[00:00:00] Zack Katz: WordPress marketplaces are evolving. Are they still the right place to sell your product? In this episode, we explore the latest changes and help you decide whether stick with marketplaces, go independent, and what that might take. This is WP Product Talk.

[00:00:23] Matt Cromwell: This is WP Product Talk, a place where every week we bring you insights, product marketing, business management and growth, customer experience, product development, It's your go to podcast for WordPress product owners by WordPress product owners, and now enjoy the show.

[00:00:50] Zack Katz: Hello everybody. I'm Zach Katz, founder, founder of Gravity Kit and Trusted Login.

[00:00:56] Katie Keith: And I'm Katie Keith, CEO and founder at Bantu Plugins.

[00:01:00] Zack Katz: And today we are discussing recent changes in the world WordPress marketplace ecosystem and what that means for selling your WordPress product

[00:01:08] Katie Keith: And that's why we've invited Vova Feldman from Freemius today.

[00:01:14] Hey Vova.

[00:01:16] Vova Feldman: Hey guys. Great to be here

[00:01:18] Katie Keith: Yeah, so thank you so much for coming on Um, please introduce yourself for anybody who doesn't already know you and tell us what you do

[00:01:26] Vova Feldman: Sure. Uh, my name is Voro Feldman. I'm founder and CEO at Freemius. Uh, Freemius is a merchant of record for selling software, including plugins and themes.

[00:01:36] Basically means that we provide the entire commercial infrastructure. For selling software, payments, subscriptions, taxes, software, license keys, et cetera, et cetera. Basically taking away all the operational hassle, allowing you as a maker to focus on innovation, supporting your customers. This is what we do in that shell.

[00:02:01] Zack Katz: Well, Vova, that sounds pretty nicely aligned with, uh, what we're talking about today. So one of the reasons we invited you on, uh, beyond the fact that you know so much about so much, uh, is that there have been recent changes at, at Avado and Vado where, uh, they've been acquired by shutterstock. And could you give us a, like a short summary of like that situation and what, what's What's happened and why does that matter for WordPress product owners?

[00:02:33] Vova Feldman: Yeah, sure. Uh, this is why I'm here for. Uh, so, uh, basically Envato is, uh, uh, company that behind two very popular marketplaces and WordPress ecosystem, ThemeForce and CodeCanyon, I would say that they are kind of the pioneers in the whole commercial products in work. WordSpace started very, very early on.

[00:02:56] Uh, and they helped many makers around the world, many developers. Uh, to basically make a living, you know, building software. Well, they are taking care of the marketing and distribution of the products. Um, the company, the founder of the company without diving too deep, um, he, uh, moved, stepped away a few years ago and there are like rumors about potential IPO or something like that.

[00:03:26] Uh, and eventually what we've seen happening Uh, last month, officially the deal closed with Shutterstock and the company was acquired. Uh, it's a big deal because Shutterstock is known to be a stock photography company. Uh, that over the years, they also expanded to additional, uh, types of, uh, things they sell, like audio files and videos, et cetera, but it's all around, uh, static stuff and not software.

[00:03:57] And also Shutterstock is a public company, so when they buy something, they need to share to their investors why they do this. Uh, so we dug into the, uh, the investor slide deck, and this is something that we've done, uh, in a expert's funnel, uh, and we can share the link later on the footnotes. Uh, but basically there was, uh, There's no mention of Code Canyon theme forest or the world or the word code anywhere.

[00:04:27] And based on all the evidence, Shutterstock acquiring Envato, acquired Envato because of Envato elements, which is their kind of subscriptions play. And uh, The software products, plugin themes are not really playing in elements. Uh, so it's unclear what would be the future of this marketplaces. Uh, and it's very unlikely that Shutterstock will suddenly start investing into, uh, software also because.

[00:04:59] This part of their business is still very small and I'm not going to dive into that. Let's leave that to a separate session. But I think it provides kind of an overview of why it's a big deal to the ecosystem. So there are like many thousands of creators around the world that are building WordPress products that rely on Envato.

