We’ve re-designed. Everything.

Written by Mark Forrester on October 1, 2012 Blog.

After a long weekend of data imports, and beta testing we can finally present to you the brand new WooThemes.

Now powered by WooCommerce

We’ve completely moved away from our notorious, custom built management system “WooMember” to our own freely available WordPress plugin – WooCommerce.

WooMember was built prior to WooCommerce and geared towards dealing with single product checkout. Since the arrival of WooCommerce to our product offering it has become evident that we need to cater for multiple product checkout. Instead of investing further time into our dated infrastructure, we made the decision it was time to put WooCommerce to the ultimate test.

Putting our money where our mouth was

We’ve long boasted, and marketed the benefits of WooCommerce, and how scalable it is. Our implementation with 300,000 users, over 100,000 transaction records, and 200 products demonstrates it can handle a pretty huge database!

Whilst the decision, made perfect sense the actual migration required a lot of work, and unfortunately meant for some lengthly downtime as we imported all our user data into WooCommerce.

A new lick of paint

A huge project in itself we took this opportunity to re-design our own custom WordPress theme, with WooCommerce custom styling. Tag teamed by Cobus and Jay we’ve revised many existing pages, and added some new landing pages. Noteworthy pages include:

We’ve also re-engineered the flow of content and navigation menus hopefully getting you to what you are looking for quicker and allowing for an easier checkout.

You’ll discover lots of nice UI easter eggs dotted around the site, like our browser frame sliders on the homepage.

Various pages still need some UI revisions, e.g. the user dashboard, which will be modified over the coming weeks, as well as various A/B tests that we hope to run to better understand our user’s movement around our site and make the site even better.

Your theme and extension access

Some of you might be logging into the new WooThemes and unable to view your transactions/downloads. That is because the data migration is still happening behind the scenes. We are very close to completing and you should have full access within the next 8 hours.

Tiered licensing and support packages

Since 2008 we’ve barely touched our pricing structures, yet our product catalog has grown and diversified immensely since then, as has our support scaled exponentially. You’ll therefore notice some price changes and new licensing structures. Adii has dedicated a blog post to explaining the reasoning.

Get clicking

There’s a huge amount of content to digest so we encourage you to browse our new site. Expect some minor teething issues, & broken links, as we settle into our new home.

cta-banner-10-product-page-v2_2x

161 Responses

  1. Estella Vidal
    October 1, 2012 at 7:52 pm #

    New site looks Amazing! Well done ninjas! 🙂

    • wdh
      October 2, 2012 at 12:32 pm #

      Thanks for the kind words, Estella 🙂

  2. Mark McWilliams
    October 1, 2012 at 8:17 pm #

    I’ll be the first to say I’m not a WooThemes Customer, however I am an avid reader and follower, but the new site is looking superb I must say. I find it much more smoother on the eyes, and everything just appears to blend together. And now using WooCommerce, well, that’s just icing on the cake, and a great way to showcase what can be done! 😀

  3. Razvan
    October 1, 2012 at 8:20 pm #

    very nice done… i love the new look

    • wdh
      October 2, 2012 at 12:41 pm #

      Thanks Razvan 🙂

  4. Gary Murray
    October 1, 2012 at 8:23 pm #

    Well done WooThemes.

    Been hitting the refresh button all day 🙂

  5. Javid
    October 1, 2012 at 8:26 pm #

    Well done WooThemes.

  6. Jesse
    October 1, 2012 at 8:42 pm #

    Site looks great.. but wow… some of the new pricing is absolutely INSANE.. especially for things like the table rate shipping extension, $299 for unlimited sites for functionality that really should have been a part of the core plugin anyhow…. I’m glad I already bought it long ago…

    • Sas
      October 3, 2012 at 3:12 am #

      I totally agree. Table rating is a core function of any webshop system. Except for woocommerce, obviously. I think it is a total customer ripoff. Already thought the former pricing was insane.. but this is.. incredible. 🙁
      Without table rating ability a webshop if not functional. At least not in a professional way.

      Nice new website though. Good job on that end^^

      Hugs
      Sas

    • Sakshin
      October 4, 2012 at 2:08 am #

      Great new website! Well done. For the table rate shipping I agree, way to expensive and should but build in standard if you to be taken seriously as a ecommerce platform … And accepting Paypal wouldn’t hurt either …

      Warm regards,
      Sakshin

  7. Henrik Blomgren
    October 1, 2012 at 8:47 pm #

    Been using WooThemes for a couple of years. Enjoy working with the themes and everything is spot on usually.

    Liking most of this new design. Just a couple of things I wonder about.

    Why the blue color for the navigation and header area? Isn´t it a bit distracting to basically hide the navigation like that? The Logo and “My account” are fully visible. But the white navigation kinda goes away in favor of the Title of the current page. Blog, Themes and so on. Just my two cents anyway.

    Otherwise I´m enjoying everything I see. Good work with just about everything. I might snatch some ideas for a personal website :p But fear not everything will be coded by myself. Just the style idea that I found very interesting.

  8. Jason
    October 1, 2012 at 8:53 pm #

    Very nice.

    I’ve been waiting to see more WooCommerce features integrated within your own shopping experience!

    Love it!

  9. Albert
    October 1, 2012 at 9:04 pm #

    Awesome new layout! Now, bring this functionality and “look and feel” into the canvas theme!

  10. Doug Smith
    October 1, 2012 at 9:07 pm #

    Congratulations on the new design. It looks great!

    Glad to see you eating your own dog food with WooCommerce for purchases now because buying a bunch of plugins before was a huge pain. And thanks for adding the much needed search feature to the WooCommerce extensions page.

  11. allmyhoney
    October 2, 2012 at 1:26 pm #

    Site looks great guys. Just a quick question here, when will all the content migrate across completely, right now I have about 1/3 of my purchased extensions in my account area?Anything previous to september I cannot seem to download anywhere – maybe this is coming so sorry if this is premature. Cheers

  12. Mia
    October 2, 2012 at 1:57 pm #

    Hi.
    Your new site looks great:-)

    Im quite new to Woo Commerce and the other day I downloaded theme Artificer and Woo Commerce to help a relative with her shop. Now its seems like Artificer is no longer in your site. Is it gone forever or will you let it come back among the other themes? I have already installed it but it is good/bad to have a theme that no longer exists in the developers site?

