Post by extension-customer » Tue Nov 26, 2013 11:40 pm

Yes, I followed the emails and went to this link, https://www.opencart.com/index.php?rout ... t/download, while logged into my account. But I dont see a link, just some [short-code] that you see in the screenshot.

Should I be somewhere esle ? Thanks for the quick reply !

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Post by JAY6390 » Tue Nov 26, 2013 11:44 pm

Hi Peter

Just find the extension in the extension store again by searching, then when you open the page, go to the download tab section. It should download files when you click on the link if you've purchased them and the transaction has been successfully processed

Jay

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Post by extension-customer » Tue Nov 26, 2013 11:49 pm

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..... Found it.

Then the real issue is that the email instructions when a newb like me purchases their extension is totally confusing and sending me to the wrong place.

Thanks Jay !


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Post by Daniel » Wed Nov 27, 2013 10:12 pm

butte wrote:Where "1 year is like a decade and that's way too long," how many OC .x releases has that typically spanned? People who obtain free or commercial extensions frequently find that whatever worked just fine suddenly stopped working, for whatever reasons they and developers may (or may not) care to resolve, among .x releases and various server environments that came to light. A "mere" upgrade in server php.exe can cause problems to appear, as happened recently to several people on 5.4.x on bluehost.
people should not be updating their site with every release. if the site is running well leave it a lone.

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Post by opencart-templates » Thu Dec 26, 2013 9:01 pm

The majority of the time is actually spent providing support, compared with adding new features into an extension or supporting new releases of opencart.

You can break it down into 2 types of people buying extensions:
1. Developers - only reason for purchasing is that its more cost effective then building their own.
2. Not developers - people who require support. Might be a novice developer fall into this.

Developers dont require the support, so should be able to purchase the extension for cheaper without having to create 2 versions of the same extension at different prices.

The download should never expire, after 1 year you no longer have access to the latest version of the extension, only the version when your license ran out. This is going to require some major additions to the opencart.com extensions area so that it would have to keep a record of all the extension versions.

As others have said it would then be nice to offer a discount to customers upgrading.

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Post by Johnathan » Fri Dec 27, 2013 11:35 pm

I think Daniel plans to just stop allowing access after a year, assuming the customer will have downloaded a copy by then, and they can store it themselves -- is that right, Daniel?

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Post by Qphoria » Thu Jan 02, 2014 10:23 pm

Johnathan wrote:I think Daniel plans to just stop allowing access after a year, assuming the customer will have downloaded a copy by then, and they can store it themselves -- is that right, Daniel?
yea I'm pretty sure that is how it will be set up... basically a where clause that adds "where purchase_date <= 1 year ago"

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Post by TomTesla » Mon Jan 13, 2014 11:57 am

totally agree of this.

more than one years support need more efforts, deserve more pay.

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Post by eralus » Sat Jan 18, 2014 11:43 pm

as a customer not developer i dont mind with 12 months free support,but u guys need to take a look at how good is the after sales support provide by developer,i see some developer takes 7-14 days to reply their client

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Post by Qphoria » Fri Jan 24, 2014 10:21 pm

eralus wrote:as a customer not developer i dont mind with 12 months free support,but u guys need to take a look at how good is the after sales support provide by developer,i see some developer takes 7-14 days to reply their client
Not all devs use the extension comments. The comment system is setup so that the "reply to" address to the notification email goes directly to the customer, so many if not most issues are resolved in private. I've stated over and over that the extension comments should NOT be used for support as most mods have a support email listed in the readme file that comes with the mod. People who choose NOT to read the readme file to find out how to ask for proper support shouldn't expect speedy replies on the comment system if they cannot follow the simplest of directions.

More info on proper use of extension store comments:
http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?f=144&t=116316

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Post by dfumagalli » Tue Mar 11, 2014 5:12 pm

Daniel wrote:
butte wrote:Where "1 year is like a decade and that's way too long," how many OC .x releases has that typically spanned? People who obtain free or commercial extensions frequently find that whatever worked just fine suddenly stopped working, for whatever reasons they and developers may (or may not) care to resolve, among .x releases and various server environments that came to light. A "mere" upgrade in server php.exe can cause problems to appear, as happened recently to several people on 5.4.x on bluehost.
people should not be updating their site with every release. if the site is running well leave it a lone.
I have some sites on BlueHost.

