The 'No Membership Guaranteed' button means that www.histyle.biz is an active participant of the 'No template membership' campaign and encourages its partners not to affiliate with membership-based template vendors.
There are elements of the website design industry that depend on “membership“ marketing systems. Clip art, photos, and some other elements of website design would fall in this category. However, website templates, just below custom website design in complexity, do not.
“Membership“ sales of website templates is a form of market “dumping.“ We object to distortion of the market through deliberate destruction of the value of the designers' work. We welcome competition at price points; we rebel against a market practice that is fundamentally dishonest regarding its intentions and results.
Membership-based sites offer website template collections for one time fees of approximately $50 and allow users to download the entire set of templates. This system appeared as an alternative to the pay-per-item system used by most template vendors including Templatemonster.
Here are some simple reasons that prove (based on the experience of our affiliates) that affiliation with these sites will considerably damage your affiliate earnings and decrease the numbers of sales you generate. First, the obvious “practical considerations“:
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membership-based sites have a very low entrance price hence it automatically decreases your commission;
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membership-based sites have vanishing rates of returning customers: They buy just once. Your customer will never make another purchase. The customer purchasing membership in a template collection is a lost chance of getting future sales! They also don't return to see, and purchase, new product offerings.
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Membership-based sites encourage a type of abuse where one customer will share his account with any number of others, so you lose more than one customer!
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Other consequences include:
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Because membership-based sites permit “dumping“, members don't feel they own the products. The consequence is that no one is interested in protecting the products' rarity in the marketplace, including the “member“.
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membership-based sites have a high number of chargebacks because customers are frequently unhappy with the fact that the template is copied and distributed all over the Net.
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While officially forbidden by vendors, this type of mass access to content makes it absolutely impossible to trace, and prosecute, illegal distribution;
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This will all result in diminishing incomes and falling popularity of your affiliate website. It is interesting to note that at the dawn of the Web Templates Industry, it was reviled by the web design community for its 'mass character'. Custom Web Design has one indisputable advantage against Template Web Design - exclusiveness and uniqueness. Thus template providers were accused of depersonalizing web design, taking the creative art component out of the design process.
Templatemonster.com was the first to prove that professional web templates combine low price, high quality and rarity. Rarity is our credo. We ensure it with pay-per-click system the site is based upon, with the possibility to purchase products exclusively, informing the customer about the number of downloads (purchases) of specific products, and tracing and severely suppressing any illegal reselling and distribution of the templates.
Membership-based sites, however, can't provide this level of security and naturally set the Internet community against templates entirely!
Moreover many membership-based sites themselves are hotbeds of unlicensed software and template distribution (i.e. “warez“). The Templatemonster Copyright Infringement Dept. constantly faces and fights membership-based sites that illegally sell our templates and templates of other providers. We hold dear our reputation and won't tolerate any actions damaging our name.
And lastly, “Membership systems“ “dumping“ in the Web Design market drives prices of particular designs considerably below prime cost. Expansion of the membership-based way of template distribution will definitely deter customers from Template Web Design entirely and lower the overall market effectiveness and attractiveness.
Thus both our company and our affiliates are losing money because of this method of template distribution. Hence, we announce our encouragement and participation in the “No Membership Campaign“ and encourage you not to participate in affiliate programs of web design sites based on membership payment
Thank you for your attention. We will greatly appreciate your feedback, so feel free to send us your thoughts and ideas
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