KVR :: DSP and Plug-in Development » selling plugins - which distributor? [View Original Topic]
There are 82 posts in this topic.

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Robin from www.rs-met.com - Sun Apr 06, 2008 1:20 pm

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O.K. it's about time for me to get serious with my plan to make a living from selling commercial audio plugins. i'm just not quite sure, what would be the best solution for distribution. my two hottest candidates are at the moment www.share-it.com and www.dontcrack.com. i see that both distributors are used by well respected companies in the field, so i guess both options are fine.

what makes me leaning towards share-it is, that they only take a small profit margin from the retail price for their own revenues. dontcrack takes a rather large margin: according to an (old, maybe outdated) contract form i received from them (about two years ago), they charge 35% whereas share-it only charges 4.9%. on the other hand, dontcrack offer to take over the marketing part for their money. i'm not exactly a salesman and i don't really feel like turning into some such. on the other hand, i'm not exactly paris hilton either, so it is mandatory for me to achieve a reasonable number of sales in order to pay my bills bring the food on the table - and i *really want* to work full time on my plugins. from their (www.dontcrack.com) website:

Marketing Services : We strongly promote our partners' products by advertising on targeted medias.

...and this is just about the only point which could seem to be worth such a large margin for me. but that statement is extremely vague. there are no hints on what exactly the advertising actions are - do they place advertisements for their distributee's products into relevant magazines like Sound on Sound or the Computer Music Mag? do they keep their distributees well informed about all their concrete advertisement actions?

it would be nice to hear some opinions from people who have some experience in the business. and of course, are there other options and what are their advantages/disadvantages?



thanks in advance, robin

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laserbeak - Sun Apr 06, 2008 4:05 pm

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haven't the slightest clue. but this might be an option http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=211809

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Robin from www.rs-met.com - Sun Apr 06, 2008 4:12 pm

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oh yes, i already contacted william and i think i'll write some technical tutorials similar to those on my website for wusik. thanks anyway.

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ckatrun411 - Sun Apr 06, 2008 4:23 pm

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interesting... I myself am also not in the computer software bizz, but boy I can't stand share it. Its makes buying very difficult, their support is NIL.

I mean, seriously their customer service blows.

anyways, what about paypal, and google check out and the like? I mean, it would seem to me that providing excellent freeware, and an Open Source project, paves the way for software sales.

I mean, its looks that way. Not always, obviously... but, chances are, if your freeware is constantly getting use on my machine, sooner or later I am buying a payware from you....

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Robin from www.rs-met.com - Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:18 pm

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difficult? what exactly are the inconvenencies here?



mmhh...service...what kind of service do expect from a distributor? license transfer stuff and some such? because - as for technical support - i think, i am supposed to take care of that myself.


yes paypal is on my radar, too. google checkout is something i didn't know before - i just checked it out. mmmhh...they do not seem to handle delivery of keyfiles and the like which would be something i need.



much thanks for the 'excellent' - and yeah, i hope so. i plan to continue to provide freeware in the future as well. i'm planning to offer a mix between free and commercial software.



yeah, we'll see. there will be always demos for the commercial products, so you can calmly check out whether you want some item or not.

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Leslie Sanford - Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:32 pm

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Yikes.



For 35% their marketing services better be good...

I handle all of my sales manually through PayPal.

As far as promoting your plugin yourself, you can offer a NFR copy to various magazines in exchange for a review. SoundOnSound will (hopefully) publish a review of Cobalt sometime in the near future.

Um, unfortuately that's about all the advice I have. Advertising is something I always intended to look into but haven't yet. However, I will say that instead of relying on a third party to promote your plugin, I would put together promotional material yourself and take out advertising in the relevant magazines (provided that it's not too expensive). You know better than some generic marketing company how to best reach your target audience.

Good luck with this. I'm still learning the business side of things as well.

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ckatrun411 - Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:46 pm

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arrg, share it problems. I know for a lot of dev's there is just not another way. I don't really have a problem with any dev on kvr, but it just makes sense that they find a way to deal with costumers directly. Share it websites are slow, and if you have a problem with the dev sending you the software, as has happened to me 5 times, you will start avoiding share it completely. I know share it will send out software and key files on there own, but if you have a question, or you have any problem with the order, you can not expect share it to help at all. in any sort of timely fashion.

PLUS, and this is a total opinion.. I have just had better experiences from retailers, ie sweetwater, aud midi, or developers who sell directly, ie psp, virsyn, cakewalk. Now I know cakewalk is just big, but that really is not the point. Smaller devs nowadays, can just as easily sell directly.

there are too many hosting solutions that will send out links once a payment is received.


and, afaik, share it does nothing to help market. what a middle man.





sorry mate, I was not talking about you directly, just freeware in general, I should have been more specific.

I am on mac os x, I do not think I have used any product of yours.





absolutely, I have bought payware products from devs who also have freeware installed on my machine.