[00:05:20] And there's a likelihood that they will not be able to rely on Envato. So this is like the bottom

[00:05:27] Zack Katz: line. And you had a great, uh, a great session on, uh, hosted by Freemius on it. Is this the death of code Canyon and theme forest? I recommend everybody go watch that. It has a lot of information about the details, um, including some of the recent experiences that sellers have had, where their sales numbers have gone down, their page traffic had gone down, and that's been a trend for years because of lack of investment, uh, by Envato.

[00:05:54] In code Canyon theme forest. So this is not a new trend, but like, it's, it's kind of a punctuation point on, um, on that whole recent history. So check that out. So what does Envato and code Canyon and theme forest, what do they do that we should be talking about today? Like how, what are the parts that somebody might need to recreate?

[00:06:19] Uh, if this does go away and that, that a seller, uh, would need to think about doing that, uh, Envato currently does for them. Shall I go?

[00:06:32] Vova Feldman: Sure. Okay. Uh, so in Envato, like that whole marketplace, uh, offer, uh, several meaningful components. There is, uh, Commercial infrastructure, right? If I'm selling something on Envato, uh, let's say I'm a plugin developer.

[00:06:52] I can go to CodeCanyon, upload. My zip file into CodeCanyon, write some marketing copy. I still need to write the copy and add some images. So I do, I can't just completely just dump the zip file and hope that, you know, they will come and it will sell. Uh, but everything related to how to sell the taxes, the emails, like all, all that, managing the users.

[00:07:21] All of that is handled by the marketplace. You as a maker, you don't really need to deal with that stuff. So that kind of operation is taken care of by the marketplace. And the second thing, which is the biggest premise of a marketplace, should be driving traffic. Traffic and sales to your listing by different techniques.

[00:07:42] It can be content marketing, pay ads, uh, the traffic that you already have, uh, whatever it is. Uh, and I think what happened over the years is that, uh, if you, like in the beginning, because commercial stuff in WordPress were relatively, you know, Uh, there was not a lot of inventories. So anyone who were uploading anything to the marketplace.

[00:08:13] Pretty immediately started making sales, but as the marketplace and the year passed by the WordPress ecosystem matured on the commercial side of things, the quality of the products, you know, came higher. Also the prices went down on the marketplace because people had to compete and there are much more plugins than seems right now.

[00:08:37] Uh, so the premise of WordPress marketing, your products slightly disappeared also because of strategic decisions that Envato took over the years. Uh, so you, you already, like, if you were new to the marketplace, You, the operational side of things were handled for you, but if you didn't do any marketing at all of your marketplace listing, likely you, you didn't get much sales.

[00:09:11] So you still had to do some marketing. But this is like to summarize, these are the two big things that a marketplace needs to take care of facilitating the whole, you know, sales, commercial infrastructure, and also ensuring that they bring your sales because this is how they make money. And you also pay pretty big cut for that.

[00:09:34] So the better do something for you.

[00:09:38] Katie Keith: Yeah. I remember years ago in about 2012, analyzing the average sale. Cause you could see what the marketplace sellers were making on things like theme forest, because it would have the sales count over time and you could, it was quite transparent and I was amazed by how much money they were making.

[00:09:55] But the last few years, when I've had a look at that, I've been amazed by how little money the sellers are making. And particularly comparing it with my own plugging company. I'm like, wow, world famous themes are actually doing less than me with my little plugging company. And so I was surprised by how the market had transformed over the years.

[00:10:15] And that was. When I did that analysis that was before all of this acquisition stuff and on the freemius panel last month It was really interesting seeing I think it was a chart from zava Um from maelster that he shared his declining sales and a lot of people in the comments were saying We've had exactly the same decline.

[00:10:34] So it's pretty serious. They cannot use it as a marketing vehicle anymore Like they could rely on in the past

[00:10:42] Vova Feldman: I think that, so one of the things that they've done, I think it was 2016, 17 is they changed the, uh, sorting, uh, the default sorting in the marketplace to best sellers, like making that the default option, which also, by the way, WordPress.

[00:11:01] org. point, like previously it was based on updates and this is great for bestsellers and it's also in some way great for consumers, consumers, buyers, because you get something that it's kind of proven because it was already purchased many times and they know that it's a good product. Quality product. Uh, but it's not great for sellers who are not top sellers, because it means that they don't like for newcomers.

