blog: xplorer2 sales SOS
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pschroeter
- Silver Member
- Posts: 283
- Joined: 2007 Jan 27, 00:46
Sorry, I meant this post more as an expression of concern an
Sorry, I meant this post more as an expression of concern and support and wasn’t 100% serious when I wrote it. Right now its number two in my RSS menu below the new beta announcement and I’m just waiting for newer RRS feeds to push it completely out of the menu.nikos wrote:don't you see any other newer news?
Decline is sales isn't a happy thing, but let's face it - xplorer^2 has a more limited audience than a lot of other applications; it's targetted at power users. Trying to make it cater to a wider audience would risk making it less appealing to the PUs, and it would probably be wasted effort: painting a sledgehammer pink and wrapping it in ribbons doesn't make Barbie want it, and you can't really bend it's shape into something she wants.
Perhaps there's just not a whole lot of potential new buyers left, in which case the "remaining few" is probably going to be hard to reach. The target audience for a custom file management utility is limited in the first place, and there's several products competing for their attention!
As for "prettifying" the GUI... I personally don't mind icons, as long as they're stylish rather than glitzy. For instance, WinRARs default toolbar icons are pretty ugly. The large icons are more skillfully done, but they don't work well as icons: there's too much detail, which just serves as visual noise, and the set seems incoherent rather than belonging to one particular style.
Foxit Reader, on the other hand, uses an iconset that is more coherent, and while it contains some detail it's visually pleasing rather than visual noise. SmartGit is another application with a pleasing iconset.
Taste differs, though, and I can only speak for myself - I don't know how representative I am of the xplorer^2 target audience.
One thing I hope you never, ever add to xplorer^2 is custom skinning - such as bitmap backgrounds for the toolbar, custom painting of the title bar and other parts of the non-client window area, gradient dialog backgrounds etc. A very few specialized programs can get away with doing such custom look-and-feel, for the majority of applications it just feels tacky. Having skinning capability at all makes me frown a bit at the unnecessary wasted resources, not being having the option to disable skinning and use 100% native OS rendering can be enough to make me stop using an application.
Same goes for doing custom window animations that don't honor the systemwide window animation settings: for most applications, this is a cardinal sin. A few graphical extra touches here and there can be OK for certain applications, but for a powerhorse professional tool like xplorer^2 it would feel extremely out of place. #define NIKOS_CODE_LEAN_AND_MEAN .
One custom graphical touch I'd appreciate, though, would be the ability to override the color/style used for the item/file tracking bar (selected as well as hot-tracking and selected-but-app-not-focused) - I haven't been able to find a way to override these through windows color settings, and the defaults from the standard Win7 theme are way too subtle and lacking of contrast, which is a big problem on laptop screens in bright light. This is more of a usability rather than "oh wauw" effect, even if it might require subclassing the items control
But I digress.
The focus should be what you can do to make sure your income doesn't go entirely down the drain. If there's still some potential userbase, why haven't they jumped onto the bandwagon yet? Is it because they don't know of x^2? I'm afraid I don't know any good surefire way of getting positive exposure; I doubt you want to resort to tacky banner advertisement and the like.
Perhaps users of some of the other file management products could be convinced that x^2 is better, but this is dangerous path to walk down - it's not necessarily beneficial to advertise your product "in enemy territory", you risk doing more damage than good.
In reality, and I don't think this is going to be a very popular thing to say, I think the idea of free lifetime upgrades is bad. You're a honest guy, and offering free lifetime upgrades is a very laudable thing - it might even be a selling point for a fair amount of users (got any statistics?). But it does mean sales will dry out eventually, and more than one company has had to abandon a "free lifetime ugprades" policy - which tends to lead to outcry, mistrust and tarnished reputation; better to avoid it in the first place
But in the long term, I think it's a bad business decision. I don't think any of us are fans of recurring upgrade costs, and especially not of software "leasing" models. But in order to make a living, a developer kinda needs recurring sales.
I'm not suggesting that you do it, but if you do end up having to drop free lifetime upgrades, be honest about it: don't try to hide the fact by renaming your product and claiming that's it's an oh-so-entirely-brand-new-product and thus not covered by the previous guarantee - people don't fall for that trick. Limiting the amount of users cursing and fleeing might be achieved by being open about the change, and perhaps by keeping the promise to the users who already purchased lifetime guarantees.
Perhaps in order to add some incentive for those to do a paid upgrade anyway would be adding new features as a plugin - core application bugfixes and minor features would be free, whereas the new features in the plugin would cost. Again, be 100% honest about the decision, don't try to wrap it up as being an "all new dancing and singing plugin interface for your benefit!".