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Blue Cat Audio - Sun Apr 06, 2008 11:18 pm

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I think you are comparing two solutions which are completely different and further more actually not incompatible.

ShareIt is only a payment solution (with license delivery included), and Dontcrack.com is an online store. Shareit is just a service to help you be a retailer of you own products, and you can see Don't Crack as a partner that will sell your products as well as other ones. On Don't Crack people can browse the catalog and discover your products while browsing products from others, and I doubt people actually do the same on ShareIt.

So I think both approaches are complementary. Maybe start to launch your own retail channel and see what happens before getting in touch with partners.

BTW, if you know a little bit about web programming I would advise you to do your own retail site and use Paypal or Google Checkout as a payment solution: it lets you control the product delivery, and makes the customer experience much better: if they do not receive the license (oh, dear spam filters...) they will be able to contact your support (well, I guess you for the moment ) directly and you won't have to find out what happened on the ShareIt side.

Good luck!

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duncanparsons - Mon Apr 07, 2008 4:09 am

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i'm using dontcrack, since in the short term I worked out it would be better for me when my first commercial offerings hit the streets.

They provide webspace and unlimited bandwidth, do marketing campaigns, provide the shop front etc. If I were do to this myself, I would have an initial outlay, and take the hit for failed marketing campaigns. When I start selling, if business is slow, DC are still acting as a buffer for me being out of pocket. If business picks up, yes they will still be getting 35%, and if it looks like things will remain bouyant for me, I will consider getting alternative arrangements for my webspace, shopfront, etc - and by that time the 'business' should be bringing in enough to pay for itself.

Were I to do it all myself straight off, I would have to reconsider ballet and swimming lessons for my children, and maybe one or two other things: all depends what your priorites are!

DSP

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Leslie Sanford - Mon Apr 07, 2008 11:15 am

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Hmm, my previous comments were based on ignorance of what don't Don'tCrack is like. After actually taking the time to look over their website, I'm impressed.

I'm still reading the fine print, but could someone tell me off hand if there would be a problem with selling your plugin yourself, as I'm doing, off your own site in addition to using Don'tCrack?

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Robin from www.rs-met.com - Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:01 pm

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@bluecat:

thanks for your explanations. unfortunately i'm not that savvy with web-programming apart from some basic html knowlegde. ...dsp and c++ is enough for me. yes, i see that these two approaches are somewhat different. that's why i asked which route to choose. you are among dontcracks distributees - i guess you have your reasons.


yes. that's exactly my point - i don't want to do such stuff and instead concentrate on the actual product development. can you be more specific about what kinds of campaigns these are? webspace and bandwidth...mmmhh...well - i actually have already a good provider for these things - on the other hand, it's not the cheapest either and with dontcrack i'd have that already inclusive.

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Robin from www.rs-met.com - Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:04 pm

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as far as i remember, the contract is non-exclusive. ....checked. yep.

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Robin from www.rs-met.com - Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:13 pm

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aha thanks for that tip. so you approached the magazine from your side or did they somehow pick you?

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Robin from www.rs-met.com - Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:21 pm

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oops, nevermind then. funny is, i have indeed one opensource-project and some freebies out there.


with probability close to 1 since my stuff is PC only - but that will change.

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jeffb01 - Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:42 pm

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back to why share it sucks...

first, I never remember my username because it's always my email with a dash and a number after it. I always somehow having to make a new account every time I buy something with them so I have like 5 accounts with them....

then I have to save the two pages of emails I get, and if something doesn't work right, I might as well pull my hair out. It just seemed messy...

I think audiodamage uses or used shareit, but at least their web site had it so you could register and then not worry about keeping these stupid emails, username, passwords, etc... I think they did it right.

If you're planning on doing it as a business, you might want to do it right too... I'm not familiar with dontcrack but maybe that would be better for you...

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Blue Cat Audio - Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:49 pm

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Well, we are not (yet). I just wanted to point out that their offer is rather different from the shareit system. Be it better or not, it's not the question.

If you are not confident with web programming and don't want to "waste" time with it, just start with the solution that seems the easiest to you, and see how the business goes. You can choose another distribution channel when it's time.

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Robin from www.rs-met.com - Mon Apr 07, 2008 1:36 pm

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i thought i've seen you on the list, but having just checked back, i was wrong. but you are planning to switch?


O.K. that would be dontcrack then. yes - i think, i will choose that route. also, share-it seems not to be very popular among the customers.

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ckatrun411 - Mon Apr 07, 2008 6:01 pm

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Hi Robin,

I had a chance to glimpse your site, you have some really neat ideas. Can't wait to see some os x btw, I think don't crack is allright as long as its non exclusive, but I'd still like to encourage selling to your customers directly. From a buyers point of view, I have just had so much better luck with dev's who are available, have a full and complete e commerce store. And I am sure it brings in a whole lot of clientele as opposed to just being on don't cracks. Fortunately there are plenty of open source css apps that you just don't even need to know web languages to have an ecommerce store.

