Value Based Marketing vs. Misleading Pricing with ADP

+1000 … we’ve asked for this dozens of times only to be told a discount can only be given on bulk pricing if it’s near $5K. And ADP pricing is not the answer to this commonly asked question of customers who continue to come to Envato.

Give authors the power to produce bulk sales for individuals.

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Hey @ThemeFusion,

no one would mention your sale promotions as they were always been fair. We are insulted by “not well educated” authors who did this constantly for the last two years and no one cares.

I am glad to see another top author joining the discussion.

Would love to see also some position/explanation or at least “POV” by some of the “not-mentioned” “not-so-fellow” authors. Unfortunately they don’t have the dignity to do so.

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Rules over Rules…
First comes ADP which has been become headache for Envato now. Now we Authors have to follow another Rules for Promotional Image.
On Past days, there wasn’t any ADP and no one did this nasty works like ( worth of $1000 and now $19 !!! ). Envato gives this opportunity to ruin the market.
While ADP doesn’t exists there’s a Quality of the market Pricing, which doesn’t exists now. Those days is not far when WordPress Theme price will $1/$2.
Buyers have also intention to purchase Low price products and definitely they’re suffering for Support and Quality of the Product.

Directly or Indirectly Buyers will lose trust on Envato Products.

We Strongly think Please restore the ADP again otherwise WordPress market will die within 1 year. Please take some BOLD move. Don’t force us another Rules, it’s really going over our Head !!!

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Another example of ADP violation.
They already got some good sales through fake advertisement.
Who will stop and how ?
Yes you can complain and that author may stop this advertisement.
But the author’s achievement is he already got some quick sales :slight_smile:

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Yep, and once an item is starting to gain sales, the snowball-effect may start and this author get’s a huge benefit from the situation, while it affects the sales of competitors…

EDIT: the one theme price just went back up to $59. Must of been caught during update process.

Good for them (clap)

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Now 2 themes in the top 5 are at new low non-sale prices. Wow.

Envato we do hope a limit is placed on how low a WP item can go. It doesn’t hurt Envato since you still make $12 for any sale, but it hurts your community which is what Envato is all about

We believe when the community succeeds, we succeed.

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There is still no violation here if they stick to what they claim on that image.

When TWO of the all-time-top-authors step in and no reaction from Envato… well, we have a saying in my country. can’t really translate it 100% correct and I don’t know if it makes sense at all in English but it’s something like “blowing under your own tale” or “kicking your own health insurance cert.”

Yeah no violation for either of them, but this shows the largest concern is becoming more and more a reality that we’ve had from the beginning … which is a race to the bottom for theme prices.

It’s very sad.

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Yes, I was just saying that technically the theme in question (in @enroutedigitallab comment) is not breaking the rules.

Whether this and what you referred to are smart moves or not - well, that’s a totally different story and I completely agree with you.

We are now forced to devalue our more simple themes and also run regular “promotions” just to keep up.

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For raising our rate, we have to be careful how we discuss it, but Kriesi mentioned above a good reason why many are not doing it yet. Also, 2 out of the top 3 are at a non-sale price of $49 and $39.

We’ve considered everything and watch things weekly.

Thanks for your time and your reply. I’m asking because I’m curious about your thoughts, I mean you guys are Envato’s top hit of all time. And your customers love you. So, you first would need some kind of clear rules/sanctions system from envato regarding promotions, and secondly, you would need this to be a “movement” among the top sellers?

We feel the problem is ADP pricing in general. It needs removed or a limit needs set on how low you can go.

If not, then ADP is better for some if they have lower prices (as we are already seeing) but it’s worse for others if they have lower prices. Having a marketplace with half of the items priced where they should be and the other half of items not priced where they should be … creates these issues we are all talking about.

Authors could fix this, you are right. But it has to be marketplace wide, and unfortunately that won’t happen because of the rules in place that allow them to do what they are doing.

It needs fixed by Envato.

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A little story. In the past I’ve sent an email about the author who breaking the ADP rules. Envato has reacted to this an he has removed ‘misleading info’. An now the same author doing the same thing. Really? What next? Envato again will tell him “don’t do it”? Maybe you need to do more agressive steps? Envato, hello!

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Is this not allowable? @jamesgiroux
I’m not this author (or partner), just a question that needs an official confirmation?
I think Introductory & promotional price is technically quite differrent (this wording technique is what makes lawyers have one of the highest paid job).
This is similar to what we’ve done in digital product (service…) for early birds on some “product hunt” marketing approach
and yes, Elements as well. (in spite of the sad truth Elements won’t increase the price and set it as normal price).

It is allowed as long as they strictly stick to what’s stated on the image.

The only questionable part of the image might be the “back to normal $59” part. I think there’s no intention to cheat the system here, the author probably meant it will go up to the normal price… but the wording does give the impression that the theme was $59 at some point before, and at the end of the promotional period, it will be going ‘back’ to that price… when it has never actually been that price before.

But otherwise, as long as they stick to the prices and the schedule, as theAIThemeist says, nothing wrong with that.

yeah, I got it, even if we have a time machine, we cannot “go back” to the non-existing past.
so the wording should be On 22 MAY the price will be $59.

Coupons are not a good alternative to ADP in my opinion.

What the market needs is “volume discounts”. So if a customer buys 2 licenses of a product they automatically get 10% off. Buy 5 licenses, get 15% off the total, etc.

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