Would it improve or harm sales?
 

I'm thinking of putting up on the site, for registered users to see, the number of times a set has been sold. Do you think this will harm sale or help them.

This will probably only be www.paulmarkham.com because anyone deluded enough to think the $5 sets on www.bargainbasementcontent.com are not flying out should not be in this business.

would probably work both ways... when its low people buy quick, more sets sold, i think less people will buy. but people will still buy what they like.

Harm for sure.
Everyone wants what noone else has.

It would only help move new sets or ones that havent been sold alot, otherwise it would just hurt, or maybe just make people more picky in the sets they choose.

don't do it Paul - all people will easy count that you must be a millionaire:glugglug

I feel it'd help new sets initially, but harm the sales in the long run. On the other hand, if it's not exclusive content, people should expect more than a few webmasters to have purchased the sets. Personally, I like knowing how many times something has been sold, but as far as marketing on your end, I think you'd be better off without the count posted.

interesting idea.

my thoughts exactly...

It's tricky, because some people want to see exclusive content, others that something sells, but I think you should put it, for those who want exclusive content, they can get the least sold photo sets anyway :) Try it for a several weeks and see the trend.

So what if I was to make it only visible on the sets that had been added in the last four weeks?

We do it since a long time and I just can say it realy doesn't matter at all. Nothing will happen :)

I think Zappu's right - for the most part it wouldn't have an impact on sales except on a few sets in the extremes - too few sold or too many sold.

Of course, Charly should give it a try if he wants to - the count for the new sets (until they reach 10 for example) will surely be a booster.

most webmasters wouldn't have a fucking clue what the number of sets sold would mean in real exposure/market penetration terms.