Trust me buddy

I have been exploring e commerce myself... ( not music related )

I am not sure if you can do it from Germany, but if you can use GoDaddy, for your store and site, I highly suggest. Godaddy will provide everything, including SSL security, and all the open source weblications you need.

GoDaddy is like the best for non computer coders, so if you code computer it is going to be super easy. It is so much better to at least have your store as an option and get 100% for your hard work, than just give in, say, OK, don'tcrack and have -35%

cheers

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Zaphod (giancarlo) - Mon Apr 07, 2008 8:40 pm

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+1

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botkiller - Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:16 pm

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We use Shareit, they're pretty easy to work with when it comes to uploading and selling your software, the only issue I've seen is that if you sell products that are boxed, you still have to give them something to be downloaded when someone purchases an item. This can be a bit hard if your product has a big file library, like NexSyn, which we can't do a download of the sound library for.

Other than that, it works pretty well, I think - but I'm just the support guy, too

I think doing a paypal checkout is a good way to go - just know that with Paypal you will still also get kicked with fees off of what you make - but paypal works nicely if you can make it work for you, and they have widgets which you can edit and embed in places from paypal labs - http://www.paypallabs.com

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Blue Cat Audio - Mon Apr 07, 2008 10:51 pm

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No, we will always keep our own retail site, whatever happens on the earth . We are just discussing a potential partnership to distribute our products on dontcrack, as an additional retail channel.

I agreee with ckatrun411 about the customers perception. Again, when you want to grow you will have no choice but have your own retail site (using shareIt, paypal or whatever solution). But in the meantime, you just need to get started. Wait and see...

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duncanparsons - Tue Apr 08, 2008 3:47 am

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One thing they do ask, is that if you sell the products elsewhere, that the dontcrack price is offered with a 20% discount.. so your £100 plug sold on your own website using [share-it/paypal/gimmeyermoneyvaluedcustomer/etc], will be offered at £80 on dontcrack. This isn't a problem for me, since when I have a product ready for commercial consumption, I will initially only be using DC.

So.. selling via your own channel, you lose the x% that [share-it/paypal/gimmeyermoneyvaluedcustomer/etc] take off, but you keep the rest and have your overheads. Also selling with DC you get 80%*(1-35%)=52% of the 'full price' back. Now, if you think that's bad, compare to if you are a company providing boxed products into shops: the distributor adds a certain markup to your raw product, then a shop will take a quantity on a Sale-or-Return deal, and will at at least 100% markup. So if you work backwards, if your product was on the shelves at £100, the distributor will get £50, and give ~£35-£40 to you... If you're small, the distributor may have a S-o-R clause as well, so when times are slow, you may have a quantity of your merchandise arrive back on your doorstep that couldn't be sold. Mull that over...

dontcrack actually offer pretty generous terms, considering they pay your rent, tell everyone about you, and still cover your donkey when things are slow.



DSP

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WilliamK - Tue Apr 08, 2008 5:58 am

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Just my 2 cents.

Share-It, never uses, their fees are too high, and they take too long to pay you back. The same for Kagi. BUT, depending where you live those are good solutions.

DontCrack is nice, but I never got much sales from them. But again, I sell an older version of our software there, so you could blame that.

My advice is to get your own site up, and use PayPal for your sales. They have the lower fees, and you get the money right away with their debit-card, or by withdrawing to your bank-account. (not all countries works with PayPal)

Them, avoid any invasive copy-protection, as this tends to scare users. We don't use ANY, only a SN check, and the latest version no longer checks for it. Its too easy to crack. We focus on the paid-users, instead of making them feel bad with stupid protections.

Listen to your users, keep updates coming with as many requests from users made as possible. Just be careful with requests that would break your code.

You can't please everybody.

You can't please everybody.

You can't please everybody.

That counts 3 times, as its true.

Group-buys are also a good way to promote your stuff, and get more users too.

Remember, if you think your software is worth 100 grand, most people may not agree, but its actually worth 50 grand. There are two things, the price people will think your software is worth, and the price they are willing to pay for it. There's already too much stuff on the market. Also, the more you sell, the better. So sometimes a lower price will get more sales, compared to a higher price. Some people say that a lower price will make your product look bad, but only a very small % of users really think that lower-price = bad-quality. Most companies today are lower prices, as they see that Software don't have to be expensive. And also due to the high amounts of piracy. Or at least have a lite-version that is very cheap, for people who can't afford expensive software.

Not sure what else, I think that's it.

Best Regards, WilliamK

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Robin from www.rs-met.com - Tue Apr 08, 2008 12:55 pm

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thanks to everybody. i think, i will go with dontcrack but will also check out paypal and godaddy as options.

