Terrible Support From Theme Forest
Theme Forest is a theme marketplace which sells templates for WordPress, Joomla and standard CSS websites. There are hundreds of templates within the store. The website is owned by Envato, who run several similar graphic stores.
Unlike most other WordPress theme stores, ThemeForest do not actually design the themes themselves. Instead, they take a commission for allowing designers to sell their themes to a large audience. Because of this, there is a great amount of variety in the marketplace. I have personally purchased a few themes from there for projects and I have purchased graphics from some of their sister sites too.
Support
The first theme I bought through Theme Forest was in October. I contacted the developer of the theme because the category links on the sidebar at the top level didn’t work.
I got a reply from the designer saying that out of the hundreds of people who bought the theme, I was only one of 3 people who brought it up and that the other two people didn’t call it ‘a bug’.
I was obviously less than happy about this but in the end I didn’t do anything more about it as the theme was doing the same thing it did in the demo. Unfortunately, you cannot find out problems like this until you install a theme and check the code yourself, so it’s not something you can plan for. However, what I do expect from designers is some sort of professionalism. In the end I simply installed a different theme and moved on.
Last week I purchased my second theme through Theme Forest; the Gallery Pro WordPress Theme by Chris Wallace. It’s a beautiful looking theme and was exactly what I was looking for.
Unfortunately, the plugin which comes with the theme for custom pages cannot be installed as it brings up a fatal error. More importantly, the thumbnail feature used to display images doesn’t work automatically or manually. I contacted Chris right away about this but got no reply so sent another one the next day. Still no reply.
A day later I opened a support ticket at Envato explaining my situation. They replied the next day telling me that they will look into this and asking what version of WordPress I was using. I told them that I was using the latest version of WordPress and awaited their response but none has come as yet.
I have sent another few emails to them over the last 4 days but they have yet to reply to my request for a refund. As it stands just now, this looks to be the second theme I have purchased through Theme Forest which I cannot even use.
I still hope to get a refund but the lack of contact over the last 4 days suggests that it probably won’t come. Although I am disappointed that Chris Wallace (the designer) has not replied to any of my emails, I am more disappointed in Envato as they should be dealing with problems like this in a quick and professional manner.
Marketplace System
As you guys know, I sell WordPress themes myself through both BloggingTips and Blog Themes Club (which is being relaunched soon). However I still actively purchase WordPress theme stores from other sites.
If I am launching a new WordPress powered site, be it a large new project or a small 5 page mini site, I look to get the perfect design for the site. Therefore I am more than happy to shell out a little money. The last theme I purchased was the very useful Headway Theme ($87/$164), a great theme for those who don’t like coding or for those who just want to move things around visually.
I think that the marketplace system is great in many ways as it encourages competition and allows a wide range of designs and ideas to be developed. However, I believe the downside from this kind of system is support. Envato (owners of Theme Forest) clearly rely on their designers to provide support for their own themes.
I have only purchased two themes and have received bad support both times (well, bad support and no support) so perhaps I have been unlucky. Even if most people receive good support, I still think they need to look at their whole system. As it stands, there is no rating system or comment area for themes. This means that users have no idea if the theme does what it is supposed to do, if there are any bugs, or if support is good. There are forums mind you, though there are so many themes for sale that it is unlikely that you will find many threads on the design you are interested in.
Should we blame designers for not providing good support? I don’t actually think that we should. Designers who sell their themes exclusively via Theme Forest get between 40% and 70% of the sales price. Most themes cost between $20 and $30. Assuming 50% a sale and a theme price of $25, they need to sell 80 copies to make $1,000. Which is quite a lot when you think how much they could get by selling designs directly.
If a designer doesn’t want to sell a design exclusively, they only receive a measly 25%. What sort of support can you expect from a designer who makes approximately $6 per sale of a premium design?
Support can be very time consuming. With most WordPress premium theme stores the owners put a lot of time into support because they know that customers will return. They also know that poor support will give them a bad reputation amongst bloggers and web developers.
