Category page experiment update & new Category page design for WordPress

Last couple of years, whatever changes Envato made, be it good or bad, they never reverted back to the original. So, don’t expect that Newest Items Filter is going to return. It is gone for good.

What you need to think as Author is how you plan to deal with this.

:slightly_smiling_face:

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Envato and what about the idea of letting users to choose which default sorting they want to use? I expect that most of the customers have already their accounts, so why do not make an option for buyers to choose the “Newest items”, “Trending items” or “Best sellers items” based on their preference as their default sorting choice. I think this could solve many problems which are currently happening. And also it could make buyers more familiar with the filters.

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How to deal with something which is no benefits just move on, maybe that is the point of this situation…

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if (sort==newest-items) {
authors.stay();
Creativity.improve();
Market.grow;
}
else {
authors.leave();
Creativity.stop();
Market.decline;
}

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I used to have 5-8 sales everyday,
Look at what you have done with my hard work …
Capture

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@steve_lam @jamesgiroux

english is not my first language so please bear with me on this one.

when you continued this experiment you did on the ground of 5% growth overall & 50% increase in WordPress themes conversation rate. The data available to us authors i.e popular items tab there is no significant increase in sells for those items. But if you see all the new items suffering drastically.

this new pill design with default sort to best sellers will take away the exposure of new items.

We already had a place for best sellers & it worked for so many years with healthy competition, now the system is rigged against new items.

For the company that works totally on the internet with today’s data collection tools “in a few weeks” is a vague answer.

please answer is there any plan for going to "new items " as default sort in this new pill design testing before closing this thread.

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The answer I think is already there. We are planning to move to another market, develop more items to sell in other markets for comparison. If it is really better we will leave the envato market.
We and some other authors have also emailed the managers of other markets about envato’s change, hoping they will have other policies to attract authors and customers switch to their market. Customers can experience new items instead of obsolete items.

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I think everyone who is unhappy with these changes should take action and either go non exclusive or start uploading items to other sites.

Honestly I think the conversion increase story sounds very weak and questionable if this really is the main motivation behind sorting by best sellers.

When the credits system was removed we got told that is was because Envato could not afford to maintain it basically, another very questionable story. It does not take much fantasy to understand that Envato Elements is a big reason why Envato Credits were removed. A convenient re-route of customers who needs items on an on going basis. Sabotaging the market customer experience in favour of a more attractive Elements experience. I still can’t believe this actually happened.

In the same way I can’t believe that sorting irrelevant best sellers from 2010-2012 actually happened and are still happening. In the same way I can’t believe that exclusive market authors are still advertising for free through a misleading banner to a competing market most of them cannot participate in.

Maybe the beginning of the category page experiments showed a significant increase of items sent from the market authors to Elements? A nice “side effect”, that Envato is very interested in? One thing is certain, Envato wants more items in the Elements catalogue, at least in some of the better performing item categories. In 2 of the 3 last emails about the Worldwide author conference there was a link encouraging authors to apply for Elements.

Envato is currently hiring a new author growth specialist here: https://boards.greenhouse.io/envato/jobs/1615009 One of the tasks is “Implementing strategy that generates interest from new authors with Envato and converting that interest into qualified authors selling high quality items on Market and/or Elements.”

So yeah, make up your own thoughts here, but again it does not take much fantasy to assume this hunt for new authors is aimed at Elements mostly. Why would Envato need more authors on the marketplace? They can’t even take care of the ones they have, that’s for sure.

So does it help to rant and request new items sort back on the forum? I don’t know, probably not much. I would assume many Envato employees agrees with the authors here, because it is really a no brainer in the end of the day. But does it help if the top decision makers have other plans and bulldoze over everybody (including Envato staff) anyway?

All I know is that it is from those authors that are currently in Elements the key and power to stand up and demand change for these absurd marketplace decisions really are. Envato cares more about Elements then anything, and if the authors in Elements gather together with an ultimatum of new items sort or every Elements author will reduce their Elements catalogue significantly, Envato would change to new sort within the same week. Unlikely that this could happen? I don’t know, it’s 2019 and everybody is potentially connected, IF the majority of Elements authors is unhappy with the way things are being run on the market, they have the power to do something.