@William: additional thanks for your general advises. and no, i won't do intrusive copy protection - i have spawned a simple and user-friendly xml-based keyfile meachnism for the licensing.

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Zaphod (giancarlo) - Wed Apr 09, 2008 4:41 am

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agreed every single word

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ddummer - Wed Apr 09, 2008 4:51 am

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I've figured out my approach.

I'll start selling to my music friends and trough their connections and so
on.

And if the response is positive I'll try to make a deal with some distributor
ón a low level like a music store with people you already know and we'll see
what will happen...

Internet? No.

//Daniel

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Urs - Wed Apr 09, 2008 5:07 am

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I use ShareIt because their accounting system makes tax declarations easier. I'm hit with a monthly accounting summary with the VAT and everything declared in one go. With PayPal (or other services that work "immediately") I would have to declare each single sale.

Also, ShareIt nicely distinguishes between EU sales with and without VAT-Id and sales made out of the EU. This (different VAT rules) makes up for compensation of the hilarious dollar exchange rate.

Last but not least, they have overcome many critical issues I had with them (dead emails, gmail/mac/hotmail addresses) but I think that was after I threatened to leave.

The next step would be setting up a merchant account and doing everything automatically by myself including Credit Card/PayPal integration. It's not too difficult to do, but it's a lot of work and testing. I have better things to do hence I'll stay with ShareIt for a while...

Cheers,

Urs

P.S.: Any service that wants more than 20% is a no go unless they move a shitload of units. For boxed products in retail you usually have to sell 8-10 times the figures of online sales to just so break even (there's an accumulation of support incidents... don't trust any distributor about their support system... all they do is, they forward the support incidents to your own email account... that's their support)

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Robin from www.rs-met.com - Wed Apr 09, 2008 10:58 am

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Urs, much thanks for your advice as well! i really appreciate established companies helping out a newcomer.



oh well, i think that's a no-go for me then. as far as i know, dontcrack accumulate the payments for you and every once in while (when a certain threshold is exceeded) you can send them an invoice to transfer the money - i guess (and hope), this transfer can than be accounted as one unit for the book-keeping.



ah, so online selling is much more efficient then. nice - i do not plan boxed products anyway.



yeah, i would have guessed so - at least in case of technical support. how can a distributor be supposed to provide technical support when only the developer knows the internal details of the software.

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sosayweall - Tue May 27, 2008 7:51 am

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Sorry to barge in this thread to ask for some suggestions.

We are trying to find a new transaction service provider. Is there any other service which hasn't been mentioned in this thread that we could look into?

The thing is, we just want an online transaction service which acts as an online cash register.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Unfortunately, it seems that most of todays popular transaction service providers want to be more. They want to posit and enforce themselves as 'reseller/retailer' upon the seller. Say, Shareit has changed its policy to pushing every vendor to provide them with complete access to the goods and with restricted delivery options. That's not a tolerable policy in our book. Another transaction service that I have looked into even prohibits the vendor to refer to it as 'a transaction processor'. What the heck?

Sorry for the rant. We'd really appreciate it if anyone has any suggestions.

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Aleksey Vaneev - Tue May 27, 2008 11:54 pm

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My pretty stable to date two-year experience: 2CheckOut.com + ThePlanet.com (for hosting). I could not find anything better (and I tried hard). PayPal is cheaper compared to 2CheckOut, but 2CheckOut is maximally automated and so far delivers very little fraud-related chargebacks, it also accepts PayPal payments, but at twice the commission in comparison to PayPal itself (it's still 5.5% + 45c only).

I'm also very happy with ThePlanet and their hosting solutions. It's pretty good overall: I'm renting a server with 750 GB monthly bandwidth, and also renting cPanel license that makes server management a hassle-free thing - you won't need to hire a linuxoid techie. Or you may simply install Windows and use some remote desktop control (but that will be pricier, of course). Shared hosting is not an option for me anymore - too much traffic, but if you are just starting, take a look at PowWeb.com - I also had a good experience with that one.

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WilliamK - Wed May 28, 2008 5:05 am

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Its funny how things are. 2CheckOut was terrible for me, too many chargebacks, while PayPal is also fully automated and almost no chargebacks.

Wk

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Lotuzia - Wed May 28, 2008 5:38 am

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+2

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zircon - Wed May 28, 2008 5:42 am

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Urs, are you sure ShareIt has addressed the problem with free mails not being allowed? I did a test order through them two weeks ago and it still seemed like that was the case.

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WilliamK - Wed May 28, 2008 5:51 am

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+3

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Aleksey Vaneev - Wed May 28, 2008 10:02 am

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PayPal has a bad attitude towards people outside the 'golden billion'.

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sosayweall - Fri May 30, 2008 4:52 am

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I have just had a closer look at Shareit's FLEX developer agreement, and I am shocked by what I see.