What happened is that BlueHost - not the website owners - force-pushed a global PHP upgrade on all their servers.
They indeed sent a number of warning e-mails about this action, but whereas I and others would know what to (eventually) update to work with PHP 5.4.24, many pure end users just stood there and got the upgrade in their teeth.

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Post by dfumagalli » Tue Mar 11, 2014 5:29 pm

Qphoria wrote:
eralus wrote:as a customer not developer i dont mind with 12 months free support,but u guys need to take a look at how good is the after sales support provide by developer,i see some developer takes 7-14 days to reply their client
Not all devs use the extension comments. The comment system is setup so that the "reply to" address to the notification email goes directly to the customer, so many if not most issues are resolved in private. I've stated over and over that the extension comments should NOT be used for support as most mods have a support email listed in the readme file that comes with the mod. People who choose NOT to read the readme file to find out how to ask for proper support shouldn't expect speedy replies on the comment system if they cannot follow the simplest of directions.

More info on proper use of extension store comments:
http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?f=144&t=116316
Imo you, Daniel and others should read this mere suggestion of mine. The "12 month => make'em pay" is a consequence, a consequence of something bigger and that needs to be looked from a more "macro" perspective.

Basically OC needs a community, a life-breathing community where there are tools to establish a more formally supported relationship between buyers and sellers. If I am a seller / coder I want to be able to show my features better (hence why many have to resort to external websites), if I am a buyer I want to know in advance if I am dealing with an hobbyst coder, with a rated company, if they are quick at support or not, if they may eventually talk on phone or even take contracts for extended (and why not, on place) support or not.
Likewise, the customer asking for a mod customization involving 1 vQMod line should not be in the same 10 pages long, "thread" with the guys arguing why yesterday's release won't work on their OC 1.4.

That is, current OC's extensions pages should become more than what they are now, they should become a community marketplace with flexibility of choices for developers and buyers.
The 12 month => pay should just be a detail of a broader re-think of how OC is serving its community.
Look say at WordPress, even their free mods have a richer experience of community website than OC's payware mods.

It might seem obvious, but by making it simple to grow a community, the OC product grows in popularity by consequence.

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Post by spemux » Sat Apr 12, 2014 4:50 pm

Wow, let me at least download the version that I paid for. Jesus guys wtf?!

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Post by bibipen » Sun Apr 20, 2014 3:02 am

Hi ppl,

As a intermediate IT tech. supervising the Technical aspect of OpenCart websites
for "commercial" and non-profit Assoc.

- O.P. for 1rst Time buying extention = i.e 50$ (for non programers)
- Renewing : ...each year ....or ...*each Major Modification needed = 20%<>50% of O.P.
*fair trade, if you didn't bring any new code, Why wanna charge for it ? ..hmmm ? >:D

Resulting OC solution final Image:
- Good for Ext. developer, Fidelization of the users to his product compared to the "competition".
- Good for the O.C. Main Team - Extentions offers very cool and attractive plans.
+ win/win game. Dev needs to eat too !
- Keep having 100% other Free extention is also a must if not part of the filosphy of Opensource.

...my 2cts personal view of course. O0

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Post by OpenCart Addons » Wed Apr 30, 2014 10:09 pm

I have to agree with some of the suggestions on here. Expanding the OpenCart extension store functionality to include more options on the extension page would definitely help developers.

One of the biggest limitations is the product description max char limit. Once you start adding any BBCode you can reach the max char limit very quickly. Unfortunately, this means that the customer is left with only a partial description of the extension capabilities.

Another feature which would be very helpful for developers would be integration of a support ticket system. I know that currently you guys use Zendesk for support, but the request goes straight to OpenCart and eventually the developer is CC'd on the request. I believe integrating a direct to developer support ticket system for developers to utilize will eliminate a lot of the unwanted support requests via the comment section.

I also sell my one extension through the Mijosoft Extension Directory and they have an integrated ticket system. It makes requesting support for the customer easy, and answering support even easier for the developer. It also allows you to easily track support tickets.