    As I said, Im new to this, thats why I have to ask;-)

    Thanks for all you work!

    • Hugh Lashbrooke
      October 2, 2012 at 2:01 pm #

      Hi Mia,

      Glad you like the new site! Artificer is still available from us – it’s one of our free themes and we are busy working on importing the data for our free themes into the new system. They will all be available again real soon 🙂

      • Mia
        October 2, 2012 at 2:06 pm #

        Ok. Thank you for a quick answer!
        All the best to all of you:-)
        /Mia

      • Joe Robison
        October 4, 2012 at 1:58 am #

        Yea I was looking for Artificer as well, glad to see this. It seems that the search functionality on the new themes page isn’t working so well also….might want to check that.

        Good luck!

  13. 4thedesign
    October 2, 2012 at 2:14 pm #

    love the new design…it’s sleek, clean and easy to navigate.

  14. campsbaycom
    October 2, 2012 at 2:24 pm #

    Support Forum link doesnt work

    • HandHugs
      October 2, 2012 at 8:31 pm #

      Ah! What happened to the support forum – I use that so much – how could they get rid of it?

      • lennyzer0
        October 3, 2012 at 12:23 pm #

        Yeah, it’s a shame that’s gone – and been replaced by a much slower, less immediate ticketing system (four days to get a reply to my latest query!)

        Also, I still have one bonus theme to download from my package and wanted to grab one for a customer just now – but I can’t find anywhere on the site to do so – anyone know where to look?

        Feels very much like a site launched too early at the moment. Hope this isn’t a sign of Woothemes going for style over content, while hiking up prices and cutting on support. That’d be very disappointing.

        • jcasteli
          October 3, 2012 at 4:07 pm #

          I feel the same. Launched way to early if we can’t access our downloads. It’s been well over 8hrs and I still can’t access downloads, one for which I need now. Why launch something that prevents customer from accessing existing data. Doesn’t make sense to me.

          • dartwin
            October 4, 2012 at 7:10 pm #

            Same troubles: all my themes and plugins are not in my account.
            I miss the previous forum very much!

  15. stondon
    October 2, 2012 at 2:34 pm #

    Looks great. Love the new woocommerce integration, no better endorsement of a product than basing your site on it 😉

    Hopefully the few remaining niggles won’t be too hard to fix.

  16. werm42
    October 2, 2012 at 2:35 pm #

    The subnav is impossible to read. Even to my 30 y.o. eyes

  17. dotp
    October 2, 2012 at 2:47 pm #

    I now have no idea how to get to the Knowledge base as it is not in the top menu or the footer menu. I also can’t get access to the old support forums either. The My Account section used to be well organized and useful…now it’s a mess. Not sure what is going on at Woo these days. Did you do any usability testing on the new design with actual customers? If not, shame on you. These issues could have been avoided.

    Yesterday I left a positive comment on the redesign here but the comments were broken so it didn’t take. I’m glad because I’m none too happy with the redesign’s functionality and usability. I hope you address it.

    • Magnus
      October 2, 2012 at 2:54 pm #

      It’s under Support->Contact Support. The old support forums are not available any more. The account layout will be optimized over time, bare with us, and we did do beta testing with customers last week.

      • dotp
        October 2, 2012 at 3:02 pm #

        Hmmm. When I click from the main menu drop down Support > Contact Support it takes me back to the homepage. Why not put the Knowledgebase in the drop down. It’s certainly more useful than WooCodex which is in the drop down.

        • Magnus
          October 2, 2012 at 3:06 pm #

          We’re looking into solving this issue, as it should point to the knowledgebase over at http://support.woothemes.com

        • sheilahoff
          October 3, 2012 at 2:40 am #

          Yah…I’d say things weren’t quite ready for prime time yet. I get the homepage when trying to access the knowledge base also. I still can’t even download themes I’ve paid for. There’s a message asking me to be patient. Two days after going live I shouldn’t need to be patient. I need the updated version of my theme and can’t get. AND, not being able to go back and review support threads I initiated is horrible. I need that information to refer back to. I can’t even post a support ticket since all I can get is the homepage when I client anything to do with support. That’s why I’m ranting here instead of asking for the help I need. Bah humbug! I hope this all gets sorted soon. I’m sure e site LOOKS lovely and perhaps will eventually be worth all this aggravation. But you know how it is, we focus on our own pain and needs and can’t appreciate the rest until it’s addressed. Fingers crossed.

  18. Michael
    October 2, 2012 at 2:54 pm #

    whats with the woo extension licenses now? What if you had these already?

  19. zOrg
    October 2, 2012 at 3:07 pm #

    I’ve purchased the WooCommerce Branding module on 25th Sept – but cannot download.
    I’ve purcahsed the Table Rate Shipping module on 3th July – cannot download, too.

    And please, don’t shut down the best support forum – in read-only mode why can’t we access?
    I have a LOT of bookmarked Q&A here! Please, don’t be a bonehead! It’s not the right directions for your members…

    • Magnus
      October 2, 2012 at 3:10 pm #

      We’re still doing imports on older purchases, and hope to have these done today. Please contact us directly for assistance beyond this.

      I’m afraid the old forums are not available any more. Please contact tech support if you need help with anything.

      • lennyzer0
        October 3, 2012 at 12:25 pm #

        Not a very helpful reply at all there re the old support fora. Like it or lump it, basically.

        Tech support is slow…

    • jchown2012
      October 2, 2012 at 4:16 pm #

      I agree re: the old forum.

      It was frustrating enough when it was ‘deactivated’ but at least with access in read-only mode we could look up old posts/solutions. Like @zOrg, I had a lot of posts bookmarked and regularly referenced the forum to find solutions (usually very quickly) WITHOUT needing to then contact support – i.e. it lowered WooThemes’s support costs relative to my account.

      Now I am left with a very limited self-serve alternative (the current Knowledgebase) or emailing your support directly (which, in my experience can be a method that takes much longer than perusing the old forums and hampers my workflow). Also, as mentioned in the past, one of the great bonuses of the forum was the community (one of the main strengths of WooThemes) that I could benefit from and participate in.

      I have kept up-to-date on all of your posts re: reasons for the changes over the past few months and, while I understand and accept most of them, in this case, IMHO, this is one change that has very negatively affected my WooThemes experience and should be re-evaluated (again).

      • MichelV
        October 2, 2012 at 5:59 pm #

        I fully agree. Bring the Forums Back! Please.

