Featured Package Expiration

[Horizon]

Wei Hong - thanks for the reply. Yes I have been reading that thread in detail as well as I come to terms with how to best use packages for my use/users. I want to be careful that I never accidentally "skimp" users on time/etc so I'm most interested in featured being an additive.
Which that idea might be the trick for me too. I'd have to think about it more...

To start I think I'll use a single standard package and the "Upgrade to Featured" package which in my first limited testing seems to work well and seems to do what I'm asking.

I have not tested this extensively as I believe the only way I can test/simulate it is to set "Upgrade to Featured" expiration to 1 day and then wait a full day to see if it works as expected.

In my first test, it did revert to standard at expiration of the Upgrade to Featured rather than disappearing which is good for what I want, but I'm not sure if there are gotchas that I didn't see in my first test.



I don't want to have a featured period that is too long, and so I think my standard listings will always have expirations longer than I want to sell a featured period.

This creates a problem for me with offering multiple packages using full featured packages (rather than the upgrade-to-featured package) as I don't want to have someone pay for featured and at any point get less than standard...

I feel like if you paid and then your ad disappears sooner than if you had not paid, my users wouldn't like that.
Whereas if they get the advantage of featured plus at the end they get the same as if they had not paid (in terms of it becoming a standard when their payment is up so they never get less) it feels better. So you pay and get a bonus, but you don't ever end up getting "kicked in the chops" because you paid.

I suppose I could have flynax send out a few emails say 5, 2, and 1 day before featured expiration explaining that your featured period is almost up, and you can either renew the featured or change to the standard, or else your ad will disappear...

Have to do some though on how to use expiration dates and how to phrase/flow it so it feels to the user like a benefit rather than a nag or hitting them up for money.

I suppose the monetize plugin bump and highlight could also be used as a substitution for featured to give yet another option.

I think the Upgrade to Featured option may be what I need for now -- as it seems to be working the way I'm wanting it to work.

Edit: Second test seemed to also work for me too, reverting to standard upon expiration of the upgrade to featured.

[Wei Hong]

Wei Hong - thanks for the reply. Yes I have been reading that thread in detail as well as I come to terms with how to best use packages for my use/users. I want to be careful that I never accidentally "skimp" users on time/etc so I'm most interested in featured being an additive.
Which that idea might be the trick for me too. I'd have to think about it more...

To start I think I'll use a single standard package and the "Upgrade to Featured" package which in my first limited testing seems to work well and seems to do what I'm asking.

I have not tested this extensively as I believe the only way I can test/simulate it is to set "Upgrade to Featured" expiration to 1 day and then wait a full day to see if it works as expected.

In my first test, it did revert to standard at expiration of the Upgrade to Featured rather than disappearing which is good for what I want, but I'm not sure if there are gotchas that I didn't see in my first test.



I don't want to have a featured period that is too long, and so I think my standard listings will always have expirations longer than I want to sell a featured period.

This creates a problem for me with offering multiple packages using full featured packages (rather than the upgrade-to-featured package) as I don't want to have someone pay for featured and at any point get less than standard...

I feel like if you paid and then your ad disappears sooner than if you had not paid, my users wouldn't like that.
Whereas if they get the advantage of featured plus at the end they get the same as if they had not paid (in terms of it becoming a standard when their payment is up so they never get less) it feels better. So you pay and get a bonus, but you don't ever end up getting "kicked in the chops" because you paid.

I suppose I could have flynax send out a few emails say 5, 2, and 1 day before featured expiration explaining that your featured period is almost up, and you can either renew the featured or change to the standard, or else your ad will disappear...

Have to do some though on how to use expiration dates and how to phrase/flow it so it feels to the user like a benefit rather than a nag or hitting them up for money.

I suppose the monetize plugin bump and highlight could also be used as a substitution for featured to give yet another option.

I think the Upgrade to Featured option may be what I need for now -- as it seems to be working the way I'm wanting it to work.

Edit: Second test seemed to also work for me too, reverting to standard upon expiration of the upgrade to featured.

