Restricting 'Free Package' Data Fields?

Hi,

My question has been referred to in a couple of threads, but I haven't seen any responses as yet.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but from what I can see, you can edit and/or remove a field, but that will be for ALL packages, both free and paid?

For me the ability to restrict and not show website and social links data fields for the FREE package only is a pretty basic requirement in order to proceed with using this theme.

I think the theme is awesome, but without restricting these fields, the incentive to upgrade to a paid package is pretty low. Yes there is the potential of a visitor completing the contact form, but depending on the niche of the directory, this could be very low.

In terms of updates, I think if this functionality is added, the conversion rate from free to paid subscribers will greatly increase.

If I am the only person in the world interested in this feature and this ability will not be included in an update any time soon, I'd be really grateful if there is a code customisation fix I can add to my sites that will achieve the same result?

Great theme!

Many thanks,


Ellomoto

 

Hey Ellomoto,

Glad you asked that question. I have been having the same issue. Trying to figure out how to restrict the package. There should be a admin button when creating the package that allows for us to click to restrict the portion which we do not want to allow. I also like to add that we have the ability to strict how many images can be added. I don't want to customize it because when there is a new update, the customization might be overridden and if we are working with many niches which I plan of expanding this would take a lot more work.

Benson

 

hi yes I agree - it would be invaluable to be able to assign fields for free and pro listings. I would like to disable ANY fields that allow a user to contact a business directly from mobile browsing on the FREE listing. Any way of doing this except just deleting the relevant info from the input box?

Paul

 

Hello,

Right now, There is no way in the theme to restrict the fields for Free Package. The only option is to delete the info from the particular fields.

 

If we were to delete the fields, then when there is an update how would that affect the theme update later.

 

No, you dont have to delete the fields through the Codes. You need to delete the data from the particular fields from the WordPress Dashboard under the Business Listings and when the person pays, you need to insert the data again.

However, this approach would require manual work and might not be good for large business userbase.

 

Hi Neeraj,

Happy Holidays. Yes, that's what I was thinking as an alternative, and would take too much work if on if managing a bunch of sites.

Anyway you can incorporate this into your next update.

Benson

 

I am glad I read the post. I was wondering what were the incentives for a business to upgrade to pay and I couldn't find one. I think that needs to be the focus on the next update. Why would a business pay if they can get the exact service free?

 

I need to agree too! Incentivising from Free to Paid (one-off) or Recurring should at least be worth the client's money. Asking a client to pay £20-£30 per month for a featured listing with the only difference against a free listing is the lead capture, doesn't really swing it with me and I'm sure it won't with my prospective customers.

Surely a little bit of code rearranging to the various form field with options for Admin to turn off or on, would be easy for guys like neeraj to implement.

I sincerely love the theme but find it very disappointing to find that these little adjustments can't be done or even an acknowledgement that they will be in the next upgrade.

I've also asked some simple questions many hours ago on how to change $ to £ but still no reply.

Come on guys... can we have something positive from you!

 

hey yes i agree - that would make it a much better product- and you can change the currency as below

geocraft settings > payment settings > manage currency

 

+1 I just bought the theme and I agree that this is key. This is the first theme I have bought from InkThemes. Do you have a features calendar? And how often can we expect this theme to be updated?

 

I'll jump in this boat also with a vote for the same request. I was looking to turn off the 'free' option altogether and just make the featured listing the free option instead because solely a lead capture form is not at all going to be enough to motivate someone to pay a monthly fee. I can set up a lead capture form with a simple wp plugin, and one that the user can keep their leads.

I also am not clear on whether the admin has control over each individual account's leads data or if it's all generated in one giant list and how we'd be able to provide those leads back to the customer/business who lists in an easy, non PITA manner. Giving the business owner an option in his or her dashboard to download their list of leads might make a difference but according to the response on another thread, apparently only the admin can download the leads, and it's not specified whether it's on an individual basis or one giant file containing everyone, which ultimately doesn't do anyone any good.

The main reason I like geocraft is the ability for them to handle it themselves, all aspects, and have a really nice directory...but the backend of this theme is becoming troublesome and it should be built in for admins to turn on/off our preferred features and not be at the mercy of the developer's ideas of what people want. Then there is the issue of the category adds not updating, no page refresh. I had 57 categories and having to manually refresh the page after adding it was a huge PITA.