        • sheilahoff
          October 3, 2012 at 2:51 am #

          ME TOO! Pretty PLEASE!

  20. Drew McManus
    October 2, 2012 at 3:37 pm #

    Guys,

    I’ve been unable to access my account since the relaunch. First, the system told me I had too many login attempts and couldn’t try again until 21 *hours* and when trying again this morning, it tells me my p/w is no good. So I click the reset link which sends an email saying visit the following address to reset but no link is provided.

    And since I can’t login, I can’t submit a ticket I really need to download a copy of the post woo-commerce merge Whitelight. Please help.

    Drew

    • Mark Forrester
      October 2, 2012 at 3:42 pm #

      Hi Drew, sorry about the inconvenience. Please send us an email with your username and we’ll get you into your account asap.

      • Drew McManus
        October 2, 2012 at 3:49 pm #

        Many thanks and done.

      • Drew McManus
        October 2, 2012 at 5:20 pm #

        Has anyone received the email yet?

      • Drew McManus
        October 2, 2012 at 6:57 pm #

        Still no reply, can you guys by chance just send the Whitelight file via email? I *really* need to start working.

        • Ryan Ray
          October 2, 2012 at 11:29 pm #

          I’m in there now and will get you your theme ASAP!

      • Jörgen Nilsson
        October 4, 2012 at 8:21 pm #

        We have had problems to login since the relaunch. Sent e-mails to your support address. Was told that it should work, but No…
        E-mailed again….But, after one workday without contact it still is NOT working.
        You could at least keep us – the paying members – updated via your webpage.

        I need to access some themes and buy four extensions before this weekend…

    • Drew McManus
      October 2, 2012 at 6:09 pm #

      Still no contact, I desperately need to get into my account and get that theme file. At this point, I’ve lost a full days worth of work for this client site. Please help!

      • Ryan Ray
        October 3, 2012 at 3:37 pm #

        Looks like Magnus got to you, we really appreciate the patience!

  21. sunstardave
    October 2, 2012 at 4:11 pm #

    I really, really wish my comments on your blog posts could be more positive but the frustrations are really outweighing the positives it seems these days.

    Why oh who oh WHY have you removed the old support forums?

    I had started getting my head around that fact that it wasn’t going to contain any new entries as of August(ish) due to the new support system but having it in read-only format was still a MASSIVE help to me…every day! You don’t seems to appreciate or listen to the fact that many found this resource extremely helpful; if not vital to decent daily productivity. Nope, just like that, ‘click’ and thousands questions with answers gone!

    Now my days will consist of much more hassle, guess work, ticket submissions and waiting.

    Sigh…

    • Mark Forrester
      October 2, 2012 at 4:21 pm #

      The notorious support forums topic.

      Your concerns are definitely not falling on deaf ears. Next on our agenda is community forums and we are looking into ways of mining the old forum data.

      • sunstardave
        October 2, 2012 at 4:44 pm #

        Notorious indeed Mark.

        It’s great to hear that you’re looking into ways of mining the data from the old forum.

        But…

        “…looking into ways of mining”, does not generate much confidence and there is the rather large elephant in the room of what are we supposed to do in the meantime?

        Please don’t say submit a ticket. That will make me think uncharitable thoughts. It’s not that the support team aren’t fantastic; they are. It’s just there is no comparison using the old forums 2, 3, 4 + times a day to get answers and submitting a ticket which can take 1-2 days to get an answer, assuming the problem has been correctly explained/understood in the first place.

        Just out of curiosity, did you guys actually poll your customers regarding their use of the old support forum before binning it? I can’t see how this would have become such a notorious issue if you had. I’m not for one minute suggesting that you let customer dictate every aspect of your business model. It just kind of makes sense to understand the expectations of your customers before such a major overhaul.

        • zOrg
          October 2, 2012 at 4:57 pm #

          Dear Woothemes Staff!

          You have a very light modded bbPress forum (the “good, ol’ support forum”). Why don’t you leave as-is: a read-only, SEARCHABLE knowledgebase with thousands of solved problems (until the end of December, 2012)? The new KB never been as good as the old ones – which lowered YOUR support costs…

          Yepp, I totally agree with jchown2012:
          “…this is one change that has very negatively affected my WooThemes experience and should be re-evaluated (again).”

          • jchown2012
            October 2, 2012 at 5:54 pm #

            What I don’t understand is why Woo would make a decision that has effectively dis-empowered its community (one of its most valuable assets). The new support configuration forces us to rely more heavily on your staff itself.

            With the forum, we could help each other and get answers quickly when needed (please don’t discount the speed with which solutions need to be found when in the middle of a project and in a productive ‘zone’) without taxing the WooNinjas, nor relying on their schedules/work loads from a response time perspective.

            NOTE: This is not a criticism of the WooNinjas themselves. They have always been very helpful and provided excellent support. This is a comment on configuration/procedure.

            Also, the forum, if configured specifically, could have enabled us, your clients, to solve at least some of our own problems (and made us feel less ‘stranded’) during the recent downtime (during the recent launch, etc) without our needing to involve the WooNinjas thus reducing some client-side frustrations and freeing up more of the ninjas’ time to work on the Woo-innards instead of fielding repetitive Q&A via Twitter.

            I can’t help feeling that this new model is a step backwards from a scalability/availability perspective as it relies so heavily on Woo’s internal resources.

            Life is short. My time, as yours, is valuable (yes, I realize the irony given the length of this post 🙂 and put simply, the new support configuration wastes too much of my time.

            “Many hands make light work” – there were many hands in the forum, fewer hands (and less information) in the new support structure. To me, a good part of this is a simple mathematical equation. You are fortunate to have such a large, enthusiastic, intelligent and cooperative community – leverage these strengths, don’t stifle them.

          • Louis_z
            October 4, 2012 at 12:16 pm #

            Agreed. We’ve lost valuable resources. Why?

            I am not benefiting from it.

        • Mark Forrester
          October 2, 2012 at 9:00 pm #

          Please read this post for more detail on the support workflow and careful though that went the re-engineer – http://woo.com/2012/08/inside-woohq-support-workflow/

          • jchown2012
            October 2, 2012 at 9:29 pm #

            Hi Mark,

            Out of respect for everyone at Woo and the known difficulty that comes with change, I have been very actively keeping up-to-date and reading everything Woo has posted to make sure I am as informed as possible. Therefore, I have already read that document (twice, actually).

