Ask HN: Is wordpress premium theme development market saturated?

2 points·ericthegoodking··4 comments

I am thinking about starting to sell wordpress premium themes.I was wondering whether the market is saturated, from those who are experienced. Thanks

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What side of development is your strong point if I may ask? The design or dev side?

Anyway, the theme market continues to grow, so there is room. There is saturation in terms of similar looking themes. It's not hard to get an edge if you pick a good niche or you decide to actually put out better marketing. Lots of theme developers suck at the marketing/business side.

the development aspect of it.Where would you recommend i sell my themes?

I've done some research here. To me, the opportunity is not in theme selling, but marketplace ownership. Theme forest charges a 20% commission on every sale, and it's basically an uncontested market place. If you can align the incentives correctly you can out compete them. Of course the obvious challenge is reaching critical mass, but with some creative thinking and early spending, it could be done. Find ways to incentivize people to submit a design to you and not themeforest, then send enough PPC traffic to them to convince them you're better than themeforest.

A lot of up front costs, but I definitely think the opportunity is there, especially as long as Themeforst charges 20% for a service with very few marginal costs.

Marketing is quite hard! I sometimes think that the 30% taken by themeforest is actually worth it.

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