Ok, so this is my first post about sales on Themeforest. But really we are a Power elite author and this sale fluctuations are really WTF (nothing describes it better).
How can we have steady solid sales for one week and then the next week we sell 50% of what we sold in the previous week? And the next week it can (or not) go back to normal.
If this is not connected to constant changes of the search algorithm or something else on Envato then I’m a f… elf! Really Envato?
I would be very gladful if Elite and Power Elite author will share there opinion!
The same thing mate…
Same thing here… Only we have drastic fluctuations on daily basis. And new split testing with search layout dropped our sales by 70%… (when split testing started our sales dropped significantly…).
I am Elite and actually the sale is good until the last few weeks it gradually drops.
I can see a lot of A/B testings have been being taken in a very short time.
The last few days, as new listing UI layout has been released (list preview instead of thmbnail) , the traffic drastically drop even 70-90%. Previously, buyers have to click to see more, now they don’t.
Buyers won’t click if your preview don’t show design/function impressive enough.
With the cureent conversation rate (Visitor/buyer) it will surely leads to low sale.
When authors are giving much effort (or use paid services from Envato studio) to create a clear and effective item description, these testings will put those description into the most hidden corner of the warehouse.
Now you have to put all (design, function, plugins into a small preview to get more clicks.
A lot of preview will get buyers confused what to do next.
Anyway, I am also excited with AB testing and let the sales speak on behalf of authors!
Well, friend, just wait for the time where the WordPress will also be included in “Elements”, and it will be very very soon (And surely, the elementsBanner at top of the marketplaces will not help. The banner is there from the February 7th ; it has been a month! We are trying to make a sale while that banner is saying “hey come on I got everything for $29”… )
Yes, we will see what happens when Wordpress arrives at Elements. I guess nothing good for us. Another really annoying thing are refunds, but not because of the refund itself, I like the system in which I can approve or deny the refund but because of the time from given the refund and the time that ratings are removed. It usually takes more than six days, which is simply not acceptable. If I approve the refund, ratings need to be removed immediately! And not sure what is the point of giving us the refunds if they manually check each one and it takes them a week to do so.
Trying to make sales while that shiny ElementsBanner advertises EVERYTHING for just $29 including WordPress very soon - Now, does it make any sense?
Undervaluing, undervaluing, undervaluing…
“Elements” is an another marketplace, and this is simply stealing our customers. We are working really hard to promote our items on various platforms, sometimes we are paying with our hard earned money for it, and yet our hardly earned customers are sent to another marketplace where almost everything is served for only $29.
At first, when Envato launched, the motto was “you create the items and we do the rest” ; where the word “rest” surely meant “marketing”, now not only that changed from the ground and everything is put upon the authors’ shoulders, our marketing efforts was stolen to send our customers to an another marketplace where everything is sold almost for FREE!. Elements is everywhere, on item pages, on checkout, on search, on everywhere. I really don’t understand the logic behind this kind of advertisement.
Again, a note…: better sales will start to happen if you change your affiliate system. Your current affiliate system is a total “waste of time” when compared with your competitors and you’ll have simply no new affiliates with it. Change your affiliate system for good from the ground and you’ll have an army of free promoters. Current system is like a joke and no one will waste their precious time for it… i.e.With such a hard to convert affiliate system, you must give a percentage of all the future purchases of the referred member.
Did you try http://stattie.com/ ?
Because as far as I checked and monitored since December, Overall WordPress sales are increasing but not much compare to number of new authors and themes submitted are growing stronger than sale. That’s the reason.
Great tool, didn’t know about it. So by checking it out and if I am looking it correctly, Avada has 7.5% of all WordPress themes sales. If I do some quick math, best selling 10 themes make for almost 1/4 of all sales. Pretty unbelievable. 
Just another confirmation we did the right step with our own shop which is reaching 50% of what we make on Themeforest in just a few months. It’s just getting ridiculously hard to have good and steady sales on Themeforest (apart from top 20 sellers).
So I am really questioning if it’s even worth to put any more effort in Themeforest rather than our own market.