

[sjm]

I agree with most of the salient points here. This is from the perspective of a consumer.

Newbies these days have more than enough high quality freeware plugins (including those that came with their DAW) to keep them busy when it comes to bread and butter stuff, particularly effects. If you download the best freebies and buy a couple of magazines with a cover disk, what more do you realistically when you are just getting started? It's not like when I first started out, and there was a real tangible difference in quality between paid plugins and freeware. These days, you are only going to appreciate the advantages of payware once you are experienced enough to appreciate the added features. What's the point in buying a multiband compressor if you have no idea what it is, and can't even figure out how to use a normal compressor properly?

People who've been making music on their PCs for decades on the other hand also already have what they need from their paid plugins. There's no real incentive for me to buy most new plugins, because very few of them offer something radically different from what I already have. So unless a plugin is dirt cheap or revolutionary, it's just not going to be on my radar. Every now and then I might buy a new VST because I am lacking something specific, or a plugin offers something truly unique, but it's rare. I simply don't need another EQ, another delay, another glitch plugin etc.

So to target the first group, you need to offer something the freebies don't have, and give them a reason to upgrade their freebies with your plugins rather than someone else's. This might be hard to do, given that the prices for plugins have plummeted recently, and consumer's might feel also that they are better off buying a couple of cheap/discounted bundles instead.

The second group are only going to be insterested if your plugins are irreplaceable and unique, because they have all their bases covered already.

The final market segment is the true professional, and I can't really speak about that segment. But I wouldn't be surprised if that market is also saturated and declining. Anyone who was going to go digital and ITB presumably already has, and will have got most of the plugins they need. Plus I'm assuming there is also less money going round than in the industry's heyday, which will have an effect on plugin sales.

[Kraku]

My 2 cents:

Many plugins from 10 years ago are still doing excellent job today. Their sound quality was already top notch back then. Maybe a lot of people are fairly happy with the plugins they've had for a long time and don't feel the need to buy new ones?

Atleast that's how it works in my case. I don't really need anything new as long as the old stuff works on my computer(s).

[FabienTDR]

To the address the OP, no I don't think so. We're experiencing very healthy growth, with plenty sales. Without any discount special offer bling bling (we had growing prices in fact).

What I see is previously established business practices losing relevance, but the market is bigger than ever.

Aleksey, if you allow, I think that you simply have too many products, too much choice clearly hinders sales, the decision process becomes too exhausting. Purchasing things should fee fun. Especially in a saturated market.

[syntonica]

Y'all are making plugins that are TOO good! Everybody is satisfied with what they have already.

To Aleksey, I think it's time for you to just refresh your look a little. I like that all of your plugins are based on the same GUI, it makes it easy as a user to open a different one and immediately be comfortable using it. Unfortunately, everything is Retina now and users expect sharp graphics, for better or worse. But hey, you gotta roll with the times...

Now, if someone could crack true analog sound at 1-2% CPU... There's where the big bucks lie.

[lnikj]

I see people moving more towards iPads and apps, rather than computers and vsts. Apps are relatively cheap by comparison.

This is where all the innovation seems to lie now. Serious producers might view them as toys, but almost every week some new app arrives with something novel.

I'm not a serious producer, just a dabbler, and I have far more fun on my iPad these days than on my desktop.

[Ichad.c]

As a freeware developer I don't think that freeware generally impacts commercial plug-in sales, and in the very rare instances that they might - it should incentivize the other developers to do better.

As a consumer, I'm one of those balding 30+ year old's that grew up with analog and still run a hybrid system, so the way a plug looks doesn't mean much to me, nor CPU use (I have to bounce/record the analog stuff in any way), nor do I mind adjusting 200+ parameters for a delay effect(if I have the time), I'm just glad that I don't have to press a button a hundred times to get to a preset! But I'm probably in the minority.

The one thing that does bother me is over-cluttered websites, websites that are hard to navigate, and my personal pet-peeve is those websites that don't list the product price on the product page!

[cryophonik]

Voxengo doesn't have a sexy image

That's it in a nutshell.

