I hope this will promote a good market, not just a mere descendind price auction between authors.
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Perhaps you should simply consider not too participate in a race to bottom and price items at what theyâre actually worth. If you do so, the fixed fee does not hurt anyone.
Hey folks. Iâm about to log off for the day. Feel free to keep the chat going and Iâll batch reply to any further questions when i get in tomorrow 
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Itâs not about the race to bottom.
Letâs say that you have a WordPress theme with a price lower than 60$.
After this move you will earn less money even if you donât change the price.
SimpleâŚ
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I am not sure what you mean? Look at the popular list of TF Do you see many items priced at $60 or higher? There are maybe 5 such items⌠This is not about a race to the bottom but about a simple theme priced at $60 to break it even with the new policy.
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So now people from countries like India (because a dollar there is absolutely not the same as a dollar in USA for example) will price their themes toward the minimum possible but Envato has insured themselves to earn $12 per theme. And we the authors?
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This happened to all the categories that went under ADP before eg- HTML, PSD etc. Those who wanted their cut to be same had to increase their prices by a dollar or two to compensate for the fixed buyer fee. Of course Envato is thinking for themselves too here just in case an author decides to sell their theme for peanuts.
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ADP makes one thing clear. Envato is incurring losses, sales have been dropping and it will continue to drop. To avoid their losses, Envato switched to a fixed price. âLet the authors bear the brunt of the sales dropping. We will sustain our business by charging a fixed fee from authors. There will be many who would be willing trade off a few dollars per sale just to be able to sell their items even at a reduced price.â
Envatoâs strategy is brilliant. For them. Not for the authors. The theme business is going to go down for real this time. 2 more years. thatâs it. The established shops will be able to sustain themselves, though not for long. But new authors donât stand a chance. Buyers just dont want to spend more than $45 for any kind of theme anymore. The market is extremely saturated.
âWorld doesnât need a copy of the same thing.â ~ Eric Schmidt
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Thats somehow true but I donât agree about the $45 mark. We can see at the popular list and 90% of the themes there are priced at $59 and doing pretty damn well!
They are popular items by established authors thatâs why. If you see the number of sales of the recently published themes (in the last few months) you will see that number of sales are much less for items priced above $45 irrespective of the category.
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I do not think this is true either. From my experience people do not care about the price. I have raised the price on my items from $19 to $25 - sales stayed exactly the same. On my flip book I have raised the price from $18 to $34 - here I have noticed an increase in sales.
The market is flooded thats true but a good product will defend itself.
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Wow, great decision. I sold few models on 3d ocean as an exclusive author but then I quit because the prices were very low .
Thanks Matthew, interesting news, specially for marketing purposes.
Finally we can perform âspecial priceâ campaigns.
This fixed fee thing isnât really good though⌠but is quite normal to expect âside movesâ from Envato to earn more on our backs nowadaysâŚ
Hmm, but will fixed author fee prevent authors for damping the market and reduce price too low?
Nice, I may say
A very tricky move from Envato side. With that fixed author fee, youâre strongly stopped to set a smaller price than a specific one.
Letâs say on CodeCanyon, with $4 fixed Author Fee, if you set a lower price than $20 you will get less than now (70% of item price). So, will force all the authors to have a higher price than $20.
Most of the items from CodeCanyon are under $20. So if you keep the price, you will get less and Envato more. If you will increase the price then you you have big chances to have less sales because of the other items prices.
So, the only chance is that all items be aligned with a price starting with $20 (on CodeCaynon). All authors will understand and will accept that?!
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Is it legal to call all authors around the world âdouble the price!â 
weâre selling too cheap here, they buy $59 theme, start config or hire a $50 freelancer, end up paid $1000 for a responsive/powerful/modern website deal =.=
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For this, an option would be implemented to choose fixed or percentage for Envato earnings.
Hey @leafcolor,
I totally get the spirit of the post, but just a reminder that legally tâs strictly prohibited to have an agreement, arrangement or understanding about what price point to sell at.
Just a warning, but lets keep it clean folks
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So for WordPress products, the real news is that those on CodeCanyon below $20 and those on ThemeForest below $60 will earn less now, like @mpc and @future-themes pointed out. How exactly is this supposed to empower authors?
@matthewcoxy You could have set a minimum item price instead of a fixed buyer fee, and use the existing prices as the minimum. For example: for my current $10 item, the buyer fee would remain $2 like it is now even if I decrease the price. This will discourage me from decreasing my prices, but will not penalize me if I donât raise them.
@chilly_orange I completely agree to not have a race-to-the-bottom, but consider the smaller plugins or add-ons. I canât possibly charge $20 for an add-on when my main plugin is already priced around $20. Now that I think about it, the new system encourages me to sell my main item on CodeCanyon, and move my small add-ons to my own shop, which I donât want to waste time with. Lose-lose for both me and Envato.
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That is the best decision you have ever take
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