Envato UX Tirade #2: The Purchase Process

I just bought a plugin on CodeCanyon, which was my first interaction here as a buyer. It was a pretty confusing experience. Here’s what happened:

1. Click buy button
2. Clicked pay with my account balance
3. Nothing happens (thought I saw loading spinner from AJAX request)
4. Checked downloads: nothing
5. Go back to product. Buy again the same way
6. Definitely see an AJAX request
7. Still no visible confirmation of purchase
8. Return to downloads. See purchase.
9. Not sure if I just bought it twice.

At no point was my purchase confirmed in the site.

UX-wise that’s pretty terrible. At minimum I should be redirected to a confirmation screen where I can instantly download the item. Ideally this screen would be tailored to the item type and would be the perfect place to fix those WP missing style.css issues: http://themeforest.net/forums/thread/how-can-themeforest-prevent-missing-stylecss-issues-once-and-for-all/88582

If you’re an author and haven’t ever been through the purchase process it’s an eye opener. Using ThemeForest as a distribution platform I’m sorely disappointed with that flow.

If this is the experience that buyers have been facing for years then I’m surprised how many buyers choose to come back and wonder how many don’t.

You’d better contact support and describe the issues. I have purchased few items already and have always had a purchase confirmation and was redirected to downloads page automatically.

Can anyone else confirm this? Is something broken vs the normal purchase flow?