Author-Driven Pricing Coming to ThemeForest

Envato Announcements
21

I think a lot good things are being said here. And Envato should care about this, and will most likely not as normally when these things reach the forums there is really pretty much a decision already made. In this case by the tone of the text it sure looks that way.

I am from Portugal where you can definitely live with about 1200$ p/month but I live in Austria where with that money you will pretty much struggle (a Lot!). In some countries like Australia like already said you would be on the street. Literally because not even the rent you would be able to pay.

That being said the major problem that this tries to solve is there and I think everyone can acknowledge that there are really complex themes and really simple themes right now with the same pricing, and that is not fair as well. But giving the authors complete control over pricing does not solve this at all, there will still be inconsistencies in regards to the work that put into the item and the pricing.

We will have items that have tons of work for really low and high prices, items that have very little work into them with very high and low prices as well. Mostly low prices really, but there will be a lot of inconsistency because its all very subjective and completely dependent on the author’s context. Where he lives, where’ is at in his career/life, partnership, not partnership etc etc etc…

Envato should invest a little bit more in reviewing what items really have in them, how much work was put up in it. Is it really unique in terms of the creative process? Does it have a lot of variations or whatever? And price items accordingly. Its not as scalable as what there is now, and what will come (so this will most likely be completely disregarded) but it would make for a more stable and reliable marketplace.

And for buyers this is a huge win. Because buyers don’t know what is in the theme until they actually buy it. And most times this is still a big surprise, most of the times not a good one as well.

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22

Hello @BigBangThemes, Thanks for clarification. Although I did know what you are limiting to when saying above. I just thought of marking a line between earning good and being Rich. Which is actually different in a diverse country like India. We can discussed more about this in a separate chat :smiley:

I agree with what you said and I am even standing alongside with @Bedros and @Jthemes
There should be minimum and maximum parameter to restrict the author driven pricing change. +1 from my side.

Regarding our email work. Great to see your recognized us. Well we slowed down now in emails on TF as envato has shown less respect to authors in recent time so we are moving to other marketplaces as well gradually. However some email items in queue and soon you will see some new work here.

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24

I don’t see any problem with Author Driven Pricing.

As we authors previously yelled for raising the price of multipurpose. so now we can do it ourself.

@Bedros If you found a copycat item, you should report to Envato, so you will not see that item selling for $9

I know some authors may set strange figures, but that doesn’t really matter I think. Ultimately everyone needs money.

So, If an author put $10,000 for an Item, I’m sure he won’t be getting any sales. In the other way, if an author put $1 for an item, ane even if a lot of people buy, he will not earn much.

So at the end, all authors will set a standard pricing for their item.

###I’d say its a Good Move by Envato.

~Surjith

25

Just a simple suggestion, when accepting an item, the review team should be able to set a suggested price, and based on that suggested price, author can set the minimum and maximum price of their item (maybe 10%-20% tolerance?)

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26

I think it’s a terrible idea.

So most of the people will do this: set a price to $2, sell 100 items per week, get to a top 50 popular list, and then set the price back to 59$…

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27

LOL,

After a while ThemeForest is going to be a Indian Template Monster with $11 multi-purpose themes with 100 demos.

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28

But guess what, some other author will !!!

29

I honestly don’t understand why people are so unhappy? We guys always say that the price on TF is very low comparing to the quality of items. Now we have an option to change the price and you still not satisfied. This world will never change :slight_smile:

I see the only one benefit - i will not change any of my prices, but i will be able to run discount campaigns before big holidays :smiley:

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30

LOL,

You think people are going to increase their prices and in the next paragraph you say that you’re going to lower your prices for holidays.

I got no other word :slight_smile:

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31

I have strong concerns about this. It is going to be a nightmare for authors.

There are 3 type of authors.

  1. Very successful.
  2. New authors desperate to get in and sell at any price.
  3. Good authors who are not very successful but are producing good work.

With this change, very successful few authors will get away because they are doing already very well.

Those who are desperate to get into will certainly like this.

Everyone in the middle is screwed. These are the authors who are producing good quality items on niche themes, they are not running behind multipurpose themes and now they have another bomb on them.