The Theme Forest marketplace works differently. It’s not really in the best interests of designers to offer great support. Since there is no rating or comment system, future profits from sales of their theme aren’t really affected by offering poor support. It’s better for them to spend their time developing their next theme for the marketplace. That is, for a designer to make money on Theme Forest they need to sell a theme in volume so it’s better to spend more time developing themes than supporting them.
Conclusion
The marketplace system aside, I am disappointed by the support from Theme Forest. They seem to be very uninterested in resolving this issue for me and are not responding to my request for a full refund.
They have no control over what kind of support their designers offer customers. Therefore it is up to them to make sure they offer customers great customer support when something does go wrong.
There are hundreds of great themes at Theme Forest. I am not going to discourage any of you from purchasing a theme from there as there are some great themes in the marketplace. What I do strongly advise is that you are aware of how the whole system works.
Be aware that if you have any problems using the theme or if the theme has a major bug or doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do; you may be on your own.
UPDATE – 4 hours later
Phaethon rightly pointed out that there is a comment area for each theme. The comment link is at the bottom of the page. I have never noticed this before as I was looking for the comment area directly underneath the theme info area (i.e. like traditional blogs have).
I still believe that what I have said about there not being a major incentive for designers to give support. The gallery pro theme which I have had problems with has had a lot of complaints from people about the same thing. Also, it doesn’t change the fact that Envato nor the original designer are not returning my emails.
UPDATE – 11th January 2010
Theme Forest have now made amends 
Written by Kevin Muldoon from WordPress ModsPosted on January 8th, 2010 and filed under WordPress Themes
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15 Responses to “Terrible Support From Theme Forest”
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Six Figure Blogging
Kevin – Nicely written. I agree with you in that the marketplace system encourages competition and it allows designers to pitch their theme to a large audience, but there is really no incentive to provide support. Themes like Headway, Thesis, Frugal that also provide great support and other resources to their clients are much better options in my opinion.
I have to say reading your post reminds me of my local grocery store owner presenting arguments against the large supermarket some five miles away. Including I should say, how he went and bought an item from the supermarket and complained and they referred him to their main support centre etc etc. Felt like a déjà vu!
But one thing which was different is your argument that a person who sells on the marketplace has less incentive to support his item because his % take home is low. So I collected some stats:
- The local grocery store (your site) has 5 WP themes on the shelves
- The supermarket (Themeforest) has 400+ themes
- The local grocery store had 11,000 visits in December and customers spent on average 2.20 min in it
- The supermarket had 3,400,000 visits in December and customers spent on average 12.10 min in it.
(All data from Google Adplanner, try it yourself).
In the long run, who do you think will have more incentive to support the customer, the person who takes home 50% of large income or the person who takes home 100% of a tiny income (assuming he does not have to pay himself anything for standing in the grocery store, and all other expenses are free: electricity, rent of his hosting service, google adwords, posting on blogs to get attention etc?
Who would you bet on: the local grocery stores of the future or the supermarkets of the future?
No doubt of course supermarkets have to keep on improving their support levels and Themeforest is no different and will do so……like all supermarkets they have a much larger incentive than the local grocery store.
It doesn’t matter how much a designer is making. If they’re going to sell something, it should be supported. Each designer having a website with a tech support forum (phpbb is free) would be better than what you’re running into, with the added benefit of someone possibly posting who has already fixed an issue you’re having.
As far as support goes I guess it’s down to the designer to give a gppd service to ensure his name doesn’t get a bad reputation. However, the amount of support he gives will more than likely be proportional to the amount of money he is making from it and in most cases on a marketplace support probably isn’t worth their time.
Personally, I would strongly discouarage anyone looking to purchase a theme not only for the aforementioned reasons but because it really devaules web design. I don’t understand why anyone would want to purchase a theme that anyone else can purchase and effectively have the same site as any number of others.
