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Store Prices - it affects us all | Forum

Topic location: Forum home » Support » Oxwall Store
dave Leader
dave May 24 '16
Again i am starting to see prices in the store that i feel (yes my opinion) are way too much for this venue.  Some of you are shooting yourself in the foot by trying to get big money quick rather than more sales over the long haul. 


If your sales are suffering then look at your prices. I see some that are more than $50 and some that are almost $100 and that is too much for the consumers we have folks.  


I know what it takes to make a plugin, i know the hard work and hours and hours you put into your plugin. But you also have to understand the market that you are offering your plugins to. 


This is not prestashop where you can get $80-$200 for a plugin and people will pay it, that is a totally different market and if you want that kind of money then you really need to make plugins for prestashop not here.


I am not saying that our market is cheap, just different. It has a different set of clients that come for different reasons and many of them just cannot afford (and will not buy) high prices items. 


For example, my ostore plugin is 80+ files with many of them being quite long in coding lines, which i believe is one of the larger if not the largest plugin we have in the store.  And its less than $30 because i know that our market cannot handle high priced plugins. Now if i did the same plugin at prestashop yes i would charge $200+ for it but again that is a different market. 


I am not trying to run your business for you, but how you run your business also affects other store owners.  For example, you have a high priced item and people naturally compare your item price to others. So they naturally may think that a $20 item must be a peace of junk because its not high priced. 


Or maybe they get your high priced item and it does not work for them or they have issues you wont fix. Then they may think that if they have that experience with high priced items then they may get horrible service for a $20 item. 


This is no different than any other competitive market and business in general, it is just part of doing business however think about how you shoot yourself in the foot in the long run. 


For example,  someone comes to Oxwall to start up a site, they see some things they need in the store and they either say "oh thats cool its worth that" or they say "wow no way i am paying that price"  and we have a 50/50 shot at getting them on board with Oxwall. 


If we get them on board with Oxwall then we have more users, more users means more need for plugins, and that means more forum traffic, and that means more users which means more store sales for all of us. 


It's all inclusive folks, you may have your own store but we are all part of a team, and if you don't or cant see that then you really need to take a another hard look at our market again and rethink your prices.  In my opinion there is NO plugin worth $100 in an Oxwall market right now. The highest i would ever go on any plugin is $45 max.  It is just a sign of the times we live in.  


I believe that if you lower your prices you will get more revenue over the long term than a quick buck now.  And that is my marketing choice not only because of the market but because its not all about money with me, its about helping people as well. I hope all of you will consider taking another look at your marketing strategy and reconsider your prices to not only help Oxwall grow, but to grow together. 


Thanks 

Dave :)


The Forum post is edited by dave May 24 '16
Tecca
Tecca May 24 '16
I've purchased 37 plugins and after all of that money spent, I'm down with not spending anymore in the store; I'll either make my own plugins or purchase the ones on the cheaper end of the spectrum.

I'm seeing a lot of plugins that are quite pricey for Oxwall, an open source platform that seems to only have features via paid plugins. There are other similar platforms that end up being much cheaper with roughly the same features, which is probably why Oxwall isn't a booming platform right now. The store promotes high-priced items while the Oxwall team keeps the core of Oxwall bare-bones.

At a certain point, a lot of people realize this method of sales is only in the interest of developers. End users need to pay an arm and a leg for Oxwall features that are generally standard in software elsewhere. This is coming from a small business owner that has the funds to spend on this sort of stuff. I believe most Oxwall users are hobbyists and don't earn a living through their websites, which is even more reason to stay away from the platform.

Add that onto the fact that most developers that have plugins in the store don't provide support or timely updates, and it's a recipe for disaster. If it continues this way, I'll likely start developing my site on my own using Oxwall and the plugins I've purchased, and branch away from it altogether.

With that said, Oxwall still has so much promise. But it's ultimately up to both the team and the third party developers to come up with reasonable standards before it becomes too late.

