First off, let’s talk communication. A number of you have forged relationships with key members of the MOJO team, and have become accustomed to reaching out directly. While we love having such a direct line of contact with you, this approach doesn’t scale very well, and could potentially result in frustration for you if those key team members aren’t available.

For this reason, we’d like each of you to submit all requests to: Sellers@MOJOMarketplace.com – We’ve created an internal committee dedicated to making sure your needs are met with redundancies in place to make sure this channel is resourced appropriately.

In addition to this dedicated resource channel, we’ll also be distributing updates such as this one quarterly throughout the year, and individual blog posts when necessary (such as new product announcements, contests, etc.) – So stay tuned!

Dedicated to continually evolving and innovating, we have a number of exciting initiatives in the works that directly impact you as the Seller. Expect full details to come, but here’s a short list of teasers:

• Overhauled Item Support – this has been a long time coming, but we’re close to releasing an all new way for users to receive item support at MOJOMarketplace.com. Features like up-voting, sticky posts, and integration within our messaging system should make your support obligations much easier to fulfill. We expect Users to appreciate the new functionality as well.
• MOJO Marketplace V2 – we’re currently working through a site-wide redesign to create a sleeker, more polished look and feel to help establish immediate trust and reputability when Users encounter our brand. We’ll also be make subtle tweaks and adjustments to improve conversion percentage and sales by streamlining search and browsing, checkout flow, and access to educational information.
• Affiliate Program – MOJO Marketplace’s affiliate program never really established a foothold as well as MOJO-Themes’ did. We’re committed to fostering and growing this program, which in turn, will equate to more sales for you.
• New Products – we recently launched Small Business Tools, and we’re close to releasing a product that provides users with on demand WordPress expertise for a monthly fee called WP Live. What does this mean for you? As we develop products meant to meet the full scope of needs for 4.5 million users, it establishes MOJO Marketplace as a one stop shop for all things web dev and increases repeat users and overall usage rates. In short: more theme sales.
• WordPress Theme Customizer Contest – Moving forward, we’d like to recommend to our users they select themes that make good use of, and integrate heavily with, the WordPress theme customizer API. We’re currently working on a contest to encourage customizer compatible theme development. More to come!

A common request we get from sellers is for access to better analytical data to help you make informed, strategic decisions regarding your theme development. Internally, we’re discussing a number of ways to better serve you actionable data, but in the meantime, we combed through our analytics data to uncover opportunities for you.

One of the best ways to improve theme sales is to cater extremely well to a specific niche. We reviewed our onsite search data and reconciled commonly searched niches with available products. Here’s what we found in order of niche category search volume:

• Real Estate – There are new real estate agents hitting the market every day, and they all need sites. We only have 13 WordPress Real Estate themes on site, and some are actually for things like Architect portfolio, or nightly rentals. While a number of these themes are done really well, none of our Real Estate themes have any MLS plugin integration. We expect Real Estate themes that add MLS integration will clean house on the marketplace.
• Music – We only have 6 WordPress themes for musicians. When thinking about how to make kick ass themes for musicians, consider Soundcloud integration, good use of Video integration, and gig scheduling. The ability to import gigs from Reverb Nation would be a huge selling feature.
• Education – Our 4th highest niche category search term, and only 3 WordPress themes on the marketplace.
• Food/Restaurant – Only 10 WordPress themes. Restaurant sites, like Real Estate sites, have a very clearly defined usage. Think Open Table integration and an easy way to manage menus via posts (under categories like Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, etc.). Individual menu item rating would be received very well by Restaurant owners.
• Fitness – We have 9 total themes, and only 3 WordPress. Fitness is a huge industry, and with CrossFit exploding nationwide, gyms are needing new websites daily. We only have 1 CrossFit centric theme and it’s Female specific.
• Wedding – We have some great Wedding themes on the marketplace, but only 4 of them.  This is a potential opportunity.
• Hotel – We have only 7 hotel WordPress themes. When catering to this niche integration with popular Property Management Systems, Booking Engines and GDN (not Google Display Network, Global Distribution Network, a worldwide Travel Agent utility)

Happy Developing!