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Post by rph » Wed Apr 30, 2014 11:41 pm

Couldn't agree more. Great suggestions.

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Post by lvalics » Sun May 18, 2014 3:37 pm

Hi guys,
I am new in Opencart Extension Development, but I have few years behind in software development and licensing for our other software.
There is a few issues what I see in the actual system.
First point of view, customer (I have bought around 50 extensions I think in a couple of years)
1. I cannot add more then one item to the store, but sometimes I buy for a store 2-3 extension at a time. I need now to go through ordering each time.
2. As a developer, clients will ask me to buy extensions, they will never open an account through you. This means that I should have a possibilities to mention in my downloaded extension which ext for which domain it it (actually what I will propose as a developer it will solve this).
3. Many times I left message in the comments section. Never get a mail that it was new comment there (or disable per extension if I want) and also it is working like always last answer is on last page. Also solutions should be highlighted by developer to see that is an important answer.

As Developer:
1. Extension cannot be licensed. Of course we solved this issue, we use SPBAS licensing software for all of our software and it work. (http://www.spbas.com/) This software will allow to keep on your server the licensing server and you give to the owner of the software a LIC code. Then monthly the site will send to us a verification and will verify if the license is valid or not. The advantage is that can be licensed by IP, by domain, by MAC address and there is a lot of way to protect yourself. This solution should work, as IP for multistores or MAC address, I presume that any multistore is on same server. An another advantage of this solution is that you can lock down the LICENSE to one seat install, so if a developer will develop a new site and want to install on an another domain, he can get new LIC code (discounted at 30% for example). Developers will sell more in this way.
2. Indeed, the extension submission page is very old fashioned. I cannot preview the extension if I do not enable it.
3. Each extension page/developer- should have a ticketing system
4. To sell one time license is OK, if you will not update your extension with new features. But for example we just done a Google Adwords API integration into Opencart and this will require constant update and also because clients will use our MMC account, we can be charged in the future by Google if we overpass the allowed / day requests.
It should be several way of licensing. One time with yearly renewal if you want to download. One time with yearly fee for usage. One time and periodic recurring until you use the software (this is why SPBAS is there, to discontinue if not used).

Now based on this, OC guys can use or develop an SPBAs (easier to get already done and is very good) and implement LICENSE keys and developers just integrate into extensions. Of course, like any system, can be hacked/nulled, but that cannot be avoided, who will use nulled script, will never pay for it, can be ignored. Legitimate customers will get updates, will get support (paid or not).

Regards,
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Post by luizeduardo » Sat Jun 07, 2014 10:40 am

I agree with this changes too, but is very important to keep free access to the version already paid.

I believe Daniel will get special attention on this changes we are talking, they are very important for all parts on this game.

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Post by hambone » Sat Jun 14, 2014 3:32 am

tl;dr - A WooCommerce user who wants to switch to OpenCart's ideas on renewal and support fees

Hey guys! I'm new to OpenCart (not really, but new to posting on the forum), and have been a WooCommerce / Wordpress user for sometime. As such, in Wordpress, many of the following are industry practice, and you might consider too

1) Licenses that were bought on lifetime (or before any limitations were made), were grandfathered on lifetime

2) Developers would usually announce for a month or so, before they changed their licensing, and in effect made all future purchases on yearly renewals. However, a major developer, WooCommerce failed in doing so, and abruptly increased prices while changing lifetime licenses to 2 years renewal, facing a severe backlash. They then grandfathered those who have purchased earlier.

Notable developers who have grandfathered their customers includes
Gravity Forms
Ninja Forms
WooCommerce
Foo Plugins

etc

In fact, lifetime licenses are still sold among yearly renewals for some others, but at a higher price. Notable ones are
StudioPress
ElegantThemes
OptinMonster

etc (sorry, it's 3am here)

You might want to check them out and consider a similar idea perhaps

3) Licenses can be sold as follows
a) 2 sites
b) 10 sites
c) Unlimited sites

4) Some who have grandfathered lifetime licenses are selling support renewals. After all, it's the support that takes up most of the time (based on Woothemes' research)

Anyway, here's some of my suggestions
1) 90 days licensing is crazy. You're heading towards Magento prices then. If so, I'll open a separate extension shop and sell similar extensions like yours, or anyone who does it, for 12 months :p

But yes, it'll kill the OpenCart market. Who would want to buy, if we need to keep renewing and paying a premium 4 times a year? And no, it's NOT alright not to update. How about security problems?