[00:11:32] They don't really get an opportunity to expose their products to new audiences. Uh, and existing ones, they just don't get the same visibility. As others, and also me as a buyer, I would prefer to go with something that it's like bestseller rather than, you know, something that is hidden on the third or fourth page when I search for something in the marketplace.

[00:11:55] So what it, what it naturally did is like pushing the traffic, the buyer's traffics that Univado already had. the top items and also because they, uh, uh, stopped, uh, promoting and running different marketing activities. They didn't like the inventory kept growing, but the traffic. Didn't keep growing. It remained the same and started to slow down.

[00:12:25] Zack Katz: So what are some, one of the choices that people have when they're faced with a potential shutting down of theme forest, uh, and code Canyon is to find another marketplace to go somewhere else. Um, what are the pros and cons to that? Uh, like there, there are other marketplaces like template monster or creative market.

[00:12:46] Um, there's. There's, if you're in the Woo ecosystem, you could be on the Woo, uh, marketplace. What are, what are the pros and cons to marketplaces in general? Like. We know that you've talked about the, uh, handling the distribution, handling the, the sales side of things, but, um, is it purely sales traffic? Uh, are there any other effects that you think are, are out there that would recommend people to find another marketplace rather than going on their own?

[00:13:20] Vova Feldman: I think every marketplace and depends what exactly you're selling needs to be evaluated separately. Uh, I don't think it's a bad idea to go and sell on a marketplace. Uh, I do feel that relying exclusively on a marketplace is not a great idea because, you know, you build, if it's just completely a side thing, you know, uh, uh, beer weekend money or something like that.

[00:13:47] Okay. Worst case it disappears and that's it. But if your entire business. Relying on this single source that you don't have control of. It's pretty risky. And we're seeing this happening right now with Envato. Uh, the, the problem, um, without the quotes, maybe is that ThemeForest, CodeCanyon have, still have the.

[00:14:13] The, uh, biggest amount of traffic in comparison to all the other marketplaces. So even if you go to a different marketplace right now, like you will get significantly less traffic than what you are getting from the already declining in battle, but you

[00:14:31] Zack Katz: might have better

[00:14:31] Vova Feldman: visibility. Yep. Yeah. Depends on, you know, how much it's a proportion between the traffic, uh, the sorting, uh, the, how many competitors do you have in that direct marketplace?

[00:14:46] Like if you're selling a plugin and you're the only one that's solving that specific problem on the marketplace. Yeah, it makes sense. You know, if you are the solution, uh, to do that, what is their terms, whether they require you to be exclusive or not, et cetera. So every marketplace needs to be kind of evaluated separately.

[00:15:06] Uh, but I think the era of marketplaces, I do think that the WooCommerce marketplace, uh, is pretty solid. Uh, if you are selling WooCommerce, uh, products and you don't want to, like, you prefer to rely on a marketplace and not building your own brand, it's pretty solid. And I do see automatic in the Woo team.

[00:15:30] investing more and more resources into surfacing, uh, the marketplace inventory in the face of WooCommerce users. We see that in the dashboard happening right now, the marketplace is there. So they do some actions that supposedly add more visibility, uh, to your products.

[00:15:53] Katie Keith: Yeah, I think it's very clear that people shouldn't be relying solely on the marketplace to generate their sales Which you could do in the past years ago Um, so you could argue that it follows from that that marketplace sellers Stay on the marketplace.

[00:16:09] It's an easy way to sell your product Uh, but do your own marketing but the problem I find with that which is why i've never been tempted to do that is that when you You do your own marketing like you've got a blog or Paid apps or whatever it is you're doing for marketing and we'll get more onto that later Is that you then send them to the marketplace to make the purchase and you pay huge commission for that don't you like whatever between um What is our envato these days?

[00:16:38] It's like up to 70 or something, isn't it?

[00:16:42] Vova Feldman: Yeah, it depends on the product. I like there's buyer fee author fee So it really, it depends. You can't really, the, the, the final percentage depends on your price because the, but the buyer fees, uh, fixed, uh, absolute number. Uh, so the percentage changes based on.

[00:17:05] The price of your product.

[00:17:08] Katie Keith: Yeah. So I wouldn't be happy to pay that if I'd found the customer myself, I wouldn't want to then send them through to a marketplace and pay a high percentage. I I'll happily pay 30 percent to my affiliates because they have found the customer. Um, so that's the acquisition cost for me.

