Is plugin market going down?

[plexuss]

Is the plugin business just a hobby for you or do you do it for a living?

Just because someone still has a live site after many years, does not mean people are still buying the stuff because technical maintenance alone might eventually lead to other developers overtaking you in terms of features, GUI appeal, sound quality etc.

I'm doing it for a living. I think the plugin market has reached a "singularity". Some of the best visual designs were produced and reached, some of the best DSP algorithms discovered and implemented. We clearly see a war of marketing and discounts instead of plugin development. It's now similar to a grocery market.

Aleksey, I am a prime customer opportunity for you - I don't hold back on buying plugins but I am very price sensitive only because I like to have a wide range of tools available to me and so I can simply not afford to buy unless there is a deep discount sale.

I just went to your site again, thinking "I am going to finally buy some of these Voxengo plugins". But there are three points where I seems to always abandon the buy-flow: 1) lack of product differentiator details (what makes Voxengo's plugins unique), 2) in ability to find a way to download all your plugins as demos and 3) the lack of prices on product pages.

Let me speak to these points:
1) differentiators would help me understand what I am getting for my money and why I would bother to try the demo (I always rely on demos significantly for purchase decisions). Without these kinds of product details, I leave the site.

2) I don't want to download demos individually - I end up spending a bunch of time organizing the downloads and trying to keep track of what I have etc. I just want one download to install everything so I can go through them and make a list of what I am interested in. This can be off-set by having clear product differentiators and some way of helping me narrow my product choices down (as in 1 above) - but without this, I just want to download all the plugins and try them out. Not being able to makes me leave the site.

3) Once I decide on a product, I don't see a price. It's too much work to add to cart to see a price because I don't even know if I will see the price. Also, I haven't made a product choice yet so I don't want to add to cart just to see the price. So again, I abandon.

Personally, I don't think you need to change your plugins - I personally am not sensitive about the GUI as long as its functional and everything is there that I need to use. Your GUIs seems to be fine to me (but since its so much work to try the demos I don't know exactly). And, I am just going to assume your plugins offer something useful and unique so as long as they do, nothing to change there.

But the site is a huge impediment for me. I've been to your site many times over the years, either due to GAS, needing a specific tool or being inspired by something someone said about your plugins but I always end up leaving because I can't efficiently orient myself around: why would I want these and how much do they cost. This info just isn't easy to get at and so I abandon.

Hope this helps.

[pekbro]

@ first glance, this thread definitely has the feel of a developer
asking why his sales have been declining...

I think its pretty obvious that a lot of the answers, although critical,
were given out of genuine respect for his work and a sincere desire
to see him succeed.

-Cheers

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

Where did you read about the decline?

[Aleksey Vaneev]

...
But the site is a huge impediment for me. I've been to your site many times over the years, either due to GAS, needing a specific tool or being inspired by something someone said about your plugins but I always end up leaving because I can't efficiently orient myself around: why would I want these and how much do they cost. This info just isn't easy to get at and so I abandon.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for your message. Your points are understandable. I have to analyze overall web site performance. The result of analysis is used in design decisions. Unfortunately, price display is not a thing that works great, not for us. Product descriptions are given, it's not easy to "differentiate" them in words from the competition - they are after all just compressors and equalizers with a differing set of features. It would be silly just to write something like "it's the best EQ that'll make you a star" or "it makes other popular plugins seem unprofessional".

As for the individual demo downloads, it is also a general decision - this way each plugin stays in focus, gets some attention and in the end is bought consciously. Due to this our moneyback rate is below 1%.

I understand you may not like my reply, but we have to serve hundreds of thousands of users.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

@ first glance, this thread definitely has the feel of a developer
asking why his sales have been declining...

I think its pretty obvious that a lot of the answers, although critical,
were given out of genuine respect for his work and a sincere desire
to see him succeed.

-Cheers

I wasn't suggesting that overall sales have reduced beyond repair. I was asking for an opinion on conversion rates. They are dropping from what I see. But since we have an increasing number of visitors, overall sales are still fine. I wasn't suggesting we're struggling. I was asking for an opinion about the market, the change of the landscape.

[plexuss]

...
But the site is a huge impediment for me. I've been to your site many times over the years, either due to GAS, needing a specific tool or being inspired by something someone said about your plugins but I always end up leaving because I can't efficiently orient myself around: why would I want these and how much do they cost. This info just isn't easy to get at and so I abandon.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for your message. Your points are understandable. I have to analyze overall web site performance. The result of analysis is used in design decisions. Unfortunately, price display is not a thing that works great, not for us. Product descriptions are given, it's not easy to "differentiate" them in words from the competition - they are after all just compressors and equalizers with a differing set of features. It would be silly just to write something like "it's the best EQ that'll make you a star" or "it makes other popular plugins seem unprofessional".

As for the individual demo downloads, it is also a general decision - this way each plugin stays in focus, gets some attention and in the end is bought consciously. Due to this our moneyback rate is below 1%.

I understand you may not like my reply, but we have to serve hundreds of thousands of users.

All I will say is that you are justifying your business decisions based on arbitrary things, level of effort to make changes and site analytics. You will generate more sales if instead you make business decisions based on user research.

[fluffy_little_something]

I understand you may not like my reply, but we have to serve hundreds of thousands of users.

So, when you serve hundreds of thousands of users, what is your problem?

