MQL4/5 Market Place Ideas

[Max Brown]

I'm not sure where to write suggestions for MQL5 market place improvements so I've started this thread.

Suggestions:

1. Skipping the Economic theory, formula and such:  revenue will be maximised for both the vendor and Metaquotes if vendor functionality is enhanced to allow vendors to price the same product differently depending on when the product is purchased.  Customers who have been early adopters of a product deserve to have a better price for the life of the product/signal than laggard customers  simply put they we're wiling to bear more risk: risk reward etc.  Thus I propose that the vendor has the option to put a minimum price - say $30 and the maximum price - say $300  and a background algorithm automatically set the price to the stated minimum for a vendor specified first batch of customers (say, 25) then the price automatically increments up (say $35) for the next 25 customers and so on.  This creates a situation where demand accelerates per purchase and (assuming a product/service that delivers) the momentum of the accelerated demand could conceivable mean selling at the maximum price quicker than pricing alternatives. 
2. Customers who have purchased a product are periodically sent a write a review reminder.
3. Vendors have the option to add a 1 liner beneath a review;  such as "if you had contacted me I would have explained how to turn-on autotrading."

[Max Brown]

4.  Vendors should have the option to provide money back guarantees.  MQL5 would provide a vendor option to have relevant funds locked for a specified period that corresponds to the money back guarantee period.  I'd like to be able to offer this guarantee for periods of 1,2 and 3 months.  This will help to discourage vendors from listing EAs of poor quality and help to boost the sales of higher quality but relatively higher priced EAs.

5. Vendors should have an option to create product category folders to display products.  For example potential customers can search for EAs by the following categories:

 Martingale

 Grid

 Arbitrage

 Hedging

 Scalping

 News

 Trend

 Level trading

 Neural networks

 Multicurrency

For product presentation purposes it would be beneficial if vendors could place EAs in a category folder.  This would be beneficial because at present if a vendor is very productive he/she may create 100s of EAs which can be very confusing for potential customers to navigate thereby undermining the selling process.

[Max Brown]

6. Sometimes, a vendor may want to include a bonus product to customers.  At present, this has to be done outside the MQL5 validation framework which is not ideal since it is a way to circumvent the MQL5 validation control and rule processes.  A solution to this dilemma is to allow vendors to list bonus products and for a unlock code to be automatically sent to customers after they have left a review for the primary product.  If the bonus product is made available outside the MQL5 control processes then customers can be coerced into leaving only positive reviews in exchange for the bonus product.  Thus a product can then move towards MQL5 legendary status on the back of the coerced positive reviews which leads to an uneven competition field since some vendors conduct business more ethically and transparently.

7. A products comments section is a great way for customers and vendor to interact.  However, at present it can be very difficult for customers to keep up with vendor communication updates.  In fact, I have witnessed customers missing vendor communication updates from vendors of popular Expert Advisors or reading an out of date update.  This issue is more pronounced as an EA is further along its life-cycle when the comments section may run to 1000s of posts.  My suggested solution to this issue is to reserve post 1 for the vendor and remove the editing time limitation so the vendor can post critical communication updates at this location throughout the product life cycle.  This will save the customer and the vendor a lot of time and ensure customers never have to miss a communication update by a vendor.

8. Free signals are a great resource for many signal followers.  Many vendors also track the performance of their EAs for sale by using the free signal functionality.  This creates an issue for vendors of swing trading EAs; why would a potential customer of an EA make the purchase if they can simply copy the swing trades of the free signal.  Solution: the creation of free signal functionality that does not allow potential customers to subscribe and only shows the closed trades not open positions or pending orders.  This will allow vendors to keep a verifiable track of EA performance which customers can view before purchasing an EA; this will also ensure that EA demand incentives are not undermined by the free-rider problem.

