For several years now I’ve been buying themes from themeforest.net – probably the most popular site now for themes.
Generally the themes have been high quality. However, I have had about 20% of them, so far, be less than stellar.
The problems are either the admin interface is very poor quality or the service/support is lackluster or non-existent.
The site offers a Preview mode for each theme. This is good, but only a part of the story. Each theme author will build a preview using demo content that can be quite stunning visually.
Problem is, this perfect scenario can many times be very un-customizable for your needs, and claims of “easy customization” may be a very subjective term.
I don’t know about you, but when I design a wordpress site I want to be able to give it my client and say “here you go, have fun” meaning that they should be able to take over without too much handholding and go on into the sunset.
This has been more troublesome than I would like to admit with themeforest.
so, here’s the proposition: Build a true separate review site that uses the URL of the theme to pull in the basics and then have an area where people who have purchased the theme can give real-world feedback and in some occasions warnings to stay away.
Themeforest will likely not desire this and try to shut it down. They have responded to my attempts at trying to get a refund or say that a certain theme is rubbish with “Sucks to be you”. Since they are in Australia, they have taken the position regarding foreign complaints (I’m in the US) of “Fuck you, go ahead and try to sue us, we will do what we want”.
This means that whomever should build this site must have a great resolve. Tell those a-holes that they can’t just put up any old piece of shit just because it looks good and will make them money only to piss off clients.
