Is plugin market going down?

[elxsound]

Are you still offended because you use Amazon?

It would make more sense to be offended because I called you a horrific predator

I'm disappointed that after all these posts back and forth you actually aren't saying anything. The predator thing doesn't even make sense... which is a common a theme with your writing. Amazon... same thing since you are also a customer.

But hey, it's been fun.

[aciddose]

I said all I wanted to say in the original post.

I know you have trouble with comprehension (of my posts at least) or staying on topic, but there was at some point in this thread an ongoing discussion about predatory pricing driving down the market in a "race to the bottom".

I do not have opinions about conversion rates from other plugin makers, but considering many of them regularly run 50-75% sales their actions look desperate.

You are so wrong. Making a couple of million.. when did that become "desperate"? No, it's the age-old "sales light the wallet" thing that has been the pinnacle of every modern success story in retail.

The shops that are still trying to desperately cling to old ways of selling things are going the way of the dodo.

It's not at all a coincidence that online stores that have constant sales (be it clothes, computer parts, music equipment etc) are the ones that have become giants.

Here he mentions two significant issues which lead into my post:

1. Large retailers engaged in predatory pricing or similarly undercutting their own products.
2. Old ways are going "the way of the dodo." A common idiom in American.

In software we enforce an artificial scarcity. There is the argument that the product must have been created initially and that any author deprived of sufficient consideration to make up for their investments will be less likely to produce more product.

Once the product is on the market though the scarcity is entirely artificial. It costs nearly nothing to distribute as we should be well aware when "users" (AKA not our customers) decide to distribute products on their own with little or no evident profit motive.

Therefore we can easily decide one day to charge a million, the next give the same software away for free. One day the license might be incredibly restrictive (YOU DO HEREBY GRANT YOUR ETERNAL SOUL) to WTFPL or in other words practically non-existent.

We then (some, many of us) engage in a time-trial solo race to the bottom all on our own by undercutting ourselves. There is no law against this but there are certainly consequences.



As far as "the dodo"; This is an American colloquialism which refers to something obsolete or exhibiting unsuitable performance; Stupid; Destined to fail. It has become a fundamental part of American culture to believe "THE DODO DESERVED IT!"

In reality we slaughtered and annihilated them in the most horrific and senseless ways possible. To say "has become" is actually rather naive of me as it would seem the Dutch at the time thought the dodo deserved what it got just as we do now. This may not seem of significant consequence although it may become a little more difficult to deny the light when it starts burning your face off.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

I don't know if the market is going down or not, but to me it doesn't look like it.

What is your opinion on conversion rates, in other words "income per visitor" in the last 4 years?

Why complicate things for such an irrelevant ratio? sometimes, falling in love takes time, more than one date

Well, discussion of this ratio was the main idea behind my post. If you find it irrelevant, then you are probably not into the way of my thinking. I find conversion rate (be it per visitor, or per download) is an important metric. It is especially important when you consider advertising expense: how much you can pay per click and still be profitable.

[7blanche]

Some my thoughts on this subject.

I've used to do a lot of plugin purchasing (sales days were awesome) and then selling here @ kvr market. But after using a lot of plugins and changing them something clicked and I stopped buying them. Now I have my DAW, some UAD plugins, some freeware and only few other third party (Nebula, as also Voxengo GlissEq) and I do not really have a need for anything else.

But during free time at work I visit plugins sites to see what's new. Demo them if it seems something new, but ussually conclude that I do not need it.

I think there are too many plugins and you can get easily lost with them. Sales also are almost every week. And the latest plugins (I think) do not bring anything new to the table.

[Lotuzia]

imho :

Saturated market and poor Roi leading to too few time left to R&D, and few to none innovation.

It's a vicious circle btw.

At best : The future will be bright for those who still invent something. And equally for those who don't, or so few, but have the most clever marketing, invest wisely into new advert techniques like Gogol addwords/YT), and benefit of a good financial surface and high social networks visibility.

