Themes with poor support

I’ve been a member for years – and used to enjoy purchasing themes from individual developers on the site. Part of my due diligence was reviewing the comment/support section to see how problems were handled, or how many problems people were having. Lately it seems there are some “puppy mill” developers producing packages with the illusion of support. Based on my recent purchase – it’s illusion. These folks are selling memberships to allow you to buy multiple themes – but turn the support burden over to the vanilla basic WP documentation. The result is it reflects poorly on this site as a reliable source for good themes. I wish Themeforest would purge these types. They show a few testimonials (they probably wrote) – but in order to read their support forum, you have to buy in. Caveat!

Hey,

I don’t understand what you’re trying to say really.

Are you saying that authors run a separate support forum and, to register, you need to have bought an item from them? Is that the problem, or is it something else?

bumping this so we can get a more defined explanation from the OP as I am sure Envato will want to know and act upon this for sure if I am reading this correctly…

Please let us know in more detail and also I strongly suggest contacting support at theme forest to let them know – anything outside of the basic guidelines and rules / regulations of an author that we all legally agree to needs to be addressed – thanks

Jonathan

Unless it’s a critical theme-breaking problem, support is optional.

Okay – clarification…. I recently bought a theme through the site, or more specifically the theme was part of a “package of themes” sold for one fee. I have never had any problem with themes or developer support prior to this. The theme(s) support is off site – and THEIR site, and handled via a “Forum” which appears to rarely get answers to purchaser questions. More critically – they offer “customization” when they do ever respond. While on Themeforest site, you cannot see the support discussions on their products. In order to see that, you must go to their site. In order to review their “support forum,” you must already be a member (paid the purchase price.) In earlier days, if you had a support question, you would post it through Themeforest. It seems that more and more, I am seeing developers use an “off site” ticket system. This doesn’t give buyers much transparency.

Better explanation?

Basic support should be free at all times and you have to buy a theme to get support for this theme that’s for sure. But the support should always be free of charge for this purchase.

There could be way, and that’s that the theme builder is providing a little extra support for a little charge. Like when you ned immediate support or need customizations which have nothing to do with bugs or any type of error related issue with the theme.

We are thinking about this as well, to provide free support to all our products but when a customer needs fast support, let’s say with a few hours then they have to pay little fee. Or when they need some customizations done then it’s normal that the customer has to pay for this extra work.

But paying for normal support doesn’t have to to cost you any extra money and especially when a bug occurs. You don’t have to pay for the theme developers mistake.

My 2 cents.

PS: We also have a outside of themeforest forum and nothing wrong with that, you register with your username and purchase ID so we can rule out illegal support. Nothing wrong with that, one big happy place where you can visit to look for support and search for topics which have the answer you where needed. Themeforest comments section simply has a really terrible to none search section so we as authors have to answer the same questions over and over because people don;t want to browse through hundreds of comments.

Not if it is sold with support, or support is used in their marketing. I can’t imagine purchasing a theme or plugin from an independent developer without knowing support existed. And I understand developers are not here to teach WP to newbies… but I’m referring to critical issues.

PixelBin said
Unless it’s a critical theme-breaking problem, support is optional.

As a developer, I can understand that support is a bit of a burden at times – but…

Apple has not been so successful in recent years because they made a product, or products. They have won the market over because they sell an experience…. and support is just as much a part of that positive experience as quality control, or design. This is why jobs was such a control freak with the apps… the experience.

As a buyer, if I have a horrible experience with support – Just like my HP experiences – I won’t come back.

THAT IS WHY I HATE THE SPAM WITH THEMES EVERYDAY !

I really feel for this situation. I think that an author should support his products! We do and it takes a lot of time, but we think that support is a big part of a themes life and sales.

I’m still confused as you said you bought a collection of themes as one product – currently bundling is not allowed at themeforest…. am I missing something here

Jonathan