What Buyers Want...

I’ve read several comments here from authors wanting to know how to succeed and sell more. And there have been some good answers too.

I just wanted to chime in and tell you how I shop here. First off, I am a buyer, pure and simple. I will probably never sell anything here. I like getting a great deal on something that moves me forward quickly in my projects. So what do I look for? Mainly,

- Quality - Originality - Reputation

For quality I want an item that is well designed and well implemented. It has been built by someone who knows what they are doing and someone who spends the time to make their items the best. Don’t fool yourself into thinking design and nice presentation do not matter! They do.

Regarding originality this one is getting tougher and tougher since everyone and their monkey is making preloaders, buttons, XML banner rotators, etc. for FD! But this is important as I am drawn to new stuff. Bottom line on this one is, if your new slideshow is basically just like the 100s of others on FD then invest your time in something else. I already own several from here and would only buy another if it truly rocked!

And of course reputation is very important. If I see you’ve got lots of items here and your sales are decent and the comments are generally positive and you appear to be willing to answer a question or two I’ll give you a try. If the item is good I’ll look for your logo next time I need something. There are many folks here who create such nice stuff that I don’t even hesitate to buy from them.

Now the one thing you might have noticed missing from my list is price. That’s because it really does not matter! Even the highest priced item on FD is a bargain if you can use it in a project or learn from it.

If I were going to be a seller here I’d first understand that success will take time and effort. Those guys making the big bucks work their butts off creating nice stuff and then refining and supporting their items.

I’d also study what is available here and try to make something new.

I’d also consider making sets or items that complement each other which I see some folks here doing. Personally I am a sucker for a set. If your horizontal accordion worked well for me you can count on me buying your vertical and diagonal ones too! If I loved your backgrounds pack #1 and #2, I’m already in line to grab #3!

I’d probably try and put some space between my submissions. Not a lot but maybe one or two a week to make sure you always have something on the home page at least once or twice during a week. That seems better to me than submitting a whole batch at once. But maybe the whole queue thing prohibits doing that effectively.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I hope they are worth every penny you paid for them!

great post, thanks

Nice Something for blog maybe?

Nice customer.

Considering you were in no way obliged to do that, thanks for such an informative buyers view

very useful topic

Thank you very much for sharing your opinion! Many useful points

Considering you were in no way obliged to do that, thanks for such an informative buyers view

1+

+1

This is a very interesting read. Before I became an author I was a buyer for about a year (created a new account for branding). I probably bought about 50 files. A few of my habits:

- I always came to the site looking for something specific and went straight to search. I never looked at the recent items and for the longest time thought the home page was void of a search option so I’d use the left nav and choose “Files” > “Browse Categories” so I could get to a search bar.

- I never payed much attention to who the author was.

- I never read comments unless I was having trouble with the file and needed to find a solution.

- I never went back to rate files or make comments.

Pretty much I’d buy a file and if worked great but if it didn’t I’d just buy another one. They’re so cheap that in the long run you still make out like a bandit.

So I guess if all customers were like me, quality search would be the most important thing.