What "sells" best when it's free?
grinch2901
Posts: 1,247
Hi. I've been giving away substandard content on sharecg for a while now. Not good enough to sell but the price is right. Recently on a male content debate thread I suggested a test: I'd share a male item and a female item and see whch got more downloads in a certain amount of time.
That got me thinking though: what "sells" the most amongst my free stuff? So I took a look. What I found was interesting to me.
My sets take a lot of work, tend to be sort of specific (Dr Who, Star Trek, that sort of thing) so not surprisingly they don't generate a lot of downloads. Next is clothing, that does okay with female "outselling" male but interestingly the things that seem to do the best are accesories or every day items. My most downloaded item is a baggy sweatshirt for G2F and then two pairs of normal glasses. These are all in the 1100 - 1300 downloads range. Everything else is sub-500, including some items that took a long time to make, a lot longer than any of the three "top sellers". Seems that there is a demand for everyday stuff, clothing and accessories.
EDIT: I actully have two sets, a TARDIS control room and a Star Trek style office that both have well over 500 downloads, approaching 1000. So genre stuff actually may do okay.
So this makes me wonder why we don't see more accessories and casual clothing for sale? Is it that this type of thing is fine to get when it's free but nobody will pay for it? Is my quick look at my own crappy content just a terrible indicator or is there an untapped market here?
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Comments
That alone probably stops a lot of accessories content from being created. I'm sure that nobody would be getting rich off of selling a pair of earings or some bracelets but sometimes I need such things and they seem to not exist in the DAZ world unless you (a) buy a full outfit set that includes something like you want or (b) make them yourself, for yourself.
By the way in addition to several items of yours I've bought over the years I have some awesome freebie things you've done over the years and always enjoyed your tutorials on various topics. My runtime runeth over with stuff you've created or stuff I've created with your indirect help Note: (any good parts are probably thanks to you, the bad parts are all me). So thanks for all that!
I think a lot of that is popular as freebies because they're often things that people need for a specific scene or whatever, but aren't the sort of thing people think about needing to buy - or will put off buying until they need it, but will download a freebie right away "just in case"
I know I made the one booster seat I put up on Share CG because I needed a booster seat, and thought other people might need one too. It's hardly been a "best seller" (only 257 downloads in 7 years) but it's there.
Pin up stuff is cool, I have plenty. But I like to do comic type stuff mostly and that's normal people in normal settings (or perhaps normal people in exotic settings, like Dr Who). In either case, I need "normal" clothes which is why I made that sweatshirt that has been downloaded nearly 2000 times. And glasses because it looks weird when you have a large set and nobody has specs on. Breifcases, backpacks, purses, all that is needed and available as freebies but almost never sold. I guess the policy that SickleYield mentions drives that. I mean, I'm sure nobody thinks they'd make a lot of money on any of them but they might figure "it'll sell consitently, like getting residuals in the film business, so why not?". But turns out it's not sellable here. Didn't know that bit. So I suppose you would have to make a set of jewelry, purse, dress just to sell your purse. Interesting.
Of all my freebie content...Women’s maternity poses were the most popular. The male poses weren’t far behind though.
i still see those poses in artwork from time to time.
Interesting about the poses . Pregnancy poses are pretty "niche" in a way, I could see someone saying "hmmm ,the typical sexy poses don't work with my pregnant woman, need something else" and then seeing your set and rushing to hit "download". By niche I mean that there are way more cheesecake - or beefcake - renders than there are maternity ones. But if you want to do a maternity render, yeah, you need a good pose that isn't from a pinup set. Same goes for the booster seat, if you need one you need one, and they are not readily available anywhere for pay.
i13 does some good everyday poses, not pregant but coming hair, doing dishes, that sort of thing. I buy those sorts of poses from whoever's selling them whenever they come out. Because like I said, most of my renders aren't pinups, they are everyday people doing everyday things and I need that sort of content for men and women.
I prefer doing freebies that are actually free without strings and which represent underrepresented themes. So I guess I don’t go into it expecting to be super popular...
The most popular thing I've ever made was a one bedroom fully furnished house at over 2k downloads. In second place is the teeny-tiny cabin.. I guess it's because people want normal houses for regular people, not the huge penthouse rooms/homes that seem a popular thing to sell.
I have made several different kind of freebies, from clothing to furniture. The female clothing is the most popular, but if I have a set for the men they do get downloaded a lot, some in the hundreds. Depends on what it is. Historical items are very popular too. The various furniture sets were quite popular too.
