[What do you want from] Asset Stores?
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I'm starting a asset store at: assetworld.selz.com
I was just wondering what you like to see from a asset store and if anyone has any ideas on how I would market this once I've got more asset available for purchase. Thanks
Further info:
At the moment the domain is owned by the online store creator i'm using and it's only my assets at the moment. I plan to allow other to use the service when established. Creators will take 75% of the earning and the website will take 25%. The site will strive upon providing high quality content that is thoroughly reviewed by hand before publishing. Unlike sites such as turbo squid, asset world will entail a variety of content including (but not limited to): 3D models, materials, textures, sounds, music, VFX, plugins etc. for a range of creative sectors.
I plan to also include affiliate links to products I find helpful for digital artists such as drawing tablets, GPU's, render service discounts etc. to boost revenue for the site however that is not a priority.
Tutorials is another section I had in mind however it is not a priority but maybe helpful adding.
I was just wondering what you like to see from a asset store and if anyone has any ideas on how I would market this once I've got more asset available for purchase. Thanks
Further info:
At the moment the domain is owned by the online store creator i'm using and it's only my assets at the moment. I plan to allow other to use the service when established. Creators will take 75% of the earning and the website will take 25%. The site will strive upon providing high quality content that is thoroughly reviewed by hand before publishing. Unlike sites such as turbo squid, asset world will entail a variety of content including (but not limited to): 3D models, materials, textures, sounds, music, VFX, plugins etc. for a range of creative sectors.
I plan to also include affiliate links to products I find helpful for digital artists such as drawing tablets, GPU's, render service discounts etc. to boost revenue for the site however that is not a priority.
Tutorials is another section I had in mind however it is not a priority but maybe helpful adding.
Replies
Also, what's with the .selz.com thing? Why not just Assetworld.com or something similiar.
I plan to also include affiliate links to products I find helpful for digital artists such as drawing tablets, GPU's, render service discounts etc. to boost revenue for the site however that is not a priority.
Tutorials is another section I had in mind however it is not a priority but maybe helpful adding.
I highly suggest taking some business and marketing courses if you're serious about this, right now you seem to be barely into the idea stage. Using a third party site to handle the store and web side doesn't instill confidence if you are competing with established asset stores. Selling your own work as a one off there, sure, no biggie. Also if sellz gets hacked and drops customer data, where does that put you and your customers? Would you be able to cover legal costs if you discover a pirated asset for sale on your store?
Selling a variety of goods is nice, but only if the offering is worth looking at. Doubly-triply-quadruply so for tutorials, a bunch of bad tuts just for the sake of having them is always a huge turnoff.
Also, I know you just got this up and going, but how much control over user experience and web design do you have with this site? With only a few assets at the moment, it's easy enough to browse. Compare to established stores of any kind and you'll find a number of presentation and search methods. Right now you have a tiny text area with embellished descriptions and no clear standard for technical specs for quick evaluation and no mention of author. Model presentation is particularly lacking on the warehouse, showing only the front and no wireframe or textureless view.
Also, a 75% cut sounds great to a potential partner until they start asking about site costs and who will be responsible for marketing their goods.
I'm not trying to shit on your idea here, but like I said, it's little more than an idea at this point. If it were me, I'd put some serious thought and study into running such a site and study how other online retailers work their magic. I'm also just an artist, not particularly studied in business.
e: I forgot a huge one! What would your return policy be?
Essentially, in short, people are looking for large libraries of consistent work. Not a handfull of props in this style and a char in that style and a load of random stuff, but 100 consistent high quality props for example, that all are style consistent and quality consistent and basically appealing to a studio that need to fill out a world with stuff that is not worth putting their creative people on (they should be doing hero assets).
The reason i suggest libraries is this: in practice I cannot use a handful of great props from someone because they will stand out like a sore thumb. I go to speedtree because they handle 100% of the foliage for my project, for example.
I say prop but it could be anything, however I only really in practice go to asset stores for props to fill out a world.
as for creating your own store, nothing wrong with that, I know a few popular asset store sellers that has their own store but their main income is still be the bigger asset stores, the reason they do have their own store is because they can gather email addresses of the few that do buy from their store and slowly build up a customer database that they can notify when something new comes out which does a lot.
But unless you have a lot of money and new ideas behind you I would give up on creating a store which purpose is to attract other sellers.
doesn't sound like much quality stuff will get uploaded, art wise sure but if it's for stuff that wasn't meant for selling it will probably not be setup in the right way for anyone to use it.
Just trying to see your websites angle.
if you want more assets to attract customers maybe you could do this as a group.
I'd recommend selling your own assets on Unity asset store first and learn first-hand what works and what doesn't work.