2) Grandfathering helps OpenCart grow, and also keep your current customers happy. After all, how many of your customers are seeing profit with their shop? If everyone needs to renew (while some like me, don't need support. Instead we report bugs and don't get paid for it), what happens to those who don't renew because they can't afford it?

3) If you have a strong extensions shop (individual, not OpenCart's), you can even do like StudioPress. Get into other streams of income, like managed hosting (don't see this around), themes (or extensions again), etc

4) Build blogging as a core product of OpenCart. As such, with content marketing on the rise for commerce stores, a lot of stores are installing Wordpress to blog, not OpenCart.

5) If renewing extensions would be costly, why wouldn't the users switch over to a SAAS product like Shopify / BigCommerce? After all, hosting is covered. Saying that, if I hadn't bought 95% of the WooCommerce extensions I needed on lifetime, I wouldn't start with WooCommerce. It would be so much cheaper to go with Shopify or other SAAS store. Plus, they work well with Zapier (which means all my accounting is settled) and have a POS system for rent. If you need an idea for extension, get something that handshakes with Zapier :)

6) The current Opencart Extension store is really messy :( It's impossible to purchase multiple extensions at a time (is it?)

7) So yes, if you are planning to change the plans, perhaps this would work. Would you kindly consider this
a) Offer a last chance saloon for people to buy their extension licenses at lifetime. (Even if you never offered lifetime explicitly, why not). You can choose to limit support to 3 month period, and then have support renewal fees, like $ 3 - 5 for each support needed.

b) Switch over to the new plan, while grandfathering those who have bought before

c) Have different renewal fee variables/extension or developer
i) From 30% to 70%/yearly, depending on the amount of effort you think you would put in to maintain it

ii) Or/And have support fees for tickets of USD 3 to 5. After all, if we give you 10 tickets, it's USD 50! :) Don't you like that?

iii) If you are going the renewal rate way, have a maximum cap on the price of extensions. No way majority would pay USD 200 and then 50% for renewal yearly :o That's a ripoff, and yes, we'll start our own development shop and sell a similar extension for cheaper :) After all, it would be really lucrative then to sell OpenCart Extensions, wouldn't it? And we can fork your code and make ours better :D.

But yes, if you are selling for USD 200 now, perhaps lowering it to USD 60-70 and have a 30-40% for renewal would help

What you want, is to grow the OpenCart Pie. As such, extension prices for mom and pop shops, or those from poorer countries (like mine, Malaysia), shouldn't be paying the same prices for developers, who will use your extension for numerous sites. Woothemes found a way about this with their WooHelper, which lets you activate/site.

If prices becomes too pricy, people would just hop on the next bandwagon, or move to SAAS based ecommerce carts. Even with renewals, you need to think it through thoroughly, and then give people ample time to consider / respond. If I need 50 extensions to get the same functionality of Amazon, or even WooCommerce, how much would my renewal fee be? :)

Anyways, do let me know your decision. I would really love to see OpenCart grow, but if prices are going crazy, I might just stay away :)

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Post by hambone » Sat Jun 14, 2014 3:45 am

Oh btw, think about it. If you implement yearly renewals without considering the number of sites

1) Developers can afford it. They pass the cost to the customers. Startups or small time businesses like your mom & pop shop can't, or they'll find it harder

2) Most of your support tickets would either come from
a) Developers - who needs to do custom solutions for certain customers, causing conflict
b) Newbies - who needs help in everything, and can't use documentation

As such, it's ok to sell them support tickets, rather than charging everyone for their issues. As such, renewal prices can be lowered :) Think about it

If you are looking for a way to sell digital downloads and have them activated by site, perhaps someone can develop an extension for it? Or a number of modular extensions?

Wordpress has some that you use use to sell digital products, and even generate the license keys for the limited/unlimited amount of sites. Check out
1) EDD
2) WooCommerce :)

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