Is there still room in the theme world?

[wesbos]

The last year has seen an explosion of theme selling businesses. I've been wanting to start up something that sells themes to supplement my income as a web designer as well as have something to offer clients that cannot afford a custom design.

I've been thinking it over a lot in the past month or so and I'd like to hear some other opinions. Is the market for wordpress themes flooded, or is there still room for new (and smaller) entrants? Would I be better off starting more of a niche site, for example photography portfolio themes or themes for churches? Or should I just stick with selling on marketplaces like themeforest?

Whats are your thoughts?

[andrea_r]

Why not both? Sell generic stuff on theme forest, keep the niche stuff for a specialty site.

[wesbos]

If had unlimited time, I would. I'm trying to figure out where my efforts are best put.

[Martin]

Plenty of room for more theme selling businesses. As long as you create a good solid product and have good support along with it you will make money from it. Also advertising and promoting the themes help a lot also.

Why not create one photography theme then if that goes well create a theme for churches. Just cater for both fields.

[hafiz]

I'm curious with this one too. So generally the most efficient way for new theme designer/developer is to go the marketplace route instead of doing everything on his/her own?

[andreasnrb]

Hafiz. I think combining the two is the best. You then promote yourself as a possible consultant and also point people to where they can buy your themes.

[musik]

Personally I think there is a huge lack of suitable business orientated premium themes around. But you really have to have a good solid understanding of how business uses WP as a CMS to be able to create something useful. Most theme developers sadly lack this and create more blog themed designs.

As for selling, if you have the time and energy to put into a standalone website to sell from, and you are willing to dip your toes and jump into the WordPress community - (and your themes are any good) then you can make a good name for yourself and earn an income.

If you lack these, then selling on a site like ThemeForest is more suitable - they are already established and you can earn some good money if your theme is decent.

[davecoveney]

There is *always* room in any market - what you can't do, as time passes, is to compete on price or availability.

So come up with new ideas or something revolutionary and you've got a chance to make a name for yourself. Once you have that, the business is straightforward enough.

[Jeffro]

Since this is related, I suggest taking a look at this thread and submitting some questions for the guests to answer.

Themes April 3rd

[stuart]

Hi everyone :)
I've been lurking around the forum for a while and now I think its time I added something as I've just had some direct experience of this.

I recently set up my theme business with one theme in a niche market, and while its been reasonably slow to take off, after 6 months the income is regular, and growing at a rate of that will make me a very happy chappy revenue-wise if I can keep the growth rate up over the next year, as I develop my theme and define the market further.

I think the key is to find an under-serviced niche or a niche thats being done really poorly or unprofessionally at the moment.

Since there are a myriad of ways that WordPress can be used, and millions of users, so to there are a myriad of opportunities still to be found out there. Its just a matter of bogging in there, doing something better what already exists.

Now after 6 months helping my niche customers I have a pretty good idea of what they are after, and whats required to make create a killer theme for my niche.

So, yes there is still room out there.