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digitalscience said
I mentioned something like this before a month ago..

+1. Very good solution.

bitfade said

digitalscience said
I mentioned something like this before a month ago..

back then you were also starving to death due to missing envato swift so everybody probably thought you were just having hallucinations.

haha yeh no one seems to listen to my crazy ramblings

There is an inherent flaw in the structure of Envato Marketplaces – it caters for fast expansion and growth in the first years, but then reaches a stagnation point when the number of files added weekly don’t benefit from the current structure.

Being a topseller on ActiveDen, and watching and understanding well how the structure works, it’s quite apparent ThemeForest has reached this stagnation point too, the limit to what newly added files can achieve compared to what they could have achieved a few years ago. It’s just plain and simple, the current structure doesn’t cater for long term growth past the initial “boom” phase when the marketplace starts. Also there is a decline phase after stagnation point, where quality authors give up uploading new files, because the current structure does not benefit good sales like it use to, and they go somewhere else. So we left with a marketplace with the same old top files, which are outdated, and new quality files are now being sold elsewhere, and so do the buyers go.

The scenario is this, new Envato marketplace starts… new files get a good chance at exposure and sales, authors make money. More authors join, and the first top sellers appear and enjoy good profits. After a year or two, these top sellers make large amounts of money and creates massive hype, tales of huge incomes being earned spread and large volumes of new authors now join the site. I’d like to term this as the “gold rush” phase – like back in the wild west But now the current system doesn’t cater for this large expansion, the main problem area is 1) home page exposure has become too short 2) Poor search, and filtering options to find new files. At this point stagnation point is reached, old top selling files continue to enjoy high sales because they have the exposure, and newer files really struggle to compete. So those first top sellers stay at the top, enjoy the profits – and everyone else just kinda hopes and dreams for a miracle that their new file would hit the big time. But unfortunately as time progresses this is less likely to happen.

Solution is, slow down approval rate or increase quality level, or add in something new to the homepage, like what VF and I were talking about. The site needs to grow at the same rate that new files are added, otherwise they’ll be a problem.

digitalscience said

bitfade said

digitalscience said
I mentioned something like this before a month ago..

back then you were also starving to death due to missing envato swift so everybody probably thought you were just having hallucinations.

haha yeh no one seems to listen to my crazy ramblings

PS : An example would be your reply above.

billyf said

digitalscience said

bitfade said

digitalscience said
I mentioned something like this before a month ago..

back then you were also starving to death due to missing envato swift so everybody probably thought you were just having hallucinations.

haha yeh no one seems to listen to my crazy ramblings

Ah….I think I participated in that discussion last time. Well, you have a tendency to write lengthy replies which might diminish the ‘motivation’ to read what you have written PS : An example would be your reply above.

lol – too much free time

digitalscience said
It’s just plain and simple, the current structure doesn’t cater for long term growth past the initial “boom” phase when the marketplace starts. Also there is a decline phase after stagnation point, where quality authors give up uploading new files, because the current structure does not benefit good sales like it use to, and they go somewhere else.

honestly i don’t believe reviewers should be blamed for the recent flood of new items approved as they cannot spend 3h on each one to check if there are bugs/is a copycat.

Some random thoughts: what if, as soon as submitted, each item goes into a sandbox area ? A group of users (like seasoned buyers) could check the preview and spot bugs/resemblances with existing items and leave a comment.

Such comments would only be seen by the reviewer once item gets out the queue and would help him decide whether item should be approved or not.

Also, I think Popular page (“Last Week’s Top WordPress Sellers”) should get some sort of paging to display more items.

I can only imagine that current criteria is sales > 50, at least it is how it looks like.

So we’re already asking for another feature? Heh.

rvision_ said
Also, I think Popular page (“Last Week’s Top WordPress Sellers”) should get some sort of paging to display more items. I can only imagine that current criteria is sales > 50, at least it is how it looks like.

Always wondered why this isn’t implemented tbh. Seems like an easy way to give a lot more exposure to a lot of very good items. (those with weekly sales of 20-50 are still probably great items) – this would probably help some new items get further exposure as well.