At worst : Only mostly those of the second category will survive. Wich is barely a problem, as what they offer seems to be enough for a vast majority of musicians. But is possibly sad for the pionneer and innovation spirit.( Should one believe in such things)

As usual nowadays, the people who make the more money by far are those who discount and distribute, not those who create. It's about the same problem as short circuits to distribute food VS hypermarkets. Then each people have to decide if they want to take responsability into fair eco development of a small ecosystem, or only vote with their wallets. Obviously, said wallet is most often not extensible, so no moral here. Each of us does what he/she can, and it's ok like that. It's only to detail what the global issues are -as I see them-.

[xoxos]

the last panel, is what happens when eg. i release adze three years ago and you talk about battery instead

[syntonica]

the last panel, is what happens when eg. i release adze three years ago and you talk about battery instead

Pfft. Complete and utter Bosch!

(Sorry. Had to. )

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

Answer: yes
Market is collapsing (latest subscription trend doesn't help).


Reasons:
- Overcrowded
- People used to not pay any more cause several concurring factors (cracks, big number of choices, products already bundled in other products like hosts,hardware products)
- Lacking of money in the music business in general (this is VERY relevant)
- New approach to music production (young generation has a different experience because they paid less for tools, and they are the new users... Other ones are stopping)


Disclaimer: it should not be confused with personal performances. Situation is good for me, it doesn't mean "it is good".

If you think I'm wrong, just give a glance to gs. A product more expensive than 79 eur is crazy today. I remember bundles around 1000 eur. When we released nebula 2 at 19 eur it was considered bargain. Today people ask a refund for a lot less

Said that, customers are still paying "millions" for software. But several companies are not hiring any more.

[FabienTDR]

Well, discussion of this ratio was the main idea behind my post. If you find it irrelevant, then you are probably not into the way of my thinking. I find conversion rate (be it per visitor, or per download) is an important metric. It is especially important when you consider advertising expense: how much you can pay per click and still be profitable.

The problem is, while it is a good operational guide for the "secretary" in small, daily optimizations, it's also easy to lose the overview and produce false positive and conclude irrational things. Further, it's incapable of strategic reflection, and lags behind substantially. The year you find out something was wrong, the whole world changed already.

The result is daily business running "Parkinson's rule of triviality" where simple measures like conversion rate is given most importance, while the complex, hardly measurable and vitally important strategic aspects are put to bed. With a smile! Bike shedding at it's best.

4-5 posters here mentioned the blocking and not very trustful aspect of hiding prices. Your metrics tell you the opposite, and you still have the certainty that their feelings are irrelevant, not even worth being discussed. Don't you find this ..ehm.. surprising? IMHO, if the metrics tell you to hide prices in 2017, they are ripe for the trash, without a doubt.

IMHO it's much simpler and way more effective to simply listen to human feedback, that's what counts.

The exact reason why people don't buy immediately could also well be a new established market with most ppl having to open google translate before they can buy. Or maybe because Paypal still doesn't run in Angola (but your ads reached them, so ppl are looking around)? Your metrics don't tell you such subtleties, and you maybe simply drop the market, just because it doesn't measure well according to your standards. What's conversion rate worth in these contexts? Indeed, not much.

[pekbro]

For me as a consumer, its like this:

Voxengo plugins, while definitely being high quality,
to me the competition is fierce, and your line is over-priced
compared to some and feature poor compared to others.

I don't particularly like or dislike the UI, but they do seem dated
compared again to competition. This is mostly due to design choices
that could be fixed allot easier than you probably imagine.

In a nut shell, they are excellent, but not very interesting to me
personally. The only plugin in your line that I have ever seriously
considered buying is the prime EQ, the filter display you've created
there is imo very innovative and interesting. And I will likely grab
it at some point.

Anyway, its not about money, if your stuff was more appealing,
I would easily pay more for them as I have with the competition.
While there is no doubt allot of innovation going on, its mostly
under the hood and of a technical nature that is mostly greek to me.

Fancy UI's and work flow enhancements are the standard today,
to think this stuff only important to noobs is just plain wrong and naive.
I am 47, I have spent literally thousands on plugins over the years.

Answer: yes
Market is collapsing (latest subscription trend doesn't help).

Another naive answer IMHO. Not everyone is made of money
programs like this can help to sell plugins where they wouldn't be
considered otherwise.

I have personally never bought one of your line due to your wonky
copy protection that I have never once been able to get working.

-no offense.

