Knobcloud.com - a free vst-marketplace

[i need Help]

(Accidentally quoted my reply instead of editing it lol, my bad.)

[i need Help]

Hi dear users,

the marketplace is eating up a lot of time and ressources. We have ongoing support for the users and we actually do a lot of work to prevent scams and ensure overall safety. I do believe that what we do in this regard is not being done in any other marketplace. If we uncover a scammer, we send out emails to all the buyers and help them to get their refund from PayPal.

Especially this security work is something that I had not thought of when I buildt the marketplace. At the moment I am paying a specialist for support and fraud detection, as well as a developer for ongoing bug fixing and maintenance.

The revenue of ads and donations is not doing the trick. So I am financially forced to get some kind of revenue from the users.

I have been looking into taking commissions from the sellers, but PayPal does not offer splitting a payment in this environment (sellers would need a business account). A debit charge is also not possible with PayPal for non-recurring payments. Taking a commission would only be possible if I asked for a credit card, I assume. But we are already asking for a lot of personal data with the PayPal integration, and I think it would be a lot to ask for. Also, it would drive up the prices.

So instead I am leaning to a subscription model for buyers. Selling will remain free of charge. As of now, I´m thinking of taking these fees from buyers:

-2 €/USD for a one-time purchase
-5 €/USD for a month of subscription
-15 €/USD for a 6 month subscription
-25 €/USD for a 12 month subscription

I am posting this because I would like to get some feedback of users before implementing it.

Thank you!

100% understand the need for income to maintain the site but if theres a recurring subscription put in place, sadly Knobcloud will go the way of other companies for me; I’ll just stop using it.

I’d prefer a one-time charge/fee but it sounds like the technical side is prohibitive?

Also I’ve used multiple ad blockers for idk how many years now, I actually forget website ads are a thing until I’ve gotta disable them for whatever reason and get punched in the face with ads (seriously it’s pretty jarring lol). You could do that “please disable your ad blockers” thing, but tbh theres ways around that and if not I just don’t go to the website.

I know I know, typical entitled web user, but just being honest.

Here’s some random ideas to try and offer something helpful vs just the above lol:

Set up a “pro/business” type of user acct on Knobcloud?
There are for sure some users who are making some type of business/side hustle/etc. on Knobcloud (usernames like “Plugin_Reseller” or the like who’ve got several dozen listings and hundreds of sale reviews for example).

Maybe put some restrictions in place that could then be made available for these types of power users for a cost, for example only allowing so many active listings at a time, so many sales per month, etc..

This will spare the average user like me who sales the one-off plugin every randomly, then you can do whatever you fancy to the pro side-hustle users lol. Flat monthly fee, percentage of sales, subscription, etc.

Turns out this was my only idea lol, but I’ll edit and add any more I think of.

[Lee N]

I am posting this because I would like to get some feedback of users before implementing it.

Thank you!

Can you not just charge a listing fee to sellers? Whatever you do, I hope you find a way. A trusted marketplace for s/h software would fill a huge gap IMO. It's a shame it can't be done on some kind of escrow system but I guess that would be too difficult?

[i need Help]

Decided to just post again instead of editing my previous message lol:

The current setup for the Knobcloud marketplace is predicated on users using their own accounts to buy/sell, with system prompts indicating the needed steps (ex. “I'm committed to make the PayPal payment within one hour” checkbox).

What if you add a step for sellers to make a percentage-of-sale payment to a paypal account for a sellers fee?

Nothing should change for the buyer’s experience, but for example on the seller side it could go something like:

• Seller is informed (email) someone has indicated intent to purchase.
• Seller confirms payment.
• Seller confirms they’ve sent license/serial to buyer.

** Then the new stuff **

• Seller is then promoted to make a fee payment to some Knobcloud affiliated paypal account. The prompt also does the math for the seller saving them from having to do it (ex. “Please make a paypal payment of $X.XX to SomeKnobcloud @ email .com for 5% sellers fee.”)
• Seller confirms they’ve made the fee payment.
• Sale is complete on sellers side.

Now I get the website prompts are just check boxes based on good faith and could be skipped, but if these were somehow monitored or otherwise verified, it could be an added checkpoint to be alerted to scammers, preventing ongoing scam sells.

I.e. a seller didn’t make the fee payment but indicated they did, that could be potentially caught on the first or second scam sell.

Idk the technical side of how this could work, but just brainstorming out loud at this point lol.

[Grottengeier]

Hi Grottengeier,

I wouldn't implement a subscription model because it will reduce the number of possible buyers and affect the whole market place because less buyers will finally lead to less sellers.
I am wondering about the security topics you are dealing with and what ongoing developments are necessary. Could you give some insights?

Best regards

Hi Thymos,

my reasoning is this: as long as we have a good offer, there will be buyers. For the buyer, it is a question of making the math, will an offer still be a good offer after adding the knobcloud fee? And if that is so, I think buyers will keep on buying.

