Item Support Policy and Functionality Launched

[htmgarcia]

Oh Envato, from bad to worst.

[Epic-Themes]

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). We don’t recommend this though because we believe authors should be compensated for their time.

Hi Andrew,

I can see how much Envato cares about us. They decided to sell our free time for the price of a Starbucks coffee. That’s what we get for each support package sold in the landing page category.

[Kopyov]

Where is Collis?

[nagaemas]

What if we just pretend all the support thing does not exists and continue provide support as before? Buyers will understand overtime.

[Theemwiz]

Here

[blitzgeek]

Why shouldn’t i be able to rate an item i bought? That has nothing to do with having “active support”.

[tommusrhodus]

Why shouldn’t i be able to rate an item i bought? That has nothing to do with having “active support”.

To be fair mate, you’ve already threatened to “change your ratings” after this first 6 months support has ended, I don’t agree with theemon, but that’s what they are getting at.

[Theemwiz]

You may end up getting your account banned.

Now, its like either provide support under Envato terms or simply dont provide support.

[Luminary]

My question is, what about abusive buyers that bought extra support?
If one of my buyers is abusive, threatening and disrespectful, I stop all support and communication with them. period. I do not tolerate it from my children, and I definitely will not tolerate it from buyers.

Will I be penalized for this in any way?

[Theemwiz]

Yes, agree here. Buyer’s will misuse the rating thing for sure. So, better disable it for those out of support period. That seems legit.

OR

if Envato removes baseless ratings on case by case basis, then it should be fine with authors.

[ReyCommerce]

I will then claim a refund and i will need to correct my former ratings for the products.

Please keep in mind that this change is not the authors fault. The change is implemented by Envato. By giving a bad rating to a file after the 6 month support period you are affecting the hard working author who just want’s to sell his products and must follow Envato rules regarding support.

Best regards,
Stefan

[extensionforge]

2 Answers in the line:

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). We don’t recommend this though because we believe authors should be compensated for their time.

Question from kopyov :

What will happen if I add notice on my support forum that I provide FREE support and users are not obligated to pay for it.

As per the item promotion guidelines “We will contact you and give you an opportunity to correct the situation to avoid any potential disablement of your item(s) or worst-case scenario, your account.” This was an existing policy and should be nothing new for authors.

I hope I understand your question right …

[Theemwiz]

One thing to take note: Vote for the product and author’s goodwill not for the system. You may understand but majority of buyers don’t.

We dont want baseless 1 stars for a system which we are not at all responsible of. We are theme sellers and we need ratings for our products and support which we provide according to the support definition of the system.

[blitzgeek]

To be fair mate, you’ve already threatened to “change your ratings” after this first 6 months support has ended, I don’t agree with theemon, but that’s what they are getting at.

Tom, it is not meant as a threat, it’s only the consequence.
What’s happening here, feels as if one of the parties is manipulating the contract of sale after purchasing.

[dtbaker]

Lets try to keep this on track a little bit shall we?

[michaeldale]

Guys is the API actually working? I still have supported_until being shown as empty?

[Luminary]

or go back to living ion the gutter eating your dirt

Why would you even say something like this, and then demand respect? I am sorry, I just do not understand. I work really, REALLY hard to create usable items, and to support my items as best I can. Comments like yours just hurt, and is so not needed to get your point across.

[RadekCode]

I am buyer on Envato and I want to tell You what I (as buyer) think about it.

1. All we know that on Envato we have sellers which give great support (also with extra modifications) and sellers which give very poor support (long reply, poor help). Both gives the same money for support… - not fair.

2. I know that a lot of sellers will help me also after 6 months. All depends on seller but most of them are professional and they know that happy client is the best advert. And I also know, that a lot of seller will give very poor support for 6 months. Conclusion? This term 6 months is unnecessary because it didn’t change relations between buyer-seller.

3. Of course this change confuses buyers, especially when they didn’t know English so good. Envato should be much simple as it is possible. Today there is a lot of questions about licenses, now it will be also with support.

4. Personally I think that Envato has got a lot of bigger problems (and necessary changes) than support policy. Where are “multi-licenses”? It is stupid when I want to use theme on 3 sites and I must buy 3 times the same template. You lost clients, because other sites gives multilicense option (for example +50% price and 5 sites).

[dtbaker]

Nah man I’m seeing a new ‘support_amount’ but still an empty ‘supported_until’ value.

I haven’t had a 12 month support package purchase yet, maybe it’s setup so that ‘supported_until’ will only be populated if it is different from 6 months after purchase date? (i.e. only if 12 month support has been added or if an extension is purchased later on)

[michaeldale]

months

Great thanks for the reply.

So I basically need to assume all buyers with an empty supported_until only have support 6 months after the created_at date? That doesn’t sound right to me.

As I thought all buyers should have 6 months starting from now, I’m a bit confused with how this is meant to work!