If you are looking to create a site that is of any quality at all you really should invest in a top quality designer who can create a custom solution for your needs.
You mention that you are willing to pay for quality but $164 is nothing for a website and is in fact a very very cheap option. These themes are not designed for your specific need and very rarely have much usability design consideration.
If you had paid someone to do a proper job for you in the first place then any bugs with the solution would be fixed for you in no time.
Sorry but I disagree with anyone purchasing design from a marketplace and find it very interesting to hear reasons for why someone would.
I recently purchased a Wordpress theme through Theme Forest and I was surprised with how helpful the designer was. He was new however, so it was more than likely he wanted to establish himself with a good reputation. He addressed every issue I had with the theme, and was patient with me when I had missed a step in the setup process. He was also able to address some issues caused by Wordpress 2.9.1.
More than that, he wrote custom code when I wanted to add certain features, which was well above the requirement. I got more help than I paid for easily.
I can understand why you’d suggest that the Theme Forest business model doesn’t lend itself for supportive commerce, and I’d somewhat agree. But I wouldn’t necessarily judge an entire Mall when Radio Shack had messed up my order. One thing I did before I bought the theme was to email the author through the service. Something I suggest everyone do before they buy a theme from anyone.
Also I’m not quite sure what you mean by there not being a rating or comment section. Not for the specific user, but you can rate the themes and comment on them. If I saw a trend of poorly rated themes that would seriously deter me from considering them.
@Chris
I agree. Framework themes like Thesis have grown so quickly because of the support they give. A good reputation spreads fast because customers want to promote the product.
I’m still tempted with the thesis theme. I was swaying between thesis and headway. The main purpose was to help build mini sites quicker and the headway theme swayed me because of of the image rotator (which is good for amazon type mini sites) and it looked a little quicker to throw up a site (not sure if it is).
I still find it frustrating not being able to code things directly but I’m sure once I get used to it I’ll be fine. Though I’m still tempted with thesis. Will look into it more. With lifetime support and upgrades on both products it’s probably worth having both over the next few years so that I can use whichever is best for a project.
@Craig
The problem is there is no incentive to provide support, particular when designers are only making $6-$10 per theme sold.
@AtiKuSDesign
I have to disagree. It really depends on what you need.
For example, with BloggingTips I would always get a unique design made and I would be happy to spend 4 figures on it.
However, not every project requires such an investment. For example, I purchased the developer license for headway as I can use it on an infinite amount of sites. I can also quickly change the colour scheme so that they don’t all look the same.
With sites such as those you are simply trying to get some free search engine traffic to the site in order to get some commissions from promoting a related affiliate product. Or to create some content for a landing page for a PPC campaign.
You don’t need to spend a lot on branding with these sites. In fact, if you did you would almost certainly make a loss as many of these sites don’t prove to be money spinners (when promoting a new product, trial and error plays a big part).
Also, there isn’t always a need to reinvent the wheel. Take the gallery script which I purchased. There are not too many gallery themes to choose from. Sure, I could pay a designer a thousand dollars to create a brand new one for a site but I’d rather purchase a premium theme under $100 and simply customise it to suit my needs.
Again, it depends on the project. I would always get a unique theme developed for bigger projects but for smaller ones, a few colour changes and a unique logo is all that is needed
@Phaethon
I’m glad you got good support. As I said in my article, that’s hopefully the norm and I was perhaps just unlucky.
With regards to the comment section, you are 100% correct. I have never seen the link to the comment area before. Don’t know how I missed it when I look now.
Chris has updated the theme in the past with upgrades. Though many people are complaining that it isn’t working.
Someone commented that Chris Wallace cannot support the plugin that isn’t working. I agree that he can’t provide support for a plugin which he didn’t develop. Though if that is the case, why include it in the theme?
That’s like me releasing a theme via BloggingTips which relied on several plugins to work but when people complain that the theme isn’t working I apologise and say I can’t help because I didn’t design it.