My initial concern was just that we didn't want to let Shareit have full access to our products, and was told by Shareit that the FLEX option is the way to go. However, not only FLEX's agreemnt is still vague in whether Shareit has the right to demand for full access to the software sold, the other terms are simply unimaginable.

Is this contract even legal? I mean, it seems just too unfair to be a valid contract. What do you (other software devs using Shareit) guys think of it?

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TheSteven - Fri May 30, 2008 12:35 pm

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Edited: (less attitude/more information)
=================
During the last couple of years Digital Rivers has bought up/bought out most of the significant players in this arena.

RegNow
ShareIT!
DigiBuy (now defunct or in the last stages of being phased out?)
element5
FileBasket
SiliconRealms
-- all now owned by Digital River.

I think it was ShareIT! that I was recently checking out (might have been RegNow) where their commission was based off of the full retail price of your software.

* If you had a sale or discount coupons - their commission was based off of the full sale price.
* If you had charge backs - they (DR) kept their commission, the difference was paid by you.

I didn't like the 'we control everything & will do what we like with your software' attitude.

That's why I'm currently using paypal.

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james0tucson - Fri May 30, 2008 4:57 pm

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Does the contract require any party to do something that is illegal?
Are there parties to the contract?
Does the contract have subject matter?
Is the contract mutually agreed to by the parties?
Is there some tangible consideration (e.g., payment) associated with the contract?

If the answers are no, yes, yes, yes, yes, then it's a valid contract.

Is your problem simply that the contract makes some actions optional?
That's not illegal. It's quite common to have options in contract clauses.

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sosayweall - Sat May 31, 2008 5:10 am

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I guess you are right. As long as the actual terms are not illegal, it's valid then. However valid it may be, shareit's terms are simply outrageously unfair. As shown in the quoted text, they take away all the crucial rights from the developers; and that can definitely be a huge problem, if Shareit decide to take advantage of the agreement.

We may have to give in in the end, unfortunately.

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AdmiralQuality - Sun Jun 01, 2008 12:40 am

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+1

We offer Share-it too -- but only as a payment processor, we don't let them "distribute" (what possible value could they add?) and they take WAY more money off the top than PayPal do. And yes, they send you the money when they feel like it (quarterly is it?). I'd recommend getting your own website. You don't need a "distributor", this is the Web! (Unless that distributor is going to put your product in boxes on shelves in every music store in the world. That would be worth something.) With PayPal on the other hand you can request your money any time, and you'll have it in your bank account within couple of business days (they say 5 but I've never seen it take more than 2 or 3 days).

Haven't used Don'tCrack, but that was because I didn't see what they were offering. Other than to lump my world-class product in with a bunch of "hobbyist" crap. And I have to offer my product at a DISCOUNT through them? When they're already taking a huge cut???? Riiiiight! Admiral Quality NEVER have sales or discount pricing -- the price is the price, for all time (well, it's allowed to go UP! ) and from anywhere you might buy it (which right now is ONE place, nice and simple). Sales, discounts, etc, that's all just good ways to piss off the people who already bought your product. The early adopters. Your BEST customers. By having a sale you're just teaching them that next time they should wait longer before buying. And by having a discount at some other site, you're teaching them to avoid YOUR site.

I also REALLY hate that "dontcrack" name. It's tantamount to calling it "DidYouKnowYouCanStealThisStuffForFree.com"

I can't praise PayPal enough though. I know some people have a dogmatic problem with them, particularly people in Europe. No idea why, other than PaPal being an American company. (I'd sign up with the Bank of North Korea if it meant better rates!) That's the only reason we offer Share-it, just so people with a PayPal mental block have another option. Not only will Share-it take more of MY money, but they take more of the customers' money too. They also use grossly exaggerated currency exchange rates -- on the day I checked they were 11% more than the banks were doing (when I asked, they told me this was "insurance". But why would you need insurance that the rate isn't going to change for a transaction that's happening NOW? Are they afraid the exchange rate is going to change by 11% in the next 5 minutes?) It's borderline criminal, if you ask me. So here's a tip to the Share-it buyer, ALWAYS buy in the native currency of the seller and let your credit card company do the currency conversion rather than have Share-it convert to your country's currency at their artificially inflated (always in their favour) rates.

And we also occasionally get an email from people saying "I don't have PayPal, I'd like to send you my credit card number". I do my best to try to explain to these people that you don't "have" PayPal, they're just a payment service and they'll be happy to take that same credit card info you were about to give me, and they will then provide MUCH better security through their systems than I could ever offer on my $200/yr web hosting plan on a server I don't own or administrate. I don't WANT your credit card info! I can't afford to keep it safe!

PayPal. Forget distributors. Spend the money you'd lose to them on advertising for your own website. The internet is the distributer.

