Just thinking is this a good idea to remove old items (5-6 months old) without any sales to minimise clutter in the portfolio. What do you guys think?
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Depends on what it is and how likely it might be to sell in the future. You never know when certain trends or designs or topics might become popular or have a resurgence.
Like if all your items were goats, for example. If a global pandemic breaks out tomorrow that kills all chickens, pigs, sheep and cows in the world… you’re going to be rolling in it. I couldn’t think of a digital products analogy, so animals will have to do.
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Something to worry about when the marketplace is running out of space 
Keep them, least this way they have a selling chance and it costs you nothing.
You heard it here first, folks! @SpaceStockFootage is predicting that the 2016 design trend will be goats. Don’t waste a second more! Go forth and create/upload your best goat content to Envato Market before the great chicken, pig, sheep and cow epidemic of 2016 hits earth! 
Here’s me riding into work this morning to tell Collis all about SpaceStockFootage’s exciting goat news:
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Why delete it? This should be Envato decision… Although I would approve deleting all “old” files with zero sales from all author’s portfolio, I will not delete mine by myself, renouncing to the opportunity to sell them, maybe! 
There are pros and cons to deleting old content, particularly content with zero sales. Here’s one argument to keep it: Some customers may not want to buy (a particular kind of) content that has thousands of sales… They might like something that has never been used/sold before so that their project is a little more unique.
It basically comes down to quality and utility. If your item either has quality or utility (or hopefully both), keep it up there. Look at some of the very popular PhotoDune authors btw - they all have a ton of zero selling content but they invest the time to shoot it and upload it because it has a potential to have utility to someone at some point in the future. And as everyone already knows, the microstock industry is a marathon, not a sprint… There’s a potential time and a place for all approved content.
Sidenote (because I’m a fan of irony): I like the contrast between authors posting in the forums about not being able to get one of their items approved and yet here we are, in another discussion, where an author is considering deleting an item that has already been approved, heh, heh. 
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Thanks. It makes perfect sense.
About the irony Actually i’m not considering to remove anything at all, i love my every item! 
I just want to develop a strategy for the future based on the experience of smart people like you guys
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I came for the discussion but stayed for the goat.
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hi, i think that’s a pretty bad idea personally, not only because this is not necessarily meaning that items are not good if they are not selling (some good ones make way less sales that some very poor ones sometimes ), not to mention that this is not meaning that an item will not work in time, i have already seen this, having an item making a very very very slow start and finally reaching a decent number of sales in the end … . besides, that would be a much better idea to try to take out all the copycat things that u can find almost everywhere and which are not necessarily good quality, plus to get rid of inconsistencies would be much better a deal indeed, to avoid to have as many poor and tasteless things would be a more efficient move indeed.
hi buddy, the strategy would be to get rid of inconsistencies and to make sure that there aren’t so many authors , items and submissions, but this is also what envato is based upon anyway … and probably what makes them N°1. On the other hand, the problem is that nowadays we are in kind of a vicious circle where all items are overfooded by others and in which this is hard to have huge sale with one item, not to mention that the system works better for all who can upload on regular basis , so basically increase the number of items on regular basis (sometimes opting for quantity rather than quality for that matter …)
You might not know that Flappy Bird had been not popular for a year 
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Couple of weeks ago I had a sale, it was 8 months old file with zero sales. I guess really persistent goat
A big no no, please let’s don’t suggest ideas that can affect the income of authors in a negative way (very simple…: no item, no chance of selling it ; but if there is an item, there is a chance to sell it), because we ALREADY have enough of those ideas.
Let’s assume that an author has an item that sells only 1 license each year.
What makes you think that the author doesn’t need that few bucks, even if it comes only once a year?
What if the author spent 5 months to build it yet it doesn’t sold a copy?
Now would it be fair to remove it?
There are people working for $5 a month in Cambodia (yes, $5 income in a month ; true story).
You can feed 110 people with $8 in Cambodia. (25 Kilos of Rice = $18)
$1 maybe nothing for you, but believe me it’s only your own story.
It’s authors’ decision, and it MUST remain that way.
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I had a zero sale item up for a couple of months and was considering deleting it.
Out of the blue - a 10million license.
Don’t delete!
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I have items with zero sales, but if they were called inspirationationationlacorporation. maybe they would have sold, you just never know, so instead of deleting, fix the damn search engine.
goats!!! - stayed here because I saw multiple envato community team members! Hope they will reply on other important thread about the Royalty Withholding Tax Threads
authors should not shoot a bullet in their own foot, and ask for things that both reduce freedom and hurt income, u are right, there are other ways to limit the too subsequent number of items anyway …
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I would try to bundle them up and create new offers and take a look at my sales pitch. Good luck Enrize
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Thank you for great tip! Good luck to you too!