1 star rating by the buyer asking to support after support expired

Yeah. The author should respond for pre-sales and simple questions. He might missed to read your comment just looking at “Support Expired”.

I’m afraid it won’t work. You will rarely get a donation, most buyers will think that, since they paid for a product, they are entitled to receive support. Even for products given away for free, donations are extremely rare (I have quite a bit of experience from that perspective).

Hi,
I agree I just recevied 2 stars from 5 stars, due a user asked support after support period expired. Incredibile.
Federico

Hi, the other day it happened to me as well. support expired and additionally the buyer was asking customization on theme which clearly declared that no customization service. Yet I got 1 star and Envato staff didn’t even remove it no matter what I said. You better get use to it and remember we’re all alone.

Cheers

This brings up my question - should we even respect the support expired badge?. If Envato doesn’t provide help authors handle support, should we even bother? I’m starting to think that we should ignore the new “support expired” badges because it clearly shows that that’s only going to annoy our customers, and Envato doesn’t care.

Still no reply from Envato though :confused:

Edit: On top of everything else - have a look at another authors comments. All of the comments appear as “Purchased”. So when you’re saying that you will not be providing support, other buyers will read that, and some might not understand why because a commenter with the “Purchased” badge has clearly purchased your product. A complete mess.

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best way to handle this will be … provide support even after its expired … and in the end just ask them to buy … if they need any help in future

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I agree with @JoomlaBuff and I am sure that @envato will fix it. Dear @envato, please stay with us.

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Wondering - 12 days passed since this topic was created and no reply from staff. If you are working on it, make an announcement, because we feel that you are ignoring us. Please show up or we’ll start ignoring support rules to avoid 1 star ratings.

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That’s the point. We’re going to lose new customers and old customers at the same time, with this expired support

I also opened a thread about this a little while ago, staff said they’re looking into it. Right…

I personally got my first 1 star rating from a buyer not wanting to purchase extended support got pissed because he can’t access the private support site. Contacted Envato they did nothing but respond with some canned email stating the rating is within the guidelines literally ridiculous.

My original thread: Buyers still able to rate item after support has expired, what?

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I have created a new thread on similar topic but this time with some action plan. If you like it then you can add your feedback. Please Help Stop 1 Star Rating Abuse (Game Plan Suggested)

One time I got one star rating because, get ready… “File is downloading to slow”

:slight_smile: so my item was rated because someone got too slow internet :slight_smile: I made ticket and this rating was removed but come on… some people are strange.

My suggestion for envato is: Until now we don’t see considerable purchases for support extensions. So it won’t be helpful for authors because most customers don’t like to pay for the support as they believe as it is authors responsibility for supporting their products. Instead, envato should consider yearly license renewal for all items across envato marketplace like Elements (at least for new items).

Only this system will benefit authors but not support extensions.

A four might have been fair in that instance… but not a one!

Just for clarity - elements items don’t require a license renewal as long as the project is completed while the user is subscribed.

While some of the ideas above are great a changing to an entirely subscription based model would be a huge step by envato and have a considerable knock on impact and implications because unlike other marketplaces that use that system, envato don’t own or develop the items for sale here.

My apologies for incorrect mentioning.You are correct, Elements is a subscription model but I don’t meant a subscription model which cannot be profitable by sharing the revenue with huge number of authors. I meant license renewal model for individual items available across envato marketplace for getting product updates. This will increase the revenue for authors for the developing time. The renewal fees won’t need to be the same price of the product but a 15% to 20% of the original price does make sense.

I see your idea but the logistics given how the marketplace works makes it nearly Impossible. For example…

  • another marketplace owns and coded the items for sale so whenever there needs to be an update it’s no issue and is done quick and painlessly

  • envato don’t own or code items. Therefore they can’t enforce authors to guarantee support, updates or lifespan of an item.

  • Let’s say a customer buys a license for 1 year and after 11 months the author gives up supporting, updating it or worse still removes the item altogether. Again envato can’t force them to do it.

  • In this case the customer is completely entitled to a refund because they paid for a year but are not getting that.

This would create complete chaos from an admin perspective (for both authors, envato and buyers), increase refunds hugely, drive authors away because they can’t guarantee annual commitment (regardless of extra income from annual payments).

Envato does what it want to do whenever it want it to do and it writes its own rules.

What does it mean they can’t enforce authors to guarantee support? They obviously already do that because they charge buyers for that.

Dont tell me in some words subscription model is not possible to achieve and its so majorly different that now. Is the same as support was implemented. Pay if you want support. That same should be for accessing updates as well. Simple as that.

If item gets unsupported, or removed from the marketplace before one year has expired, customer is of course entitled to a refund. This is not a problem and I dont think anybody does not agree with this. I dont see how this is different that current model.

And its not only that. Refund request and ratings should be bound to that period as well.

Paying when and if you want to access to updates will benefit buyers as well. Ask buyers how many files they purchased through the years have been abandoned and completely removed from the marketplace by authors because there wasnt incentive to keep them updated.

In fact, Envato would be much better if they have implemented this system years ago, because authors would concentrate much more on quality than just keep pumping items, many of them with similar features that end up being unsupported and abandoned after a while.

Hey Charlie,
If envato is serious about implementing this system, many authors can give their ideas and suggestions on this. I can’t agree with you saying it is impossible because,

In current model, all authors who opted to support their products are obliged to support the item, version updates to ensure item works without flaws and to protect against major security issues for first 6 months. In the same way, license renewal can be done with opt-in selection for authors.
And about the refund, I think the current model is no different in that situation as @Tean said.

That may be the case but you only need to read these forums every day to see it doesn’t always work out that way.

If the themes belonged to envatos or were coded by an employee of envato then things/the level of control would be very different to how it is now when everything is owned ad controlled by an independent author.

Refunds are similar however as it is now envato have a clause that says they can not guarantee the lifespan of an item, which is something that may be harder to maintain under the subscription model.

This all comes down to basically what elements is and why that works as it does.

Buyers get their subscription model etc. and it’s only authors who opt in as is being suggested BUT because envato can’t guarantee support or updates - these are not included.

Perhaps I am missing something if it’s very obvious - could you share another similar marketplace (where items are owned etc. By a third party and where they can be removed at will), especially if possible one selling websites as an item which needs more updating than other types, but which uses a subscription model so I can see how they manage it? There must be quite a few?