As for the security part: We actively look for possible scammers, we ask for their invoices, and counter-check them with the developers. We have already uncovered many and have always sent out emails about the fraudster to all users who bought something from them, and the users then file the dispute with PayPal. That makes Knobcloud definetly less attractive for scammers compared to other places. This process has been somewhat tedious and work-intensive. It is something I had not foreseen at the beginning.

So there is also this added value to our platform, that we look after the overall safety of it, and I think this is a selling point.

[Grottengeier]

100% understand the need for income to maintain the site but if theres a recurring subscription put in place, sadly Knobcloud will go the way of other companies for me; I’ll just stop using it.

I’d prefer a one-time charge/fee but it sounds like the technical side is prohibitive?

Also I’ve used multiple ad blockers for idk how many years now, I actually forget website ads are a thing until I’ve gotta disable them for whatever reason and get punched in the face with ads (seriously it’s pretty jarring lol). You could do that “please disable your ad blockers” thing, but tbh theres ways around that and if not I just don’t go to the website.

I know I know, typical entitled web user, but just being honest.

Here’s some random ideas to try and offer something helpful vs just the above lol:

Set up a “pro/business” type of user acct on Knobcloud?
There are for sure some users who are making some type of business/side hustle/etc. on Knobcloud (usernames like “Plugin_Reseller” or the like who’ve got several dozen listings and hundreds of sale reviews for example).

Maybe put some restrictions in place that could then be made available for these types of power users for a cost, for example only allowing so many active listings at a time, so many sales per month, etc..

This will spare the average user like me who sales the one-off plugin every randomly, then you can do whatever you fancy to the pro side-hustle users lol. Flat monthly fee, percentage of sales, subscription, etc.

Turns out this was my only idea lol, but I’ll edit and add any more I think of.

Hi Ineedhelp,

there will be the option of a one-time fee as well, which would be 2 USD/EUR. It will be up to the user to decide if he wants a one-time fee or a subscription based fee. If you mean you´d prefer a seller one-time fee, yes, that is currently not possible to implement sensibly as I stated in my post.

About targeting the pros, I have been thinking about it, but they are too few, I can´t make money off about 10 people. Of course it is a matter of definition of "Pro". But if I target the pros, I fear I will have less offers, which is of course essential for the marketplace.

About the adblocker thing, I regularly fail to unblock news sites myself, both in my windows/opera and my Iphone/Safari. So I really believe doing the unblock thing will hurt traffic badly. I´d rather get rid of ads entirely.

[Grottengeier]

Can you not just charge a listing fee to sellers? Whatever you do, I hope you find a way. A trusted marketplace for s/h software would fill a huge gap IMO. It's a shame it can't be done on some kind of escrow system but I guess that would be too difficult?

A listing fee I fear will kill the offers.

About the escrow system, it is too complicated - to do it ourselves I would need a banking license. Besides, with digital audio software everything can seem to be fine with a purchase until your license gets revoked. This is the typical credit card scenario: A scammer buys licenses with a credit card and sells them to the user. The credit card company then does a chargeback on the developer who got the money from the scammer. The developer then disables the bought license. PayPal buyer protection is much better here than an escrow. An escrow can´t hold funds back for half a year, but PayPal can protect you.

[Grottengeier]

Decided to just post again instead of editing my previous message lol:

The current setup for the Knobcloud marketplace is predicated on users using their own accounts to buy/sell, with system prompts indicating the needed steps (ex. “I'm committed to make the PayPal payment within one hour” checkbox).

What if you add a step for sellers to make a percentage-of-sale payment to a paypal account for a sellers fee?

Nothing should change for the buyer’s experience, but for example on the seller side it could go something like:

• Seller is informed (email) someone has indicated intent to purchase.
• Seller confirms payment.
• Seller confirms they’ve sent license/serial to buyer.

** Then the new stuff **

• Seller is then promoted to make a fee payment to some Knobcloud affiliated paypal account. The prompt also does the math for the seller saving them from having to do it (ex. “Please make a paypal payment of $X.XX to SomeKnobcloud @ email .com for 5% sellers fee.”)
• Seller confirms they’ve made the fee payment.
• Sale is complete on sellers side.

Now I get the website prompts are just check boxes based on good faith and could be skipped, but if these were somehow monitored or otherwise verified, it could be an added checkpoint to be alerted to scammers, preventing ongoing scam sells.

I.e. a seller didn’t make the fee payment but indicated they did, that could be potentially caught on the first or second scam sell.

Idk the technical side of how this could work, but just brainstorming out loud at this point lol.

I´ve thought about that too, but I fear once the money is on the sellers account, some will prefer to keep it entirely. As a worldwide (but overall small) marketplace we can´t be chasing those debts outside of knobcloud. Within Knobcloud, we could only ban people in the end. I fear that could be a pain in the ass.

