This listing ended without a winner.
Accepted Payment Methods: Electronic Transfer, Cheque, Escrow.com
Notice: The following is a very lengthy and detailed post. Please read it carefully.
Brief introduction to the Market Theme
The market theme is a premium Wordpress theme that was launched in late February 2008. As my first premium theme it has become very successful and has brought in revenue of $11,360.80 in 5 full months (revenue breakdown below, final revenue total will be updated below on August 1st). The idea for the theme originally came about after I had down two back to back projects for clients who were both looking for ways to turn Wordpress into an ecommerce engine. Since its launch in the end of February, Market has been redesigned three times and now includes a product manager plugin as well as its own ajax shopping cart.
Why Sell?
First and foremost the number one question that is going to be on everyone’s mind is, “why sell in the first place?” Market has yet to reach its full potential, and this is a theme which with very little work and effort could bring in thousands of dollars in extra revenue a month. Because of how much work has been put into Market since its launch, there is really nothing a new owner would need to do besides reap the benefits of the revenue coming from the theme. With its own ajax cart, its own plugin, and three different designed versions of the theme, this is truly a "set it and forget it" project - a great way to make revenue without much effort. The theme will continue to work with future versions of Wordpress and as I said, because it has been updated so much in the five short months it has been around, there is very little that needs to be done over the next few months. It is a very attractive package and it will remain that way for a while without you needing to do a single thing.
I am selling this because it was an experimental project which ended up turning out very well, but it is time I personally move on. I have no had a chance to do client work since December because I have been busy perfecting this theme and trying to get the word out about it. I also want to be able to start a few new projects and enjoy my summer, I believe fully that this theme is only going to continue to grow and get bigger and bigger, but I am selling it so I can move on with other things, not because I have lost any faith in the project.
What you get:
With the purchase of the Market theme you will have full ownership to:
The value of this package itself would be around $5-6,000+. You are getting two (2) site designs / themes specifically for Markettheme.com, three (3) different designs / layouts of the Market Theme (versions 1-3), a custom built Ajax Cart and a backend plugin, all custom build specifically for use with the Market Theme.
*Market Product Manager by John Kolbert (admin@simply-basic.com)
*Ajax Cart developed by Devon Parris (thecreative.d@gmail.com)
Revenue, License, and Traffic Breakdown:
Included in this sale packet are breakdowns of each month through generated sales reports directly from Paypal. The month breakdown of revenue looks like this:
* - Designates that the figures are not yet final as there are a few remaining days left in the month.
There are two types of licenses: A standard license for $55 and a developer’s license for $150.00.
The license breakdown per month is as follows. You’ll notice that while it may appear profits have been on a significant decline, the large spike in profits for April 2008 was caused by the price increase when standard and developer’s licenses increased in cost. In fact, the same amount of licenses were sold in March 2008 as in April 2008, so profits have been holding steady around $2,000 per month on average.
*Designates not final license count as a few final days in the month exist. Will be updated on August 1st with final totals.
The only ongoing cost is a $5/month fee to E-Junkie, which I use to help process payments and make download notification instantly.
For traffic stats, please refer to the attachments to the right. There are also Paypal attachments which will verify the truthfulness of the revenue details above.
Additional ways to make income:
Beyond the traditional selling of the licenses, an affiliate program would be another option that would be able to bring in increased revenues for any new owner. When the theme first launched I had an affiliate program but I discontinued it before it got too large because I knew in the back of my head that I would be selling this sometime this summer and not all new owners would like the idea of having to participate in an affiliate program if they did not want to. It is however obviously an option, and I know there are plenty of premium Wordpress theme sites, other Wordpress resources, and individuals who would gladly sell copies of the Market theme for a small piece of the profits.
Selling of theme licenses. See full auction description for entire revenue rundown. Proof of revenue is in attachment which is a PDF of an exported Paypal report from Feb-June 24, as well as a csv for the rest of the time period (June 24-July 27). For privacy reasons for my customers I've removed individual names / addresses.
Where exactly are your sales coming from?
I own a similar forum/template reseller system (not directly related to yours in any way) and sales only come with more traffic. If you can prove to me that the sales will continue to hold steady after purchase you have yourself an interested buyer.
Of course, the more advertising, the more sales, but it is not required. I did some initial advertising early on with some funds I already had and made the rounds around forums promoting the product, but for the last month I've completely stopped. There's been a couple reviews out there (http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/03/04/market-wordpress-theme/ and http://wpthemesplugin.com/market-theme-for-wordpress/) which still drum up interest, the old posts on various forums, and direct links from customer and regular visitors alike, as well as direct traffic from Google. There is no reason why sales would slow down, they can only go up. The more and more people who continue to use the product and enjoy it, the further it will spread.
Also, another common question is how much time to I spend on customer support.
The answer is very little. Early on, I was swamped with support requests, but that has since died down and I get <5 requests a week, and usually they have been answered already but the customer didn't search the forums before asking. There are instructions on how to do just about anything with the theme in the forums (in the support + how to sections of the forums, both only viewable by customers because of the source code from the theme being shown). No one has found the theme that hard to understand :)
To further along the idea of current customers being good sources of traffic and future sales, a few of them even came to my first sale thread last month and shared there thoughts on the theme: http://marketplace.sitepoint.com/auctions/39340. I think it was extremely kind to see customers coming out sharing their opinions, and it is further proof that happy customers will lead to more and more customers, and no one has ever expressed to me that Market did not do what it advertised.
