It’s probably too early to see a real sales impact yet. Best to watch carefully and compare against last years sales. Lots of Holidays coming up too so sales tend to decline this time of year.
I’m preparing for losses though as should other authors. I’ve evaluated my portfolio and I think I may be losing some money being exclusive with the items I have here… I believe I may go non exclusive. We’ll see. We might not be able to change any minds but we can certainly leave or diminish our presence just like the customers.
These are not bots randomly joining the forum. These are real people, with real high quality honest feedback, delivered at your doorstep Envato.
I do believe you. I as well do think very carefully about my ideas when I´m making a music track. However 9 out of 10 times, my carefully thought out ideas are bad or average. My point is that you really can´t know how great an idea is before you have executed the idea and have had some external feedback. Your idea at this time, is very bad to start with and also very badly executed since to this day no customers are informed in a proper way.
@jamesgiroux I kindly ask you to do something I would call an unavoidable intervention with the rest of the Envato office. Something obviously has to be done here.
On the bright side you have the last weeks collected some very valuable feedback from customers how the transaction fees makes a very bad last impression of the shopping experience. I really think this is much more about psychology than economy as well. It´s a bit like placing a stone in your customers shoe before they leave. It´s very unnecessary and awkward.
And don´t make the assumption that this bad psychological last impression does not count for the majority of customers that uses credit cards etc. Because it surely must do. Just because this is not an uncommon practice in many online shops, does not mean it´s a smart fit for Envato and all the different marketplaces and items.
So please I ask you kindly again to act in this matter sooner than later. I understand this is not a decision you can make alone, but you need to make whoever you are communicating with take all of this feedback seriously. The “elephant in the forum” is to big to be ignored and it´s growing every day.
thank u for what u said about authors, i assume that all of us should thank you for these warm words towards the whole of us - when all the people do not necessarily realize all what authors are going through - who put some much efforts in what we do
It a shame you dont think about credit system. Im in marketing department and this is great for controlling and free use to my team. Its was very easy to add credits and thats it. Now is a big problem. STOP AND THINK.
I will go to another place. Sorry i was very happy.
Try not to feel degraded by how they are treating authors. Authors are the only reason they ever made any money. People still need your work. Just try to find another way.
thank u for the great message that u address to all authors, once again we should all appreciate it much, as all our time spent, efforts made and so on are rewarded by such a compliment. indeed , for me, this is sad that there is not a more actual partnership between envato and authors, if people were a bit more consulted and that their opinions could influence decisions, i tend to believe that some of them would be more profitable for all, including buyers … some decisions were felt as bad in the past , sometimes a lot of guys were complaining about it but they were not able to change decisions that were made and we can see all sorts of reactions as a result of all this
Well, the feedback from authors seems to be 99% negative.
In our production company it’s not possible to run every 1$ purchase through our manager (who holds the funds). This means that we have to use alternative marketplaces more often in the future. I really don’t see how this could be a win-win situation, neither for a customer or for an author (and I’m both).
As much as I tried to stay out of this in hopes that things would move along on topic, it’s clear, things are going off the rails really quick. Therefore, I will be deleting, without any notice, any off-topic comment that is not related to the “We’re removing Envato Credits from the Market”, or any comment that is inappropriate or flaming an already sensitive subject.
I mean no disrespect by this action, on the contrary, the voices of authors and buyers alike must be heard, but keep it on topic! Cheers everyone!
Does anyone know any payment gateway like Adyen or Braintree where does a credit system exist? I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that Envato is trying to automate its markets as much as possible and therefore Envato wants to transfer all payment functions to some payment platform, as Uber or Airbnb does. Maybe Envato already did it, I don’t know.
If this assumption is true, then, guys, we need to look at which payment gateways have a credit system. (I personally do not know about this). If there are no such payment gateways, then we will not get the credit system to the markets, at least in the near future.
I also dare to suggest that these $2 commissions are not PayPal or Skrill fees, but it is a fee for service of a payment company (payment gateway). Thus, we are unlikely to receive any payment method that will not have a commission or until Envato or authors take this commission into their expenses.
I hope I’m wrong and everything I wrote above is just my delusion and eventually, the solution will be found.
@jamesgiroux , if this is not classified information, can you confirm or deny this?
No company want to lose their clients whether they are too short in numbers.
Dear Envato, we both know how much we want each other. i’m really new here and from day first i see chaos in this forum. lets just end this up and bring back the system that worked for so long.
how about charging $2-3 for every $100 credit deposit?
For what it’s worth, I’m looking at my sales #'s and they are currently exactly the same as last month at this point (43 sales). I also haven’t seen any sales with credits in the last 20 sales. Additionally, it does seem like I’m seeing more Paypal purchases. Last thing, I haven’t uploaded new items since June, so that’s one variable that may be different for me than others.
While I continue to disagree with the change in that it forces customers to pay an unavoidable fee - I’ll continue providing any data I’ve got.
It’s such a sad thing to hear all these voices both from costumers and authors trying to revert what’s probably the worst and most arbitrary decission Envato has taken in years remain absolutely unheard.
CONSPIRANOID MODE ON: It’s so senseless that sometimes I feel like they are just trying to shut down the single license markets and focus all their business model in the greedy and exploitative Elements system. CONSPIRANOID MODE OFF.
Just my luck that I’d join this site right when this gets dropped. Doesn’t look very good for the company I hope “the customer is always right” argument can carry some weight here and Envato stop getting carried away by what seems like a selfish greed driven move. Mark my words Envato, if you ignore the cries of your customers, people WILL go elsewhere and you’ll be forgot about within 5 years. I’ll stick exclusive with you for a few more months but if this type of bad decision making continues I’m going non exclusive.
@jamesgiroux Both of these authors sell sound effects. If you change the system to work for sound effects a lot of the work is done I think. However removing transaction fees for small cost items only, you introduce the risk of authors price dumping to avoid transaction fees. So I think we can all agree that we simply just need at least 1 transaction fee free option for the markets.
Currently Elements is the only transaction fee free option for customers, and I think it would be helpful if you answer us why this differs James. For the record I do not believe you are trying to steal customers from your own market, that would simply be to stupid. There are enough customers to grab in the rest of the world. But for me it´s quite peculiar that Elements has no transaction fee. I understand that Elements is constructed around simplicity, including payment. So maybe you can draw some inspiration from your own model regarding straight forward shopping experience.
At this point I´m having faith that the lack of replies (and lack of informing customers) could be because you want to give us a better solution in your next reply. Thanks in advance for dealing with all of this, which must be quite stressful for you as well.
This really is a mistake. As an avid customer for over 10 years I have always used the credits. The credits work best for me as it allows me to make purchases when needed. It was simple for my accounting. I do not buy bulk items all at once, again most of my purchases happen throughout the month. I may not know what elements I need and projects always come up with little to no warning. This is very disappointing, guys.
Could you maybe consider a business class account in a subscription base like Adobe? I know there are plenty of business customers who’s buying habits would be similar to my own.
One off purchases with surcharges will make me reconsider or even delay the purchase. This I think would affect author’s and make the quality and availability on Envato go down.
We all will move passed this, however this makes me start to consider alternative outlets for my creative elements.
I hope “the customer is always right” argument can carry some weight here and Envato stop getting carried away by what seems like a selfish greed driven move. Mark my words Envato, if you ignore the cries of your customers, people WILL go elsewhere and you’ll be forgot about within 5 years. I’ll stick exclusive with you for a few more months but if this type of bad decision making continues I’m going non exclusive.