Now clearly, a designer can’t control what is going to conflict in the future as there are thousands of plugins there. However, if you make a plugin a vital part of your theme and include it in the download then you need to give some sort of support. If not, you need to add some sort of alternative way of doing what the plugin did.
Going back to what I originally said, my main beef here is not with Chris Wallace. I need to give him the benefit of doubt as he could be on holiday or something. However, Envato is a business. There is no good reason why they are not refunding my money for a theme which isn’t working and there is no good reason why they are not even replying to my emails.
I do agree with you though. You can’t judge a whole shop based on one product not being up to scratch and I won’t lie to you, if I hadn’t such bad service I probably wouldn’t have written this post or had a look at their business model.
And you also bring up a good point about emailing the designer. A quick and professional reply should be a good indication that you are going to get good support for the theme.
Hi Kevin,
My name is Drew and I’m part of the Envato support team. I’m very sorry to hear you’re experience hasn’t been too positive so far. I’m unaware of your issue, but I’d really like to look into it more for you. If you could please personally email me at drew {at} envato {dot} com with the ticket id(s), I can look into this further. Thanks very much!
-Drew
Thanks Drew. Will email you right away.
I wanted to use the site to sell wordpress theme since I work in this area. I was SHOCKED to see their “fees”. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I am the one who makes that theme, I waste time and talent, create something good and I am left with little money while having to share a HUGE percentage of my hard worked money? I can understand 10%. Let’s say .. I am using their site to sell my junk. But they cross any limits in my mind.
So, I’d rather freelance and “lose” 8-10%, but have the rest of the money and not get ripped like this.
I see they are “professional” when it comes to the support too. This is uncalled for. You should get some sort of a support. I can understand a theme is “buggy” or maybe you’re not good into installing don’t know what plugin (not meaning “you”, talking in general). Even if sometimes clients don’t quite know how to play with the “toy”, the developer or at least those people who take such a huge percentage from the sale should actually do something to support you.
Well, another good reason for me to keep away
Hi,
Personally, I think its a bout of bad luck. I’ve bought 4 Themeforest items and got instant support for them when required.
I decided to buy something on themeforest for the first time ever and i am already regretting it. Gallery Pro was the theme I purchased and now I can’t get it to work. don’t get me wrong I know my way around wordpress and other CMS but what cheeses me off is the fact that i paid for something that doesn’t work. Not only that but you also need to install and configure 4 different plugins in order to get it to “work”.
It’s been 4 days since I bought it and still can get it to display images properly and one of the plugins cannot be installed because i am running 2.9.1
What a joke
Hi Kevin, Chris Wallace here. My sincerest apologies for not getting back with you immediately. I have been out the last two weeks and am just now getting back into the swing of things over the past few days.
Regarding the plugin conflict issue, I did write a quick post the minute I found out about the conflict in 2.9, but regrettably, had no time to implement the fix inside the theme and provide an update. I am working on it today and will have the fix in the next version which will hopefully be accepted over the next 8-12 hours by ThemeForest.
I definitely agree that Envato should provide (or require authors to) support their themes. It creates a very large gap in customer service from author-to-author and you never really know what you’re going to get with a new or different author. Will he support his theme? Will he even respond to emails? Who knows? At the very least there should be some sort of support rating for each author.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for dropping by. I appreciate you taking the time to give your side of the story. As I said in my article, my beef wasn’t with you. You could have been on holiday or whatever.
Also, I don’t think that envato are giving enough money to designers in order for them to provide great support.
My issue is with Envato. They have still not responded to my original ticket. The email I sent to Drew, who left a comment above to email him, has not been replied to either. All in all it paints a very bad picture about support.
I look forward to seeing the update.
Kevin
Actually, isn’t this more a problem with the designer of the theme than anything else?
Envato have now issued me with a refund. Please read the post Theme Forest Make Amends for more details