In the end, it does not really matter who pays the fee. If the seller pays it, he raises the price.

I do think that a marketplace that looks somewhat after your safety (see other recent posts above) we can make a case that it pays off to be more secure and in turn paying a small fee for it.

[Grottengeier]

I´m still thinking about the pricing. Maybe I could lower the pricing fees like this:

2 € for a purchase
12 € for a year
25 € lifetime fee

I think a lifetime fee might be attractive.

[i need Help]

I´m still thinking about the pricing. Maybe I could lower the pricing fees like this:

2 € for a purchase
12 € for a year
25 € lifetime fee

I think a lifetime fee might be attractive.

I guess if any of the other mentioned ideas are a no go, the fees above aren't too bad.

What if you make the one time purchase fee and yearly purchase fee count towards the lifetime fee? Once you hit 25 € in one time and yearly fees, you are considered as paying your dues and gain the lifetime status?

Or would that be shooting yourself in the foot lol?

Also how are these fees going to be paid? I’m trying to reduce my online exposure so I’d hate to have my personal/billing info on one more site that’s potentially going to get breached (nothing personal against Knobcloud, just at this point have to assume every website is a possible target).

[Grottengeier]

I guess if any of the other mentioned ideas are a no go, the fees above aren't too bad.

What if you make the one time purchase fee and yearly purchase fee count towards the lifetime fee? Once you hit 25 € in one time and yearly fees, you are considered as paying your dues and gain the lifetime status?

Or would that be shooting yourself in the foot lol?

Also how are these fees going to be paid? I’m trying to reduce my online exposure so I’d hate to have my personal/billing info on one more site that’s potentially going to get breached (nothing personal against Knobcloud, just at this point have to assume every website is a possible target).

In addition to what I have posted, I think the first purchase should be free, in order not to have too big of a hurdle at the beginning and to get a feel for Knobcloud. About making the One-time-purchase count for other options, I think I won´t do that, but I´ll give it some more thought.

I guess we will be using PayPal for the fees. The 2 € one-time purchase and the lifetime fee would be non-recurring payments, the half a year and year subscription would be recurring payments deducted from your PayPal account. Not sure about how exactly we will be setting it up yet.

[ChristianH1]

Consider a buyer and/or seller fee of €5 after every 5 purchases.

[Lee N]

I´m still thinking about the pricing. Maybe I could lower the pricing fees like this:

2 € for a purchase
12 € for a year
25 € lifetime fee

I think a lifetime fee might be attractive.

I still feel it's the wrong way round. The fee should be on the seller, just like it is anywhere else.
Maybe I am wrong but I am guessing your biggest obstacle is trust. As a buyer, I am already aware that there is risk involved - the seller may take the money and not respond. I am then left with the hassle of trying to claim back from Paypal, with no guarantees. If I then have to pay for this privilege, I'm just likely to hit the back button.

The only way I see this working is if you can charge enough to cover buyer's losses like an insurance, but I guess that might also be impractical.

[Grottengeier]

I still feel it's the wrong way round. The fee should be on the seller, just like it is anywhere else.
Maybe I am wrong but I am guessing your biggest obstacle is trust. As a buyer, I am already aware that there is risk involved - the seller may take the money and not respond. I am then left with the hassle of trying to claim back from Paypal, with no guarantees. If I then have to pay for this privilege, I'm just likely to hit the back button.

The only way I see this working is if you can charge enough to cover buyer's losses like an insurance, but I guess that might also be impractical.

Well if the buyer does not respond, you definitely have the paypal protection on your side, and it will not be difficult to get your money back. In those cases we will also give you your subscription money back (unless you already made other successful trades).

I am also a bit nervous about bypassing the usual concept of taking a sellers commission, but the tecnical aspects force us to do it. And really I don´t see why, if you already have made successful transactions on Knobcloud, you would not pay the fee, if in the end you´re saving money.

[FakeNatty]

1) Most (not all, added for you cancelers out there) buyers are extraordinarily cheap. They will only buy at prices that look like a scam, at least to me it looks like a scam. I literally message a seller once, asking if their listed price was a mistake. And a few minutes later, it was purchased.

2) If most of them are already buying at these ridiculously cheap prices, which the buyer themselves are also fully aware of, they will not be bothered by a few extra dollars of fees.

Either way, the fees will end up on the buyers' side, but paid through the seller (if that's what Knobcloud chooses to do).

If you charge the seller, the sellers will just add a few more dollars. Since most buyers are extraordinary cheap, they wouldn't mind the fee when the extra fees don't even come close to the added costs of buying from others.

If you charge the buyer, the buyer will just calculate the total and decide if the price is ridiculously low enough for them. If it's already low enough, then the fees don't matter. If the selling price is high enough, they won't bother buying anyways.

In other words, most buyers will interpret the fee as "I'm now paying extra in fee", no matter who you choose to pay the fee.