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Best Practices for Shop Owners

Overview

By operating a shop, becoming an Affiliate Partner, or creating an account on Creative Market, you agree to abide by our legal terms. This includes our usage, user specific, privacy, and licensing terms.

Please read them carefully—they are designed to keep our members safe and happy.

In addition to the legal terms mentioned above, we’ve developed site Guidelines and Best Practices (see below) in order to help everyone have the best experience possible on Creative Market.

What is the difference between the Terms of Use, User Specific Terms, Licenses, Guidelines, and Best Practices?

  1. Terms of Use, User Specific Terms (Partner Terms, Shop Owner Terms, etc.), and Licenses: These are legal agreements that you enter into with Creative Market when you create your account and/or open a shop on Creative Market. Failure to adhere to these will result in the termination of your account, closure of your shop (if you are a Shop Owner), and could also result in legal action.

  2. Guidelines: While not legal agreements, Guidelines are mandates that Creative Market has for site users. Failure to adhere to these Guidelines may result in the termination of your account. For Shop Owners, failure to adhere to the Guidelines could also result in the closure of your shop, removal of one or more of your products, and/or refunded sales.

  3. Best Practices: These are not mandatory, but the best and most successful Creative Market members adhere to these practices. These Best Practices are especially important for Shop Owners, and we encourage Shop Owners to follow them. As a Shop Owner, following Best Practices can contribute to your success on the Creative Market platform, and also helps your customers have a great experience with your shop and products.

Click on a Best Practice topic to learn more:


Best Practices on Product Quality

  • Test your files before listing the product, ensuring the files work properly, are not corrupted, and have no errors or bugs.
    • Keep in mind that extra testing may be needed, because the same file may perform differently in different software versions.
  • Get feedback from peers or others on your work.
  • Research best practices around creating your product and make sure you understand industry standards.

Remember, high quality products sell. On Creative Market, high quality products also result in good reviews and positive comments from buyers, which increase customer trust.

On the other hand, poor quality products on Creative Market can lead to bad reviews and negative comments from buyers, which may result in decreased trust and lowered sales. If Creative Market receives numerous complaints about one or more of your Creative Market products having technical issues, being misrepresented (not delivering what is promised), or being of a low quality overall, your product(s) may be removed from the site.

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Best Practices for Product Description

  • Describe your item clearly, including information about which files and assets are included.
  • List important product features.
  • Include software requirements.
  • Note if the item is not compatible with popular software.
  • For themes: Describe widget and/or framework requirements.
  • If your product uses a third-party asset (such as a font or photo), include a clear statement in your description that informs customers they will need to download the third-party asset prior to using your product.

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Best Practices on Tag Usage

  • Use tags that accurately describe your product’s features or style.
    • For example: If your product is a set of marine-inspired watercolor illustrations, you may want to tag it with terms such as marine, aquatic, watercolor, and illustrations.
  • Make sure to follow our guidelines on Product Tag Usage.

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Best Practices for Product Files

  • Include a “Read Me” file or User Guide with a table of contents (when applicable) in your product files. This Read Me file or User Guide should:
    • Describe any third-party assets that need to be installed prior to using the product
    • Include any other helpful information the customer needs to know about using your product
    • Keep in mind, not all customers have the same skill level, so the best Read Me files and User Guides are thorough enough to be useful to customers who are beginners.
  • Organize your product files and name them clearly, by describing what is inside each file.
  • Upload your product file(s) directly to Creative Market.

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Best Practices for Creating Bundles

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Best Practices for Placing your Creative Market Product on Sale

Creative Market considers a sale on a product to be a limited-time special offer on a product. Please read, understand, and follow our Guidelines on Product Sales and Special Pricing.

  • Advertise your sale via social media, shop updates, and your shop banner.
  • Strategically time sales for seasonality*.
  • State sale terms clearly in your product description, including information such as start/end dates and original price/savings.
  • Change your price and description immediately after your sale ends.
  • While promoting your sale is encouraged, do not spam your followers with Shop Updates (see our Shop Owner Guidelines).
  • We consider never-ending sales to be a poor business practice. Keep in mind “sales” like this will erode customer trust as they imply that a price is time-sensitive when it is not.

*NoteYou can learn more about timing your sales for seasonality in our handy Shop Owner Kit, which you can download by scrolling to the bottom of your Sales Dashboard!

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Best Practices for Responding to Customers

Customers on Creative Market count on Shop Owners to answer specific questions about their products and may contact you via direct message or via product comments.

  • Respond to customers in a professional and honest way.
  • Respond promptly. We do not mandate a response time, and we recognize that all Shop Owners operate on different time zones. However, the most successful Shop Owners respond immediately or within 48 hours.
  • Turn on the “Comments on your Product” and “Sends you a message” notifications in your email notifications settings.
  • Escalate complicated issues, especially dissatisfied customers, and/or refund requests to the Support Team.

Contact the Support Team if you have any questions or issues regarding customer messages

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Please review the General Creative Market Best Practices for further information. 

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