            Per one of my earlier comments:

            “I have kept up-to-date on all of your posts re: reasons for the changes over the past few months and, while I understand and accept most of them, in this case, IMHO, this is one change that has very negatively affected my WooThemes experience and should be re-evaluated (again).”

            Your above response does nothing but make me feel that my comments re: the forum are in fact “falling on deaf ears.”

            The LEAST that could have been done was to inform your loyal clients that you would be taking down even the read-only version of the forum as part of last weekend’s update. I, for one, would have pulled down a copy of everything on it for my offline viewing/reference needs (as I thankfully did with the WooCommerce and Canvas docs – to name a few – after the extended downtime due to the hack.)

          • jchown2012
            October 2, 2012 at 9:39 pm #

            Further to my comment…

            To quote a paragraph from that Woo support workflow post:

            “The Support Forum as-is has a wealth of knowledge, but this is mostly uncurated and for it to be valuable to the vast majority of the WooCommunity, it needs to be carefully curated and crafted into Knowledgebase articles (something which we’re working on daily).”

            This, to me, would indicate the logical course of action be to leave the forum up in read-only mode until the pre-existing ‘wealth of knowledge’ has all been successfully curated/transferred to your new Knowledgebase. I would be more than happy with that solution.

            Instead, we are left with a Knowledgebase that is sorely lacking while Woo ‘[works] on [it] daily’ and we are left with support tickets as our time-consuming option for questions whose answers were readily available within that wealth of knowledge.

      • thomas-krueger
        October 3, 2012 at 8:29 am #

        Thanks, the old forum is very much appreciated. I still prefer the searchable forum.

  22. meh
    October 2, 2012 at 4:31 pm #

    Reminds me of Drupal.org.

    Much better than the old site though, that’s for sure!

  23. vrob
    October 2, 2012 at 4:39 pm #

    I like the redesign a lot. Some font areas are way too small, though, on a desktop like in the sidebar tabs widget and the tags/trackbacks area.

  24. Justin Dela Cruz
    October 2, 2012 at 5:26 pm #

    Why is this site not responsive to browser resize?

    • Magnus
      October 2, 2012 at 5:30 pm #

      Based on our stats, barely anybody used mobile devices to access our site, but we’ve made it responsive-ready so it will be easier to make it responsive in the future, but it wasn’t a priority for launch.

      • erlend_sh
        October 3, 2012 at 12:33 pm #

        I was surprised when I noticed it wasn’t responsive, so that makes sense. I don’t just enjoy responsive websites on mobile; I tend to drag them to the side so that it only occupies half the window and becomes completely distraction free (no sidebar).

  25. samuelmaes
    October 2, 2012 at 5:31 pm #

    give me a dump of the forums and ill do something with it 🙂

    • carrrrrlos
      October 2, 2012 at 5:55 pm #

      It would have been great, if you woothemes at the very least gave us users a months heads up so we could have copied, archived, some posts we had favorited.
      Instead, I as a user have to open up another ticket to solve a problem, again, which was previously solved.
      And to boot, I am now experiencing over 24hr wait time on the new and improved ticketing system.

    • jchown2012
      October 2, 2012 at 5:55 pm #

      I 2nd that offer.

  26. webawart
    October 2, 2012 at 6:12 pm #

    I am very disappointed with the lack of before information about the input and change the rules. Everything looks cute but disappeared in a few places to help creditors functionality such as: sorting tables and preview the template … What about customers who have previously purchased the plug – WooSlider and version WOOCOMMERCE Slider – when you will be able to download the plugin. When the page will work 100% correctly.

  27. nickfisher
    October 2, 2012 at 6:13 pm #

    Good job guys…. money where your mouth is…i like it!

  28. Anders
    October 2, 2012 at 6:35 pm #

    Fantastic re-design, i just love it.

  29. AshleyBolivar
    October 2, 2012 at 6:38 pm #

    Hey, where is the forum? I am newer to Woo Themes and one of the main reasons I made my investment here was because of the forum. How am I suppose to get the answers that I need that do NOT show up in the knowledge base or video section?

    Support forum is one of the best draws, and to get rid of it is just crazy.

    • Mark Forrester
      October 2, 2012 at 9:01 pm #

      Please read this post for more information on the support systems – http://woo.com/2012/08/inside-woohq-support-workflow/

      • AshleyBolivar
        October 3, 2012 at 2:26 pm #

        Still think that getting rid of the forum was a horrible idea. Completely takes away a huge part of being a member.

  30. somacore
    October 2, 2012 at 7:54 pm #

    “If you do not have access to your product downloads on this page, they should be available soon.”

    Where, and when, will they be available? I tried clicking all the links on my account page but none direct me to the downloads, so I assume I don’t have them yet. Will there be a big section called Downloads?

    This post says 8 hours, but it’s been longer than 8 hours.

    • Magnus
      October 3, 2012 at 9:23 am #

      Initially it was 8 hours, but due to unforeseen problems it took longer. They should all be done now, so contact us directly if you still haven’t got access.

      • somacore
        October 3, 2012 at 1:30 pm #

        Since you didn’t answer my question, and I still don’t know *what the new downloads section looks like to know if I do have access or not,* I filed a support ticket.

        • andreasandrews
          October 3, 2012 at 1:37 pm #

          I also have no idea how to get to the downloads section, but having spent 10 minutes exhausting every possible link and avenue across the entire site I’d say that my downloads simply aren’t available yet. At least you managed to submit a support ticket, I wasn’t able to do that.

          • Magnus
            October 3, 2012 at 1:55 pm #

            The downloads should show in your account page. If they don’t please contact us.

      • andreasandrews
        October 3, 2012 at 1:36 pm #

        Should they all be done for everyone? (I’ve emailed and commented below too 😉

        • Magnus
          October 3, 2012 at 1:56 pm #

          Yes they should all be done and should show in your account page. If they don’t please contact us.

          • andreasandrews
            October 3, 2012 at 2:00 pm #

            They aren’t showing, and I’ve emailed the info@woothemes address (as that’s all I had on file) as the link to raise a ticket just re-directs to the home page (woocommerce.com)

            I’ve double checked to make sure the downloads list isn’t hidden away somewhere. Clicking on my developer package in my accounts section brings up a page with no-content (where it looks like there perhaps should be something listed other than the header, footer and title page)

          • diskette
            October 4, 2012 at 5:17 pm #

            I contacted you guys at least a day ago about seeing no way to edit my subscription status or get new downloads, say of a theme I had never used before, updates to the ones I have now, etc. and have not gotten an answer.