You wouldn't need a full outfit, but more than one thing. So instead of a pair of earrings, you could do an earring set, like 10 different types. Not just one purse, but a collection of 5 of them or so, or purse/duffle bag/messenger bag/ breifcase all in one pack would work. Shoes seem to be the exception to this. You see just a pair of shoes all the time.
The stuff that gets the most downloads of my freebies are the Iray shader presets...something that tells me people either don't want to do them themselves or can't. Either one ;). The jewelry is popular, but not nearly as much. Plus, how much jewelry does one need? LOL. Which is kinda why I've slowed down on it. Been tossing around the idea of creating some clothing again, but I haven't done any for years and years so it's gonna take me awhile.
Laurie
I have some of your stuff, thanks for sharing it. I like the gas station a lot, used that a couple of times. And the sets you mention. I agree, normal stuff is rare. A couple of PAs do normal houses here, but there are way more penthouses and luxury hotels, probably more post-apocalypic homes even!
Hey Wilmap. I have a lot of your stuff, mostly from when you were hosting it on ShareCG. I've also used some of your items since you got your own domain but it sort of fell off my "check alll the time" list and I need to go give it a check. I've used a bunch of your stuff a lot but you had some purses that I use constantly because ... normal and hard to find elsewhere. So thanks for that!
I have all your jewelry and will download anything you make! It's all great and I hoard it because it's sort of rare to find it. Bracelets in particular, many women wear them and it seems they are almost totally missing in the 3D world. I made a scruchie thing for G3F wrist after a request on the forrm, just to see how I might do it. It's not perfect but it got way more downloads than I expected (I expected one, really). I guess those sorts of "finishing touches" really can make a difference to people.
Interesting. Still, you don't see as many such sets here, mostly outfits. For the record, you're another PA I've bought from, shader sets. I use your hair essentials one a lot. I used to fake it with my own crappy hair textures but your's are better and more convenient. Very useful item in constant use. Your wardrobe an shader sets (1 and 2) are high on my wish list, waiting for a good sale as they are a bit above my normal "pay full price" limit. But that's a sale you can count on at some point.
For me this has been a fun thread just because so many creators that I've both bought from and downloaded shared stuff from are all popping in. It's sort of like going to a gallery and bumping into several of the artists on display there, and getting to chat with them about their creative process. Great fun!
...pretty much anything by Wilmap is a "sale" for me as she does real life clothing.
Whenever I do a render from a TV show or nursery rhyme there is a good change I will be missing something that I can't afford at DAZ or DAZ doesn't have so I'll look at shareCG and it's interesting how regular woman's clothing and scifi seem to be far and away the most popular things as I'm reading down the list of found search items. The regular woman's clothing especially since it doesn't seem to be nearly as popular at DAZ 3D, although that seems to have improved quite a bit since dForce.
Hmmmm.... TARDIS console rooms. (Goes and searches for TARDIS consoles in ShareCG.) Ah, there yours is, the old wooden, secondary console room. Yeah, on shareCG I've pretty much grabbed all the DrWho consoles, props, and whatnot, and also several of the Star Trek things, and just about any general-scifi thing I come across. I actually used in a render the Season 13 console room that someone else there made, placed the Davison console in it because that was the closest to that period I could find, even tho it was from later in the show than that room, I then added some assorted pieces of furniture and stuff here and there. I wish the main doors opened on it. oO
Anyway, I'd love to see a late 70s era console room, i.e. from Tom Baker era into early Peter Davison, with doors and scanner screen that open and close. That said, I'm kinda surprised no one has made period TARDIS corridors and whatnot, ie. a TARDIS-interior build-pack or something. Looks like someone made a couple random Star Trek TOS corridor sections and stuff, and a couple of Trek TNG ones, but no TARDIS corridors. Wierd.
The trend on this thread seems to be that "ordinary" is in demand amongst freebies. That doesn't mean ordinary clothes, settings, etc would sell for money. But so far it's been interesting to me to hear the things that people seem to look for in the freebie community the most. I have lots of stuff I've made just for my own use, clothes, props, sets, etc. I've shared a few, mostly stuff that I either was proud of or that someone had requested specifically.. I have been leaing towards taking the effort to package up more and share them. It's sort of a pain, you have to save them out to a seperate directory and make sure you have all the right textures copied to it and all that. So I haven't as a habit done that. But I think I may try to do a bit more frequent shares, mostly everyday props, sets, and clothing items.
