Ah OK, I didn’t see that you’re quoting him. I hope I didn’t sound too harsch. 
The thing is that there’s always someone who will work for less. The fixed prices prevented the marketplace to go bananas. The only thing that I know is, once author driven prices will com into action, I’ll double my prices, stop uploading and look for an alternative.
You’re right it’s not REALLY illegal. That would be stupid. I was talking more on a “morale” level. Otherwise it’s 100% legal, but it leads to an action which in the real world would be illegal. If a store would sell iphones for $300 (they cost way less per item to produce), nobody would buy the $1000 versions.
Morally (and geographically - based) speaking, the situation is as described by @MikeSea
I agree with @MikeSea. Most of the buyers buy here because of the low prices. The new system will only result in reducing the prices even further.
Besides, I don’t think it is possible for authors to increase the prices of their existing items. One or the other author would stick to the current price , or worse yet, lower it to improve the sales. In any other market, be it digital or physical products, how often do you see an increase in the price of a product or a service? It happens only if the prices are regulated to some extent.
I also think it is stupid to compare Envato with Amazon and other online stores. They mostly sell physical products. I have never seen any seller selling an iPhone at a loss. The cost price of the products indirectly regulates sales price. However, in the case of themes, templates, etc, you invest your time. And, every person values time differently.
Envato should assign a minimum value to the time an author puts into creating an item. It should also be different for different sub-categories of items. It takes less time to build a WordPress blog theme as compared to a Multi-purpose WordPress theme.
By the way, Envato has safeguarded itself from the heat. A fixed buyer fee, really?
$4 for an HTML template. It is almost 14% of the maximum price ($28) of an HTML template currently. It is 25% for items priced at $16 currently and 50% if an item is priced at $8. Since it doesn’t seem like the market dynamics would let authors increase the prices and, instead lower them, Envato’s resultant buyer fee percentage would most likely surpass the current 20%. I’m assuming the buyer fee for WordPress themes would be anywhere between $10-$16. To top it all, Envato would still earn from Author fee.
I’m wondering how is this being called Author-driven pricing? Why don’t Envato keep buyer fee as a percentage? How do they justify fixing a minimum earning for themselves? If they say that the authors are free to increase item prices to increase their revenue, I’m sorry, it is not going to happen. Market dynamics is a b****.
The new system is not even buyer friendly
I don’t think anyone will increase the price. so why not allow only to increase the price ?
On the long run Envato will loose the trust of the authors. Too many things happened against Envato authors…
Anywy I can hardly wait to buy a theme with 5$
You can compare with any market you want. Creative Market allows free changes on pricing. This is good enough example for you? Actually any marketplace anywhere allows it. And it doesn’t ruin market. But we afraid that it will happen to Envato? How would it happen?
Also, Envato said that the US movement would return in thousand of new buyers… did you see anybody new in there? Because I did not.
Now I think that it’s strange analogy. No, it was pretty clear for me that is does nothing. How do you compare it with current topic? I don’t speak for Envato. I speak for myself. And this is my words that we authors will benefit of free pricing changes. This is what I am saying not Envato.
Now, Envato´s footer says that 6 and half million users are in the platform. I´d love to see the real numbers (duplicated accounts, inactive accounts, fake accounts…), this is not a so big marketplace.
I also would love to know active users not overall. But do you know one of the reason why Envato is not big marketplace? Because there are tons of limitations currently. We can’t change price, we can’t announce promotions, giveaways and so on. That’s why a lot of strong teams don’t come here. More developers will lead to more customers. It’s obvious. And people are afraid of more freedom here. That’s really nonsense.
Of course, Envato has not competitor and because of this they do what they do and how they do it. But you can´t compare this place with Amazon or Apple Store (real million of potential customers).
I also compare it to Creative Market but you ignored it. I can compare with many marketplaces because it’s common practice to have free pricing policy. But you’ll find the reason for each marketplace why I can’t compare it. Ok, let it be. Actually I agree that any analogy is wrong. The main ideas was not in comparison of marketplaces. I just want to know why it will ruin everything on Envato if it doesn’t on any other marketplaces. Whatever it sells, whatever big it or small one, sell it TVs, apps, or WordPress plugins.