            All I see in my account is links to WC extensions, no way to cancel/reactivate the club subscription. I think I had the subscription set to auto renew but this is what now like a week I haven’t been able to access anything…

            I really hope that if you are going to charge more for extensions that you make sure that they are better documented (ex. no idea how to pass data in variables with Gravity Form Product Add-ons although it is a feature), that they work together (ex. GFPA dumps all the options into a single column of product meta which looks horrible in checkout and yields useless data with Product/Order CSV export), and that they actually do what they say in their advertisement (CSV export is supposed to export with “each product on one line” but instead exports each product type along with “3x” and all of the gibberish from GFPA, when it should be 3 lines).

  31. jj9delacruz
    October 2, 2012 at 9:06 pm #

    I subscribed to comments for this post. Now i want to unsubscribe. When i click on “Manage your subscriptions” and try to unsubscribe i get this error message – “You may not access this page without a valid key.”

    • Magnus
      October 3, 2012 at 9:23 am #

      Thanks for this, we’ll make sure that gets fixed.

  32. Laura
    October 2, 2012 at 10:17 pm #

    Looking sharp! I really like the new home page. Any plans to make this possible in your themes (Canvas would be ideal), or to write a tutorial on how we could do something like this with your themes?

    Thanks!

    Laura

  33. sjefx
    October 2, 2012 at 11:11 pm #

    I’m relatively new as a customer and based my choice for some of your themes on your pricing model and support structure, mainly the forum: I too like to find out most things myself. I choose the Canvas theme and to me it was quite clear you can not survive as a company with your business model and a theme and license conditions as for Canvas. Sympathy from my side for both the new business model and the new site based on your own Woocommerce.

    In some of your recent blog posts it was clear you were looking for changes to be made and also created a sphere of sharing your thoughts and being open to your customers. Very pity to find out that involving your customers turns out to be empty words. Because, when it comes to it you shut down your site for days without giving your ‘appreciated’ customers a single notice and possibility to prepare. Furthermore without any warning/pre-info you come back with a different pricing model and an erased forum and you also seem to have erased the valuable bookmarks that your most loyal and professional customers put a lot of time and effort in to collect them. From a customer point of view I think you quite screwed up in the same arrogant style big companies sometimes afford themselves.

    For some time I follow the soap around Thesis 2.0. There people are warned for a new pricing structure when 2.0 releases already for 4 years (or something close) and it simply never happens. You do the complete opposite, namely changing everything without any notice. My personal idea is that the “truth” is somewhere in the middle.

    Anyway, I’m not affected that much and wish you all a successful outcome of your changes.

    Regards, Sjef

  34. webawart
    October 3, 2012 at 12:06 am #

    Guys,

    I’m disappointed. Plug-ins are gone. Links do not work. Forum doesnt work. Customers are only costs. What happened to you? I really could not work out everything on a separate test server? Why is experimenting on living organism? How much time will you entertain at our expense?

    Do not stay like a politician. Because you do not have ideas – Do not reach for our money. Chcesie simplify your life and reduce costs?

    I suggest you to create new templates to use Canvas.
    When the templates will have the same structure – it will be easier to update and it will generate fewer questions.

  35. ntolbert
    October 3, 2012 at 3:00 am #

    Awesome job! Love the new layout! I would also love that floating Social Share icon widget you have here on the left of the posts. Is that a wootheme product now or how could I get that for my Canvas theme?

    • Ryan Ray
      October 3, 2012 at 4:28 pm #

      It’s a little custom coded part of the theme. 😉

      You could of course add something like this to the single.php post template. Some CSS to make it look good and follow you around the page. 😉

  36. Josse
    October 3, 2012 at 3:00 am #

    Sorry to see that the forums (where I had all my hacks and fixes bookmarked) gone without a heads up.

    Now I am feel anxious about having to wait a day and a half for the Woo Ninjas (who are very good, I might add) to get back to me with my support questions in the future.

    It’s hard to understand why Woo would not listen to their community who havesupported them all these many years. Sad 😉

    • Zach
      October 3, 2012 at 3:15 am #

      Sad indeed. I completely understand the reasons for overhauling the support ticket system. The forum wasn’t a scalable way to handle every support request. That’s been established by Woo and I have no reason not to believe them. But their assertion in comments on previous posts that “most user were not searching the forum to solve problems” seems just plain wrong. If it’s not, let’s see some analytics data to back it up.

  37. Rezolution
    October 3, 2012 at 4:17 am #

    The Woocommerce extensions layout is bloody awful.

    • James Koster
      October 3, 2012 at 10:45 am #

      Care to elaborate?

  38. mauricioquito
    October 3, 2012 at 5:04 am #

    Seriously guys, this is the most ridiculous decision you could have made.

    Haven’t you heard that old say, “if it aint broke dont fix it” ?

    So, you took the site down (service interruption) without notice on the basis that all of us are cool and understanding of one another….. Then you put back up and nothings works (service continues to be interrupted)….. and then on top of that you come up with this slightly greedy new pricing structure claiming that is a decision made so that we can get a better service, yet I still can’t download a theme.

    Sounds like a conflict to me. Perhaps you should debug and redesign your thinking process.

    With all your respect, cause I do respect you and admire you, we are cool but business is business. A new era begins for woo, unfortunately I foresee it to be a sad one.

    • Ryan Ray
      October 3, 2012 at 4:30 pm #

      We posted a week ahead of time about our maintenance that would be happening over the weekend, plus the launch of the new site on October 1st.

      We also announced, in the same post I believe, the new licensing structure and a WooCommerce sale across our whole site.

      Email us and we can get your theme access sorted out ASAP! – support[at]woocommerce.com

      • sjefx
        October 3, 2012 at 6:53 pm #

        I don’t see it in the blog. Must be where the forum is.

  39. adesek
    October 3, 2012 at 6:53 am #

    Love the new look!

  40. Armando1625
    October 3, 2012 at 10:06 am #

    Magnus can you kindly look into my account as to why I don’t have access to download my bonus theme with my purchase of premium theme.

