Yesā¦ They have a top-notch strategy, give free access for 15 days to generative AIā¦ thank you, Envato youāre completely lost!
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I am replying to myself, I am still trying to understand why sales are so low, donāt tell me that AI is the issue because is not we all know by now what it can doā¦ I am trying to understand what is going on 
Would it help if I went over your products with an outside perspective / suggestions? Of course, you know your market best, but sometimes when you work on something for many years it is difficult to see it with fresh eyes.
They sold well, but in the past three months, sales have almost completely stopped. I donāt believe the issue is with my products ā theyāve sold consistently for nearly 16 years. Itās impossible that, all of a sudden, theyāre no longer good. Something else is going on.
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Sales are almost nonexistent for me at this point, I have a sale at -5-8 days intervalā¦
Yup, worst month for me also, sales dropping month to month. Need to rework my strategy.
If you can find something, let me know. I donāt understand what is happeningā¦
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Iām experiencing exactly the same scenario
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Same for me, but I see that visits to my own websites have also dropped.
Maybe SEO issues? But strangely, why would everyone have the same SEO issues?
Weād need to look at search trends and to what extent AI is replacing web searches.
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I also see the same on my site and also on my YouTube channel, where visitors dropped a lot: https://www.youtube.com/@CodeRevolutionTV
I assume that lots of people were coming to my site and to my YouTube channel from Envato and they kind of stopped coming.
I have lots of tutorial videos for my plugins on YouTube, if people donāt browse for my plugins any more, this will be visible also on YouTube stats.
I have had 2 people tell me they bought my plugin because Grok / ChatGPT recommended it . I think this is an upcoming field, instead of āsearch engine optimizationā we will have āllm optimizationā soon (already?).
I think a good brand name is increasingly important as well and we want to stay away from generic names.
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I also got someone who found me in ChatGPT. Also, saw many black hat services promoting this, that they can boost your ChatGPT āoptimizationā.
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I donāt sell on Envato - I am a buyer. BUT my point here is look guys and girls Envato is a platform on its knees. The good old days are slipping away, and the time when you could all rely on just one platform to sell your scripts/themes/plugins are just not enough.
WPBay is going to offer you another outlet (which I totally believe in them and so this is good), but you also need to consider thinking about how you can sell online using your own websites to do that.
Donāt reach out to other companies trying to sell you anything - there will be a lot of these people claiming you need me attitude and @CodeRevolution when you say:
Iām sure they did. Why? Because they want to you to buy into them and their service offering everything that is going to supposedly rescue your business from obscurity. Just rely on yourselves - I will add more later on this topic here:
I built my own website to sell, the cart is not active yet to sell because I am still exclusive on Envato, but I will soon. This is not a shity move that helps them create Elements, leaving exclusivity is difficultā¦
most authors created their own websites to sell.
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I agree 100% leaving Envato as an exclusive author is going to be worrying. They basically used every author they could to build something amazing, and then hung them out to dry. Itās not fair and shows no committment to the authors at all. I wish you well.
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Elements is not amazing; in my opinion, it feels like a dumping ground for unwanted items from Envato, not to mention the license issue that you have once you buy something, especially audio. On top of that, the way they advertise it comes across as very misleading. They push āUnlimited downloadsā in a way that makes clients think Envato Elements includes the entire marketplace. When the forum was active, around 5 out of 10 buyers I saw wanted a refund for this reason, and many either didnāt get it or received a very delayed response. To me, this looks less like an accident and more like a strategy.
Also, closing the forum was a very cunning move. Instead of having a discussion with us and fixing things, he just removed the space where we could speak. Iām not angry about it anymore, but it still needs to be talked about. He canāt hide from what happenedāat least not from me.
I will keep mentioning his name here because I believe heās responsible: Mr. Hichame Assi, you managed to sink something that was unsinkable. If you had done absolutely nothing, Envato would be flourishing even today when everything falls apart.
Sorry you must have misunderstood what I was saying - I totally agree the Elements is far from amazing. What I had meant was when Envato was just Envato, using Themeforest, Codecanyon, AudioJungle and more as separate entities, then it was amazing.
I hate what they have done with it now, and I do not like subscription based models of any sort.
I was in favour of authors being able to sell items on the marketplace, and in an ideal world, they should have then said if you want updates a year down the road, then authors should have been paid to do that. Not be expected to create an item, and then update it forever without recompense for their time, development and support.
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Yes, that was the secret, and somehow they messed it up so badly!
For a very long time I tried to understand the mind of this idiot, Hichame Assi ā and I say āidiotā respectfully. He managed to destroy what we built as a community in three years. If Envato hadnāt had such good items and authors, he wouldāve done it in just a few months. Not once did he listen to authors. Not even a comment, nothing. He basically had a winning card that would have worked better and better, especially now with AI, and what did he do? Utter disaster, what is even worse, after Envato is done, he will move on to another companyā¦ because somehow they always fall on their feet, most likely he will blame AI and the economyā¦
About updates: Iām okay with not paying for them if itās a major update. In that case, itās best to release it as an add-on or a new plugin.
I found an interesting video regarding the mass layoffs in tech, is in Romanian ā¦ it kinda makes sense what this guy si saying, but ye,s AI is the main issue not in a sense that it repalces the actual developer but the way it is implementedā¦
AI may be a contributing factor, however it is often a convenient āscapegoatā for broader economic pressures and strategic missteps. It might sound like this AI is killing the marketplace, but the only thing killing businesses is their own stupidity and those gullible people listening to the scare tactics. I donāt speak Romanian so I cannot comment on the goofy professor with the glasses, but if your sales dropped on Envato, then more than likely that was to do with how the platform screwed over authors. Have you got your own platform for selling your products?