It would be about time someone starts applying the rules. There is a Church theme just released and it is totally ignoring this. As @hogash said, this should be mailed out and as @miyachi_hikari said, someone has to start policing the items.
If this rule is just written to be written, then I’ll start discounting my items too. Either everyone does it or no one does it! It’s not fair that some authors can release promotional discount and some authors respect the rules.
If you look at the new items almost all of them are on sale… most of the users don’t know about the rules and the ones that do know about them, don’t care, because no mesures are taken.
I have the distinct feeling that this is a rule Envato wants to make us believe exists, because, in certain countries if you read anti-trust laws, this rule is illegal but I might be wrong. I’ll change my mind about this when that rule starts being applied like every other one for which authors and buyers get sanctioned for.
Two questions:
It seemed like last week we received a report from someone anonymously about out item and we have changed all of our item’s pricing and promotion policy according to this rule. But the thing is, seems like we are just the only one to follow this rule. You’ve said this is based on the community, then where is the link to report other authors who’ve been neglecting this rule? How can the community help if you forgot to give us a tool to help?
When will this “NEW” label be removed? 
It’s been there for almost half a year, and it’s for items on Envato Market that allow ADP so it’s completely legit that it should be removed. I believed that label “NEW” has affected positively to the few items in that category while heavily harmed other items outside of that category. What an unfair advantage.
How about the items priced at $1.000.000?
Those clearly violate the Misleading Price section:
Misleading pricing
You have ultimate control over the price you set, but you may only select a price if you truly and sincerely believe that you will sell items at that price. You may not price an item too high or too low with no intention of making a sale at that price.
And, we just got a request for a discount. A discount code system would be very welcome.
I hope you have anything like that in the pipe line.
We love to have option so author can create discount code and send their code for their customer. That’s better than ADP now.
I’m not an active author so don’t have the same level of insight as @JanStudio or @Anps but as someone pretty familiar with envato and who has bought more than most, I can see individual coupons or discount codes would be potentially disasterous long term.
(I am happy to be proved wrong) as I see it…
Coupons for individual buyers would be good to convert one off or a low level number of customers who are on the fence, however surely blanket dicscounts (as is avaliable) open to everyone will provide the same result but with even bigger sales?
ADP is one thing but I’m not even certain that discounting or price fixing on an Individual basis is actually legal
discounting inconsistently is likely to devalue both that author and others’ items
if you discount/coupon for one person and another who paid full price finds out then you run the risk of ending up with pissed off customers or refund requests.
More than anything:
if envato allowed this then buyers will find out, authors will then be bombarded with discount requests which means more work/hassle for them, confusion, potential frustration, and that selling here will become more like a negotiation process.
If authors already think that buyers (select few and not most of us) have an upper hand with rating blackmail and refund requests - just imagine giving them the ability to play authors off against each other for greater discounts???
Again I am not an author but it seems to me like discount/coupons would only benefit a small number in the very short term, and longer term would not really benefit authors or envato.
Yea, usually I am a advocating against ADP. But if it’s here then wider range of features and options should be available for authors. This should have been a priority right after ADP was introduced for the dev. pipeline.
About the legality of it, yea there are a bunch of laws against misleading etc. and in this case, I think Envato is partially if not fully responsible for it, despite that authors own their items, why you may ask? Well since we do not have absolute freedom and have tons of restrictions, part of the responsibility lies in Envato because they do not control or implement a system to prevent this kind of manipulations.
I am certain it is just a matter of time that somebody is going to press legal actions against author or Envato.
For examples in our country there are institutions that monitor this kind of things and penalties can be harsh.
And here things move far to slow even when authors get reported.
I am really curious what is going to evolve from all of this.
Depending on the goodwill of the authors is not the right solution here. Some don’t even read the rules and forums before signing up. We need an active monitoring team to take care of such things.
Or implementing a system, that would limit the usage as far as it can to accommodate the rules. But yes something must be done.
for example, there are items on the very top of the popular list that clearly break the rules and nobody is acting on it.
The item may not be advertised as having a “discounted” price within the first thirty days after launch.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!
A slight recommendation - don’t allow “introductory prices” at all. For example - allow price changes only after an item has been on the market for 60 days or so. That would make authors stop accidentally devaluing their work and the work of others.
I think most of the Authors will be happy if envato close this ADP system. Starting ADP is the first decision to ruin some authors business.
The ADP is just fine an should stay because authors come from different part of the world with different standards.
What needs to be gone is us sales tax from authors onto envato.
[Please do not call out specific items or authors]
Free updates and support / no recurring fees…does items sold in offer has some kind of special provision to skip themeforest support channel???
Irony is misused promotion image will be there for a month …even forever …but just example will be removed within few hours …
I’m very well aware of the forum guidelines and so the best selling author … but will survive till someone spends his time ( for free ) on lengthy process of filling ticket…
Not sure who, where…but someone quoted need of simple ‘Report this item’ button
So if I’m not mistaken, due to the statement: “While you may generally market the value of your item (including using dollar value amounts), you cannot display or represent the value of any included components or features as part of your item’s price or in a way it could be perceived as a promotional price (e.g. “Our price $60 + $200 added value = $260 = Now only $49”)" this item [Removed - please let support know rather than call items out in the forums] has violated the rules?
@jamesgiroux it would be reasonable to append all these rules into the forms and automate. In that case you won’t need to check what authors do…