Daniel wrote:
any one can suggest the best way to setup a charge for support service.
20 usd a month? what does that include?
live chat?
priority support ticket?
what about a paid system where people ask the questions or request support and the community answer the questions and get paid for it.
im already thinking of stetting up a reward points system where buyers can reward sellers for helping them.the reward points can help rank extensions positions.
IMO
Opencart
Opencart Support Service Free Opencart = N/A
Opencart Standard, Deluxe, Premium... = cost of Opencart model + 3 months $xx.xx, 6-12 month = $xx.xx
Live chat & support ticket = Yes but only for Opencart related issue, and which ever extension it may came bundled with, not for all the extension in the shop.
Extension page
Extension Support Service
Extension = $xx.xx plus 3,6,12 (what ever the developer wants) of free support
after that = $xx.xx 3,6,12 (what ever the developer wants) for support and service (this charge would be apply at the checkout in exact the same way as all other eCommerce shop do work)
I also believe that Opencart should be only involved with the sale of the extension as far as the Quality of both extension and support but not of how the developer wishes to provide his services for such extension. (if they want to use live chat or support ticket is entirely up to them. They will found pretty quickly what works for them and their customers.
Opencart would off course provide the developer and customers with a set of Guide line of what is required to maintain the Quality of Standard.
Finally if an extension has stop been supported for 6 months should not been available for purchase and removed from the shop after 12 months (but not deleted entirely as previous customers need to know what has happen). So probably an archive folder would be the right place for such extensions.
But I would stress that Opencart and the extensions/theme provided by the developer are and should be always two completely separate entities!
what about a paid system where people ask the questions or request support and the community answer the questions and get paid for it.
The community is already doing this for free, and if the shop would work as envisioned, there would be probably not much need left for support of the extensions. But if we must, let then setup a ranking system for the community as well, where the user that does help and the help is "valid", then his/her rank would go up. This would have three benefit:
1) the other community user get to see at glance who is to trust as far as proper advices
2) It would improved the quality of the advices automatically as users who give bad advices would have no rank.
3)Size down the length and quantity of post, allowing the community to a find relevant post quickly, as bad ranked user and their reply would disappear pretty fast from the scene as no one would pay attention to them any more.
This can be easily implemented in the current forum by adding the ranking system and the Users themselves can then vote for the rank. (same as karma,like/dislike post, thank, awards... these should be all available for phpBB)
Then if Opencart wishes to reward the highest ranks in the shop and in the Forum, it can do so in any way they wish.