I think I've stated it before, but here it goes again: I personally wouldn't mind renewing my license every now and then, as xplorer^2 is an invaluable tool to me, and the pricetag is extremely reasonable. I wouldn't like time-based subscriptions (whether for using the program at all, or just time-based upgrades), I hate weasels trying to differentiate between "updates" and "upgrades", and I've also seen my share of "free minor updates" where the program suddenly gets it's major version bumped even though it's only received bugfixes and minor updates.
Unfortunately I don't have any rules of thumb for fairness or upgrade costs, except KISS: "Keep It Simple, Screaming out loud!" - having to compare large product feature matrixes (especially when discovering there's no way to get a reasonable subset of features without shelling out for the most expensive version) sucks. Having to choose between several different license renewal schemes and discounts suck. Pricing at "something-nine dollars and ninetyfive cents" sucks. It's easier to come up with things that suck than things that work
Heck, perhaps accepting donations (as an addition to, not a replacement for, the paid version) might be an option. It's something that would have to be considered considerately, though - it could end up being viewed as greedy or pitiful.
</ramble>
Perhaps there's just not a whole lot of potential new buyers left, in which case the "remaining few" is probably going to be hard to reach. The target audience for a custom file management utility is limited in the first place, and there's several products competing for their attention!
As for "prettifying" the GUI... I personally don't mind icons, as long as they're stylish rather than glitzy. For instance, WinRARs default toolbar icons are pretty ugly. The large icons are more skillfully done, but they don't work well as icons: there's too much detail, which just serves as visual noise, and the set seems incoherent rather than belonging to one particular style.
Foxit Reader, on the other hand, uses an iconset that is more coherent, and while it contains some detail it's visually pleasing rather than visual noise. SmartGit is another application with a pleasing iconset.
Taste differs, though, and I can only speak for myself - I don't know how representative I am of the xplorer^2 target audience.
One thing I hope you never, ever add to xplorer^2 is custom skinning - such as bitmap backgrounds for the toolbar, custom painting of the title bar and other parts of the non-client window area, gradient dialog backgrounds etc. A very few specialized programs can get away with doing such custom look-and-feel, for the majority of applications it just feels tacky. Having skinning capability at all makes me frown a bit at the unnecessary wasted resources, not being having the option to disable skinning and use 100% native OS rendering can be enough to make me stop using an application.
Same goes for doing custom window animations that don't honor the systemwide window animation settings: for most applications, this is a cardinal sin. A few graphical extra touches here and there can be OK for certain applications, but for a powerhorse professional tool like xplorer^2 it would feel extremely out of place. #define NIKOS_CODE_LEAN_AND_MEAN .
One custom graphical touch I'd appreciate, though, would be the ability to override the color/style used for the item/file tracking bar (selected as well as hot-tracking and selected-but-app-not-focused) - I haven't been able to find a way to override these through windows color settings, and the defaults from the standard Win7 theme are way too subtle and lacking of contrast, which is a big problem on laptop screens in bright light. This is more of a usability rather than "oh wauw" effect, even if it might require subclassing the items control
But I digress.
The focus should be what you can do to make sure your income doesn't go entirely down the drain. If there's still some potential userbase, why haven't they jumped onto the bandwagon yet? Is it because they don't know of x^2? I'm afraid I don't know any good surefire way of getting positive exposure; I doubt you want to resort to tacky banner advertisement and the like.
Perhaps users of some of the other file management products could be convinced that x^2 is better, but this is dangerous path to walk down - it's not necessarily beneficial to advertise your product "in enemy territory", you risk doing more damage than good.
In reality, and I don't think this is going to be a very popular thing to say, I think the idea of free lifetime upgrades is bad. You're a honest guy, and offering free lifetime upgrades is a very laudable thing - it might even be a selling point for a fair amount of users (got any statistics?). But it does mean sales will dry out eventually, and more than one company has had to abandon a "free lifetime ugprades" policy - which tends to lead to outcry, mistrust and tarnished reputation; better to avoid it in the first place
But in the long term, I think it's a bad business decision. I don't think any of us are fans of recurring upgrade costs, and especially not of software "leasing" models. But in order to make a living, a developer kinda needs recurring sales.
I'm not suggesting that you do it, but if you do end up having to drop free lifetime upgrades, be honest about it: don't try to hide the fact by renaming your product and claiming that's it's an oh-so-entirely-brand-new-product and thus not covered by the previous guarantee - people don't fall for that trick. Limiting the amount of users cursing and fleeing might be achieved by being open about the change, and perhaps by keeping the promise to the users who already purchased lifetime guarantees.