    Thank You,

    Armando

    • Ryan Ray
      October 3, 2012 at 4:30 pm #

      Armando,

      Shoot us an email with your WooThemes username, we can get your bonus themes taken care of! – support[at]woocommerce.com

  41. Syrehn
    October 3, 2012 at 10:41 am #

    Oh god… the dashboard… the beautiful, beautiful old dashboard…. gone…. now i’m scrolling foooorever to find things on that one single account page. For the love of all that’s holy don’t leave it like that.

    Side note… did I miss something or is there a reason that on my WP sites under WooThemes Updater it’s telling me: “Login Error: The login details supplied are invalid. Please try again.” even though I haven’t changed my login and can still login to my account via the Woo site.

    • Ryan Ray
      October 3, 2012 at 4:32 pm #

      Our previous downloads page would still have been just as long listing out the products you’ve bought.

      Things like updating your account info did get moved, but otherwise it’s not a huge shift. 😉

      I believe all of our products will need to be hooked into the new system shortly, that way you can pull updates, etc…

  42. webawart
    October 3, 2012 at 11:26 am #

    Another problem – the invoice for download in pdf for services, subscription and extension – when it starts to look normal? Missing data seller and buyer, the company logo etc…

  43. SarahS
    October 3, 2012 at 11:41 am #

    Just thought I’d leave some quick bug feedback here rather send an email.
    My profile image doesn’t fit in its box. I am still getting 2 download buttons (is one of them supposed to the PSD? Not sure where that is.
    Also, I can’t sort the downloads table so it takes ages to try and find the right theme. Are you adding some submenu or links to the dashboard to make this easier to navigate?
    Thanks

  44. andreasandrews
    October 3, 2012 at 1:22 pm #

    I very rarely log-in to download themes (have downloaded two since I signed up) and today left it until the last minute to download a theme to work on immediately to get a draft over to a client later today. Unfortunately I can’t download it, and the link to contact support redirect to the homepage so I’ve sent an email to info@woothemes and hope I can download Olya soon (or even be provided a link) alternatively I’ll have to use one I downloaded months ago (if I can find it). Either way lots of downtime when I just wanted some simple functionality. I understand this doesn’t occur very often, and I still think Woothemes are awesome despite me being a new customer so I hope there’s something you can do to keep that awesomesauce flowing fast! Cheers.

    • Ryan Ray
      October 3, 2012 at 4:34 pm #

      Andrew,

      I’m finding your email now. Sending you your goods and sorting out the other issues. 🙂

      • andreasandrews
        October 3, 2012 at 6:09 pm #

        Cheers Ryan, got Olya, sent you some screen grabs (but not of the developers club page – which is pretty empty looking) and wish you the best of luck sorted the rest of the issues. I’ll come back when I next need a download tomorrow (or to check I can get them) Cheers, Andreas.

      • andreasandrews
        October 3, 2012 at 6:12 pm #

        I would also like to unsubscribe to email notifications from this page but the ‘manage subscriptions’ page is broken, and when I do attempt it, it throws an error about an invalid key. I’ll just set-up a filter so it’s no real issue for me, just thought I’d let you know. Over and out.

      • AshleyBolivar
        October 3, 2012 at 6:14 pm #

        I need access to the themes and can’t find anything in the back members area that allows me access. Please help ASAP.

  45. Justin Dela Cruz
    October 3, 2012 at 3:08 pm #

    I made the mistake of subscribing to comments via email for this post. 🙁

    Now there is an error and it won’t let me unsubscribe. Help please!

  46. Hampton
    October 3, 2012 at 3:12 pm #

    Looks like i’m back to posting here again…something i tried to avoid!
    I still have an open ticket since 27th Sept with no answer yet. I also emailed you via your contact form to tell you i still can’t download themes – no answer and i still can’t find how to download any themes from either my full purchases or club subscription 🙁

    • PTaubman
      October 3, 2012 at 4:26 pm #

      I am having the same issue. I have sent an email and am waiting for a reply. Hoping for a speedy turn around.

    • Ryan Ray
      October 3, 2012 at 4:35 pm #

      Searching for your email now and will reply ASAP!

      • AshleyBolivar
        October 3, 2012 at 6:12 pm #

        I am also having the same issue. Please fix this ASAP. I need help accessing my themes.

        • Magnus
          October 3, 2012 at 6:54 pm #

          We’re still working on the missing products of some users, so please e-mail us. I’ve replied to your e-mail now Ashley.

  47. AshleyBolivar
    October 3, 2012 at 4:55 pm #

    I have been trying to leave this thread but it keeps sending me emails. I keep getting : You may not access this page without a valid key.

    Can you help me out.

    Thanks,
    Ashley

    • Magnus
      October 3, 2012 at 6:49 pm #

      Sorry about this, we’ve disabled the plugin in hopes that this fixes the issue until we can fix this.

  48. Jason
    October 3, 2012 at 4:57 pm #

    I also cannot unsubscribe from this thread. Please fix.

  49. drewmcmanusllc
    October 3, 2012 at 5:10 pm #

    FYI, when attempting to manage comment subscriptions while logged in, I keep getting a “You may not access this page without a valid key.” after submitting changes. Is this global or just me?

  50. totalmarketexposure
    October 3, 2012 at 5:17 pm #

    I cant access themes to download them. Where is that done at now? I have had a subscription for a long time. Am I supposed to pay per download now? Im really confused about how I download the themes without having to pay per download.

    • Ryan Ray
      October 3, 2012 at 6:57 pm #

      We’re working through any subscription issues, please do email us on that. – support[at]woocommerce.com

      In working order you should be able to access your products here. – https://woo.com/my-account/

      • totalmarketexposure
        October 4, 2012 at 12:35 am #

        Its working now, thank you. The list of products for download was not working. My Account is now working properly. Thanks

  51. fastone
    October 3, 2012 at 5:37 pm #

    Wonderful place to be, light and soothing ^^ Inspiring to watch ninja’s work and make things happen.

  52. agelfand
    October 3, 2012 at 6:01 pm #

    I’ve emailed and tweeted. Please, someone get back to me. I can’t download themes, and I can’t access the KB. Every time I click through the support section I wind up on the themes page. The downtime was supposed to be over the weekend, but it’s Wednesday. If nothing else, can someone please tell me where to access the KB? I need instructions for turning off responsiveness in Canvas. Not a happy camper this week. I really do appreciate how much work it is to get a new site as large and complex as this one up and running, but at least make the KB available.