Yes, single items for free are great. Or cheap, at least. Daz not allowing them to be sold, as @Sickleyield wrote, just makes me look for them (and buy them) at other places...
For what I want to do with DS I usually can't use complete sets for places, as they don't come as I want the places to look, so even if I would buy a full set, I would have to adapt it to my needs. And that's not always easy, depending on how such a place is "constructed". So it's usually easier to look for single items to put up the set myself.
Adaptability is the thing for me... An item doesn't have to look perfect, if I can retexture it. If I can't it would have to look perfect. The more work I would have to invest to get it working, the less I am willing to pay for it.
And of course stuff made for Dr. Who, Star Trek, Star Wars or other "niche" products which nonetheless have a great fan community will "sell". They may be very specific. but with so many fans out there, there's tons of people who might want to use them for their work... So being specific can work, but usually not for everything.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I love love love custom morphs
The title of this thread, is what I would consider an 'Oxymoron'. Free is a not the best method of determining what will sell; the data you have is good data, just not good sales data.
I think the OP just wanted to illustrate the difference between what people buy and the type of stuff they consume for free ;). The two are different. Not because they're not willing to pay for the free stuff (at least I don't think so), but because freebies might fill a niche they aren't getting with commercial products.
Laurie
I'm sure that is true some of the time; I have free stuff I've never used, yet wouldn't have bought; of course, I've bought stuff I've never used and probably shouldn't have bought. :) I've deleted free stuff, yet I hate deleting bought stuff, even if I don't like it - although on rare occasions I have.
That's why the OP quoted "sells" and no one is arguing that our experience at free model sharing sites is indicative of DAZ 3D's sale's data, but likewise understand, DAZ 3D's sale's data is not indicative of what people at the free model sharing sites want.
I've already stated the shader settings I customized were downloaded 6 times as often of a niche TV scene I uploaded before I deleted the shader settings. What hobbyists that have used DAZ Studio a bit realize is shader material settings are important to making a render look good and the lighting used effective or ineffective. I don't know what the sales data at DAZ is for such products (I've bought a few myself), but they are popular on shareCG.com.
Same here. :)
By the same token, there are some freebies that I can't seem to do without too and have to install whenever I've redone my libraries like Tom2099's car paint shaders, JoeQuick's ExtraOrdinary Women morphs, Singular Blue's scripts, etc.
Laurie
...spot on.
Many of the vehicles featured on the Car and Bike Lovers' Thread are freebies because selling models that have IP rights is fraught with licencing restrictions and often involves pricing beyond what many here can afford. Oh I'd love to have a totally accurate model of say a Vickers Super VC-10 for one of my stories, but a 125$ - 150$ price tag pretty much says 'no'. Furthermore such models also include highly restrictive licences (such as "Editorial Use Only" which for any other purpose requires the purchaser to obtain permission from the IP's parent holder - In the case above, BAE Systems which succeeded Vickers).
Just wanted to weigh in on my intent here. I do not see free stuff as a proxy for what would sell. On the other hand, since I have offered stuff for free in a variety of different categories I've noticed that some are downloaded like gangbusters while others are not. And the ones that do fly off the virtual clearance rack tend to be similar. I'm not a PA doing market research, I don't expect to ever offer items for sale so this is in part an exploration of what people really want in freebies and why those categories are in particular demand.
So for example genre stuff like major Sci Fi franchises (Star Trek, for example) make great freebies because you can't sell them (I know, I know, sometimes people do sell stuff which is clearly from those franchises and I am not sure how that happens but whatever). So theres a robust market for that and you can see it in the long enduring Star Trek and Superhero threads here, which have lived for over a decade, from one iteration to the next.
And ordinary sets (homes, businesses, etc) and ordinary accessories (purses, backpacks, jewelry, etc) seem to do well, Shader presets, I've learned, do amazingly well too.
Here's the thing. One of the first freebies I ever offered was after a request. It was for a vitage movie projector. I made it and shared it. I think in a couple of years it was downloaded maybe 25 times. Nobody wanted that. Same for a set of marching band drums I made after another request. So just because it's free doesn't mean people will waste hard drive space on it. There has to be some part of them that thinks "I might be able to use that someday". And it's free so grab it. I don't get paid for what I share, I get thank yous (like maybe 10 for every 500 dowloads) and very, very rarely I see one of my items in a render which is always fun. There's effort in sharing stuff, far less than a quality PA like some of those who've visited this thread might make, but still some. If I make that effort and get four downloads and no comments it's sort of a bummer. So it's useful to know what people respond to the most.