[00:17:25] To do it the other way round kind of doesn't work for me. So I suppose that gives marketplace sellers the dilemma of should they sell on the marketplace and on their own website or something as a non exclusive thing or should they abandon the marketplace which is no longer getting sales for them. I don't know how you make that decision.

[00:17:45] Vova Feldman: Yeah, I think, you know, when Envato was like at its peak and also Dotter marketplaces, like the marketplaces era, let's call it this way, uh, I think solving the commercial aspects was a tricky problem to solve, like setting up the store and, uh, you know, how to handle payments. And many of the sellers are coming from countries that don't necessarily have modern payment gateways, right?

[00:18:16] So for them to integrate something or the ability to charge money from foreign countries is not trivial. So I think. Like what organically happened is they started on the marketplace, started to grow, created some, you know, branding and web presence, starting to write content, maybe even build communities.

[00:18:40] Uh, but they kind of left, uh, uh, operational components still to the marketplace. So it made sense for them. Okay. We're still not selling it ourselves, but we do want that buyer who's interested to buy. So they were driving that traffic to the marketplace. I think actually, if you are one of those, uh, makers, you are in a good place because you generated traffic to your website and now moving to something else and selling yourself is much easier because you're already, uh, You know, it goes through your funnel.

[00:19:17] Um, but I think as you said, Katie, it's pretty, uh, first of all, today, there are solutions that makes it very easy, uh, to sell software with all those things. Freemius is dedicated to solve that exact problem, right? Um, but there are others. Okay. So we're not the only one. Um, so that problem is. Relatively easily solve.

[00:19:44] So yes, if you already have a website already generating the traffic. It's kind of a no brainer to start selling yourself that traffic rather than, you know, going, pushing it

[00:19:58] Zack Katz: to the marketplace. There is a change in attitude I think that might be required when you are the person in charge of your customer data.

[00:20:08] Uh, when you sell through a marketplace, you don't get to know everything about your customer. Uh, you get to know that you made a sale and that somebody is distributed. And if your customer reaches out to us on support, you might interface with them there, but you don't own that data. Um, what are some of the changes that people need to take into account when you, when you sell?

[00:20:30] On your own website. Like one of them includes having a newsletter, having like a mailing list. Uh, what are some other, what are some other changes that people might need to consider when moving away from a marketplace?

[00:20:43] Vova Feldman: I think the lack of data was one of those big complaints from sellers on Indata that, uh, they didn't have access to their customers data and.

[00:20:57] If you want to run some marketing campaign, uh, you don't have a way to communicate that and you completely rely on Envato or if you, you know, you, you released a new theme and your theme show up, you want to notify your existing user base. So over the years, especially the bigger sellers that did figure out ways how to like collect customer information.

[00:21:20] They came up with different licensing systems and integrations. And like, I know that more intimately right now because we have more and more. Authors moving from CodeCanyon Freemius. So I know, uh, kind of intimately their integrations and what they've done. Uh, so, so I think many, especially those who are more experienced.

[00:21:46] Already have access to relatively good chunk of their, uh, customer base from Envato. So I don't feel that this is like now the fact that you have the customer information is like a liability. On the contrary, I think it's a treasure. It's like a necessity that you have that you need in order to run a business.

[00:22:09] Uh, and the things that you mentioned, you know, doing newsletters or send marketing. Uh, I would say this is a bonus. Of course, like we, we do when I say bonus, uh, in a business, you do want to do that, but I'm saying it's a better, like, it's better to sell from your site without necessarily doing that, you know, marketing to existing customers, uh, and have the data rather than pushing the, the traffic to the marketplace.

[00:22:40] Katie Keith: Yeah, well, it's a business asset, isn't it? If you think in terms of valuation, future acquisitions or anything like that, owning your customer data and being able to reach out to them for marketing purposes is a part of the value of your business. But another thing that I think people really lose out on with, um, it's not being able to.

[00:23:01] Choose how they charge for their products, choosing their license tiers. Even to me, like the most fundamental thing is subscriptions. So about two thirds of my revenue now comes from subscription payments. We've had a drop in sales the last couple of months through Google and the summer and things, and that's been countered by annual renewals.