Perhaps in order to add some incentive for those to do a paid upgrade anyway would be adding new features as a plugin - core application bugfixes and minor features would be free, whereas the new features in the plugin would cost. Again, be 100% honest about the decision, don't try to wrap it up as being an "all new dancing and singing plugin interface for your benefit!".
I think I've stated it before, but here it goes again: I personally wouldn't mind renewing my license every now and then, as xplorer^2 is an invaluable tool to me, and the pricetag is extremely reasonable. I wouldn't like time-based subscriptions (whether for using the program at all, or just time-based upgrades), I hate weasels trying to differentiate between "updates" and "upgrades", and I've also seen my share of "free minor updates" where the program suddenly gets it's major version bumped even though it's only received bugfixes and minor updates.
Unfortunately I don't have any rules of thumb for fairness or upgrade costs, except KISS: "Keep It Simple, Screaming out loud!" - having to compare large product feature matrixes (especially when discovering there's no way to get a reasonable subset of features without shelling out for the most expensive version) sucks. Having to choose between several different license renewal schemes and discounts suck. Pricing at "something-nine dollars and ninetyfive cents" sucks. It's easier to come up with things that suck than things that work
Heck, perhaps accepting donations (as an addition to, not a replacement for, the paid version) might be an option. It's something that would have to be considered considerately, though - it could end up being viewed as greedy or pitiful.
</ramble>
I think that there are a lot of potential x2 users. Problem is, they don't know they need it. This your average email and office user. What's even worse is that even if you show them, they still prefer to do things in a cumbersome way through explorer, rather than spend a little time learning a better solution.
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Gary M. Mugford
- Bronze Member
- Posts: 150
- Joined: 2009 Oct 14, 00:54
- Location: Brampton ON Canada
Nikos, if you are refering to PsomethingDesk, I got offered the v8 upgrade for 20 bucks. And passed. x2 is where I live now. Besides, fool me once, shame on you, fool me again, and I SHOULD expect the program to disappear again.nikos wrote:my latest theory on the low sales is that a certain competitor released a long awaited w7 compatible version and has pulled back its old long term customers. Or it could be the alignment of the saturn sattelites
Other than occasionally pressing ctrl=shift=Z to zip up a file or a collection of files and getting an easy history of files and their locations, thus letting me pick one and then change it slightly to be new, I can live without anything my old paramour offers that is supposedly unique. Even dual tree panes. If you DID decide to add some of those old features into x2 I wouldn't complain.
But I don't NEED them. Or it.
GM
Which is because they don't need powerful file management - if all you do is handle a few downloads and attach the occasional .doc or .pdf to an email message, explorer is more than adequate.railshot wrote:I think that there are a lot of potential x2 users. Problem is, they don't know they need it. This your average email and office user. What's even worse is that even if you show them, they still prefer to do things in a cumbersome way through explorer, rather than spend a little time learning a better solution.
Two words....
Nikos,
Two words... competative upgrade.
Another way of increasing your sales is decreasing your competitors sales.
Its not enough to go after "virgin" customers. Entice your competitors clients by offering them a 50%-75% discount in anticipation of upgrade sales later.
I also think that the crack tracker thing hurts sales. while not every pirate out there is going to buy a license, some who actually NEED the program will. So what if there are 25,000 dead beats out there using the program. If they really dont NEED it they will NEVER pay for it. Eliminating cracked downloads also limits exposure of the program to possible paying customers.
Autodesk gained alot of market share by every CAD student having a cracked verion at home thus helping to make AutoCAD the defacto standard because there became an army of AutoCAD clones.
just my 2 cents
Two words... competative upgrade.
Another way of increasing your sales is decreasing your competitors sales.
Its not enough to go after "virgin" customers. Entice your competitors clients by offering them a 50%-75% discount in anticipation of upgrade sales later.
I also think that the crack tracker thing hurts sales. while not every pirate out there is going to buy a license, some who actually NEED the program will. So what if there are 25,000 dead beats out there using the program. If they really dont NEED it they will NEVER pay for it. Eliminating cracked downloads also limits exposure of the program to possible paying customers.
Autodesk gained alot of market share by every CAD student having a cracked verion at home thus helping to make AutoCAD the defacto standard because there became an army of AutoCAD clones.
just my 2 cents
maybe...
Hi,
Maybe the reason is that the free version offers 'most' users what they need - a dual pane file manager.
I noticed that the 'free' version was sort-of hidden on the site (like skins 'were') which probably helped in some way to avoid people choosing it.