If the site is loading very slow or not at all, check back a little later. It appears we're having some server issues this morning. Sorry for the inconvenience.
How long do you expect this product to remain popular? In other words, for how many years into the future can this be bringing in money?
Pretty simple answer to that one. Blogging is constantly on the rise, and will people ever stop needing to sell things? Market provides a simple solution to a problem had by many. With it being so easy to use, updating the theme every 6 months or so with some new features could keep this going for years and years. One of the biggest benefits to Market is it can be used by anyone, whether you have design / development skills or not. I've also been told this theme could be especially helpful to crafters who have their own handmade items to sell but who don't have the tech knowledge to do so. This is whole different category of customers I have yet to tap into. While I can't put an exact date on when the theme will no longer be valid, all signs point to good things to come for this theme as it continues to build a reputation and gain popularity and notoriety around the web world.
Ok thanks, and how would one update this site? Also, do you provide after sales assistance/guidance to the new owner?
Yes - I'll gladly provide some consultation after a sale is had. I also have a plan I think would work pretty well for an update schedule. Now, I'm not sure if you're referring to updating the site itself (Markettheme.com) or the theme. Markettheme.com is also running on Wordpress, so it is very easy to update. As for the theme, I'm always available to do a version 4 of theme after the first of year, which would be a good time to release a major update for the theme.
I really see the potential in the business but will you really recommend this to someone that is not a PHP/WordPress expert?? Developing new features every six months and making the theme 100% compatible with newer versions of WP is a must and something I do not feel capable of. How much will you charge to make a new Market Theme version??
E-Junkie + Hosting + Some advertising + Developing fees .... Is there anything else missing??
Nope, your not missing anything. I would probably charge another $1k when the time comes to put together the next version. Even someone without php/wordpress knowledge could still benefit as being the owner of the project, because your taking in all the revenue. There's only one more scheduled Wordpress release for 2008, which is 2.7 due out in November. The theme itself will always work - I've been developing on Wordpress since 1.5, and the only reason themes stop working with new versions of Wordpress is because they include the odd and sparsely used tags which end up being deprecated or replaced. In the case of Market as has been the case in all my other themes, none of those random odds and ends that cause theme breakage are used. 2.5 was the most significant version of Wordpress this year, and it's hard to imagine any substantial code change until at least 2.8 (next year) but more than likely 3.0 (a year from now). That means the plugin should work without any problems with future versions of WP as well. Other than that, you're exactly right. A $5 ejunkie fee and hosting and you're good to go.
BTW, I'll be updating the post tomorrow with this months final figures. It's a couple hundred more than what's up this for this month at the moment.
Final July figures have been updated.
Anyone interested? I will continue to answer any questions, so if you do not feel like asking them here, please pm me or email me directly at hi@astereostudio.com.
If is bringing $2k average a month and if you really believe that "Market has yet to reach its full potential"... why not just keep it?? I know the product is really good. In fact... next week I'll be buying a $150 license for a client project I have. But getting rid of something that is so good makes really no sense. Specially when you say that "there is really nothing a new owner would need to do besides reap the benefits of the revenue coming from the theme". So how is that stopping you from getting new client work and enjoying your summer? It seems like you know something we don't and that right now its time to get rid of the project.
Not that I'm trying to make your auction look bad... I'm actually very interested. But you know what they say, "if it sounds to good..."
Understandable, yes. Correct, no :). I'm not new to large site sales, last summer I sold Devlounge, and not its on to the Market theme. As I said in the first sale post from last month, as a designer /developer, I can't sit still just looking at the theme as is. It's time consuming for me, because I'm always trying to improve things, whether in the theme itself or the site. I'm constantly tweaking things that don't even need any tweaking, it's just how I am. I always want to perfect the project so it's a constantly involved process for me personally. I'm also starting college in a month. I have expenses and things I need (new car for one) in which I am looking for money now as opposed to a monthly income. I can start a new project when this one is out of my hands for that. When you see the balanced monthly revenue stream, the constantly happy customers, and the plans for Market 4, there is nothing I am trying to hide within this sale. This theme continues to build steam, as all premium themes take extra time to be "accepted" within the Wordpress community. There are niches of people that will focused advertising you could double or triple monthly profits, and these are all things I have yet to tap into. I have a lot of things on my plate and would prefer the "cash now" as opposed to monthly revenue.
Hope that makes some sense.
If I am coming off as cocky in any way, its 1AM, so I apologize in advance. I hope you see for yourself when and if you purchase the theme :)
Just wanted to pop in and say i've bought one of astereo's sites before and not only was it extremely high quality coding (coming from another wordpress developer), but hes a really honest guy. If i had the money, I would seriously consider this. I think this is the first time he went business style with selling licenses to his work, and once again he's a success with it.
Thanks for the comments godigitalllc - I appreciate them.
By the way, I know the starting bid remains at $25,000. Ideally I am looking for between $35-50k, as estimated a few months ago in this thread: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=548428. Also, to further validate the reasoning behind me looking for a price in this range, Wpdesigner, which obviously had a lot more traffic and was much more established sold for somewhere in the $60k range here on SP, when its revenue was only less than $900 I believe. I don't think what I am seeking is too over the top. Feel free to email me and discuss.
At this rate a sale at the moment seems like it is not going to happen. I will continue to repost monthly because I would like to get this sold, but at the same time I am obligated to keep the site going strong. I'm going to be relaunching the affiliate program and initiating some other things while I wait to find a respectable buyer.
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