[00:23:22] So it beggars belief to me that some marketplaces don't support subscriptions because that is like the cornerstone of a sustainable wordpress product business model Um, so I think that another thing that people can really grab back by going independent Is the ability to choose their pricing and their overall pricing model

[00:23:45] Zack Katz: Yep, absolutely.

[00:23:47] Yeah. So one of the, one of the options is to be on a marketplace and sell it yourself. Is there a downside to doing both or do you recommend a clean break, uh, like shutting down your marketplace and opening up your site or should it be a smooth transition? Like how, how can people transition away if they want it to?

[00:24:08] Vova Feldman: I think that the running both from your end, like selling from your website and in parallel from marketplace does add some operational overhead because, uh, like marketplaces have their own like structures. So when you sell on Envato, people, uh, buy a license by default for like six months of support. And it's a lifetime license when it comes to updates.

[00:24:38] If you sell from. Your own website. It's very unlikely that this is kind of the awkward six months, you know, thingy that you will choose and offer updates forever. Uh, also licensing can be different on your end versus on the marketplace, or you need to figure out how you solve it and make it kind of the same solution.

[00:25:01] So it does require some thinking, but it's all solvable. You know, it's a challenge, but you can overcome the challenge. If you are currently selling on Envato and, you know, your cells are not in close to zero, uh, then I wouldn't drop that completely. I would keep it and start building the cells from my own website kind of gradually.

[00:25:28] And when I see that that suppresses, uh, what I make in a marketplace and the marketplace adds too much havoc. Too much operational headache, then you can say goodbye to the marketplace. And if you are concerned about the whole exclusivity thing, what we've seen from authors that moved to Freemius, so they moved to Freemius, but they remain on the marketplace as non exclusive.

[00:25:56] They increased their prices on a marketplace and they didn't see reduction in the number of sales. So, um, the percentage that in theory they should increase. You know, lose on exclusivity. They just added that percentage on top of the price. So they didn't really lose anything there.

[00:26:18] Zack Katz: Interesting. You mentioned a lifetime updates when people sell on code Canyon and theme forest.

[00:26:25] Uh, that seems like a pretty big shift because when you, I don't know anybody. Well, there are probably plenty of people in WordPress world that do this, but. It's rare that you get lifetime updates when you sell on your own website. It's often, uh, you get updates as long as your license is active. It does that require, like, is that a big enough shift to make people up your customer base upset if you were to migrate?

[00:26:50] Like, uh, what do you need to take into consideration there?

[00:26:55] Vova Feldman: Yeah. So, so, uh, this is like a common question that we've been asked, you know, how to make that transition, uh, in a way that it won't hurt our existing, uh, user base. And the way we recommend to do that is first explain the situation, you know, in the end, your customers want you to remain in business.

[00:27:19] Next year, because they do want to get those updates and support if it's needed. So it's a lot about communicating, uh, to your customers. If you have a way to communicate, right? So we're back to that point. Uh, but it's about communicating. Second, it's about being graceful with the way you migrate, meaning.

[00:27:40] Let's say, uh, on Envato, it's six months support. So you say anyone who moves away to my new licensing platform, right? Then they get a year of free, like we're giving a license for a year. If you're looking, if it's not enough for you and you like, you can still keep using the product after that. You will just not get updates and no support.

[00:28:06] If it's not good enough for you, you have a year to look for an alternative solution. So it's plenty of time to find, um, a solution and you can also incentivize them by giving them a meaningful discount on the subscription as someone who was a customer, whether it's on the first payment or All future payments or maybe exclusively sell them a lifetime license that it's Higher than what you charge on the marketplace.

[00:28:37] Uh, but still we'll give them that peace of mind. Okay. I will pay once again, but then I can keep using that, you know, for as long as I have that license with me. So there are different techniques. It's a matter of in the end, what is your flavor? Who is your audience? Exactly. But so far, like this techniques, they were perceived well by customers.

[00:29:04] Zack Katz: Interesting. Katie, what do you think?