    • agelfand
      October 3, 2012 at 6:04 pm #

      ok, just got a response on twitter. whew! sorry to clog blog comment thread.

      • totalmarketexposure
        October 3, 2012 at 6:32 pm #

        Where do you go? I’m still trying to figure it out

  53. AshleyBolivar
    October 3, 2012 at 6:05 pm #

    Hey, where can I download my themes? I needed to access them and as a paid member, I should be able to. What’s up? Where can I download the themes? I am logged in but I see no place to access my themes. Please help.

    Ashley

    • Ryan Ray
      October 3, 2012 at 6:58 pm #

      Ashley,

      They should be here – https://woo.com/my-account/

      I see that Magnus took care of an earlier issue, but just email us with any issues you have accessing products. – support[at]woocommerce.com

      • olindacat
        October 3, 2012 at 8:14 pm #

        I tried that first, about six hours ago, and have written in 3x begging for support to no avail. Just lost a big job over lack of response and am a new Developer Club member. Not cool. Wish these guys were good. Really need a good club. Very bummed.

        • NicheOptimizer
          October 3, 2012 at 8:18 pm #

          Same problem here.. There is no way to access the themes. I have a dev package too.

        • Ryan Ray
          October 3, 2012 at 8:33 pm #

          Olindacat & NicheOptimizer – Email us if products are missing, we’re working through these issues ASAP.

          support[at]woocommerce.com

          • NicheOptimizer
            October 4, 2012 at 2:29 am #

            @Ryan, I see the downloads now. But not all of theme. I’m missing out on the themes that were in my dashboard like SupportPress, etc.

  54. iintegral
    October 3, 2012 at 9:40 pm #

    Hi Guys
    New site looks great. But there are some niggles… I am trying to search the site for some information regarding Google Fonts and how to add some fonts not specifically catered for in the theme I am using (Canvas). But, searching the site delivered me to a Error 404 page without any results. Can you check this out?

  55. lucifer666
    October 3, 2012 at 11:19 pm #

    Ok,

    1. so first impressions whilst I was travelling was – what have they done? But now I can see it has been updated close to final i am impressed.

    2. The backend systems for subscribers still needs a lot of work. Really needs to be refined and big buttons minimised (download buttons are huge) , needs to have table sorting as well for themes and products, especially when you have a few or for club subscribers. Basically keep things pretty but clean it up so it doesn’t read like a 100 pager.

    3. Pricing for plugins for developer versions – hmmm. I just hope woo doesn’t go the way of the Dodo like many other web companies when they think that milking more from their loyal customers is a great way of building more revenues.

    Works for a while and then bang, someone else always (always) comes along and takes those customers away. You now have hit a place where when you do this you get an avalanche of comments railing against it.

    Now for the first time, my company is also looking elsewhere to safe guard against us depending on your services, thats not a position you want to find yourself in en masse. Just make sure you are listening!

    • Magnus
      October 4, 2012 at 1:46 pm #

      Hi,

      We’re glad you like the new design.

      The account pages will be improved in the coming days and weeks.

      We hope your company will stick with us. We’ve explained the pricing changes in our other blog post.

      • lucifer666
        October 4, 2012 at 11:50 pm #

        Of course we will stick with you, but in the past we have used only canvas as a framework and we are already starting to use another, so safeguard our dependance.

        This came about because of the practices employed over the past 6 months. I can understand why, but long term it is a failed continuance of a strategy.

  56. mythicalstaircase
    October 4, 2012 at 12:53 am #

    I’ve been wanting to work on a new site since Sunday, but can I just give you all a perspective?

    I’ve been part of a few data migrations at big companies and they stand around scratching their heads and having verbose yet unproductive meetings for WEEKS. Nothing ever goes as planned with this stuff.

    Also, anyone who has used woocommerce should have expected issues. No insult intended. It’s a great product esp. for the price, but I’m glad Woo is going to be putting the money where their mouth is and dealing with any issues their software has, to our benefit.

    And now, back to waiting for my download XD

    • mythicalstaircase
      October 4, 2012 at 12:59 am #

      Great Scott… I just got the download! Woo: no need to reply here. Thanks

    • Magnus
      October 4, 2012 at 1:42 pm #

      Thanks for understanding the process and what we are going through. You can never plan everything perfectly, no matter how much we test and prolong the launch.

      I’m sure WooCommerce will benefit from us using our product, as will our customers.

    • Ryan Ray
      October 4, 2012 at 4:41 pm #

      Precisely!

      Us using our own products will end up massively benefitting everyone. We are all using the same plugin now, and can share in our ideas to make it better. 😉

  57. somacore
    October 4, 2012 at 1:49 am #

    Finally got my downloads.

    Having been a configuration manager for 5 years, I can tell the account screen was only minimally implemented and not tested at all before deployment. This was obviously put together on a schedule that you guys couldn’t keep, and it sucks because of it. The downloads section honestly looks like nobody gave it a second thought in terms of usability. All of the account screens are just horrible to look at.

    No matter how much advance notice you give, or how many times you say this was “planned,” it’s pretty clear that an implementation schedule with step by step timeframes and individual responsibilities was something that either didn’t happen, wasn’t adhered to, or wasn’t complete.

    The front end looks really nice, and it’s a shame because it shows exactly where this company puts its value.

    • NicheOptimizer
      October 4, 2012 at 2:20 am #

      For a company so large, we expected more as well. I do like the front end, but as a paying monthly customer, the account section is what I cared about the most.

    • Magnus
      October 4, 2012 at 1:39 pm #

      It was vital for us to meet our launch deadline, so we had to make the account page minimal and just make sure it worked.

      You’ll see improvements there in the coming days, but we have to tackle the other more important stumbling blocks first.

  58. Armando1625
    October 4, 2012 at 6:18 am #

    I still still don’t have access to download my bonus themes and I’ve already sent several requests to support.

    • Magnus
      October 4, 2012 at 1:36 pm #

      Sorry about this, we’re answering all e-mails as fast as possible, and will get to yours eventually.

  59. rocko36
    October 4, 2012 at 12:49 pm #

    Your support page is not working. Unable to log a support ticket.

    • Magnus
      October 4, 2012 at 1:35 pm #

      If you can’t contact tech support, please use “Contact” in the menu to e-mail us directly.