[Aleksey Vaneev]

All I will say is that you are justifying your business decisions based on arbitrary things, level of effort to make changes and site analytics. You will generate more sales if instead you make business decisions based on user research.

I do my research, that's why prices are not displayed. I run A/B testing for several months each time on various aspects. Well, maybe I'm using wrong words like "to serve users", but in my perspective if users download more plugins, visit more pages, buy more it means web site serves them better-we are not forcing anything, just directing the attention of users.

[JCJR]

I do not buy much, plugins or otherwise. And am inclined to "make my own" when it is an interesting problem that doesn"t look like it would be extraordinarily expensive in money/time compared to buying. Designing/building something is more fun than recording yet another song or whatever, at least if the pronect looks interesting and achievable.

Just saying, I don't understand what would most motivate people to spend money on a product.

I ike a pretty gui, but also like usable products. If a product looks beautiful but it takes too much care with the mouse to set control values, I'd rather have controls that respond fast and allow accurate setting. If the ugly alternative works better, am fine with the ugly version.

There are some heautiful products which apparently sell well, that I was tempted to buy but did not because of eye strain trying to see the beautiful graphics, and annoyance of having to take so much care to precisely set the beautiful knobs to desired values.

It doesn't have to be a choice between ease of use versus pretty GUI. There's no reason a pretty GUI couldn't also be easy to see and operate. Just saying, some beautiful, good sounding plugins were hard to use for long hours without user fatigue.

IMO a plugin should be infinitely zoomable, even to the ridiculous of a simple window with sparse comtrols zoomed fullscreen on a 4k monitor if the user wants that size in some stages of the work. And programs which display lots of detailed graphic data such as FFT and such, the data displays especially should be zoomable fullscreen with a user option for easy to read high contrast color schemes.

When I was testing one of the popular "mastering suites" the thang had decent enough sound, stylish appearance, in windows no bigger than 800x600, with postage-stamp sized spectral displays in nearly unreadable color fades in tints of tasteful dark blues! I about went blind trying to use the silly thang. Honestly, sometimes with magnifying glass in hand, nose nearly touching the monitor.

OTOH, apparently a lot of customers buy that program even if I didn't, so maybe thats the way to make a selling product.

[fluffy_little_something]

Just took a look at your site. Many of your plugins indeed look a bit similar, and somehow dated at that I know it is subjective, but still...
If I had channel strips full of your plugins, I would go crazy with all those similar looking plugins on my screen

Like others, I also miss the prices. Since one can put the stuff into the cart, where the price is finally shown, the price is obviously not a secret. So you might as well show it right on the product page.

What I also don't like is sloppiness. So, I was comparing the feature pages of both the free and commercial reverb. There are 10 bullets for the free and 11 for the commercial version. But the order is all messed up so one has to check back and forth in order to find the one bullet that makes the difference.

[aciddose]

You will generate more sales if instead you make business decisions based on user research.

If I had asked what people wanted they would have told me "faster horses."

[Guillaume Piolat]

What I don't get:
1) A guy from voxengo (talented, carefully analyzing the market) is making a question about the market trend
And
2) you suggest better colors to plugins and his website.

Why?

- my theory is that users want value X for say 75$, and this X is increasing over time
- because of that, you may inadvertently pass above psychological price threshold
- cheap changes to UI help convey the idea of value and help conversion
- this is just my apprentice opinion, I didn't mean to disrespect better developers than me

[keel]

Guys, just stop trying to help him and talk some sense. He's clearly has his own stubborn and quite arrogant mind and attitude. No matter what you say to him, he won't listen.. So just stop. :v

[journey33]

The plugin market is not "going down". In fact is increasing. Here is proof from the NAMM 2015 report:

https://www.slideshare.net/PromocionMus ... eport-2015 (go to page 30)

"Plugin Software & Loops" has been on a growing trend of increasing 78% over the past 10 years.

So no, the market is not going down. Being honest Voxengo, your website, in my opinion is really not good and its why I've never been interested in your plugins. It looks like it was made 10-15 years ago. Its text heavy and does not look professional compared to the competitors anymore. There is no colour scheme, and I have no idea what I should do when I land on your website. You're not guiding me to your product list for instance, or "get started here" or "sale products" etc.

Not having the price on the products on each page because "it doesnt work great for us" is the most odd comment I have ever heard of before. What would happen if you walked into the shop in town and had to bring an item up to the register before you could see the price? Then you wanted to see how much another product was, but again you had to go to the checkout to get the price? I'd just go to another shop.

I think what's happening is that you're basing all of your "data" on trends that were around 10-15 years ago when you started your company but you haven't kept up with the times. Seriously, take a look at your competitors websites and see where you differ.

[journey33]

In fact to answer your question directly:

"What's your opinion on that? For example, Voxengo web site visits have increased considerably, like by 20-30% in the last year yet there was no similar impact on sales. Moreover, "sales per visitor" generally have decreased in the course of the last 2 to 3 years. Some big restructurization of the market has happened for sure and I can't grasp its meaning, and where it goes.

Musicmaking does not attract people anymore? People do not need more plugins?"

Website visits have increased for you, but as your website no longer looks "high-end" compared to the competitors, plenty of people go to your website probably due to good SEO, but most now leave without purchasing as they're used to seeing "prettier" websites and plugins (many that even tell you the price upfront).