(Locked) Themes in general not well supported or documented

http://www.wpbeginner.com/

If you need some help with your website please send me an e-mail. You can find e-mail form in my profile.

Kind regards,

Rafal.

Just.. wow. Come on wvg, I’d love to hear your response.

I remember, since a few years back, when I’ve paid 10,000.00$ USD for a website with a custom back-end. I toke months to get it done…

Once again, the question isn’t the quality of the themes, I’ve reviewed over a hundred before buying two and even the ones I didn’t buy for the most part looked pretty slick. You authors are totally missing my points and are way too sensentive. You invest all your time in the sizzzle (hyping up your theme) by trying to put as much “wow” into it as you can, then you don’t tell your customers HOW they too can get the theme to look like you did. You don’t see something wrong with that “business plan”? Hint: It makes customers hopping mad! I don’t mind learning Wordpress and will when I have time, BUT say you really need to learn Wordpress when your pitching your theme. If you don’t, I’ll wagger my response is typical, just that others haven’t taken the time to tell you. Now you know. LEARN from it!

Step into my shoes. I didn’t get close to what I thought I was getting. I feel cheated.

Now either I buy a third theme (I did) the one I wanted originally but yet wasn’t ready for sale, or I’m forced to invest endless hours “learning” Wordpress, The very reason I bought the theme for in the first place…. to avoid that. My point and it is simple, the adveritsing isn’t totally honest. At the very least it is misleading.

My assumptions in part are based on some of the comments here in this thread… it seems it is common and accepted practice to hide from potential customers that the theme won’t look anything like the demo. In my opinion that’s deceptitive. Now I only bought two themes, so I can’t say all authors dodge giving real instuctions or sample code. The one I just bought not only provides good documentation, but a whole series of extremely well done how-to videos and also includes sample code. Maybe that’s why he outsells almost everybody ten to one or better. Best of all he and his staff GO OUT OF THEIR WAY and in a friendly way to answer any and all questions, INCLUDING those from people that haven’t even bought his theme yet.

There’s a lesson to be learned there. Don’t be so bullheaded.

You can’t hide behind what you charge for the theme or what your cut is. That is beyond the customers’s control. I may as well ask WHY are the themes priced as low as they are? I’m trying to HELP you guys. Before finding ThemeForest I found many sites selling themes for two, three, five times the price and they weren’t as good. Maybe THAT is the real issue. You feel cheated, then take it out on customers if they “dare” to ask for a bit of help to get what they bought to work as shown in the demo.

In closing, another dose of reality. If you guys work has hard working as you say, you wouldn’t have time to whine in this forum when somebody raises legimiate concerns. I’m not wasting my time just to complain, I’m actually trying to tell youhow you are preceived.

Hint: If I get good support, I’ll shout it from the rooftops. If I get lousy support, I l’ll shout that too. Wise up!

wvg said
Now either I buy a third theme (I did) the one I wanted originally but yet wasn’t ready for sale, or I’m forced to invest endless hours “learning” Wordpress, The very reason I bought the theme for in the first place…. to avoid that. My point and it is simple, the adveritsing isn’t totally honest. At the very least it is misleading.

This shows a fundamental lack of understanding about what WordPress themes are and I don’t see anyone advertising their theme with the benefit that it precludes you from having to learn WordPress in order to use it.

wvg said
Step into my shoes. I didn’t get close to what I thought I was getting. I feel cheated.

I’m sorry your expectations were off, but this is because you didn’t understand what a WordPress theme is. It’s not the same as an HTML template where you just replace existing content with your own. You need to understand the fundamentals of the WordPress CMS to understand how to utilize a theme. ThemeForest themes offer more than most themes out there. Suggesting that the themes are falsely advertised is offensive and inaccurate.

When you buy a can of paint and it has a picture of a painted wall on the can to demonstrate what it can do, it’s implied that you have to apply the paint yourself. Don’t blame the paint if you don’t understand how to use it.

Best of all he and his staff GO OUT OF THEIR WAY and in a friendly way to answer any and all questions, INCLUDING those from people that haven’t even bought his theme yet.

In my experience the vast majority of authors are like this and provide exceptional support. If you received poor service from other authors, regardless of the fact support isn’t required, it’s an exception and not the rule around here – so it’s unfortunate you had that experience.

You can’t hide behind what you charge for the theme or what your cut is. That is beyond the customers’s control.

You’re missing the point that support is not included in the price of the theme. We’re selling themes, not support. You can hire either the author or a freelancer at an hourly rate if you need support. I don’t see how you can reasonably complain about not receiving something that you haven’t bought.

There’s a lesson to be learned there. Don’t be so bullheaded.

...

In closing, another dose of reality. If you guys work has hard working as you say, you wouldn’t have time to whine in this forum when somebody raises legimiate concerns. I’m not wasting my time just to complain, I’m actually trying to tell youhow you are preceived.

It goes both ways. Perhaps we should all take some time to look in the mirror, no?

Clearly, there is an issue with managing the expectations of complete newbie buyers. For those that don’t understand what a WordPress theme is, they can have unrealistic or misguided expectations as to what they are buying – but that is the same in any industry. While I think it is the buyer’s responsibility to understand what they are purchasing, I do think we could do a better job as a marketplace of informing buyers of the basics of what exactly a product is to better manage expectations.

And while there is room for improvement here, I believe your feedback would be more constructive if you took a more civil, less aggressive tone and recognized that you as a buyer do have some responsibility here. I’m sure authors would be much more receptive to your suggestions if you approached things reasonably rather than by attacking them.

wvg said

Step into my shoes. I didn’t get close to what I thought I was getting. I feel cheated.

Why, don’t you offer the author some money for helping you configuring your 30$ bucks website ?

wvg said
I literally reviewed and careful watched the demos of at least 50 Wordpress themes, carefully noting the pros and cons of each. To put it mildly I feel cheated after ordering two. The demos used to intice customers into buying are NOWHERE near what you actually get. This borders on deceptative advertising at best. That does not sit well with customers.

The themes are just fine.

The demo’s have content filled in. Your downloaded theme does not. That’s why it looks different.

Koev said
Everyone of us (authors) is going FAR beyond the required pre-sale and post-sale support just to earn reputation and happy purchasers – respectively more sales. I don’t believe lack of support and low quality themes is what could be found here on TF.

Not every author though, But wvg purchased between 1-9 items here, lets say he purchased 9 wp themes, Themeforest currently holds 1008 wordpress themes. So wvg seen 0.89% of the wordpress themes here, you didn’t really have much theory and themes to base your statement on..

But my final thoughts: Do you really think that themeforest could grow so rapidly when they offer themes?