Here's one Poly-Ana sale from PayPal...



So $129.95 USD becomes $124.58 USD. Not bad.

And here is what I get from Share-it. We sold one Poly-Ana through them last pay period. And on top of the total they show, there's additional service charges from the bank for the wire transfer that I don't get through PayPal...



With Share-it $129.95 USD becomes $118.50 USD. And to top it off, that became $116.01 CAD by the time it got into our bank. In small part due to the Canadian dollar actually being a tiny bit higher than the US dollar these days. But mostly due to the higher (and hidden) transfer fee through Share-it. PayPal on the other hand charge $0.50 for transfers under $150, and free for any amount over $150. Says so right where you request the transfer, no surprises.

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Shy - Sun Jun 01, 2008 6:26 am

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I'm under the impression that Google Checkout might be better than the rest right now. Has any seller here had experience with it? I bought two products through it by the way, went nice and smooth.

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AdmiralQuality - Sun Jun 01, 2008 6:35 am

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I love google, conceptually ("don't be evil!"), so... worth a look. It just wasn't ready when I set up my site.

I'm not married to PayPal, but... they've never done me wrong and it's been a generally wonderful experience. Yes, their interface sucks, but... try Share-It and you will get a whole new appreciation for suction. (To Share-it's credit, they did eventually provide interfaces for stuff I had to do by email before.)

End of the day, both services send you money. Just, PayPal sends it to you when you want it, with far more complete accounting. And they take WAY less for the service.

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Gavin@FAW - Mon Jun 02, 2008 3:20 pm

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If you want to handle the payments and distribution of the software yourself, I'd recommend checking out Ruby Rails.

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ATS - Mon Jun 02, 2008 3:24 pm

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I called support at shareit once and it was crazy how rude this lady was to me on the phone. I stayed calm and didn't cuss her out but I really wanted to.

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Robin from www.rs-met.com - Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:24 am

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update: O.K. i'm going to set up my sales-system in the coming days in order to start selling in early august. i wanted to go with dontcrack but after two mails without response i have to choose another route. i have narrowed down the options to 2checkout and google checkout - after all that has being said in this thread (thanks again fellows - the infos were really helpful) share-it seems not to be good because of the contract details. setting up paypal seems to require some web programming knowledge, which to aquire would cost me too much time. 2checkout and google checkout seem to be quickly up and running by just pasting some html code into my site. ...now which of the two? i would choose google for the 'trust-factor' (google is a well known and well trusted brand) but am i right in the reception that google checkout offers only one payment method, and that is via credit card? that would narrow down the pool of potential customers considerably, i think.

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ughnonumus - Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:37 am

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I missed an opportunity to get in on the ground floor with PayPal, before they took off.

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Robin from www.rs-met.com - Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:01 pm

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seems i was wrong - only basic html is required for the simplest integration option. i just had some other (wrong) tutorial for another, more complicated option. very good. in that case, i will use paypal.

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Leslie Sanford - Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:36 pm

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Yeah, all I did was cut 'n paste the code they generate for you for the Buy buttons into my web page's HTML code. Worked fine.

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dblue - Tue Sep 16, 2008 9:38 am

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I just wanted to bump this thread and ask if anyone has used, or has considered using, http://www.e-junkie.com for selling their audio software (or any other software I suppose)? It seems quite friendly and has some nice features, and a lot of people online seem to praise it, whereas I see quite a lot of negativity aimed at ShareIt, SWREG, etc.

Ultimately, I could create my own system based on PayPal or Google Checkout (I created a system based on PayPal IPN some years ago), but it would be nice to avoid the headaches and simply use a robust, pre-existing system. I'm just curious what the experience is like for the user/customer... whether it's easy for them to access their purchased downloads in the future, etc.

Anyone got any experience with this particular site/service?

[Edit]
And here's one more that I'm kinda curious about: http://www.fastspring.com
Anyone using this one?

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Baz - Tue Sep 16, 2008 6:10 pm

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Whatever the system used to look "pro"...It's not really usefull to setup this kind of scommercial strategy.For selling one licence per day ( and even less), this is really not necessary.Anf finally I'm sure most of the people here have to handle less than ten sells per month...

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valhallasound - Wed Jun 09, 2010 12:42 am

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Bumping this thread...

Any thoughts on this from a mid-2010 perspective?

I am looking for a solution that can take customer input, and deliver a key file or serial number (+ download link) via email. Share-It seems pretty good for that, but the comments in this thread are on the negative side. However, the thread dates from 2008, so it would be interesting to see how things stand today.

I have no web programming experience, and I am not sure if my web provider would allow me to run a command line program on their servers to generate the key files. It probably wouldn't hurt to learn web programming and the like (it may end up being a better career choice than audio DSP at this point), but I want to finish up my first commercial plugin sooner rather than later.

Thanks in advance for any advice / feedback / what have you.