Again, in the long run, I would recommend everyone to start uploading items to other marketplaces, preferably to those that show a little respect for their authors. Your future earnings will thank you.

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Congratulation :clap::clap: ENVATO successfully you have killed our sell :disappointed::disappointed:

Capture_00000

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The same here bro … not a single sale since 5 days !

I would recommend everyone to start uploading items to other marketplaces

Should we go to the same marketplace?

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Hi Steve and thanks for taking part in the conversation. Which, I want to say, was quite time, seen 600 answers in the thread.

My simple question is, how do you (guys/team) think that if somebody wants to sort results by date, showing instead another arbitrary sorting is instead better?

Now, sincerely, imagine you go to the restaurant and you order a steak.
The waiter comes back and gives you a pizza.
You say “i ordered a steak” and he replies “ah yes but this is a steak, we are testing pizza as steak”.

Wouldn’t you put the waiter’s face in your pizza and ask him if it tastes like a steak?

Come.
On.
Guys.

I did HUNDREDS of AB testing for big companies (talking about freakin’ BIG companies) and never we had to give to the users something that was not what they clicked. This mechanism is TWISTED.

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Staff only test here is how to give as much traffic to Elements at any price that is purpose, there is a simple thing ignore Elements and the situation will quickly better on Market…Why run away just need it show Envato depends on the authors and should behave the same as they do…

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I am sorry to say this some authors most likely who post in the same niche create items just to get some fresh sales from the explosion on the first page, This is have to stop create new item if you really really have problem to solve, Such authors are responsible for Envato decision and I totally agree with them keeping the sort this way means every item gets what it deserve from sales sure the current implementation still have many problems but if they retrieved back the sort, new items will get sales just because they are on the front page I call this fake sales which can have negative impact on the whole industry.

Envato decision is tough however I agree with them because I can’t find any other way out if anyone here have solution for what I said above please share your thoughts I am pretty sure Envato staff are reading everything !

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Vouch. That’s definitely what I would be doing. :joy::joy:

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Dear Envato, this new sorting is bad for our sales. I’m GraphicRiver author.

Look, these are statistics of views of my new item:

And look statistics of views of my new item, when the default sorting was by newest:

So, new items go unnoticed. Therefore, new items have no sales.

Envato, please think about the little authors. We want to be big authors. We want to do a lot of new items every month. But if they go unnoticed, we lose motivation.

I work on my Graphicriver portfolio full time since January. I really do not want to go back to my freelancing job. But I have to do it to make a living. I would like to continue to be a full time GR author.

Also think about customers. When a customer enters the category https://graphicriver.net/add-ons/photoshop/actions/text-effects
Customer sees items that are published a long time ago and most customers who need them have already bought them.
This can be seen in the latest weekly tops:
https://graphicriver.net/popular_item/by_category?category=add-ons/photoshop/actions/text-effects

Exept the first item, items have 4 sales each. And this is the top for the week!

Envato, please think about all this.
I see sales decrease. I see that my new items have no sales and I’m scared.

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I decided to no more upload until the newest sort is back :expressionless:
19%20PM

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Current bestsellers have become so due to the fact that they were noticed in time. At the time of their appearance, they were also new and buyers were able to see on the main page and evaluate.
Now any potential bestseller is not visible to the buyer, good projects go unnoticed and the meaning of doing something new disappears, because the buyer only sees the old stuff.

There was no problem before: new projects were made, and this is important: new authors are needed and new ideas are needed, the design does not stand still. Projects were getting better, not outdated, everything was fine. Why break something that works well?
The quality was monitored by the reviewers, they did not allow us to make low-grade or repetitive goods, but normal authors were happy to provide the most up-to-date ideas.

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Hello Steve, we are not asking nothing to more. Only asking for default short “Newest items” everyone waiting for this update. When default new items is back all authors is busy to happy upload process.

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Thanks for the detailed answer, Steve.

But the situation is catastrophic, many good authors can no longer stay with Envato. Working on a new page will most likely take a long time, but for now, please temporarily turn on sorting by new projects.
This will save many authors.

Thank.

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