[00:29:08] Katie Keith: So when I watched the Freemius panel, um, I was very interested in the comments because there was a lot of marketplace sellers in the comments and the most common comment was How do I do marketing basically quite wide questions because they've never done that before they've relied on the marketplace So let's spend some time giving some sort of actionable advice to people who haven't done marketing for their product before Um, how can they do that marketing if they don't have experience?

[00:29:41] SEO or anything, where would you advise getting started Vova or is it even realistic?

[00:29:48] Vova Feldman: Uh, definitely realistic. And I think, They all do marketing. They just aren't aware that they doing marketing because you need to write the marketing copy of your listing in order to be able to write a copy. You need to Understand your audience, understand your, uh, product.

[00:30:07] It's not Envato that been writing these, these pages. Uh, so there is some understanding of the audience and the product, product for sure. Um, and in the end, it all starts there, but then going forward, what you need to do is the fundamental thing is you need to have a website. Right. Where, because you will need to somehow drive traffic to your website to make sales, because it's no longer in the marketplace.

[00:30:37] Um, you will need to create some content. It doesn't have to be SEO. I think that's like getting into an SEO play in 2024. It's like a big challenge, you know, unless you somehow managed to get some crazy domain that already, you know, got a lot of SEO juice over the years. Uh, it would be very hard to be seen.

[00:31:02] So I think that if you're starting out and you still don't have traffic, I don't think SEO is probably the right way to go. Uh, there are many different marketing, marketing channels that, uh, you can try. Uh, we talked about collecting emails of your existing customers. So that's something that you can do regardless.

[00:31:29] And before you move out anywhere, you can add an opt in mechanism. You're on use existing solution, whatever, and start collecting that information. So you will have something right if you're a theme shop, and it means that usually you create themes every few months or six months, you release a new theme.

[00:31:51] So you'll have some audience to start with, uh, there are ways to look in communities. So maybe it will be about. You know, joining different Facebook groups, uh, or like, it really depends. It's like the fundamentals, I would say, is understanding where you, your audience, uh, is hanging what they're looking for, right?

[00:32:16] So you need to provide them some value, hook them up, um, and in the end drive their interests and somehow drive traffic. To your website. It can be through, uh, influencers, uh, like, I don't know, connecting with some YouTubers, uh, that can review your product and already have large audience. So all those components, like there are a lot of channels, probably over 30 different channels.

[00:32:47] And to learn what are the channels, just go to YouTube and search. Marketing channels, there's endless amount of content about marketing there, or go to the Freemius YouTube channel. And we, we also cover many of those things, uh, and, you know, try, like I said, understand what do you feel would be more, most appealing to your target audience based on where they hang online.

[00:33:13] Um, choose one channel. And start experimenting until you either realize that, okay, you exhausted that channel, it's not the right direction. And I should try something else or you see, okay, it's working. Let's double down and invest more resources into that.

[00:33:36] Zack Katz: I got to say, that sounds really daunting, right?

[00:33:40] Like if I'm, if I'm in a safe Harbor of a, of a marketplace and I've just, I've created one landing page and people find my product that I've been selling there for years, and then all of a sudden I'm faced with being thrown into the open ocean and having to market myself. And learn product sales from scratch.

[00:34:01] It sounds daunting and it is a lot, it feels like a lot more work, but I think the opportunity presented by not being closed into one marketplace is real, like, and that the opportunity for growth, uh, is huge if you're only selling through Envato and then all of a sudden you sell on your own website. I think that that could very well be worth it.

[00:34:24] And, uh, in terms of one of the places that I go, uh, when I'm looking for like, how, what are the steps I need to do to do something I've been using chat GPT and Claude, and I've been going in there and said, put together a list of potential marketing opportunities. And then I ask it questions and it tells me answers and I don't need to watch YouTube videos because that's not really my preferred way of learning.

[00:34:49] So I find, uh, LLMs are very helpful, uh, for helping marketing planning, especially.

[00:34:59] Vova Feldman: You can also kind of shorten your way towards marketing if you're really into building the products and less about the marketing side, but it's a challenge by itself is to try to partner with someone who is a marketer, right?

[00:35:16] So already have that experience. Maybe someone who been there, done that in the WordPress ecosystem. Uh, maybe they have a followers list. Maybe it's a YouTuber, right, who you can partner with because they like your product. You would need to, you know, they, they would need to like your product and give them a stake.