We need to realize that, like Dave said above, lower-priced items will yield more sales. Users buying plugins don't just buy one, they buy many — and the costs add up quickly, so many will decide to simply not purchase any. The benefits of lower priced items extend beyond additional sales, as these same buyers will be recommending Oxwall via word of mouth and the copyright notice on their sites. They would actually be using Oxwall rather than shopping elsewhere for a different platform. Help the buyers to help you.

Good topic, Dave. Respect.
dave Leader
dave May 24 '16
Thanks Bryan, respect back :)  very nice well worded reply yourself and all very true. 


There are changes coming folks, if i knew when i would tell you. But they will come, there are talks of major changes coming soon in the developers world as far as approval and coding standards and possibly some store policies. I also don't know what policies will be added and how they will progress the standards along the way.


For which i will warn some of you developers sitting back collecting funds and not supporting your products or putting out trashy coding, clean your act up now or you will be left in the dust come that time.  If you refuse to offer quality we don't need you around here, pack up your store, close it down and go dump your garbage on another platforms step. We would rather do without then deal with such things.  I will stop there as i don't want to rant here. I will just say you have been warned. 


I feel that Oxwall can get there, we just have to keep pushing forward one step at a time and not let the "not so good things" right now beat us down because they will get better as well. 

The Forum post is edited by dave May 24 '16
Webster Molaudi
Webster Molaudi May 25 '16
I do agree with you guys i have paid $50 for Oxwall mobile and since the developer disappeared and im left with a plugin that is not working :( Now i always buy from Dev.'s who update regularly based on when last the plugins were updated.

This is a risky business because some are here just for a quick buck...!!
dave Leader
dave May 25 '16
Yep Webster i feel for ya man... i hate to see that happen to anyone. 


Oxwall i believe has the long term goal to rid the store of the "midnight express" developers but it is a long road. There will be trials and errors and attempts along the way which some work and some don't.  However in the long term i believe it will achieve its goal and turn the store into a positive consumer friendly place to shop. 


I did not mention this in my first post but i also have a big issue with developers that charge a high price for their plugin that does not even include a payment gateway of any kind.  You have to also buy this and buy that in order for anything to work. That is BS in my book.  If you are going to charge a high price for your plugin, at least include a basic gateway.  My ostore has one, you don't need to purchase anything else, the basic paypal gateway is included in the box.  This is how you add value to your product, not by just tossing a high price sticker on it, but in small print saying "oh by the way you need this and that"  its not right where i come from.   



The Forum post is edited by dave May 25 '16
Abbey
Abbey May 29 '16
I'm lucky, I've been using oxwall for close on 6 years so many Oxwall plugins that are pricey now I got at the earlier cheaper price. I will overlook anything over $20 now though, I have to think of exchange rates and a $30 plugin actually costs me more around $50NZD.
Devs do need to think about lost sales... is it not better to make 6 sales at $20 than 1 at $50?
More sales mean more money, more review and happier customers.
Webster Molaudi
Webster Molaudi May 29 '16
That is true Abbey, Most Dev's don't think of that and what i hate is they make money and disappear without updatin their plugins for those who paid a lot for plugins
Quote from Abbey I'm lucky, I've been using oxwall for close on 6 years so many Oxwall plugins that are pricey now I got at the earlier cheaper price. I will overlook anything over $20 now though, I have to think of exchange rates and a $30 plugin actually costs me more around $50NZD.
Devs do need to think about lost sales... is it not better to make 6 sales at $20 than 1 at $50?
More sales mean more money, more review and happier customers.

dave Leader
dave Jun 19 '16
Tammy, please stay on topic.  Please do not use a topic as an excuse to discuss other issues you may have. Just because there is a topic relating to an issue is not an open door to go willy nilly discussing a whole list of what may be other issues.   If you have an issue or a bug then address that issue properly and do a topic for it in the support section.   
The Forum post is edited by dave Jun 19 '16