  60. Louis_z
    October 4, 2012 at 1:00 pm #

    I predicted that you were going to REMOVE the forum and you took the “opportunity” to do so over the weekend, with all its valuable posts, pieces of codes, ideas including various inputs from users… You do not want to share the information with your paying customers anymore, you took back from us. That’s right, you took back.

    Now you want to keep it all for yourself, like greedy men AND you TRIPLE your extension prices.

    Wow! Or Woo..? Most likely BOO… Boothemes would be more appropriate — still not strong enough though. Anyone?

    You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Mm, sorry, that’s not strong enough… whoever invented this pathetic quote…

    Instead of searching the old forum (which doesn’t exist anymore), we will have to open new tickets, we’ll have to wait… in my case over a week and still no replies. Then when we do get a reply, it will read like so: “please read the codex or hire a ninja…”. Most often than not the answers were to be found on the old forum.

    This move is only benefiting Woo.

    What you have done here is disgusting — you have no respect for your previous and new customers anymore.

    A review is on order.

    PS: nice front end btw…

    PSS: well, what can I add, nothing surprises me anymore, it’s a greedy world.

    You got the opportunity to fix your big mistake ASAP, or you can stick with it, and you’ll leave a bitter taste in our mouths.

    300 000 happy customers? You something know Woo? Only dead fish follow the stream.

  61. zOrg
    October 4, 2012 at 1:58 pm #

    How can I remove ALL of my credit card details from your site?

  62. zOrg
    October 4, 2012 at 2:26 pm #

    “I can understand why you are frustrated …already discussed…” – are you Steve Jobs or an Apple Genius Training member..?

    No “crash”, “bugs”, “problems”, “errors” or “sorry, it’s my fault”.
    No priceless, community-based, “blitzschnell” (aka “instant”) support.
    No usable and valid invoices.
    No ability to change password or edit/delete credit card data.

    Oh, well, keep it on topic:
    “Awwwesome nu site! Keepupthegoodworx! Make money like hell!”

  63. smallpotatoes
    October 4, 2012 at 4:34 pm #

    October 1 is when this was posted. It’s now October 4th. We still don’t have access to things you promised, and I assume our email is in a que of hundreds, if not thousands of others simply wanting access to what we’ve paid for and depend upon to run and manage our business.

    I give props for the re-design and using your own tools. But it’s not just WooThemes that is impacted by your ‘improvements’, it’s all the developers that keep WooThemes afloat and growing that rely on these memberships to earn our incomes.

    You had to have known that data related to 300k+ users & all of your products was a huge undertaking to refresh, but just because you had a deadline doesn’t mean you launch things that don’t work. Woo missing a launch deadline is an internal issue. Woo pushing out a solution too early, which is purely meant to capture new business, is an external issue that puts your previous members (especially the developer membership) in a pretty ugly position.

    Many of us depend on Woo to be stable and secure. We depend on the forums as a source of information and resources when we’re scratching our heads while using your products. We depend on the themes, plugins & documentation we purchased to earn revenue that feeds our families.

    Obviously there are lots of things that could have been done differently (like archive the forum to provide read access, provide a temp repository for your dev membership, etc..), but it’s very likely too late. So now instead of being able to receive support on services we’ve already paid for, we have to wait in line while you tackle support issues that you’ve created because it was so “vital to meet our launch deadline.”

    It’s one thing to meet internal deadlines. It’s completely another to launch a product that is so clearly not ready to be launched, where the core of it (your dedicated membership) is the piece that’s missing. This is like launching an iphone without the icons in place. Somewhere inside is all this magical power, you just have no way to access it, but my god, doesn’t it look wonderful? Click here to buy..

    Please don’t respond if the answer is “it should be working, if not contact support.” That canned response has been played out way too much throughout this discussion.

    • jchown2012
      October 4, 2012 at 7:02 pm #

      Well said @smallpotatoes!

      And to those at Woo, do you not think that any extra time taken (before launching the new site – though maybe missing the revered ‘launch date’ – to ensure the core functionality that your most active members depend upon daily (if not hourly) was working correctly would not have GREATLY reduced all of the extra resources and time now being used at WooThemes to address the thousands of support matters related to said functionality? AND, it’s not like you haven’t had plenty of prior feedback over the past few months, especially regarding the importance of the forum to many members, that, if acted upon effectively, could have helped you avoid at least some of the issues and fallout from recent decisions/events.

      It would be easier to be more understanding of some of your reasons for change described in posts such as http://woo.com/2012/08/inside-woohq-support-workflow/ if your execution wasn’t so repetitively fraught with issues that leave us (your members) scrambling for work-arounds while trying to run our own businesses.

      I hope you at Woo recognize that the fact that so many people have taken the time to voice their frustrations (and impressively, many in a very respectful and articulate fashion), is indicative of how many people value what WooThemes has created to-date thus making many of Woo’s products key components of their web-related work.

      There is some great feedback in many of these comments that if used constructively can help both WooThemes AND its membership come out of this winners.

  64. mtibesar
    October 4, 2012 at 9:37 pm #

    Wow! Nice new modern clean site. Good job Woothemes gurus.

    By the way what theme are you using for your new website?

    Cheers,

    Marcus

  65. azzx
    October 5, 2012 at 1:55 am #

    Since the forum is gone, so too is my membership, seriously how hard is it?

    It implies you are unable to maintain anything remotely complex – there really isn’t any other excuse.

    • Ryan Ray
      October 5, 2012 at 3:22 am #

      So sorry about that.

      Contact us and we can fix your subscription. – support[at]woocommerce.com

  66. pink_ice
    October 5, 2012 at 3:28 am #

    Sending you all a big virtual hug for the new site (it looks beautiful) and all the support in the past. Thank you thank you thank you! <3

  67. Ben
    October 5, 2012 at 5:07 am #

    This is all fine and dandy and it looks great but where the @#$! are my downloads now?

  68. Haru
    October 5, 2012 at 7:11 am #

    Is there a time-frame on this new open forum?

    If not, would anybody out there be interested in working together to help create an ‘unofficial’ forum until the official one is ready?

  69. Magnus
    October 5, 2012 at 9:47 am #

    Thanks for all the comments!

    We’re closing down comments on this post now.

    If anybody has any account related issues, please contact us directly and we’ll help you.

    https://woo.com/contact-us/