Is plugin market going down?

[hivkorn]

this is only what i think:
1)add price on each plugin page / description
2)adjust the price of your plugin
3)New GUI would be , I think , a very good thing , some people said they never buy Melda plugin , I never buy Melda plugin because it does the job , but nothing fantastic...You hame some gems like crunchessor just update the GUI + the price and i'm pretty sure you could sold more

[mitchiemasha]

I know that I was surprised that it was there and had to check to figure out where it came from. Took me a minute to realize that it came with Cubase.

I did exactly the same thing, where's this come from??? and, as others are saying thought, this looks old.

[cryophonik]

I honestly don't get it with the hidden prices complains...

And, I honestly don't get it with developers who feel the need to hide their prices. He's not selling Aston Martins, where it's an "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" type of situation. He's trying to sell standard mixing plugins in a highly saturated and competitive plugin market. People buying these things will make their decisions largely on price, so it makes no sense to hide them (and, obviously, that approach is not working in his favor).

If he wants to compete, he simply needs to modernize and keep up with the competition. Companies like FabFilter, Waves, and Izotope are kicking a$$ for a good reason. They make quality plugins with really nice modern GUIs and are priced to compete in a saturated market (not to mention some of their highly publicized sales, in the case of Izotope and Waves). They have nice, easy to navigate websites, and they don't annoy their customers by making us hunt for the price.

Two clicks get you to all products prices:
1. Shopping Cart (above);
2. Price List.

Two clicks will get me to the FabFilter, Izotope, or Waves website, too, where I don't have to play these stupid games.

[stratum]

I don't think he has any intention about hiding prices. It's just that website design is another job that takes time, one that should better be left to a specialist.

Have you seen this website? http://analogobsession.com What does 'Carefully implemented to digital world' mean? Is this a natural sounding expression for those whose native language is English? I don't know, I'm not one, but it sounded odd to me. These are difficulties that developers in other parts of the world do not have.

[UltimateOutsider]

Plugin developer asks Plug-in Development forum for opinions on the current state of the industry; gets a lot of non-developer responses about how his site and UIs suck.

[cryophonik]

Plugin developer asks Plug-in Development forum for opinions on the current state of the industry; gets a lot of non-developer responses about how his site and UIs suck.

The OP is free to ignore the opinions of potential customers.

I suppose KVR could close this subforum to non-developers if our input isn't desired.

[PurpleSunray]

Plugin developer asks Plug-in Development forum for opinions on the current state of the industry; gets a lot of non-developer responses about how his site and UIs suck.

So where should he ask instead? Sound Design forum? Music Cafe?

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Thanks for your participation in this thread. It took a bit different course than I expected. Critique is fine, but my initial thought was that the conversion rate decline I'm witnessing is not exactly about Voxengo's quality, that was my hypothesis. The conversion rate plateau'd in the last year, but it has fallen tremendously in prior years.

Voxengo web site is developed and run using statistical methods, the way it looks is what provides the best statistics (a lot of them like pageviews, downloads, purchases). The same goes for price display. Price display works plain bad, and there's nothing that can be done about it.

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.

[DPhil]

Voxengo web site is developed and run using statistical methods, the way it looks is what provides the best statistics (a lot of them like pageviews, downloads, purchases). The same goes for price display. Price display works plain bad, and there's nothing that can be done about it.

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.

Your conversion rate goes down, customers tell you they won't buy from you because of the discussed reasons (most of them emotional based) and you still tell them how good your "mathematical and statistical perfect" system works? Are you one of those mathematicians who likes to describe and think in formulas and forget about feelings? There's more about the market and you should think outside your little box and explore it! And there's nothing bad about discount sales, if it works To be honest I don't know that many companies running regular discount sales with 50-75%...

[aciddose]

The purpose of "hiding" prices, most importantly generating them in a separate section or component that must be accessed dynamically via javascript or similar is to prevent anyone from indexing or publishing your prices outside that single official source.

This allows flexibility in pricing including special sales offers and other situations such as pricing by region. Not "fair" in the least, but an unfortunate reality of today's international markets.

[aciddose]

As for the market, this should be obvious. Bread prices go up, sales of "the music fun station" family organ go down.

Our economies worldwide are in dire straits right now. Discussions were taking place in special "clubs" back in the early 2ks about how to protect your investments before the economic implosion due to take place in the next ~15 years.

We're only seeing the very first part of this at the moment. People have less free time because a lot of them are struggling to make ends meet. This translates to higher selectivity in purchases of luxury goods like software that isn't used for business purposes.

It could get better (like winning the lotto) but it could get a whole lot worse. Put on a seat belt.

[stratum]

The purpose of "hiding" prices, most importantly generating them in a separate section or component that must be accessed dynamically via javascript or similar is to prevent anyone from indexing or publishing your prices outside that single official source.

This allows flexibility in pricing including special sales offers and other situations such as pricing by region. Not "fair" in the least, but an unfortunate reality of today's international markets.

I think it's actually fair from the customers perspective. Price of a pizza is a good indicator of exchange rates. Perhaps everybody should quote their prices in #number of pizzas and that would be a universal currency that wouldn't need to be hidden from search engines.

[aciddose]

Regarding "this plug-in is great but this tiny, normally insignificant feature prevents me ever making a purchase of it" is called sour grapes.

I can't afford to waste my resources on a purchase, therefore I'll justify this as my own decision based upon quality "I could reach if I wanted, but no doubt the grapes are sour" rather than facing the hard fact that no, you can not reach those grapes no matter how much you want them.

Also the zen tale about hanging from the cliff face by one arm, the other arm torn and unusable and seeing berries just slightly out of reach below the limb you're holding with huge predators circling about below ready to kill you should you slip... you reach out and eat the berries, having proper priorities in life. In the western retelling they leave out the fact the berries were poison and tasted more bitter than anything he had ever tasted previously.

[KBSoundSmith]

Voxengo web site is developed and run using statistical methods, the way it looks is what provides the best statistics (a lot of them like pageviews, downloads, purchases). The same goes for price display. Price display works plain bad, and there's nothing that can be done about it.

With all due respect: while optimizing with statistical methods is extremely valuable and should be done, it is only valuable if you are optimizing the right things. If the market has changed in a fundamental way, you may no longer be optimizing what matters under those new conditions. You may need to revisit your products and test new approaches to your fundamental offerings.

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.

Agreed wholeheartedly. In general, most developers (and the music industry at large) are racing to the bottom, rather than spending more thought on improving the value (perceived or real) of their services.

[syntonica]

Agreed wholeheartedly. In general, most developers (and the music industry at large) are racing to the bottom, rather than spending more thought on improving the value (perceived or real) of their services.

Internet sales is pretty much the definition of Race to the Bottom. It has affected the retail prices of every possible commodity, both online and in brick-and-mortar stores.

You just have to draw a line in the sand and state, I will go no further, and offer the best goods AND service you can muster. Once you're on the penny-seller-always-having-a-firesale treadmill, you'll never be able to get off of it again as you will always be on the lookout for the next best thing to sell (your soul!) and at the cheapest price and the things you will do to get your product...

In regards to plugins, I think Sean from Valhalla stated it best somewhere, something to the effect that he never holds sales because he's already offering the best product at the best price. (Which I do happen to agree on, for the record.)

What I don't understand is how someone like Waves continues to have happy customers who have bought full packages at full prices and they continue to sell individual plugs at bargain basement prices on the weekends.