Hello,
This topic has been debated and beaten to death, yet no changes have come from it. Envato forms relationships with authors to help build their marketplace and for the author to help build their brand, it’s a 2 sided coin. Specific decisions that affect this relationship should involve both sides.
ADP pricing has been a disaster in authors eyes, at least most of them that we have spoken with. All the while, it has not affected Envato due to the fixed pricing structure. I’m not sure how any author who is determined to make a living on this marketplace can disagree with that.
We are not fully against ADP. When it was first mentioned to us before it was released, it was going to allow authors to raise their cost by $5 or take it down by $5 … the idea was some kind of range for a certain time period. This made sense to us, it allows sales for special events, promotions for a new product, etc but limits how long it can go and definitely limits how low it can go … that breeds good competition.
Allowing authors to set any damn price they want, is completely absurd. Not only will authors drop prices down to basement level pricing, others will follow, customers will start to view the entire marketplace as lower quality. This is a global marketplace, it is not based off one location.
ADP has only accomplished changed competition because of pricing … not because of a better product, higher ratings or the capabilities the item offers. No, it’s all about pricing. And that is wrong.
What should ADP look like? It should look like what it was originally planned to look like.
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Each author has a range of $5-10 to move their item cost up or down. This would require each type of item, ex: WP Theme, to have a set price range as it was in the old days.
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When authors drop their prices down, it should be considered a promotion / sale. And the sale should be limited to a certain time frame, 1 week, 2 weeks, etc. The point of this, is that it cannot be continual.
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Each author is allowed to have X number of sales a year. This should be easily trackable in the authors dashboard through a new sale history tab.
This is the basic idea of what we feel ADP should be, I’m sure there are many other questions to answer yet I can’t imagine any of them would create a hang up that does not allow this method to pass and succeed.
Maybe Envato should be taking a vote across the marketplace to see what authors really think ADP should be … after all, we are the ones it affects, not Envato.