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

Ppl please stop evaluating answers because you THINK someone should improve here and there, this is silly
I also said doesnt matter the personal situation, which maybe coul be good. Also the personal opinion about voxengo website and plugins doesn't matter. Maybe you are not his ideal customer.
We as, company are increasing each year, which doesn't mean anything. We have a target customer, and today our situation simply works. But it doesn't matter, we are speaking about a general trend.
If you look carefully, prices are decreasing (valid for big firms), number of paying customers is increasing but slowly, number of competitors raising, and the market is still a niche. But the best indicator, music market is collapsing, today. Recording facilities are CLOSING. It is not the only market, though (broadcastig & live still work) but.. where do you think money come from? My example for the 1000 eur equalizer still stands.

[ghettosynth]

If you look carefully, prices are decreasing (valid for big firms), number of paying customers is increasing but slowly, number of competitors raising, and the market is still a niche. But the best indicator, music market is collapsing, today. Recording facilities are CLOSING. It is not the only market, though (broadcastig & live still work) but.. where do you think money come from? My example for the 1000 eur equalizer still stands.

In general, I agree, but two major points:

1) People on KVR are always going to respond with their own perspective. It's best to just get used that and get over it. Take away what you can from that and just ignore the rest.

2) The lack of money in music is only relevant to some segments of the market for plugins. I would say that many, if not most, hobbyists are immune to that trend. It often does not factor into their decisions at all.

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

1) agreed
2) agreed, my example about broadcasting/live stands. Anyway if you look other markets carefully, also broadcasting is possibly in trouble. Forecasts are not exactly good (tv sets are going down, radio is beginning the decrease curve, movies and tv series are more and more budget)

Don't want to be negative. When something changes there are losers and winners. I'm extremely positive and happy, but let's face the reality. Basically the amount of money is decreasing in this close system.

Let's speak about hobbyst. This is a strange population, and they are the main energy for plugins. But they are older and older, and new generation is less used to pay, this is my consideration. There are subscriptions around 20 dollars or less.. And users are thousands, not millions.

Speaking about my previous example: during the transition someone will gain money. For example studio owners are going to dismiss a lot of hardware due to high costs. It explains why several companies are "raising". But this is not the rule... On the long term everybody will be affected without a b-plan (= not plugins, which is the topic here)

[pekbro]

@Zaphod,

Correct, my apologies for the OT,

As for the market, its only natural that recording facilities are closing.
They are not needed near as much today as they were 20 years ago. Largely due to
the expansion of the Audio Software market I would think.

People today can make their own studio for probably less than it costs to hire a
professional recording facility. This includes other content creation industries as
well. Game and Broadcast, low budget film etc... DIY is going to be the way of many.

I know from personal experience in the film industry, large studios are loathe to farm
out jobs that they could accomplish easily with temps and their own equipment. (me < temp)

So, without seeing the actual numbers, I would have to guess that the plugin market
should not be declining overall. Individual market shares should definitely decrease
in this type of market, barring some type of advantage over the competition. Prices
should naturally fall as well, given the ubiquity of providers and solutions.

In a market like that, one would definitely need to identify and prioritize targets,
then proceed accordingly at the very least. I would also think that the amateur
market should not be carelessly looked upon.

-Cheers

[Urs]

I don't know if the market is going down or not, but to me it doesn't look like it.

What is your opinion on conversion rates, in other words "income per visitor" in the last 4 years?

Why complicate things for such an irrelevant ratio? sometimes, falling in love takes time, more than one date

Well, discussion of this ratio was the main idea behind my post. If you find it irrelevant, then you are probably not into the way of my thinking. I find conversion rate (be it per visitor, or per download) is an important metric. It is especially important when you consider advertising expense: how much you can pay per click and still be profitable.

I checked for Febuary 2016 vs February 2017: The number of visitors of our website is almost the same. 6% less form US, 10% more from France, overall the graphs are almost identical on Google Analytics. Sessions went down by 0.78%, number of individual user up by 1.67%, page views 181,997 down from 186,135. That kind of stuff. Same, really.

Revenue however went up by more than 15%, maybe 20% (last year was a leap year...).

Shareit improved their storefront though, I think basket close ration went down after they made it more convenient.