Featured Package Expiration

I'm just learning the flow of Flynax Listing Packages. What happens when a featured single-listing package expires?

Featured Package - single listing

Question: what happens when this one expires? Does the listing just go invisible?
Is there a way to set to expire to standard from featured instead of just going invisible at expiration?


Upgrade to Featured

Question: by default, this appears to expire to standard. So a user posts as standard, then uses "Upgrade to Feature" and when the time limit passes and the upgrade to featured expires, the ad then goes back to standard/visible. Is that correct?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Horizon

Question: what happens when this one expires? Does the listing just go invisible?
Is there a way to set to expire to standard from featured instead of just going invisible at expiration?

---

this behavior is not supported. It will require a customization to make the featured listing standard after expiration

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Horizon

Question: by default, this appears to expire to standard. So a user posts as standard, then uses "Upgrade to Feature" and when the time limit passes and the upgrade to featured expires, the ad then goes back to standard/visible. Is that correct?

---

Not really. This type of package is used for upgrading active standard listing to featured

Trying to wrap my head around the options. I want to offer a featured option but for a shorter duration than standard listings are live.

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Upgrade to Featured
Question: by default, this appears to expire to standard. So a user posts as standard, then uses "Upgrade to Feature" and when the time limit passes and the upgrade to featured expires, the ad then goes back to standard/visible. Is that correct?

---

Not really. This type of package is used for upgrading active standard listing to featured

---

So if I have:

Standard (free) live for 0 (unlimited)
Upgrade to Featured live for 30 days

What happens if a Standard listing purchases "Upgrade to Featured" after 30 days?

In my first test it seemed to do what I wanted and return to a standard listing after the expiration of the "upgrade to featured" rather than going invisible (which I don't want.)


P.S. unrelated to this thread, but thanks Rudi for the excellent customization you just did for me. Worked very well. Thank you!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Horizon

Trying to wrap my head around the options. I want to offer a featured option but for a shorter duration than standard listings are live.


So if I have:

Standard (free) live for 0 (unlimited)
Upgrade to Featured live for 30 days

What happens if a Standard listing purchases "Upgrade to Featured" after 30 days?

In my first test it seemed to do what I wanted and return to a standard listing after the expiration of the "upgrade to featured" rather than going invisible (which I don't want.)


P.S. unrelated to this thread, but thanks Rudi for the excellent customization you just did for me. Worked very well. Thank you!

---

I have addressed this issue a few times over the past years using Flynax. My issue was very clear.
User currently have a featured listing say for 30 days, he renew listing with a standard listing after 20 days, he lost the remaining featured status which is 10 days. Which does not make any sense, but it's still work that way. I'm not sure but in reverse the problem might be the same as in your case? A standard 30 days or unlimited listing, upgraded to 10 days featured and end up expired after 10 days?

My suggestion was to create 2 counters for standard and featured listing, the listing will check if either counter still valid, it should be still active. For example if you have a 60 days standard and right after you decided to upgraded for a 10 days featured. Then the listing should be featured for 10 days then return to standard for 50 days and end up expired if user did not renew. Sound fair?

Check out my thread in October 2020, may be you will find something related
https://forum.flynax.com/showthread....-renew-regular

Unfortunately, there is no such possibility of using both featured and standard packages

but maybe we'll add it soon

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rudi

Unfortunately, there is no such possibility of using both featured and standard packages

but maybe we'll add it soon

---

Yes Rudi, please make it happened with Flynax team. I removed single featured listing plan because of the confusion. Flynax could consider new logic for listing plan to count both standard and featured time. Listing will be expired if both standard and featured time = 0. If featured time = 0, convert to standard.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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.

---

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.

Ah, you are right. I did not foresee that issue. I just tested it, and if a user

Posts as standard (free), then pays for Upgrade to Featured, then say a day later, clicks the upgrade/Renew button and choose free, Featured status (that they already paid for) disappears :(

That will potentially cause me some problems as people really don't like paying for something and then having it disappear.

I may need a further customization here...

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Horizon

Ah, you are right. I did not foresee that issue. I just tested it, and if a user

Posts as standard (free), then pays for Upgrade to Featured, then say a day later, clicks the upgrade/Renew button and choose free, Featured status (that they already paid for) disappears :(

That will potentially cause me some problems as people really don't like paying for something and then having it disappear.

I may need a further customization here...

---

I know right? That's what I have been trying to tell everybody. But it seems not too many dig deep to the system as user like me at that time. It does not make sense to pay for featured, later pay again for a standard and end up losing the paid featured, without any warning. Again, I suggest a more refined logic for the core function of Flynax script. I would be more than happy to be a tester, and work with Flynax dev to find the optimal solution. Please hear us voice here John, Viktor, Rudi, Curtis, Dmitry, ...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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

---

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. :((

Thanks!

I guess one drawback of using the "upgrade to featured" option only is that users can only use it if the listing is not already featured, so users can't use it to add to featured time. They have to wait for the featured time to be up to feature again.

Whereas adding a standalone featured package option, users can renew/upgrade to bump to the top and add time while it's already featured.

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)

I also think the logic should be improved. As of now it's confusing with this featured being removed when user paid for listing extension as standard. They should keep what they paid for, even when they decided to paid extra for standard time.