Yes, I also had to use "upgrade to feature" instead of featured listing plan. This works with flaw though, and it add extra step which could be avoid if Flynax fix the logic. The flaw is if you want to renew or add extra standard time while featured time still active, you will lose that featured time. Let's say you still have 3 days featured left and 5 days standard, but you had a 1 week vacation with family and you want to renew standard time ahead? If you renew at that time, you will lose the remaining 3 days featured.

Monetize plugin bump and highlight was what I also consider, and again, with weird choice from Flynax. When you use bump up, the listing will go to top ONLY with the new sorting option added by monetize plugin, I think it called bumped listing or something. There if you sort listing with newest first, bumped listing stayed where they are, that's what I recalled.

I really wish Flynax take this featured standard listing into serious consideration as more people realize it is an issue. It's the core function.

[Horizon]

So I have two options (that I can think of.)

Option 1:
Offer Featured Pacakge(s)
Standard (Free)
Featured (Paid)

If someone chooses Featured when signing up, or if they post as Standard and then use the Renew-Upgrade button to change to Featured, their listing gets Featured, the date gets updated to the current date when they pay for the Featured Package.
Drawback: if featured period < standard ad expiration timeframe. When the Featured time period expires, a featured listing just disappears totally from the web, which can be bad for the site's SEO and which they may not like. For example, if they're not paying attention for a day or two when the featured period up for renewal, their listing totally disappears and they miss those days totally until they notice they need to change plan or pay again for featured. If they had not paid, their ad would not have disappeared (if the standard expiration time is > featured time period)

Option 2:
Standard (Free)
Upgrade to Featured (Paid)
If someone posts as Standard, then Upgrades to Featured, listing gets featured. Post date does not change, but when Upgrade to Featured period expires, ad continues to run as standard ad.
Advantages - no surprise invisible if they don't notice the exact day it expires
Disadvantage - if they use the upgrade/renew button, it wipes out the (paid for) featured status; Posting date doesn't change with Upgrade to Featured so they may use the upgrade/renew button wiping the paid featured status out.

So it looks like I could request one of two customizations in the short term:
1.) Change status to active/standard at expiration of active/featured package
2.) Change post date when Upgrade to Featured is paid, and eliminate separate upgrade/renew button

[Wei Hong]

So I have two options (that I can think of.)

Option 1:
Offer Featured Pacakge(s)
Standard (Free)
Featured (Paid)

If someone chooses Featured when signing up, or if they post as Standard and then use the Renew-Upgrade button to change to Featured, their listing gets Featured, the date gets updated to the current date when they pay for the Featured Package.
Drawback: if featured period < standard ad expiration timeframe. When the Featured time period expires, a featured listing just disappears totally from the web, which can be bad for the site's SEO and which they may not like. For example, if they're not paying attention for a day or two when the featured period up for renewal, their listing totally disappears and they miss those days totally until they notice they need to change plan or pay again for featured. If they had not paid, their ad would not have disappeared (if the standard expiration time is > featured time period)

Option 2:
Standard (Free)
Upgrade to Featured (Paid)
If someone posts as Standard, then Upgrades to Featured, listing gets featured. Post date does not change, but when Upgrade to Featured period expires, ad continues to run as standard ad.
Advantages - no surprise invisible if they don't notice the exact day it expires
Disadvantage - if they use the upgrade/renew button, it wipes out the (paid for) featured status; Posting date doesn't change with Upgrade to Featured so they may use the upgrade/renew button wiping the paid featured status out.

So it looks like I could request one of two customizations in the short term:
1.) Change status to active/standard at expiration of active/featured package
2.) Change post date when Upgrade to Featured is paid, and eliminate separate upgrade/renew button

In my opinion option 2 is better with of course still big flaw. Option 1 still have option 2 issue if they renew while featured still active. With such flaw, offer only standard is the safest. (

[Horizon]

Now with a standalone Featured package, I'm not sure how to set it so a user can "renew" a single featured listing either.

To test I setup:

Featured Package
Single Listing
Limit use of listing package [0] Times Enter 0 to enable unlimited use of the listing package.
Listing live for [60] Days Enter 0 to make listings active for an unlimited period.

If already featured, and user clicks Upgrade/Renew on the already featured listing, it gives you the option of standard or featured, and featured says:
Featured Listing (Used Up)