Guys you are crazy You focused so much on marketing side about lowering price. And I am confused how many people here think that new changes will lead to lower price over market.
You can make screenshot of prices on our portfolio right now. And check it after this new mechanism will be live. We actually want to use this to increase price of all our products. As we know that it works to increase income. We have traffic cap here but people are ok to pay more. Prices are too low.
You can also use website like Web Archive to check price and sales of our products on Envato for different years. You’l learn that price of some our products increased on 100%. Keeping the same amount of sales. So we doubled income on some products. By increasing not decreasing price. That is the real experience.
Do you still think that prices are high on Envato? Do you still think everyone will drop their prices? Because we’re going to increase it. Let us do it. Let us freedom and stop complaining. We don’t care about our sales if our competitors decrease prices. Feel free
Envato offers you to experiment and grant you the tool to find the best price for your products to earn more, to increase your income. Envato offers you freedom. And you don’t even understand that you want to deny such a great tool for your business purpose. Look out for any marketplace and realize that we are in the Stone Age on Envato. You can change your price anywhere outside. Think about it
I can’t find it now, but I’m sure earlier somebody was essentially saying that Envato was being like a totalitarian dictatorship by allowing authors to choose their own prices… and it would be more democratic not to allow authors to choose their own prices.
I’m pretty sure they got that the wrong way round.
Big players like?
You cannot compare android or ios market… here the your market is 6.6+ mil and there we talk about far far greater numbers.
Just to clarify on the “Fixed Buyer Fee”, will this only be implemented ONLY if we adjust the price? Or will this be the way fees are handled for all items?
If it’s the same as on GraphicRiver, which it sounds like it will be… then yes, the fees will be handled that way for all items.
I’m a Joomla developer and I’m sure these changes will reach that category sooner or later.
Please set a minimum price to stop the coming race to the bottom.
Hope you will set a minimum price.
Possible solution:
Envato should continue to set the price of items and take a 30% cut.
If the author INCREASES the price, then Envato should still get 30%.
If the author DECREASES the price, then Envato should get a fixed buyer fee.
This would benefit both Envato AND the theme authors. It would stabalize the pricing and most authors would remain unaffected.
Seems like a simple solution to me. What do you guys think, could this work?
the BEST solution of all is: Don’t touch on these changes, leave the current system as it is, it is already working pretty well. Why change it? Why such kind of experiments?
Seems a very good solution to me. If the author decreases the price, then Envato should get a fixed fee.
And probably equal to 30% of the list price.
For example, an ecommerce theme currently is listed at $59. Envato takes about $18. That should be the fixed fee. But obviously, with this system an item can’t be priced less than $18.
this is going to be a jungle. Too bad audiojungle already exists…because this is going to be themejungle, 90% discounts for short periods on and off to reach the weekly top items, items just set as 1$ and 2$, everything that has already been said here.
It will not only be a cheep market (already is but its going to be even more) but a lot more difficult to know what is going on in each category due to crazy sales promotions of “Buy for limited time for 1$” and all of that. How can you manage that as an author?
Again, for buyers this is not a good solution. Might look like a good solution in the books but in the end its going to make items even worse…Buyers are and will always be attracted to cheep items that pack a lot of functionality, that’s just the way it is.
woow I just realize something. We are going to loose more money. If until now we had a chance to earn at most 50% now we are going to pay first another envato commission then we are going to split what is remaining with Envato
So as far as I see more fees from Envato, now we are going to get less then 50%
Am I right ?
@SpaceStockFootage
Please read that again. I said that big decisions like these should be voted upon by everybody with a correct score of 1 to 10, 1 being “you’re totally new here” and 10 being power elite.
Not always, it depends on the prices that you’ll price your items at. As you may already know, buyer fees will be fixed amounts rather than 20% of the list price. So if the fixed buyer fee comprises more than 20% of the list price, only then Envato will take from you a total of more than 50% of the list price.