I certainly don't mean to be offensive, but I will be blunt. You seem to make great products, but as others have mentioned, your website, your GUIs, your pricing, and your marketing are just way too outdated. You need to stay relevant if you want to stay competitive, and I think you need to find a way to have more of a presence/name recognition. I spend considerable time on music forums and I can't even recall the last time I've seen the name Voxengo mentioned. I wonder how many new producers and people outside that 30-50 yo range have even heard of the company?

To me, that lack of presence makes it feel like a company that could fold tomorrow and I might not even realize it for months. That doesn't instill a lot of confidence in me to buy your products.

A few other comments that I also agree with
- way too many products IMO
- it seems that those of us in that 30-50 yo range who have been making music for any period of time are pretty well set in terms of plugins. We still tend to buy shiny new objects when they're released, but we rarely buy redundant plugins that have been around for a decade or so (unless it's a no-brainer sale price).
- stop hiding your prices!!! Make them known, not just on the product pages, but around the internet. It's 2017 and we want convenience, not having to add something to a cart to see how much it costs, then having to delete it. That's just one of those absurd annoyances that nobody should have to deal with and, quite frankly, is usually my cue to check out the competition without even trying to hunt down your prices.

I've used a few of your freebies on occasion in the past, but the factors I mentioned above have always stopped me from buying any of your payware.

[elxsound]

Gotta agree with FabienTDR and some other fine points made in here:

Too many products (for new users). Consider adding a guide to help users choose the right plugin, as well consider adding video demos.
No price available. A user shouldn't have to add it to their cart, just to see the price.
Product images are tiny and website looks squished. The website needs an update and redesign.


Although I don't like your logo and I don't like your UIs, I don't see this as an issue. Melda has some of the ugliest, and they seem to be doing okay (even if I personally don't use their products because I don't like their UIs). You probably already know this, but there is no such thing as a universally appealing UI. It just doesn't exist.

Please hire someone to design your site.

[Rappo Clappo]

I don't know but I started few years ago and until now I bought a DAW and hardware.
So I bought an expensive VST and that's were trouble began. To make a long story short: I think the plug in industry should have some kind of hallmark with a dedicated site to it.
Same for DAWs.

Because one has to know a lot of ins and outs before purchasing such (complicated) software.

If there was some kind of quality standard -by means of an overview- I'm sure that it saves newcomers to audio production a lot of effort when they want to step in. And frustration.

[plexuss]

The Voxengo site is one thing, and I agree having to add things to your cart to see prices is a non-starter for me. That has been the most deterring thing for me in terms of buying Voxengo. its absolutely vital that an ecom site employ best practices in user experience design - any deviation opens up risks around user irritants that will push people out of the buy-flow. If you choose not to employ good UX then you are just hurting your bottom line. there is no other rationale other than laziness or lack of money to provide the best experience for customers.

But it also comes down to rationalizing the cost - I will buy a tool, even if it's core functionality over-laps something I already have if there is something that differentiates it that maps well to it's cost. With Voxengo, I have never been able to close the gap between what I see related to their products and the price. I need to be shown product value commensurate with the asking price, especially if I already have over-lapping tools. Some companies are better at bringing these to the fore-front so the customers can see the value clearly (eg iZotope Neutron) but other companies hide that value and you have to go searching to find it (eg. Elosis AirEQ).

This value can be communicated both with product information and demos. In terms of the demo, the value needs to be experienced right away. Be it in sound quality (eg. Kush UBK1) or workflow (eg. Boz Transgressor) or ideally both.

The more searching I have to do (the less obvious the value is) the more risk there is that I am going to miss it and move on.

When I explore Voxengo, the value either in terms of sound quality (differentiated either by over-all sound quality and/or character) or workflow are not immediately apparent to me. Then, I have to do work to find the price and by the time I do, I am just not convinced to convert (buy).

So I'd say, bring all the value of your products to the front and make it easy for customer to see the value, experience the value and make a purchase. And, the lower the price the better of course although for me, I'll endeavour to pay whatever is required as long as I see corresponding value. Doing things like not supporting license transfers, making licenses NFR etc are also things that depreciate product value and I typically avoid companies that go this far to erode their product value because if they do that, they really don't get it. And if it's a challenge to find that value yourself, it may be prudent to strategize new products that do offer value otherwise why would people buy them?