When people use the free version and they select a Pro feature they're taken to the website for the Pro 'trial' version. It could be that you're hurting yourself in a round-about way by offering most 'regular' features for free. How many people have come to Pro from Free would be interesting to know...
Maybe the reason is that the free version offers 'most' users what they need - a dual pane file manager.
I noticed that the 'free' version was sort-of hidden on the site (like skins 'were'
) which probably helped in some way to avoid people choosing it.When people use the free version and they select a Pro feature they're taken to the website for the Pro 'trial' version. It could be that you're hurting yourself in a round-about way by offering most 'regular' features for free. How many people have come to Pro from Free would be interesting to know...
Live life...
Re: maybe...
I tend to disagree. I've seen reviews out there saying not to bother with the pro version since the free one is all one needs. Problem is - there are plenty of free dual pane managers that offer functionality comparable to the free xplorer.profess wrote:Hi,
Maybe the reason is that the free version offers 'most' users what they need - a dual pane file manager.
I noticed that the 'free' version was sort-of hidden on the site (like skins 'were'
When people use the free version and they select a Pro feature they're taken to the website for the Pro 'trial' version. It could be that you're hurting yourself in a round-about way by offering most 'regular' features for free. How many people have come to Pro from Free would be interesting to know...
I started with a free version, and at first it was enough. But as got more familiar with it, and started using more advanced features, I realized that paying for a pro version is money well spent.
One thing that was a straw that broke the camel's back for me is very liberal licensing that Nikos offers. I wish it was spelled out more clearly, because it took me some digging to realize that I can use a single license on every computer I use. As most computer enthusiasts, I use more than one PC. I use six in fact. There is work computer, work laptop, home computer, home laptop, netbook and a server. I would never pay for a separate license for each of them. And yes, I am the only one using them. Ability to use xplorer pro on all of my comps was one of the major selling points.
Compare it to DOpus which treats it's customers as pirates. I actually bought a license for it too (mainly for rar support and better 64 bit preview functionality) but after a few months switched back to xplorer. Xplorer's licensing scheme was not the only reason, but it was a major one.
Hi :D
I've used xplorer2 for many years. I'm sorry to hear about the sales glitch and hope that it is history by now.
I use it because of
dual panes
double clicking for "back"
multi-file type previews
secure file deletion (shred)
easy and powerful in file find
easy unzipping
robust copy
great support
free upgrades
sticky selection
in that order of importance.
I still can't get my head around custom groups and folder groups
I'm not so sure that the techy nature and raw power of the programme limits the clientel to high power users. It is robust, easily adaptable and very easy to use for everyday tasks. I'm sure that when (if?) I get my head around "customize" I can tune it to my way of working even more!
Perhaps the following might help clarify/reassure the sort of users who would benefit from it:
- an emphasis on it's ease of use without having to get bogged down in the under the bonnet complexity
- examples of groups of tools that particular types of users might use
- a little more clarity (setup tutorials) for customise options
- examples of power uses
The suggestion of new versions for the sake of it is what has lead to bloatware - a discount for users transferring from another manager might work, though if you don't charge for updates, you only get a one off small fee!
Perhaps making the free version a little less powerful might persuade more converts - though not to the extent it becomes crippleware - which is never good advertising.
Anyway, long may you new recruit have food in her pretty mouth and you have sweet dreams
I've used xplorer2 for many years. I'm sorry to hear about the sales glitch and hope that it is history by now.
I use it because of
dual panes
double clicking for "back"
multi-file type previews
secure file deletion (shred)
easy and powerful in file find
easy unzipping
robust copy
great support
free upgrades
sticky selection
in that order of importance.
I still can't get my head around custom groups and folder groups
I'm not so sure that the techy nature and raw power of the programme limits the clientel to high power users. It is robust, easily adaptable and very easy to use for everyday tasks. I'm sure that when (if?) I get my head around "customize" I can tune it to my way of working even more!
Perhaps the following might help clarify/reassure the sort of users who would benefit from it:
- an emphasis on it's ease of use without having to get bogged down in the under the bonnet complexity
- examples of groups of tools that particular types of users might use
- a little more clarity (setup tutorials) for customise options
- examples of power uses
The suggestion of new versions for the sake of it is what has lead to bloatware - a discount for users transferring from another manager might work, though if you don't charge for updates, you only get a one off small fee!
Perhaps making the free version a little less powerful might persuade more converts - though not to the extent it becomes crippleware - which is never good advertising.
Anyway, long may you new recruit have food in her pretty mouth and you have sweet dreams