Item Support Policy and Functionality Launched

Hi All,

As we announced over on the blog, today we are launching the new item support policy and the functionality to purchase 6 or 12 months support with your item. This release represents a big milestone in a long journey and we’re thankful to every author and buyer that has contributed to date.

If you notice any bugs or have any questions about the functionality then please let us know here.


Here’s a list of frequently asked questions. Please have a read through these to see if you can find your answer before posting a new question:

Buyers

Updates and bug fixes are included in the cost of ALL items
Regardless of whether you have support or not:

  • If and when an author releases an updates, it will be available for all previous buyers to download for free
  • You can report bugs
  • Authors are expected to keep the item in good working order, working as described and protected against major security issues

Impact on buyers who bought before the new item support policy
As mentioned in the original item support announcement, items sold before September 1st will be treated as follows:

  • If the item did not advertise support, nothing changes
  • If the item advertised support for less than 6 months, that remains valid
  • If the item advertised support for more than 6 months, those items will be supported for 6 months after September 1st

So from September 1st there will still be another 6 months for buyers who have purchased before. After that if there are pre-policy buyers who still want support extended further and if the author agrees, then that can happen too. Buyers who need clarification about their purchase should contact the Envato Help Team.


Authors

Identifying if a buyer has support
Regardless of how you choose to support your customers there will be a way to see if they have valid support:

  • if you provide support via a third party system then you can use the
    Verify Purchase API to see if the buyer has purchased the item and
    whether or not they have valid support;
  • if you provide support via email then you can use the link the email
    to verify the purchase and support; or
  • if you provide support via
    comments then we’ll identify buyers that have purchased and those
    with valid support.

Identyifying supported item sales on statements
We split the sales from a supported item sale into two lines (license and bundled support) to reflect what is being bought and to help authors more accurately define and describe their earnings for accounting purposes. Authors will still earn the exact same money from a sale as the would have previously, it is just split over two lines of the statement. For more information please refer to this help centre article.

NOTE: There has been feedback from authors about the difficulty in reading statements because of these changes and we are working on a solution to roll the two line items into one although it may take some time to implement.

Rounding of item sale amounts
The rules for rounding are the same as those used for VAT (i.e. if less then 0.5 round down, if greater than or equal to 0.5 then round up). Because we are splitting a supported item into two (license and support), the author fee and any taxes were being applied separately and therefore rounding can occur twice meaning each sale can be up to 1 cent out (positive or negative).

NOTE: When we combine the line items into one (as mentioned above) this will be less of an issue.

Categories the item support policy applies to
The item support policy applies to all categories on ThemeForest and CodeCanyon except PSD templates, Sketch templates, TypeEngine themes, Mobile, and Edge Animate templates.

13 Likes

Link wrong

Hi Jyostna,

The announcement link should be good now :grinning:

With all my respect, Envato does everything can be done to CONFUSE a customer’s mind.
If they finally (hopefully) land on our item’s page to buy it(and there are thousands of items), why to confuse them with some links and descriptions about support. A sales funnel MUST BE as simple as possible. “Something” starts to be a “problem” as soon as you start to talk about it.

There are too many links to confuse precious future customers.

And What if I want to give lifeTime FREE support to my customers? (just a weird question)
It’s my precious time, it’s my effort ; so Why can’t I do that?

As always, why to change something worked great so far.
Well, time will tell how this update will effect the sales.

3 Likes

The video there makes things so clear now for buyers. Thanks Envato.

Yes, the video makes buyer very clear, I like it.

I hope you’re right.
Wish you great sales for you this month anyway ; good luck :slight_smile:

1 Like

I can telll you that I am pissed for the support price because now instead of a one time purchase that you can use the product, its now you can’t use it or update it unless you pay a stupid extension. Now that is going to make me never pay for another theme on this marketplace ever again. I am really serious. In the long run this is going to cost as much as paying a developer to do the website. So now I am going to stop using this marketplace. Don’t be surprised that people follow me and don’t come back either.

To me this is stupid, and people that wanted free support are going to be upset about it too. Time to find alternatives now. I am actually being nice here. I could say some nasty words about this but I rather just get away from this new crap.

5 Likes

Updates are always included, even without purchased support pack

1 Like

Hi doucare1971,

To clarify, you definitely can use the item without purchasing a support extension, and any updates made to the item are included in the price.

Hi Bedros,

Thanks. Wish you the same.

Lifetime support is not sustainable for everyone. And the word lifetime is pretty wrong when it comes to support. 6 months free support is perfect for buyers and they can extend to 12 months if they need for a few dollars.

So users will get NEW UPDATES for LIFETIME , without paying for further support packages, right?
Please make this CLEAR for customers, as stating it with the words “LIFETIME FREE”…
Please always give answers to your precious customers BEFORE they ask or confused.
Because even a single customer is confused, that guarantees the confusion of tens of thousands of customers.
Please prevent this by being CLEAR.
Please fix this as soon as possible.

image

9 Likes

Yes, I agree with Bedros over here. :slight_smile: Also, it’s better to keep it simple like “Free Updates”

2 Likes

I think this can make customers confuse. Even I was confused too.

image

Why there is no support setting for items from ActiveDen?

I read the policy its says as soon as the 6 month support is up there is no more updates to the theme. If that is not correct, then they need to change it. I hate falsifying words put into policies.

3 Likes

It says updates and bugs fix included with support. So that is 6 months and no more updates. If that is not true then change it but as for now I am thinking of leaving this marketplace for good. For someone that has no income coming in, this is a no go for me at all.

2 Likes

Because this is 2015 :wink: j/k

1 Like

Hi Bedros

Thanks for your suggestion. While any updates to the item are included in the price, updates are at the author’s discretion (unless the item is not working as described or has a major security issue). So while we do want to promote free/included updates, we also don’t want to set unreasonable expectations with buyers (in case they never actually get an update).

It looks like there is definitely some confusion around this so we’ll take a look at it. Thanks again for the feedback.