[00:35:39] And then they have, you know, uh, financial incentive to push it beyond like a certain percentage, but actually being a stakeholder in what you're doing. But it's a challenge by itself. You know, it's, it's like finding that marketing channel, which is a marketer. That's the channel in this case.

[00:35:58] Katie Keith: Yeah. I like that.

[00:35:59] Yeah. A lot of Envato sellers are already in partnerships, like a designer and a developer working together. So that makes sense to have a business partner who is a marketer, give them a good equity stake. And that's probably going to be better than the fees you were previously paying. So

[00:36:17] Zack Katz: with all this change going on with Envato and marketplaces in general, uh, what is your prediction for the future of selling WordPress products?

[00:36:26] What does it look like in five years? What does it look like in 10 years?

[00:36:32] Vova Feldman: Well, I think you, you raised the point, right? You said, wow, this sounds very daunting. Uh, I think what will naturally happen is that it will Let's say marketplaces disappear, let's take, you know, the doom day, uh, it will, uh, filter away the very small players, those that is there a side things that don't really have the resources to invest and learn marketing and an energy and this and that.

[00:37:03] Uh, so this is one thing it will reduce the amount of. Sellers and the amount of inventory on the market. This is, I think will happen. Um, it will also, I think, drive prices up because, you know, basic economics, less products, you know, less competition, prices increase, will increase, I think it's, it's not a bad thing.

[00:37:34] Uh, because I feel that the WordPress ecosystem, like if we look on inflation and like how prices change in the past, you know, uh, 14, 15 years, many WordPress. Prices more than double probably in, in most industries, but we were looking on WordPress and we're still seeing products sold for 40, 50, uh, that in 15 years, they increased their price by 10, maybe, or something like that.

[00:38:09] So, so I do, and they, like, what holds them back is that they look in on the competitive landscape and see, Oh, you know, I can't really raise the prices because then I'm becoming significantly or just more expensive. So I think

[00:38:25] Zack Katz: much lower seems to have lower prices in general than any other marketplace that I've been aware of.

[00:38:34] Vova Feldman: Yeah, I think, uh, the, the, the prices on marketplaces are lower because You know, you're competing with dozens of similar products in, uh, you know, in a, in a, uh, deep of a click of a button, right? You go back, you see other products. So, so you want to stay kind of competitive and you also have. Sellers from all over, sellers from the Western world, sellers from the developing countries.

[00:39:04] So the developing countries, they still have quality developers and they can produce great products, but the margins that they need are significantly lower, right? Because the cost of living is lower. So they are also driving when you. You know, when you put Western and developing countries in the same place that they offer the same quality products, obviously there is some like challenge there.

[00:39:30] Um, so yeah, I think it will drive prices up and we'll reduce inventory, which I feel is. Good for those who will survive and we'll, you know, stick and learn how to do marketing and overcome those challenges.

[00:39:50] Zack Katz: Interesting. Yeah. And it seems like when, if people are leaving the market and prices are going up, uh, due to increased, uh, same demand and reduced supply seems like an opportunity for consolidation and acquisitions as well. Uh, if people are getting out of the market.

[00:40:09] Vova Feldman: Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:40:12] Zack Katz: So Robert, uh, We're at the time in the episode where we ask best advice.

[00:40:18] And so what is your best advice for X marketplace sellers and, uh, how they can build a successful business?

[00:40:26] Vova Feldman: Yeah, I think we covered it, but I'll just give it a little like summary. So start collecting emails of your existing customers. Uh, if you still don't have a website, build that website and, you know, write your marketing copy, et cetera.

[00:40:45] If you have ways to start funneling traffic from Envato into your website and along with the emails, like start nurturing your users. Uh, building those like marketing habits, pull the plug on becoming non exclusive, start selling, you know, from your website. Uh, using preferably a merchant of record because that will solve a lot of headaches for you and you don't need to deal with sales taxes, et cetera.

[00:41:17] Uh, and gradually, you know, shift yourselves into becoming an independent and don't drop, I don't, again, I don't see a reason to drop the invent, like the product from your, Uh, from the marketplace, as long as the, you know, the value that you get, uh, is good enough to, uh, overcome the headache, the operational headache that you're getting from it.