Sean Costello

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Lotuzia - Wed Jun 09, 2010 1:04 am

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You might want to have a look at solutions like zencart. These solutions will provide you both the structure of your site + plug in prebuild solutions to implement Paypal IPN solutions, wich will give your users the possibility to use a cart system, and thus avoid to go thru the entire check out process if they buy more than one item on your shop.

There's no need to reinvent the wheel imho

Then for dynamic websites, or solutions like zencart, more or less PHP mastering is required. With PHP you can generate serials based on personal data on the fly for example, with very simple code.

Dont forget though that in this case, all the DL + the code to generate serials will be present on your server, making it look like a tasty target for various attacks.

Some cart systems include some direct DL plug ins possiblilities. There are known security issues (and probably unknown as well )

Anyway the basic choices remain -imho- :

. Non Real time (off line ) instantaneous delivery
. Basic Protection ( Serial aso )
. More Efficient protection (with additional costs and the use of 3rd party partners like dongle providers aso)
. Try to Find a distro deal ( Like with AD as you coded their reverb algo )

In case it helps,

LtZ

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kv331 - Wed Jun 09, 2010 2:05 am

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My 2 cents on the topic:

For selling my software synth, I use swreg.org. Pretty good service, and they take around %4 commission, which is acceptable for me. When there is a sale on swreg.org, they notify me so I can add the new user into my database, and send the user download link for the software. The software is stored on my web server, and the user downloads it by entering their registered email address + serial number. So I only need SWREG for the payment processing that's it, I handle all the rest myself.

For this to work, I had to write code in ASP.NET / C# / SQL Server, but it's well worth the effort.

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Urs - Wed Jun 09, 2010 2:23 am

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OT: I'd recommend not to put keygens on your own webserver. Nowadays it's easier to gain access/control over a webserver than to reverse a strong serial number algorithm - which is why I think I'm getting all those attempts to break the various applications on my webserver (phpbb, wordpress, joomla). Hence I moved my keygens to a different server.

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kv331 - Wed Jun 09, 2010 2:48 am

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Well, I just trust Microsoft and my hosting company that such a thing wont happen. Of course I took the necessary steps to write secure code, which is not vulnerable to for instance SQL injection attacks.

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valhallasound - Wed Jun 09, 2010 7:06 pm

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Are you referring to Share-It, with regards to the keygens? Or do you have your own e-commerce solution nowadays?

I had originally thought of just putting up a PayPal link, and manually sending out the keyfiles (or serial numbers, wherever I end up landing), but this makes going on vacation without bringing a laptop along somewhat difficult. Are there other hosting companies that will host command-line keygen apps that you provide?

Thanks,

Sean

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kv331 - Wed Jun 09, 2010 10:57 pm

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You're referring to a request like this:



Luckly those generate errors, and I email the errors back to myself so I know if someone is trying to attack the web site.

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kv331 - Wed Jun 09, 2010 10:59 pm

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Hey, regardless of the keygen generation, you should always have your laptop with you if you're in this business I always carry it with me even on vacations, you never know... Someone can report a showstopper bug so you have to respond immediately

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Urs - Thu Jun 10, 2010 1:09 am

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Sean,

I *highly* recommend to automate the keyfile generation. I've been through manually sending it - my nights & vacations have become much more like they should be, ever since I switched to some automated system.

@kv331: Yes, attacks like that and numerous other ones (DDOS, SSH login attempts). I'm hosting an unspeakable number of dynamic sites on my server, including some home grown applications. There's always a chance for a vulnerability so I won't take any risk as long as they can't write keygens.

Urs

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jobromedia - Sun Jul 04, 2010 8:36 pm

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Want an advice? Set up a site with Joomla! and VirtueMart. Gives you the freedom to choose what payment ways you want to allow. Takes a whole lot more work to install and manage the site, but once it's done it runs smoothly. I've got this configuration myself on my site. It has the benefit that you can reap all the profits.

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kuniklo - Fri Jan 06, 2012 5:24 pm

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Bumping an old thread since I'm getting closer to having a first plugin ready to sell.

Has anybody tried this new payment service, Stripe?
https://stripe.com/

It looks like it might be easier to deal with than PayPal or Google Checkout or Shareit, although it doesn't provide all the features of Shareit.

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davidguda - Sun Jan 08, 2012 3:17 am

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I'm in the same situation having the synth ready and betatested, a finished homepage (although ugly but design can be improved meanwhile).

After reading this thread and looking around at solutions I found that shareIt seemed to be the best solution for me. Stripe was new to me and looks quite nice, low cost and simple interface.

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AdmiralQuality - Sun Jan 08, 2012 3:21 am

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What do people have against PayPal? Do you really have that much trouble implementing their very simple API to run your own authorization script?

Share-it have ding-bat tech support that will blame you for their bugs. And they take WAY more of your money.

