TurboSquid has partnered with amanaimages, Japan’s leading seller of stock photography. The partnership opens up the opportunity for members of the SquidGuild Network to distribute their 3D models to the rich but largely untapped market in Asia.
Japan has the world's 3rd largest GDP and a huge amount of 3D production, however sales to Japanese customers account for a tiny percentage of the revenue that TurboSquid receives. This is largely due to the language and cultural differences when operating in the Japanese market. Japanese customers, like American customers and those of other cultures, prefer to buy from a website in their own language, with customer support in their language, localized payment methods and the billing cycles that they are accustomed to. In no other country are the differences so strong and the opportunity so large as in Japan.
For those reasons, TurboSquid partnered with a Japanese company that will sell our artists' products to this largely untapped market. Our partner has taken all the descriptions and thumbnails for all priced 3D models and textures by SquidGuild artists and has translated them into their own Japanese website. They will provide a large sales force and a full support team to handle all sales. We've worked with them over the last few months to setup this distribution process and integration into our sales and royalty payments process.
Royalty rates for TurboSquid and artists will be slightly lower (see below) , but artists are given the ability to opt-out of selling on the amanaimages site if they do not wish to be a part of the program.