My directory is a hyperlocal element to a larger membership package, and even though the businesses who would get their listings won't be into the thousands, even if it was 10, it'd still be a big ordeal to manually add them. I also have the option of local payment for a featured listing, but back we come to the OP's issue. If we can't omit some free features and add them to the paid options, there's no real incentive to pay for it. I'd just as soon set the entire directory to free and let them have the full features benefits and they can pay for it via the package that includes the directory itself...but NOT if I have to manually add them myself!

So, we need to allow them to create an account, log in, and just select the featured plan without making a paypal payment (if it's turned off entirely to take local in person payments), which means there needs to be some adjustments made to each plan's options.

It'd be nice to get what you pay for for a change..............

 

I don't think InkThemes was ready for the Warrior Forum. Their lack of timely response to critical issues like this one is frustrating. I bought this theme because it sounded like Neeraga was promising quick updates. So the question is what's the schedule?

 

Hey guys...I brought up similar concerns in another post and I did receive a reply from Neeraj promising to make the changes we are all asking for. He said the changes should take about 2 weeks.

You can read his reply in my thread here: http://www.inkthemes.com/community/threads/search-query-results-are-useless.937/

Let's keep bumping the thread until the updates are in place.

 

I just purchased the GeoTrack theme yesterday. I had previously purchased WP Local Places, also through the Warrior Forum. I had a terrible time with support, which was actually the author responding each time. Only once did he ever offer to 'look into adding that' to a future version upgrade. All other issues he responded very short and basically said, "Sorry but you cannot do that with this theme."

I chose to purchase GeoTrack because Neeraj answered all my questions in the Warrior Forum and because it looked to me like he was fixing things and telling people he would add things they recommended.

I too feel there should be more differences between the Free and what I call Premium listing packages. Premium being the Paid version.

One thing you all may be overlooking is the fact that with a Free listing you cannot purchase a Featured upgrade. Not for the home page or for the category pages. The only other benefit I see is the Lead Capture Form right there on their Listing Details page. That is, or could be if they actually get those leads, a major benefit.

I just opened a new thread earlier today asking if there was a way to restrict the number of images a Free Listing can have to 1. Looks like the default is up to 5 images which is a lot for a Free listing. That's one thing that many businesses would pay extra for.

I have mixed feelings about restricting website links and social links. Yes it is much more beneficial for the business owner but it can also mean a lot more authority backlinks to our directory sites. The more backlinks we have like that the better.

To sum it all up, I think changing the Free Listing Package to only allow 1 image and enhancing and documenting the Lead Capture system should move to the top of the list of things to do for this theme. Bottom line, no business owner is going to pay anything at all if they see they can get some decent exposure for free.

 

Colossalmktg,

You are absolutely right.

No business owner is going to pay for a premium listing if he can get 98% of the benefits for free. The things that really need to be addressed with the theme are:

1. Reworking of the listing custom post type to allow for editable data fields and listing features (display fields) for free vs paid. We need to be able to add, edit, delete, enable and disable any and all display fields as needed based on the project type.
2. Limit the number of images a free account can display and emhance the number of images a premium user can display.
3. The Lead Capture component is critical and should be one of the majot upsell features
4. I personally think that you should restrict website and social links to premium accounts only, but if #1 above is implimented correctly, this functionality (and all other data fields and or features) will be made "optional" via the enable/diable functionality. This is the perfect scenario.
5. If not already possible, we need to make sure that all free account holders can easily upgrade to a premiun (paid) account and have access to all available paid upgrades.

Just my 2 cents.

 

I replied on another thread about this but another little problem here is the fact that a user can add as many images in the "listing description" field as well as embed multiple videos from a local or youtube source. You can even drag and drop images in to the field -- a good thing to promote or is it in the light of the above comments?Don't quite see how we can limit this?

 

We are soon coming up with a theme upgrade to limit the custom fields for the Free Listings based on your requirements.

 

A solution to rogerb's point above about "a user can add as many images in the "listing description" field as well as embed multiple videos from a local or youtube source"... Have a free subscription display a textbox (limited to x characters) and a premium subscription user get a textarea box. They can both be linked to the same data field, but the textbox would limit the length of the listing and prevent videos as well as images.

 

Honestly I don't think most business owners are even going to catch onto that. They will see a separate field (maybe just 1) for an image and assume that's a limitation. Most people will use that description box for what it implies. A short description of their business.

On the other hand, if one business owner adds a video to a Free account and other business owners see it, or see several businesses doing that, it could quickly spread.

Personally, I won't worry too much about that. In dealing with people every day I know 90% of them will read the description of the package and in mine that description will tell them that they are limited to 1 image for a free account or they can add up to 5 images with a Premium account.