VirtueMart Membership - Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platin

[MAD King]

What is the difference between them except the fees?
What advantages does one have over the other?

[Milbo]

Good question, thank you for asking me
The advantages are the different discounts on istraxx products, including renewing of your membership (the discount is for 15 months, so you have 3 months time).
The most obvious difference is the numbers of domains to register. Of course, you could use a Bronzemembership, download the core from the store and install it to your 10-20, or 100 clients. But then you loose two advantages, which work as feelgood for clients.
If you have clients, you know that they would prefere a "your product is registered/licensed" message over a "Please support the project" and the other advantage is, that the installations on the clients work with the joomla update (problems with that should be fixed now). Furthermore, any registered client has a button to the support (order Id and category prefilled!). So there is a reserve. You know, I am not interested to take over any support of my member agencies. I am really happy that they do it :-) But in more than 10 years doing this job,... I experienced a lot reasons for a reserve support button. For example, the hardest case was someone who died by an hearstroke or so. Or it also happened, that the webagency never answered again, and so on.
So if you work with clients, the licensing of domains is the real advantage.

And of course it also makes a difference for the support. You know that yourself very well (No offense, I think you asked this question to market myself better ;-) ). Platin members run many stores usually, and of course their input is more important, than someone just doing its own store. So internal priority changes, I think that is just fair. In special if a Platin members reports a bug which appears in any store. Of course a Platin member with for example 9 active stores is more important than a bronze member with 1 store.

Sometimes the Platin membership is used different completly. If a member has a feature request which fits for me for the core, then I add it into the core against an higher membership, depending on the job. The advantage for the customer is the fixed price for an extra feature and they can extend their membership.

[MAD King]

Quote: "Of course a Platin member with for example 9 active stores is more important than a bronze member with 1 store."

You should never say that. Every membership, no matter what level, is important.

I have Gold membership, so I am in the middle of importance.
I also see only one domain I can add and not 5.

[GJC Web Design]

Of course a Platin member with for example 9 active stores is more important than a bronze member with 1 store.

I think what Max means here is that the "weight" given to a bug report that is present on e.g. 9 stores is more than a singleton report of a bug that may be down to misconfiguration, finger trouble, not understanding how it works, template etc etc etc

[hazael]

What is the difference between them except the fees?

MAD King! What is the difference between VM 4.0 vs 4.0.2 VS 4.2.2? None - all have same errors. If there will ever be a version of your dreams: VM 6.6.6 - you won't notice the difference either.
It's the same with forum badges: absolute zero, junior, senior, master, Hero, God, Satan... They're just stupid badges - you'll still be who you are.


I once asked a friend - what is the difference between brand A vs B vs C cigarettes? why do you choose only these and not others - they all stink the same.
He answered me clearly - "I always buy the most expensive ones because it makes me feel better than those who buy the cheaper ones"

Analogous to your question...
I think nothing is important here. iron, copper, silver, gold, emeralds, diamonds... It doesn't matter - the most important thing is that you pay and keep quiet.
This is how modern business works 

If a member has a feature request which fits for me for the core

From this statement we can conclude that nothing fits the core, but you can always ask - no one forbids anyone

[MAD King]

What is the difference between them except the fees?

MAD King! What is the difference between VM 4.0 vs 4.0.2 VS 4.2.2? None - all have same errors. If there will ever be a version of your dreams: VM 6.6.6 - you won't notice the difference either.
It's the same with forum badges: absolute zero, junior, senior, master, Hero, God, Satan... They're just stupid badges - you'll still be who you are.


I once asked a friend - what is the difference between brand A vs B vs C cigarettes? why do you choose only these and not others - they all stink the same.

He answered me clearly - "I always buy the most expensive ones because it makes me feel better than those who buy the cheaper ones"

Analogous to your question...
I think nothing is important here. iron, copper, silver, gold, emeralds, diamonds... It doesn't matter - the most important thing is that you pay and keep quiet.
This is how modern business works 

If a member has a feature request which fits for me for the core

From this statement we can conclude that nothing fits the core, but you can always ask - no one forbids anyone

WHAT? Are you trolling?

[hazael]

WHAT? Are you trolling?

I don't know what trolling means to you. You asked a question publicly to everyone, so I wrote what I think about it. I like Virtuemart, but I don't necessarily have to like the politics used here - we live in a democratic part of the world and we don't have to pretend anything, do we?
As I have already written - I personally do not see any difference in these plans, apart from the fact that I did not receive any support I asked for, even though it was guaranteed in the terms of the transaction.

Of course a Platin member with for example 9 active stores is more important than a bronze member with 1 store.

Personally, I find this statement quite shocking. I chose the single-domain plan because I base most of my websites on the same source code. I don't see the point in paying for 20 websites that are based on the same source. So this doesn't mean that if I have a brown plan, I only use one website.
In general, dividing people into worse and better is unfair if everyone is promised support, but in reality it is only given to those who pay more. I use many other services that use similar plans, but no one has ever refused to help me and he never wrote to me that I was less important.

I have several stores of my own and I have also created many stores for my clients.
If I told my client that he was less important to me because others bought more from me, my business would very quickly cease to exist these days. They would destroy me very quickly.

like the owner, like the store...

[Milbo]

I have Gold membership, so I am in the middle of importance.

of course. There are really a lot bronzemembers out there who know, that I invested days to fix their bug. Just because I know it is just a bug for anyone. For example the "userfield values cannot be stored" bug. But GJC got exactly what I meant with

Of course a Platin member with for example 9 active stores is more important than a bronze member with 1 store.

I think what Max means here is that the "weight" given to a bug report that is present on e.g. 9 stores is more than a singleton report of a bug that may be down to misconfiguration, finger trouble, not understanding how it works, template etc etc etc

I have Gold membership, so I am in the middle of importance.

lol, Noo, your are MAD King, man. A famous member for me. You would have the same priority, regardless your membership. I see your gold membership as support of VirtueMart and my work.

I also see only one domain I can add and not 5.

That bug should be fixed since some weeks. If not, feel free to contact me via skype.

What is the difference between them except the fees?

MAD King! What is the difference between VM 4.0 vs 4.0.2 VS 4.2.2? None - all have same errors. If there will ever be a version of your dreams: VM 6.6.6 - you won't notice the difference either.
It's the same with forum badges: absolute zero, junior, senior, master, Hero, God, Satan... They're just stupid badges - you'll still be who you are.

I know what you mean, but it is not quite true. Forum badges give a hint if someone knows VirtueMart or not. Of course, there can be someone with 1000 posts telling nonsense, and there is someone with 1 post and is very serioius. But if you see someone with 2000 posts, it is very rare that it is not serious. And on the other hand, if someone has just 10 posts, it is maybe not the guy with the needed knowledge.

I once asked a friend - what is the difference between brand A vs B vs C cigarettes? why do you choose only these and not others - they all stink the same.
He answered me clearly - "I always buy the most expensive ones because it makes me feel better than those who buy the cheaper ones"

Analogous to your question...
I think nothing is important here. iron, copper, silver, gold, emeralds, diamonds... It doesn't matter - the most important thing is that you pay and keep quiet.
This is how modern business works 

I know what you mean, but here it is different as I described above. It makes indeed a difference if you have customers. It also makes a difference if you have a single store. Or if you have a feature request.

If a member has a feature request which fits for me for the core

From this statement we can conclude that nothing fits the core, but you can always ask - no one forbids anyone
[/quote]
What a nonsense. The whole rightsmanagment which can more than just admin was a membership action. But far beyond any Platinmembership, btw. There got so many features added by membership requests. Almost any new feature of the last 4 years.