Charis Ketikidis is an author of top-performing October CMS themes. In this post, he shares his thoughts on the commercial potential of the Marketplace for authors and tells us about the importance of product quality and customer support.

Charis lives in Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece. He’s a freelance professional and currently works with 2 advertising & web development companies, mainly as a frontend developer.

In his free time, Ketikidis enjoys running and training; he also has a love for science fiction movies and surfing the web. He sometimes spends his free time searching for innovative web development tools and ideas.

Charis loves the process of creating a website from the first lines of code in HTML to the completion of an impressive web project. He’s passionate about both aesthetic perfection and the functionality of a web project.

He’s worked as a frontend developer since 2011 with several web development companies. Charis says, “I’ve worked on many projects and with many different CMS in the past, but now I have recommended October CMS, and I only work with it on my latest projects.”

Are there any special projects you have built with October CMS?

My first work at the October CMS marketplace was Success – Multipurpose Theme with Page Builder, a theme with a friendly page builder that would help the user create impressive sites quickly and easily.

After a lot of people showed interest in my work, I thought about making Clear – Modular Theme with Page Builder, a theme with more complex features, more advanced section blocks and a powerful blog.

Then I developed Agora – E-Commerce Theme with Page Builder, a powerful e-commerce theme based on the Shopaholic plugin that has a ton of features to work with.

To meet other different needs of end-users, I created Identity – Creative Personal & Agency Theme, a unique design theme, perfect for Business, Portfolio, Agency, Photography, Personal, Professional, Resume, and Startup websites.

Then I came up with the idea to build a similar to the Clear Theme project, but far more advanced and far more sophisticated. So, I created the Ultimate Website Builder – CREATOR Theme Bundle, a system with advanced and extensive capabilities for creating modern and powerful web sites. Countless features and options turn everyone into a coder and designer without any prior experience. Sophisticated settings for Portfolios, Sliders, Mega menus, Blogs and more, allow you to customize your website to suit your needs.

With CREATOR – Ultimate Website Builder you can customize every element of the website from header to footer using unique tools and features. Each block is in itself a component with advanced settings. CREATOR is a modern, premium October CMS theme that incorporates many practical and powerful CMS tools for your next web project. CREATOR Theme Bundle – Ultimate Website Builder is a website construction matrix with the power of October CMS!

Some of my October CMS projects are:

• www.energeys.gr: a large alternative energy company. The October CMS e-commerce plugin Shopaholic had to be integrated into the theme in this project. This plugin had to be studied in order to be better integrated into the aesthetics of the e-shop.
• www.endohormone.gr: an endocrinology doctor. A full and powerful blog was the main target of this project. And it was done using the Rainlab Blog plugin, as well as other useful plugins from the marketplace.
• www.ketikidis.com: my portfolio – resume site. Creating with October CMS was really fun!
• www.chriswoman.com: a clothing industry. In this project, a custom implementation was made by UX Design. Created a backend environment tailored to customer requirements. The client wanted full access to all the content on the site. Doing this project with October CMS was a real pleasure.
• www.or-co.gr: a software company. ORCO is a software company that supports a wide range of software needs, mainly hospital support. The company wanted to upload PDFs and applications for visitors to download. They also needed a complex form with the ability to upload resumes. The whole environment is customizable.

When did you start using October CMS? What platforms have you used before October and what was the reason you chose October CMS?

I have been following the course of October CMS since 2016, but my first contact with October CMS was in 2017. In the past, I have used several content management systems: Joomla, MODx, Prestashop, Opencart, and WordPress (true nightmare).

I used Joomla for a long time but spent a lot of time on activities and modifications to its code to bring it to customer needs. The management environment was not easy enough and it took a long time for the customer to learn it.

On Joomla, there are frontend dependencies that didn’t let me use the markup I want. Joomla library packaged with both Mootools and JQuery and that was a real nightmare on the frontend with a ton of conflicts.

Before the transition, I often spent time in activities that were not directly related to the customer’s needs configuring, modifying and applying various tricks to Joomla code. With October CMS, I spend much more time coding and making backend environments that are customer friendly.

After the transition to October CMS, I never looked back.

• No frontend dependencies, so no conflicts at all. I can use any CSS/JS framework I want for web development.
• It enables you to work directly on the code through HTML.
• The configuration is based on YAML files and that is very flexible.
• It is very easy to create custom plugins based on customer needs. Additions with a friendly management environment adapted to make the job easier and faster.
• Uses Twig, a very flexible template engine for PHP.
• Has its own power Ajax framework.
• Development and creation time have been drastically reduced.

With October CMS frontend development is awesome and now I can create my own custom backend environments for my clients easily. I prefer to work with October CMS now for its simplicity and flexibility. It’s really fun to work with this particular CMS.

All your products, descriptions, documentation and screenshots are of high quality. Please share your thoughts on the relationship between quality and product success.

Quality in paid products is the number one factor that characterizes your products. Making a quality presentation of the product for sale is no easy task. Many times the quality of the presentation comes with a respectable time frame that is not easy to accomplish when you are pressured by time. It is good to have patience and love for your presentation. The key here is to be able to get into the visitor’s position and his way of thinking and behaving.

You need to be clear and detailed in the information you provide about the products you sell. You must provide detailed documentation about the features of the product, about plugins or theme installation, about solutions to potential problems. Quality images in the product description are a key driver of engagement, conversion and retention, and overall customer lifetime value.

The quality of the overall work is what will drive sales. In a competitive environment, the quality of all the work is what will make the difference and make you stand out.

Do you feel the October marketplace has significant commercial potential for authors?

Yes, I think the October CMS marketplace can provide significant commercial opportunities for creators. It’s a new and emerging CMS, and the more popular it becomes, the greater the need for more plugins, more themes, more support. Users will increasingly need more and better plugins and themes.

Why have you decided to create your own products for the October marketplace?

After getting acquainted with October CMS, I wanted to create some themes that would help me work faster and more efficiently with my clients. Then I came up with the idea to sell these ideas through the marketplace. I tried to create themes that would be easy and fast for both end-users and developers to manage. I wanted to build modern implementations with a focus on user-friendly management. My goal was to quickly and easily build impressive websites and also express my support not only to prospective users but also to the October CMS community.

Your product prices are higher than the marketplace average, but the sales and reviews show that customers are happy to pay for high-quality products. Could you share your thoughts on pricing?

Price is directly related to the overall quality of your work, the timing of implementation, its complexity, the capabilities it offers and many other factors. For example, my latest job, CREATOR – Ultimate Website Builder, is a theme project that took about a year to complete. It has a lot of advanced features and a lot of sophisticated settings and is a great tool for quickly creating unique web sites.

Do you provide support to your customers? Does it take a lot of time? Do you listen to customer requests and implement them?

I try to provide the best possible support to my clients. I try to respond to their messages immediately and to cover their needs in the best possible way. They are usually small problems that take very little time to resolve. I provide regular updates by fixing potential bugs and improving the code. I have added many extra features requested by customers to my themes, as well as many improvements overall. The most important thing in a business is proper after-sales support, and in this area, I try to improve and evolve on a daily basis.

What would you suggest to new marketplace authors?

October CMS is an excellent and unique tool for web projects. It is a rising CMS that helps both developers and end-users to serve their needs. With quality, innovations, and quality user support you can become part of the October CMS family and bring your own digital products (free or paid) to the marketplace. As strong ecosystem means strong October CMS. By creating good and quality products you can increase your sales and thus support the October CMS project in the best possible way.