Show IH: ProPluginShop A Marketplace for Premium WordPress Plugins
Hey guys, I'm a college student and this is a side project I've been working on and off for almost a year (although the website has only been around a few months)
The official wordpress directory doesn't allow paid plugins. The whole idea of my website is to become THE place to go for premium wordpress plugins. Unlike a traditional marketplaces (Codecanyon), it's free to list your plugin and there are no fees when someone buys your product. That's because we don't handle all the payment processing and stuff a traditional marketplace does. Just advertising. So it's more of a directory actually. You could probably post your plugin on Codecanyon then post it on ProPluginShop with a link back to Codecanyon and likely meet the requirements of an Exclusive author.
Benefits for developers:
- No fees
- Free eyeballs
- Easy to sign up
- Less of a race to the bottom
Benefits for buyers
- Cheaper prices (in theory)
- No need for Codecanyons special policies on refunds
- Every plugin you can imagine in one place for easy comparison (eventually)
The functionality of the website is finished now: www.ProPluginShop.com
Any advice would be appreciated, especially on getting traction because that's where I know I'll struggle the most. If anyone is in the wordpress niche, I'd be especially grateful for any kind of tips.
This is the second WordPress theme/plugin directory I've seen pop up in the last two weeks so maybe there's some demand for this kind of thing.
The term "marketplace" doesn't line up with what you are offering though so I would suggest ditching that to avoid confusion.
I talk to a lot of WordPress plugin developers for my site, The Plugin Economy, and across the board people need help with marketing their products so I think there's some use here but...
You're going to need to drive a lot of traffic to the site itself and, more importantly, on to the plugin landing pages. I think until you can prove this concept with traffic you're going to be stuck adding plugins on your own.
I haven't see anyone doing this kind of thing recently. I'd like to scope them out and learn their tricks 😜
Nice website! It looks like you have some good content and it's only a few months older than mine. You have quite a few interviews with developers. Do you just cold email them or what?
I know it will take a while to get the traffic I need to make everything self sustaining. For the product listings at least, I'm focusing a lot on seo. I require 200 words of unique content for each listing. Other than that, I've got some guest posts I'm planning for backlinks. It will take time but I'll get there.
Here's the other one I saw recently: LyrWP
I started The Plugin Economy back in June and I've tried to do one interview per week but sometimes work gets in the way or people are slow to respond. Almost all of the interviews started with cold emails.
Congratulations on the launch!
As a WP plugin developer, I applaud projects like this and want to see it succeed! I'm firmly against the high fees from CodeCanyon so I am building my own WP brand and I can attest to the fact that it is hard and projects like yours are a welcome relief :-).
Now that your website is finished, the hardest part comes: you'll have to market it via word-of-mouth, paid advertising, social strategies, etc ... It will be a difficult and slow process, but I hope you're up for it.
Some feedback:
I hate it when websites take over my scrolling experience. I can set the speed of scrolling in my OS settings, so naturally I'm happy with my own settings and don't need a website deciding otherwise!
I'm not sure what your favicon is but it looks like a turd 😜.
The website looks professional, except for your logo (in my opinion of course).
Feel free to list my plugins on your website (find them on https://studiowombat.com/). I'd be happy to give you a 10% discount coupon.
Thanks for the support dude! It's comments like yours that motivate me and remind me that this is something that a lot of people need. I worked pretty hard the last few days to get the website done before the new year. 2018 is all about marketing (biggest challenge yet). I really believe this could be big someday.
As for the scrolling part, it's really surprising because I use chrome on windows and never had an issue. Even on mobile. I'll have to contact the theme developers today so they can tell me how to remove whatever scroll bar settings they wrote.
I'll change my favicon too. Now that you mention it, I could see how it looks like a turd 😱
I'm glad you think the website looks professional! I'm not a designer (as you can see with the logo) so I was a bit worried. I promise you, the logo will be the first thing to go when I make my first $100. I want to get it professionally done.
I'd love to list your plugins and thanks for the 10% coupon too! I'll write it up for you or you can create an account if you wanted to do it yourself. I'll send you an email at support@studiowombat.com. You can catch me at hello@mg.propluginshop.com
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
Wow! First of all thanks for the great feedback.
Thinking about it now, I think it does have more in common with a directory so I'll change my wording when I post it elsewhere.
Q: What is the problem you're trying to solve?
A: You got it right. I'm trying to solve the problem of there not being a good way to find commercial plugins.
Q: What is the incentive for plugin developers to list their products in your directory?
A: Marketing, promotion and getting new customers. From what I've seen, a lot of people start off on CodeCanyon for the payment processing and other stuff. When they outgrow it and start their own brand and website they have a hard time getting new customers (which is where my website comes in).
Edit: I forgot, the people at freemius.com has made payment processing for wordpress a snap anyway. Codecanyon might be on it's way out
Q: How can you claim lower prices if you don't handle payments?
A: I figured developers would be able to lower their price since we don't take a cut. Also they can do discounts and other pricing strategies you can't on a marketplace
Q: Do you have any plans on conquering the great "chicken and egg" problem that accompanies marketplace-type businesses?
A: Honestly, that's a real work in progress. I've emailed a lot of developers since I think they'd be easier to get first. Some have signed up (like Michael de Libero from www.rsvpproplugin.com. He gave me a nice coupon too!). I figure buyers will come easier once there's enough products. I'm also writing blog posts for traffic. Starting this year, I want to market to wordpress specific forums, subreddits, guest blogs etc. I could see it taking a year or two before all this pays off though
Q: How do you plan on monetizing if everything is free?
A: If possible, I sign up to the developers affiliate program. If they don't have one I accept them anyway 🙃 I'm planning on doing reviews and tutorials for the ones with affiliate programs. Worst come to worst ads or a small yearly fee for developers. Not so worried about this right now since my parents pay for everything
Btw, scrolling your site with a magic mouse on a Mac is broken for me.
I don't really know what a magic mouse is and I don't use a mac. Thanks for the heads up though, I'll have to investigate that