Value Based Marketing vs. Misleading Pricing with ADP

Hey Everyone. Thanks for your thoughts and responses. We’ve read every post here and are carefully considering all the points raised.

As mentioned previously, Envato won’t be changing or moving away from ADP. I know not everyone is a fan of ADP but we’re committed to giving authors price freedom. We also won’t be setting a limit or minimum.

We are actively responding to reports coming in around violations. I agree that we can be doing a better job at how we manage these reports and authors who consistently do the wrong thing.

To that end, we’ll be fine-tuning the process for reporting and handling violations over the course of the next week and I’ll loop back here when that’s ready.

And just as a reminder to everyone, it’s against the forum rules to call out other authors, be careful what you post and how you post it to ensure that no one author is singled out.

It’s against the law to discuss pricing strategies.

I cannot stress this enough, it’s really not good. Imagine Google, Samsung and Apple getting together on a forum and deciding that mobile phones were priced too low and agreeing that a minimum price of $700 was what all phones should cost. Every prosecutor in every free-market government would be jumping over each other to file lawsuits. It just cannot happen. I’ve flagged a few posts because of this. It’s not to stifle discussion but to protect everyone from saying things that could get them in legal hot water.

We’d like to keep the discussion going but it’s important that everyone sticks to the rules of engagement.

Yes envato won’t change the ADP because you already got a fixed buyer fee.
You don’t have to think about the author’s benefit as you already have secured your’s through fixed buyer fee

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@jamesgiroux I’m a fan of ADP, however I really think you guys should also allow us to set our own extended support pack costs basing them off the theme price my current 6-months extended is $7.10 ($39 theme price) which is ridiculous, pretty sure child labor in sweatshops make 10 fold that — this is a massive issue and we’re already controlling theme pricing we should be allowed to control our own support pricing considering its our own labor, and mine is sure worth a hell of a lot more than $7 bucks for 6 months, its joke.

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What about the recommendations by @Kriesi ?

So no change to rules as proposed by @Kriesi, you are just going to make it easier for us authors to report violations. So yes, you are listening, but basically don’t really care what anybody is saying (and I don’t mean you personally of course, but Envato as whole). But at least you made it pretty much clear we shouldn’t expect any major changes, so I guess this thread can be closed now.

Although to be fair… you don’t have to think about Envato’s benefit, as you have already secured yours through being able to set your own item price.

In this case, since you are not going to revert ADP which is killing the WHOLE theme market, please consider making your earnings as percentage instead of a fixed fee. For example you get 20% over our earnings, this way you will encourage authors to set price fairly and if they low the prices you will also get a low earning. This is fair and make it possible for us to become ‘fans’ of ADP model.

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LOL !
Who thinks about envato’s benefit ? where envato better taking care of himself

Well you do, because you made a post about it. But the proper answer to that question would be… ‘anyone who cares about the sustainability and long-term viability of a marketplace they use to sell their work’.

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Thanks for showing me the PROPER answer.
Anyway most of the authors are worried about ADP.
Hope your answer will inspire them too :slight_smile:

@SpaceStockFootage aren’t you tired to defend Envato every single day on forums? Everytime I read a post on forums you’re the only one defending Envato’s regarding pricing, Elements and low sales. Isn’t hard to see that overall sales decreased since Elements banners are presented on each page (at least for HTML section) and also it’s more than obvious that Envato secured its revenue with a $12 fixed fee for WordPress. I’m pretty sure low prices means more sales overall because with cheap themes they will have access to other countries where buyers normaly won’t pay $59 for a WordPress theme and that means more money for Envato and less for authors. Those presented above are real facts. If you are kind to answer, I wonder if you are share your opinions as an author or as a moderator here on forums.

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ADP is fine. I just want Envato to stop taking 30% of my us earnings.

This is a common misconception. In nearly all cases, I’m disputing people’s opinions on pricing, Elements and low sales when they use incorrect information or assumptions to back up those opinions to try and present them as facts. If somebody presents an opinion which is just an opinion, or they use actual facts to back up those opinions… then you’ll find that I rarely, if ever, dispute them. Tell me you hate Elements, that’s fine. Tell me that you hate Elements because you’ve not had a sale for two days, so that’s conclusive proof that Elements is to blame, and Envato will be bankrupt in six months… I might have something to say on that!

This is a good example. What information are you using to arrive at this conclusion? Do you have sales data for the entire marketplace for a few months before the banner and the few months since the banner, so that we can compare? Have you compared the normal monthly variance (from historical data) between the months you are comparing? Could any drop in sales be related to other factors, or is it purely due to the Elements banner? Are you just going on anecdotal evidence from about 1% of the author population that have made comments? etc etc

Of course, it made sense to do so. If every author put their prices to $1 overnight, and Envato were getting 30 cents per sale, then they’d be out of business within a year. They came up with a solution that would ensure they don’t take a massive hit to their revenue. It could be argued that they didn’t need to come up with a solution if they hadn’t implemented ADP in the first place, but still. You’re probably right, combined with the ‘advertised’ reason of giving authors more choice and control, I’m guessing they will have considered the possibility of more sales from new buyers attracted by lower price points.

Few months back I gave a possible reason how ADP is affecting our sales

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Placing Elements banners on themeforest is wrong ethically. Both are competitors even if you say that both have different type of customers.

If an author is investing into paid marketing to bring buyers to his themeforest portfolio and sees an Elements banner where they can buy items on cheap price, what do you think the buyer will do? Majority will click on it and move away from the author’s portfolio.

Advertise Envato Elements, but outside Themeforest!

No we don’t have sales data to compare.
Would you please provide the sales data to prove the sales are not affected by element ?

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Ok, that was expected - Envato won’t give up on ADP and won’t set price limits …
Ok, we have pricing freedom, Envato is not a seller (not a marketplace, but “platform”), we are sellers - so:

  • If we are sellers, where’s OUR buyers contacts (leads) then ?
    Don’t you think if we are sellers ( and take care of support, taxes … everything ) we are entitled to leads ? Envato, would you please release OUR buyers info to US ?
    ( of course you won’t, that was really just a hypothetical question …)
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We should also be able to set support prices ourselves in that case?

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I don’t have the sales data, and it’s unlikely a private company will release their financial information in the forums. As I don’t have the sales data, I’ve never made assumptions with regards to whether overall sales are up or down, or whether Elements is having a negative effect on marketplace sales or not. Many do though… they see less than 1% of the author community having a bad month, and think it’s the end of the world.

We all see how sales are affected.
We don’t need any data for that.
I am curios to know do you sale any item on themeforest ?