Themeforest will get away by setting fixed commission fee but what about authors? We are screwed.

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32

You will be FORCED to lower prices because your sales will hit bottom due to price wars. Get ready to see multi purpose themes with 100 demos selling for $5

Happy nonregulation!

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33

No, i don’t think people are going to increase prices, i think that people will not do that, because price is not the main thing which drives the sales - personally i would pay more if i see that support is great, quality is great and rating is great. I don’t think people will sell items for $5, if they spent 6 months for development.

Also i mentioned that i see only ONE benefit in this situation. Why bundles are ok, but sell items with discount on Black Friday, for a limited time is not ok?

EDIT: And yes, i also think we need to have min and max range. Let’s say current range for HTML template is $18 - $28, so you are free to change the price within this range. Otherwise the whole thing won’t work as expected

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34

What about the current problem of multipurpose themes? There are authors out there selling 100s of demos for dirt cheap and always coming in the popular list. This needs to be addressed. This is forcing us out of business. Either increase the price of these themes having 100s of demos or restrict them from selling on themeforest. We need to find a way to balance things out so everyone has sales.

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35

This is concerning for all the reasons people have mentioned. Can Envato weigh in on whether or not there will be a threshold or enforced minimum? If not, this is truly worrying as I feel many authors will slash prices to try and enter the top sellers list.

What’s to stop an author from having an 80% off launch sale and then placing themselves in the top sellers list? Would this item have otherwise made it there? the top sellers list is generally seen as a collection of well-maintain, (for the most-part) high quality products, this could severely undermine that and ultimately litter the site with rubbish (and there are plenty of rubbish items being approved)

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36

Hey folks,

Thanks for chiming in and being part of the discussion around this really important change.

Firstly, we wanted to give a general response for everyone talking about a race to the bottom and calling for minimum and maximum prices.

This has been front and centre of all of our minds throughout the Author Driven Pricing roll-outs that we’ve run across of GraphicRiver. At the end of the day, we chose not to set a minimum or maximum price and a race to the bottom is not what we’ve seen. The overall change, be it up or down, has been very minor.

Naturally, markets are different, and that’s why at Envato we choose to do things in stages. At its heart however, what we wish is for authors to be thinking about their item prices as being part and parcel of their decisions in regards to how they want to run the buyer-facing part of their business.

It’s well established that a customer’s perception and expectation of any product is strongly associated with its price relative to the rest of the marketplace. We believe the people who are best positioned to make decisions relating to how an item should be viewed by a customer are the authors of those items.

Remember that there are a range of markets outside of Envato with a range of different prices. If undercutting and a race to the bottom was all that was required to own large portions of market share, Envato would not exist. Buyers have needs that stretch beyond price.

Great question! The answer is as many times as you would like, but in making changes we encourage you to think about how the change will be responded to by customers of the present, future and the past. :slight_smile:

As Ben noted above, we now intend to continue rolling author driven pricing out across the marketplace. However, it’s equally important for us that any major change is done gradually and in stages.

We implement and then monitor the reaction :slight_smile: Hope that answers that question.

Finally, just a heads up that the team is about to head on home for the evening, so there won’t be any more responses from us for a little while. We will keep watching for new questions and will have another round of responses tomorrow.

Cheers,

Matt

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37

well it’s all the matter of competition. Competition is exactly what made US what it’s now.

38

Codecanyon waits! :smiley:

Hurry up please :joy: :joy:

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39

Matt, with all due respect for your guys, our beliefs is that this is essentially wrong. In this case, the scenario described by @medium_rare1 is probably something we’ll see daily. An 80% “launch off” sale for a product, and once they’re top of last week’s top sellers the price will go back to a decent one. Then the same would probably happen again as soon as sales would go down.

I need to admit that price changes should be limited to 1 every 2,3 months, OR have a strong reason when submitted for review in order to get changed.

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40

I think they have to make last week’s top sellers section based on the money you make not the number of sales, this will force authors to find the best pricing for their items.

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42

That it didn’t have the effect on GR to me, only highlights that the stakes simply aren’t as high there. Authors on GR tend to have items for sale many places around the internet. Many of us on TF are solely on TF to obtain the exclusivity percentage.