[Max Brown]

9. If an EA buyer can purchase an algo from the marketplace for $45 and go on to make $50,000 a month in subscription fees based on the purchased algo, it tells you not only are sellers vastly underpricing their products but also a percentage of subscription fees from algos purchased on the marketplace should be payable to the creator of the algo'.  That way developers can focus on what they do best (program profitable models), signal providers can focus on the marketing of their signals and the developer isn't short changed by potential customers foregoing the purchase of their EA from the marketplace in favour of following a signal of a previous purchaser of the EA, because the developer would be guaranteed a fair percentage (50%) of subscription fees.  Afterall, the extremely difficult part of the process is the development of a profitable and robust EA so it is equitable the party responsible for the creation of the EA should benefit from both income streams.

In lieu of the income split, sellers should always full price their product in relation to the backtest unleveraged return then set a low rental price until the product is established.  So if someone comes along and starts to get subscription fee rich via renting the EA whilst simultaneously cannibalising the sales of the EA, the seller can simply stop rentals and the rich trader will be forced to buy the EA at the full (and fair) price.  

At the very least the algo' developer should receive a percentage of subscription fees per subscriber until the total subscription fee paid per subscriber equals the amount the signal provider paid for the EA.  This will remedy the obvious substitution effect on algo' developer' sales whenever a signal provider sells the trades of an algo' purchased from the MQL5 marketplace.

10. A signal mechanism is needed to allow trades to be analysed by magic number.  Many algo' developers do not want the headache of maintaining loads of signals to support the EAs for sale on the marketplace.  The option to be able to trade many EAs in the same account, from which a signal will feed, should be made available.  However, for this to be a workable solution it will be necessary to allow trades to be analysed by magic number.  This solution will save a lot of time for the developer allowing them to focus on what they do best: building profitable and robust models.  The dedicated algo' developer isn't a signal provider so a refinement of the process to maximize the specialisation of labour should be on the process improvement agenda.

[Flavio Javier Jarabeck]

Totally agree!

;)

[ForexWinner81]

Interresting read this was.

[Max Brown]

11.  It would be great if MQL5 could have an ongoing members survey to determine which type of EAs are in demand.  I'm not a believer in Say's Law so am reluctant to believe supply creates demand; having a better idea of EA consumer trends will facilitate a better allocation of resources at the developer end.  At present the only way to gauge trends is to watch which products are selling on the market which isn't ideal. 

[Max Brown]

12.  Functionality should be added to allow vendors to make batch product price changes.

13.  A product voucher system should be considered.  If a developer has several products they might want to offer a buy 2 get 1 free offer for customers who buy instead of rent.  The vendor could then go to the relevant product that the customers has chosen as their bonus, press "generate voucher" enter the customer's MQL5 id and the voucher would automatically be applied to the account of the customer as per the usual process.

[Max Brown]

14.  This relates to point 6.  

MT4 is inferior to MT5 consequently many developers will want to make the permanent move to MQL5 development.  However, it isn't fair to existing MT4 customers to expect them to pay for the same product on MT5.  To facilitate user migration to MT5 a bonus EA mechanism is required to allow developers to move from the old platform to MT5.  Offering products to existing customers using the "Free" option suffers from the Free-Rider problem.

[Max Brown]

15.  Each Month MQL5.COM should have a prize for most sales generated on the marketplace.  The prize could simply be a 10% reduction in the MQL5.COM cut of sales revenue to apply to the next month sales.  Selling is hard work and incentives have always had a motivational place in the sales industry.   This doesn't apply to signals for a variety of reasons.

[Lorentzos Roussos]

Max Brown:

14.  This relates to point 6.  

MT4 is inferior to MT5 consequently many developers will want to make the permanent move to MQL5 development.  However, it isn't fair to existing MT4 customers to expect them to pay for the same product on MT5.  To facilitate user migration to MT5 a bonus EA mechanism is required to allow developers to move from the old platform to MT5.  Offering products to existing customers using the "Free" option suffers from the Free-Rider problem.

Interesting point . 
Or the vendors could be asked to link mt4 products with mt5 equivalents , so a buyer of an MT4 product can download the MT5 equivalent (linked) from the market