XF 1.5 Users can't repurchase upgrade to extend the duration?

SpecialK

Well-known member
Currently once a user purchases User Upgrade A, that upgrade becomes unavailable for purchase until the original subscription expires. This is problematic because this means the users are unable to renew before expiration. It seems like users should be able to purchase the upgrade again and it will simply extend the duration of the original purchase. As is, we have a lot of member confusion regarding this issue.

Is there a way in the XF options to disable this functionality? I looked but didn't see anything. If not, is there any addon already developed to disable this?
 
...that upgrade becomes unavailable for purchase until the original subscription expires. This is problematic...

I can imagine that would be a very big problem and very confusing. The way I do it, and how I assume everyone else does is much more simple.

Using PayPal you can setup a payment to be a one off, or a subscription. It sounds like you have your subscriptions setup to be one off payments and that seems to be your problem.

If you setup the monthly sub to be a subscription at PayPal it will renew each month automatically. If a member wants to end it they can use their PayPal account to turn off the subscription renewal at PayPal anytime they want. All very simple and we use it and it works just fine for us. If someone does cancel via PayPal our systems notices there was no routine renewal and downgrades them.

We use the one off payments for one off donations.

I hope the thoughts help.

Steve
 
I can imagine that would be a very big problem and very confusing. The way I do it, and how I assume everyone else does is much more simple.

Using PayPal you can setup a payment to be a one off, or a subscription. It sounds like you have your subscriptions setup to be one off payments and that seems to be your problem.

If you setup the monthly sub to be a subscription at PayPal it will renew each month automatically. If a member wants to end it they can use their PayPal account to turn off the subscription renewal at PayPal anytime they want. All very simple and we use it and it works just fine for us. If someone does cancel via PayPal our systems notices there was no routine renewal and downgrades them.

We use the one off payments for one off donations.

I hope the thoughts help.

Steve

Good idea, but for this particular situation, it doesn't work due to the members who use this site.


There we go. Perfect for what we need. I hope this feature makes it into the XF core at some point. The user upgrade system could really use a good fleshing out.
 
Good idea, but for this particular situation, it doesn't work due to the members who use this site.
Thanks for explaining a little more and of course whatever you want to do is fine and great.

I will say a couple of things more but please just ignore them if they don't help.

One is that all major online services seem to do automatic monthly charging... and that applies from Porn sites/channels to Sky to AOL to just about everything everywhere. The reason they choose that system is of course obvious, it makes them vastly more money.

I know of one firm that actually closed down its online services and with just some basic pages and two part time staff left watching them even months later they still had hundreds of thousands of members paying them automatically each month.

The concept of telling existing customers to go away each month seems really odd.. and constantly needing to renew something will of course drive away most people in time. Even if you feel one month is often enough for what you offer you can still use the auto renewal system and simply explain to people they can cancel anytime they want via PayPal.

I'm having to guess at what the problem may be... maybe it is a security one and you feel people will not want to be associated with your site on a long term basis... the moment they charge to a card or make a payment of any type it goes on record though and they are perhaps still associated really.

Anyway, you know all the details and whatever you want to do is fine... I just feel strongly that a lot of folks bring in vastly less income than they could by not using subscriptions fully.

As v1 of Xen comes to the end of its time as the current version and with v2 due as the next serious version release you may feel it is the time to base your business on a v1 add-on, and to start paying for it, and to pay for it each year from now on and so on.... I just wonder about it and so wanted to give an alternative view.

I hope whatever you do works out.

Steve
 
Not sure if anyone found a solution to this. I've lost a fair bit of money because of this, for example members subscribed at $50 then go to re-up and can't subscribe at $50 so tell me they chose $25. It's causing a lot of confusion and no I can't do recurring subscriptions, this adds a layer of support I don't have the manpower for.
 
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