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davidguda - Sun Jan 08, 2012 3:31 am

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Nothing really against PayPal, shareIt seemed quite convenient with them taking care of charges and delivering the license key, then users can login to my page and donwload latest version of the software (already implemented that mechanism).

I think shareIt could automatically handle VAT issues when ppl buying from all over the world if/when start selling enough for that to be an issue.
At this point it is more just getting started and getting product available on the market.

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kuniklo - Sun Jan 08, 2012 4:16 pm

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I've had a number of negative experiences with PayPal over the years so I'm inclined to look for alternatives first.

The extra services Share-It offers are appealing but they do seem to come at a cost.

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matt42 - Sun Jan 08, 2012 4:42 pm

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Just curious, what kind of bad experiences have you had with them?

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kuniklo - Sun Jan 08, 2012 4:47 pm

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They've locked my account down for various bogus reasons several times and required me to jump through all kinds of ridiculous hoops to get it activated again. It's been particularly bad in the last year since I've been traveling outside the U.S. and accessing my U.S. account from abroad seems to trigger all kinds of bogus fraud alerts. I realize that they have to combat fraud pretty aggressively but I've stopped using them entirely.

I've also heard a few too many stories like this:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103385-PayPal-Freezes-750K-in-MineCraft-Devs-Account

That said, I'd still consider using them to sell my own stuff if that was the easiest thing for my customers. A software dev can't really afford to hold grudges.

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matt42 - Sun Jan 08, 2012 7:17 pm

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Wow there's some really ugly stories relating to Pay Pal.

Seems stripe's not an option for me as you currently need to be based in the U.S.

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davidguda - Sun Jan 08, 2012 11:13 pm

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ah, I didn't even see the need to be based in the U.S. part. Then it is is not an option for me (sweden).

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bvesco - Fri Jan 20, 2012 2:46 pm

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I'll add a positive reference for PayPal as I've been using it exclusively for payments for a few years. They don't auto send license keys or anything like that but my plugins always appear on crack sites within days of release anyway (and so will yours). In the end I decided the extra burden to my paying customers was not worth dealing with keys and removed them completely. The same amount of piracy happens, my sales numbers didn't change, but my customer support for the license keys disappeared completely. For me it was a win and so is PayPal.

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Sampleconstruct - Fri Jan 20, 2012 2:50 pm

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I use pp and share*it, both work fine and I can't complain about either of them.

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kuniklo - Sun Jan 29, 2012 2:03 am

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Interesting. I guess this might lead this thread in a controversial direction but I've seen several other devs here claim that sales figures tend to closely and inversely correlate with the releases of cracks so I'm surprised to hear that your experience doesn't reflect this too.

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jobromedia - Sun Jan 29, 2012 5:32 am

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Nej men tjenare!

Just had to say hello to a fellow swede person. I haven't had any issues related to paypal, I've heard stories that people cannot withdraw their money and shit like that though.

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DaveHoskins - Sun Jan 29, 2012 5:55 am

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Share-it have a PayPal payment option anyway.

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Sampleconstruct - Sun Jan 29, 2012 7:33 am

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But quite a few people suffer from paypalophobia and prefer to use share*it if available I learned...

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DaveHoskins - Sun Jan 29, 2012 7:37 am

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I meant why bother with a separate PayPal account, when Share*it have a PayPal option as a form of payment type.

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Sampleconstruct - Sun Jan 29, 2012 8:07 am

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Because they charge me about twice as much...

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DaveHoskins - Sun Jan 29, 2012 8:26 am

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But Share-It send the key codes, keep all the accounts together, and chase up dodgy payments etc. It's all fine to me.

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jobromedia - Mon Feb 20, 2012 11:35 pm

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There is also another option for those who deliver freeware plugins. www.adf.ly is a link shrinker that shows an ad before taking you to the link. For instance this link takes you to my plugin JBM SPaCer.

You earn money for each ad that is shown. Not much, but 0.1 cent or something like that. The money can be paid to your paypal account.

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DaveHoskins - Tue Feb 21, 2012 5:13 am

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"Congratulations you are today's iPad 2 winner" doesn't appear honest to me, and a bit dodgy looking. But if you're plug-in is free, then I guess that model looks OK. Does it bring in much money?

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djeroen - Tue Feb 21, 2012 5:30 am

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There's a new site for plugin distribution, www.pluginboutique.com .

They can handle all sales transactions for you, but they charge quite a lot for it (AFAIK they ask 30% of each transaction, which would be one order
of magnitude higher than most other payment services).

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jobromedia - Tue Feb 21, 2012 10:29 am

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I know the ads is pretty dodgy, but at least it generates some money. I've earned from the 16th when I created my account $0.13. Not much, but at least it's more than none.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYz5fF0kPO0

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There are 82 posts in this topic.