Quote - Brokerages and resellers take their share of each sale. A normal reseller percentage is 30%, paying the vendor 70%. Several (but not all) brokerages take 50%.

Also, some sites have driven down costs to acquire your business - especially since the economy hit the dirt in 2008, setting expectations of $1.99 per product. It is hard to sustain a product on that. Those $1.99 sites are invariably brokerages that work on volume. That isn't really good for the artist.

Piracy also has its influence.

If you buy directly from the vendor, they get 100% of the sale plus they can make new products and let you know about it - rather than their stuff being drowned in a sea of other stuff.

Everyone likes free or low priced stuff.  But it has driven many vendors out of business.

The smartest business route is to have your own site, then sell on one or two "volume" sites and partner sites.

 

I'd love to have my own site with a full store running, but that takes quite some time and effort and there are many obstacles to overcome. How do I get customer directed to my website, how much traffic can I expect, what cms will I use, what payment systems to have, how much will I end up paying for hosting and so on and so on.

 

For a well known vendor as you are this is a great solution, for us, the little guys this the sure route to go bankrupt, running my own will cost so much time and so little in return that I will not even get back the investment made.

 

The only options I do have is either sell at the big established sites, like Rendo or team up with a vendor that is well known, but that's even harder to do then running my own website.

 

So, you advice is great for someone who has a large customer base, but for the little vendors, forget it.......

 

As for the $1.99 guys..... I'm one of them.... I sell at a low price, with a relative high volume, it's the only way I can complete with the big guys. If I price my items the same way as the big guys do, I'm going to loose. If my policy is hurting them in any way, so be it, their high prices do the same to me, I cannot compete with that. I can price my items $10 or more, they're worth it. But.... with those prices a customer has to choose....what will he spent his budget on and from experience I know, I'm always on the loosing side. If I price my items at $1.99 a customer doesn't have to make a choice, he can buy my item and someone else's item, it's as simple as that.  The other way to compete is to create bundles, like I do here at Rendo. While well known vendor X create a set of clothing and easily sell it for $10 or more, I almost have to create a line of clothing and sell it for $10 or more to get the customers buying.

 

I cannot do this full time, it's impossible for me, I cannot put out the high volumes the well know vendors do, don't have time to do so. I cannot build a huge catalog as fast the people who spent all their time on doing so. I've got almost 60 products now and it took me years to get that far. Then I look at some of the bug vendors and they easily create 4 items or more each month, how can I with limited time compete with that? and you even advise that I put lot's of the little time I do have into creating and maintaining my own website? That's not realistic at all. The only way I can compete is bundle stuff at low prices or sell $1.99 items. People will buy those and I'm glad thay do.

 

I don't agree that low priced items drive vendors out of business, they're the opportunity to at least have a business. The only thing that really drive vendors out of business are vendors putting lot's of money into advertising and sites that do not allow vendors to promote their items fairly. The thing that drives vendors out of business is all the attentions that big/well known vendors get at the various websites. Small vendors are not put into the spot light, they do not get the benefits, they don't have lot's of money to promote their items. While some vendors demand. are given and get all the attention, all the others suffer from it.

 

So, forgive me for pricing my items $1.99, but as long as I'm treated as a 3rd class vendor and am not getting the same chance as others who control the market, I'll be doing so in order to survive.

Artwork and 3DToons items, create the perfect place for you toon and other figures!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=23722

Due to the childish TOS changes, I'm not allowed to link to my other products outside of Rendo anymore :(

Food for thought.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk