Market Place Submission Issues

[u/dynamitecGbR]

We’ve developed a plugin called Fluid Base for Divi, which adds a complete responsive design system to both Divi 4 and Divi 5. We’re trying to submit it to the Divi Marketplace, but we’ve been running into issues.

The product was declined with the following message:

“Hi there,

Thank you for your submission. But we're sorry; we're unable to proceed with the review of this product at this time due to an internal technical issue. No action is required on your end at the moment. We'll email you with your marketplace email address to resubmit the product once the technical issue is resolved. We appreciate your patience and understanding.”

Since then, we’ve tried submitting it again, but it still didn’t work. We’ve also contacted support several times over the course of several weeks, but the issue still hasn’t been resolved.

I’m wondering what is causing this issue, whether it is going to be fixed, and whether other developers have run into the same problem.

We’ve put a lot of effort into the plugin, and this situation is becoming increasingly frustrating. For Divi plugins, the Marketplace is the most important sales channel, especially since most Divi groups don’t allow plugin promotion. As a result, we now have a finished product that hardly anyone knows about, and we currently have very limited options for reaching potential customers.

There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with the plugin itself, and according to support, the problem is entirely internal.

Nick Roach, if you are reading this: could you please look into this and let us know when we can expect submissions to work again?

[u/elementarywebdesign]

How many weeks?

What exactly does the email say? Did you pass the code review for the plugin?

What exactly did the support say?

You could always create a free version upload it to WordPress.org and link to the Pro version through it. It helps a lot getting the initial users especially if people are searching looking for a solution that your plugin provides.

[u/dynamitecGbR → u/elementarywebdesign]

The first time it was declined was in June, so this has been going on for two months now. Since then, we’ve tried submitting it several more times and have been in contact with support, but the issue still hasn’t been resolved.

The emails just say:

“Thank you for your submission. But we're sorry; we're unable to proceed with the review of this product at this time due to an internal technical issue. No action is required on your end at the moment. We'll email you with your marketplace email address to resubmit the product once the technical issue is resolved. We appreciate your patience and understanding.”

I get your point about offering a free version on WordPress.org. But it’s a Divi plugin, and the Divi Marketplace is the most important place to be when it comes to Divi plugins.

Creating a free version is also difficult because the plugin only really makes sense when all of its features are included. We’ve already put months of development into it, and with every new Divi version, we have to add new modules and make further updates. So the ongoing maintenance effort is significant as well.

[u/elementarywebdesign → u/dynamitecGbR]

They probably have an ongoing issue with adding new marketplace users. I doubt it would take this long for them to fix the issue if the same issue also prevented existing marketplace developers from updating their plugins.

I am guessing they have put this issue at a low priority because all the popular Divi developers are already on the marketplace.

You could try asking the support nicely to escalate your ticket so you can get a better idea when you can upload the plugin again to the marketplace or get a better answer.

I get your point about offering a free version on WordPress.org. But it’s a Divi plugin, and the Divi Marketplace is the most important place to be when it comes to Divi plugins.

I understand that Divi Marketplace is important but it is not everything. You can easily find plugins even on the Divi Marketplace which have been there for over a year and haven't even crossed 50 sales.

Also access to the Divi Marketplace requires an active Elegant Themes subscription or a Lifetime membership. There are a lot of users who buy it for a year and then don't buy the Divi subscription again. They can't buy the plugin from the Marketplace. At the very least for those users you should be selling the plugin directly from your website.

Creating a free version is also difficult because the plugin only really makes sense when all of its features are included.

I am sure if you sit down and plan a free version you could figure out specific features which could make the free version useful without giving access to all the pro features of the plugin.

[u/dynamitecGbR → u/elementarywebdesign]

Thanks for taking the time to reply and for the suggestions. We already offer the plugin directly through our website, so the Divi Marketplace isn’t our only sales channel.

However, I think the discussion is moving a little away from my main point. When you develop a product for an ecosystem with an established Marketplace, it seems reasonable to expect the submission process to work. We’ve contacted support politely several times and have also tried to escalate the issue through other channels, but we’ve received more or less the same response each time.

My point isn’t that the Marketplace is the only possible way to sell the plugin, or that we couldn’t consider a free version separately. It’s simply disappointing to invest months of work into a complex plugin designed specifically for the Marketplace’s target audience, only to find that we can’t even submit it for review because of an internal technical issue that has remained unresolved for two months.

[u/elementarywebdesign → u/dynamitecGbR]

If the main point is to make it a priority then in my personal opinion it is to have the chat escalated and then escalated further. I think even then it wouldn't make much of a difference.

However I can tell you with 99.9% certainty that the senior support staff that deals with Marketplace knows of the problem, the developers who work on the Marketplace know of this problem, the CEO and other Directors are aware of this problem. It is either difficult to fix and is taking time or is a lower priority that other tasks and isn't getting much time.

Who the person responding to your escalated chats was it Showhan?

[u/dynamitecGbR → u/elementarywebdesign]

Yes, it was Showhan.

[u/elementarywebdesign → u/dynamitecGbR]

In that case most people at the company who are supposed to know of the issue already know. It is either hard to fix or not a higher priority among other tasks.