Item Support Extensions and Renewals

Envato Announcements
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Hi All,

Last September we launched the new Item Support Policy and the ability to upgrade support to 12 months at the time of the item purchase. It’s been 5 months since then which means the first group of buyers would have started seeing in-app messages about their support expiring. Today we are launching the functionality to purchase Support Extensions and Renewals, allowing buyers to continue getting assistance with item related questions and issues, and providing authors with some compensation for the ongoing cost of supporting their items.

As a reminder; regardless of whether buyers extend or renew support or decide to let it lapse, they will always be entitled to report bugs and receive any updates made to the item, at the no extra cost. Also, if you bought a supported item before the policy came into effect and want to continue receiving support without purchasing an extension/renewal and the author agrees, then that can happen too.

Changes to the purchase panel

Existing buyers of supported items will see a new purchase panel on the item pages. In order to be both informative and helpful we’ve added a new tab called ‘Overview’ which will summarise any current licenses for the item, allow you to download the item, display the current support entitlement for the item and provide an opportunity to extend/renew support should it be available.

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We are also bringing the functionality to rate the item into the purchase panel to encourage more buyers to leave a rating.

Purchasing a Support Extension

As long as a buyer has less than 6 months support remaining and the item is still supported, they will be able to purchase a 6 month Support Extension. Support Extensions cost 62.5% of the item price (50% of the list price) and are cheaper than Support Renewals (70% of the list price) because it represents peace of mind for buyers who think that they might need support compared to addressing an actual need.

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Purchasing a Support Renewal

Once a buyer’s support has expired they will need to purchase a Support Renewal in order for them to be entitled to get support. Support Renewals are currently valid for 6 months and come at a cost of 70% of the list price. There are also plans for 1 month Support Renewal (at a cost of 50% of the list price) in the not too distant future.

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Selling Support Extensions and Renewals

Sales of Support Extensions and Support Renewals will now appear in your Statement, the API and support sale totals on the Earnings and Portfolio tabs.

Contacting buyers with expiring support

Buyers who purchased supported items under the new policy will be receiving a reminder email a couple of weeks before their support expires. The email is aimed at being informative to buyers (expiry date, cost of getting extra support before and after it expires) while also giving them the opportunity to purchase a Support Extension directly from the email.

Feedback

If you have any questions on how Support Extensions or Support Renewals work then please leave them here.

Thanks for reading!

4 Likes
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How about if I, as an author, decide to provide support free of cost? Is that allowed?

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As a reminder; regardless of whether buyers extend or renew support or decide to let it lapse, they will always be entitled to report bugs

@andrewfreeman hey Andrew, where buyer should report bug if he has no access to support center without valid support pack? Buyer who wants to report a bug needs to provide more detailed feedback in most of cases and comment section is not a best place to do that.If we need to handle ourselves that kind of situation and allow everyone to create tickets without validating support period it will be disaster for us to tell some people “Sorry I can’t help you because it is not a bug, you only need my help, please buy support extension”.

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Hi ashish79,

That would create an inconsistent and confusing experiencing for buyers and is not sustainable for authors so we definitely don’t recommend providing support for free.

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Hi Prestahome,

I imagine you would allow all buyers to submit a ticket, validate their support entitlement and then prioritise accordingly. Other authors might be better placed to provide the solution for this.

It’s worth noting that on top of the regular onsite messaging about their support expiring, we will actively emailing them and displaying a message when they attempt to request support through the site and their support has expired.

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HI andrewfreeman,

Does this mean we can do it if we choose to?

Will it be a violation of any envato’s terms and conditions?

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well, this is tricky, because if someone send to us message:
“Hey, this and this doesn’t work for us, you have a bug”

we need to take a look on this, invest our time and reply:
“It’s not a bug, you just need to do that and that”

and… this is free support no matter if we should or shouldn’t provide it…

in other words - in my opinion comment section will become section full of negative comments

3 Likes
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Authors that mark their items as ‘not supported’, are still fine to answer buyer enquiries as long as you don’t advertise it (in the item description for example). Again we don’t recommend this.

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I’d recommend you monitor this and let us know if it becomes a problem.

1 Like
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Since buyers will now be paying for support I hope sellers will be held to strict standards by envato to provide good support.

I’ve bought themes from reputable theme companies where you need to pay a yearly fee to get updates and support and the support is terrible many questions go unanswered.

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Great. so now 8 rows for one sale !!!

Well Played. Sir.

PS: Any chance to make it Ten? :grin:

5 Likes
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Good work, we will see how the seller will benefit from this.

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Now let me slap a comment from Authors point of view.
First of all, placing a rating option there is a baaaad idea. We already are getting absurd 1 star ratings with crazy reasons.
The main question is how will you handle 1 star ratings (well how should we handle) when we refuse support if they don’t have it payed?

We pay 30% of the support tag and what do we get? As I recall platform fee is 10%, well this is just using platform fee in my eyes. And please do not start with “you are getting payed for what you are already doing”

Cheers

3 Likes
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Hello,
I think that I’ve found a bug. I’ve purchased only the extended license of the item, so I should be able to extend the support only for this kind of license but if I’ll use this url: http://codecanyon.net/checkout/from_item/item_id_here?license=regular&support=extend_6month then I’m able to purchase support extension for regular license even if I don’t have it!

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Hi Anps,

We will be closely monitoring for any increase in negative ratings. If you come across a specific example where the buyer left a bad rating because they were informed that they didn’t have support then you can submit a ticket to our Help team and they will investigate it.

It is also possible for authors to provide good customer service without providing free support. Explain to the buyer that their support has expired, tell them where to go to renew support, tell them that the money made from support is necessary for the ongoing cost of selling software (support, security updates, bug fixes, etc), and provide them with other avenues to resolve the issue without support (documentation, FAQs, etc). And once you have written the response you can reuse it for any future requests.

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Thanks for the heads up QuanticaLabs - I’ll have the team check it out.

1 Like
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Sorry but it’s Envato idea to provide paid support, why we’re side who needs to handle that kind of communication? We’re not PR experts, I thought that “we’ll do the rest” means something and we can focus on being creative.

And this is a best part:

We are also bringing the functionality to rate the item into the purchase panel to encourage more buyers to leave a rating.

First you tell someone that he needs to pay additional $40 to ask for help and you expect that he’ll be nice to us and leave good rating? :smiley: I don’t belive in it.

Let’s see how it will work in next few month but for now I am extremely sceptical about all this.

4 Likes
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And then undoubtedly do nothing about it as the review will be within your own guidelines. Way to go Envato.

1 Like
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There is one more issue. When you click on ‘How much do I save by extending now?’ link under ‘Extend now and save’ button there is always a price for regular license. I have extended license for the item and the cost of support extension on the item page is $85 and in the ‘How much do I save by extending now?’ popup it is $17.

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Good job by the UI team but terrible communication with the team handling author’s concern (if there’s any). You ignored the author’s most grave concern - the negative ratings resulting from an Envato’s decision.

Think about it from a buyer’s perspective. You’re a buyer who bought an item under the assumption that there’s free support (whether Envato explicitly said so or not, it was the general understanding). Now, suddenly you see that your support has expired and you’re required to pay for it. The first thought that enter your mind would be “it’s unfair” - which will make you angry. And conveniently enough, there’s this star rating box right there to be used as a punching bag. There we go, 1/5 to release the anger.

The implementation to get more ratings could have waited at least 6 months until buyers get used to paying for support. Further, the decision to email buyers before their support expires - at this stage - should be opt-in. Or at minimum, share the email you’re going to send-out so that the authors can be prepared to add what you missed.

1 Like