The response here on the forums about the change to credits says we could have done a better job with our communications when we announced the change. So I wanted to open by just acknowledging this and apologizing. We’ve aimed to gather responses to the most common questions below.
When making a change like the removal of our credit system, we think very carefully about the potential impacts to customers. Credits have been on Envato Market since day zero and are a mainstay for a portion of our customerbase. That said, a lot has changed since 2006.
In those years, we’ve introduced a cross marketplace shopping cart, regular sales and discounts, a “Buy Now” system that is now the predominant way to purchase, a subscription service for heavy volume users, lowered handling fees on purchases under $10 and their removal on larger spends, and numerous other changes. Alongside these changes have, of course, been the continued growth of customers and sales.
Credits are still used today, and this change does mean some customers are going to have a frustrating experience, and we apologize for that. When operating a marketplace with over two million customers, it’s difficult to make product changes that don’t have some negative ramifications for some customers. This is one of the reasons we only approach such changes with a lot of caution and consideration.
In this instance, our experience and data suggests that this change will be overall a positive for Envato Market. Its removal in the codebase will greatly simplify our ability to move the product forward, and we believe will encourage the ongoing use of other purchase systems - in particular, customers favoriting items or adding to cart, and the general take-up of sales and promotions.
With all that out of the way, on to the questions!
You can still make purchases on Envato Market without a credit card, through PayPal and Skill (which was previously only an option for buying credits).
Unfortunately, we can no longer justify the administrative and technical complexity associated with managing a credits system given the clear preference customers have shown for Buy Now (as demonstrated by the strong decline we’ve observed in the use of credits over the last few years) and the use of our shopping cart to buy bundles of items at once.
The Buy Now option already has these fees and customers now choose the Buy Now option for the vast majority of purchases.
For that majority of customers (those already using the Buy Now system), there will be no change to conversion or sales or experience. For the minority (those using credits), we anticipate an increase in basket size as it becomes more economical to purchase items together. Our experience suggests that overall we’ll see no negative impact on conversion and sales for authors, and in time we can further build on incentives to help customers get more value by finding more items that go together.
As mentioned above, we don’t believe this change will lead to a drop in sales or conversion. The number of customers using the Buy Now option (that includes handling fees) has substantially increased over time, and now accounts for the vast majority of our purchases. Customers choosing to use credits instead of the Buy Now option continues to decline.
Additionally use of the Buy Now option is associated with greater spend and larger basket sizes.
We understand that removing credits will affect how a small number of customers transact with Envato. This isn’t ideal, but we can’t retain every feature. On balance, we believe these changes will be better for most buyers by simplifying the purchase flow. Customers can still group their purchases together using the shopping cart.
Authors can still use their earnings to purchase items, and we have no plans to disable it.