[00:41:46] Uh, and yeah, do partnerships, talk to YouTubers, go to WordCamps. Uh, and another thing that I forgot to mention is, uh, it's free. Much better to try to overcome those challenges with additional people and not trying to do it yourself. So, you know, other authors, right. Join a mastermind like, or establish a mastermind and do it together, help each other, uh, talk to other people who are selling from their website.

[00:42:17] Like, like I feel that. The essence of the WordPress community is kind of accessibility and being open and helping and sharing. And like, I'm happy to help. I'm sure that you guys will be happy, you know, to, to, uh, give 15 minutes, 30 minutes to someone to, you know, help them out. So I feel there's a lot of help that you can just.

[00:42:41] You just need to take it, just ask it, you know, uh, and in the end it's, you know, you will need to execute, do the grind work and, you know, make, uh, make shit happen. You don't need to sweat.

[00:43:02] Katie Keith: So my best advice for people thinking at going independent and leaving the marketplace is to focus on what will really make a difference to your sales. Because I know that a lot of people, particularly developers, Like to do development and it's a bit of a shock to have to become a marketer and a business person all at the same time But do that.

[00:43:25] Um, for example, I have a senior developer who is also Envato marketplace seller and I was recently discussing with him Should he go how should he sell his own products and he was really tempted to do it do like WooCommerce or EDD and customize it. And he said, Oh, I'd really enjoy that. I said, no, that is a distraction.

[00:43:45] You can spend months doing that. You need to just get sales. Any platform that's not a marketplace will significantly reduce your costs compared to what you have been paying. So I would say focus on the things you're less comfortable with, unless you've got a business partner. do it for you. Focus on what will grow your sales, the pricing, the marketing, and don't get distracted.

[00:44:09] Zack Katz: That's good advice. And I think that the, my best advice is start with the smallest thing and get that done. I know for me, uh, saying like become an expert marketer is like, uh, just incredibly daunting thing that, uh, will prevent me from doing anything. So instead of saying, Set up a website, uh, start with register domain, started the smallest little piece and do that.

[00:44:35] Um, and I think finding a merchant record, like what I was talking about, Freemius is one of them, like lemon squeezy is another, uh, you can find a merchant of record that takes care of a chunk of things, including licensing, get that off your plate. You can always switch later. Uh, I know that F MIUs allows you to migrate away, I assume lemon squeezy does too.

[00:44:57] You're gonna love it. Uh, and if you don't, you can leave there too. Like, it's okay. Just do choose something. You're gonna be happy that you just got something set up. Uh, and then move on to the next, next task. That for me, like chat GPT has laid out. Just knock off a list. Yes. Vova.

[00:45:17] Vova Feldman: I want to emphasize what Katie said.

[00:45:19] If you've been already in the marketplace, you have a product, leave it alone. Okay. Like Katie said, focus on things that you, you know, the marketing side of things, leave the product development for some time. This is not what's going to change or make a difference on your sales. The main thing is that driving that traffic right now to your website.

[00:45:44] Zack Katz: And. I completely endorse the concept that customizing easy digital downloads or WooCommerce is a time sink and is a path to destruction. So

[00:45:56] Katie Keith: Zach and I have both done to death.

[00:45:58] Zack Katz: Yes. Well, thank you so much, uh, for joining us. Where can people find you online?

[00:46:07] Vova Feldman: Yeah, I'm on X, uh, at Vova Feldman, um, can email me Vova at freemuse.

[00:46:14] com, um, Instagram, whatever, all, every social network

[00:46:20] Zack Katz: I'm there. All right. Well, thank you all for watching. Uh, tune in next week as we discuss WordPress market share in a stacked episode. We have co hosts, Matt and Amber, and they're going to be speaking with guests. Noel Tok, Yos Devault, Miriam Schaub, uh, Rich Tabor.

[00:46:37] Take care. And they're going to be answering the question, is WordPress market share declining? And what can product businesses do about it? Don't miss it.

[00:46:44] Katie Keith: Interesting. So special thanks to PostStatus for being our green room. If you're enjoying these shows, then do us a favor and hit like, subscribe, share it with your friend, reference it in your newsletters.

[00:46:57] And most of all, we hope to see you next week. Bye.