Since February-March this year, I have noticed a sharp decline in sales. After consulting with several colleagues, I found out that I was not the only one affected by this situation. What is happening to the traffic on cgtrader? Dear colleagues, have any of you noticed a drop in sales?
For example https://www.cgtrader.com/designers/Andrusha3D such a profile with over 500 stolen models could have a negative impact on sales from other sellers? In my opinion, yes, it can. Positive news is that this user and all others are thieves will of course be banned soon. Spammers who confuse CGTrader with Aliexpress (as example https://www.cgtrader.com/designers/sophiay64cxl) and other thieves (like https://www.cgtrader.com/designers/kamekkusu) will suffer the same fate.
I also sell 3D models in the Jewelry category. But I noticed that for the last 3 months I have been making sales only for regular customers.
It seems to me that the amount of external traffic has decreased.
Until the end of 2023, there were a lot of sales to spontaneous customers.
They would come in, buy a few 3D models and disappear.
I am also observing the geography of sales. It has also changed significantly.
It seems to me the best way out in this situation - would be the possibility of creating an advertising cabinet for sellers on the CG Trader Marketplace.
Everyone could independently purchase external traffic in Google and other sites.
I would also like to be able to analyze traffic.
Where were the transitions made from? In what percentage ratio?
What is the geography of clicks?
In this case, each seller could manage his own traffic and analyze the situation of sales.
Perhaps someone is not ready to spend money on this, but I am ready to allocate my budget of equal 20-30% of sales to the tools of the advertising cabinet with the ability to control it completely.
Before that, I had good experience working for Amazon and Etsy. And it works great there. For many, sales on CGT are not just pocket money, but part of their business. Every business needs advertising expenses.
For example, you can buy the first search results in your advertising niche. Not in organic results, but in advertising ones. Good new stores with interesting models could increase their income and sales using such tools.
What is happening in recent months is unprecedented and this is absolute ground and the worst season on CGT ever.
$16 earnings this months so far with 350 models portfolio is joke. You will earn same money in McDonald's in 1-2 hours.
We are observing definite end of traditional 3D models selling.
BTW as I received the email about CGDream - this AI image generation tool is probably the only future here.
Probably AI began change the workflow drastically in recent months and traditional workflow - model editing, rendering, post-processing is becaming history. And I especially see huge decline of sales of conceptual/fictional models. Those models or images which can be produced by AI.
Also 1 interesting thing - the biggest cars seller - Hum3D - left CGT and other markets and they decided to sell their models exclusively on their own site also with subscription system.
It is also indicator that situation on traditional markets is becaming tragical and for them it gives no economical sense to continue here and other markets.
"AI is killing us blah blah" i've yet to see an AI generated model that doesn't look like utter dogshit. Low sales are not the result of AI. Atleast not yet, thats a couple of years away. I have some ideas what it might be but those are just speculations. What I 100% know is that AI generated models are not the fault here.
How about this https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/furniture/furniture-set/mega-pack-interior-collection-10000-models-cycles-and-eevee Not bad, isn't it?
Oh yeah, once upon a time the advice about 150 models = good stable income was quite realistic and relevant. In my opinion, such price dumping still harms much more than AI.
It seems to me that if you sell 3D models only for visualizing pictures, then AI can break your earning system.
But if you make solid models for 3D printing, then AI is not your competitor yet.
In my niche of 3D models for 3D printing, I am seeing a big decline. My income has dropped by more than 60%. And this has been a decline over the past 3 months.
I don’t think that the decline in sales in my niche is due to the rapid development of AI.
In my niche and specifically in my case, I blame the lack of advertising on external resources.
Although it might be something else.
By the way. Restraining factor for those who are looking forward to such AI tools with permission for commercial use. What if AI someday (even in 10-20 years) will acquire the same rights as human, look at all this and demand compensation “Hey, you fuckin leather bastards, you exploited my computing power without recognizing my authorship. But now it’s my time”. :D
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