More information/transparency on themeforest.net themes

Envato Customers Purchases and Subscriptions
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Hi Authors & Buyers!

I think that there should be more transparency in the sales pages for the themes. As a designer, i often find that i don’t really know what i’m getting till i have bought it.

It would be nice to know/have the following before i buy a wordpress theme for example:

knowing if the theme has a custom theme editing page created by the author (or is it just the default theme editor for wordpress.

  • a demo of the backend so we can play with the theme from the designers point of view so we don’t come up against any nasty surprises that mean issuing unnecessary support tickets and unnecessary wait time at the the point of purchase.(maybe an envato official plugin that lets the authors give people login to the backend and click through the side menu but not click or edit in the right hand side panel, just viewing rights if letting people lose on the fully operational bakcnd is problematic).

  • knowing if css is required to edit the template to fit the branding colours and other obvious elements that you might want changing (this point could be interpreted as a rhetorical question as anything can be changed on the website using css, but i mean the fundamentals that you couls not live without changing).

  • mandatory indication of what country the support are in so we can assume better when they will answer tickets. that or a opening hours section for the support for each theme

  • a separate support team score from the current 5 star rating. You can buy the best theme in the world but without good services, you might as well not bother.

Also, the worst thing from a buyer point of view is when you ask what should be a standard question/answer and get told to put a ticket in. I image a lot of these questions answers could be added to an extra tab on the pages for these theme as an FAQ’s section. I know that there are other places off themeforest.net and theme documentation but if these were suitable, then why do you see “put a ticket in with our support” through all the comments!?

It feels like the lack of knowledge over these things gives authors the reason to not finish themes 100% and leaves some of the work up to buyer. The point in buying on themes on themeforest.net is to make the job of putting websites super fast and easy.

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Speaking as former power buyer I agree with some of these ideas, and can understand your logic. However I think that in actual fact these changes would only benefit a fairly small % of buyer with a higher technical ability.

The main issues I can still see however is the difference between buyers and authors.

  • the vast majority of buyers wouldn’t necessarily be in a position to answer a lot of their questions even with demo access etc.

  • it’s not possible to compare a one man band .v. an author with a a team of support or developers.

  • it’s not possible to truly cement support expectation and you only need to read comments on these forums to understand the mix of expectation around what support should/shouldn’t include and how quickly. This would lead to unfair ratings and confusion.

I appreciate it has to be a two way street and relies on mutual respect between authors and buyers, but it is often simply a case of there not being a solution that will fit everyone

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