Alternatives to ShareIt/MyCommerce/Digital River

[HYSL22]

In the same boat as everyone here and only found this thread after seeing The Register article. Glad to finally see this covered by a news outlet. $50k down the drain.

We started looking into different merchant of record providers a couple of weeks ago. Evaluated a few vednors including Paddle and FastSpring, but ended up going with Cleverbridge. Went live last week and haven't experienced any issues.

We needed someone with a German entity, and Cleverbridge is based in Cologne so it happened to work out nicely

[7tltd]

In the same boat as everyone here and only found this thread after seeing The Register article. Glad to finally see this covered by a news outlet. $50k down the drain.

We started looking into different merchant of record providers a couple of weeks ago. Evaluated a few vednors including Paddle and FastSpring, but ended up going with Cleverbridge. Went live last week and haven't experienced any issues.

We needed someone with a German entity, and Cleverbridge is based in Cologne so it happened to work out nicely

Did you know that Cleverbridge is a project of a former ShareIt! employee. They also tend to unexpect cancel contracts with some vendors.

[icarmon]

https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/15/ ... dry_hasnt/

I suggest to the users to comment this article and share in social media to increase the visibility

[Peter999]

My guess regarding the cause of all of this is that the US might have blocked the assets of Digital River because of the US ban of sale of Kaspersy Anti Virus (which was distributed by Digital River) from July 20 on - which perfectly matches the last payment on July 15

[Syncsro]

Last payment to us was June

[Peter999]

For most it was on July 15 for the June period. I guess also all the Due Dilligence blurb was initiated by the US

[Peter999]

For most it was on July 15 for the June period. I guess also all the Due Dilligence blurb was initiated by the US - you have to proove that you are not a russian spy. If you can't proove this no money.

[ssec]

There's only two possibilities:
a) They were bankrupt before all of this happened, and so they stopped payments as they have other debts to repay first.
b) They are bankrupt now because of very bad management decisions and/or technical issues after cutting their workforce massively.
Either way... they are gone.
Hopefully we all recover at least part of our money, because the total is easily in the millions.
Lesson learned for future.

[Peter999]

There's only two possibilities:
a) They were bankrupt before all of this happened, and so they stopped payments as they have other debts to repay first.
b) They are bankrupt now because of very bad management decisions and/or technical issues after cutting their workforce massively.
Either way... they are gone.
Hopefully we all recover at least part of our money, because the total is easily in the millions.
Lesson learned for future.

No - after studying all of this and comparing dates I'm pretty sure this all was initiated by the US freezing the assets of Digital River because of the Kaspersky Anti Virus sales ban by the US, which was on July 20th. This perfectly matches the last payment on July 15th.

Then the US initiated the whole Due Dilligence blurb, even for many-years-proven business partners.
You only get any money when you can proove you're not a russian spy.

This also matches with the fact that the platform itself still works flawlessly.
So it can't be bankruspy.

[ssec]

There's only two possibilities:
a) They were bankrupt before all of this happened, and so they stopped payments as they have other debts to repay first.
b) They are bankrupt now because of very bad management decisions and/or technical issues after cutting their workforce massively.
Either way... they are gone.
Hopefully we all recover at least part of our money, because the total is easily in the millions.
Lesson learned for future.

No - after studying all of this and comparing dates I'm pretty sure this all was initiated by the US freezing the assets of Digital River because of the Kaspersky Anti Virus sales ban by the US, which was on June 20th. This perfectly matches the last payment on June 15th.

Then the US initiated the whole Due Dilligence blurb, even for many-years-proven business partners.
You only get any money when you can proove you're not a russian spy.

This also matches with the fact that the platform itself still works flawlessly.
So it can't be bankruspy.

This is interesting and could be part of the reason. But even if that is the reason, DR is now finished as everyone pretty much left and all the public bad press. Also why wouldn't they communicate that that was the issue??

[yps]

For those considering Cleverbridge as a replacement, I contacted them and had a nice conversation with one of their sales agent, but it turned out that they only work with clients with €50k+ monthly turnover.

We switched to Paddle now. The migration was a little difficult, as they have a very different approach compared to DR when it comes to initiating the checkout process. (With DR, you simply put a parameter into MyCommerce's checkout page, with Paddle you have to create your own checkout page with the JS library they supply). But now everything is up and running.

The only thing I found a little strange about the onboarding process in Paddle is that they give you feedback on the progress of your account setup and verification, and even after it showed four greens and "you are now ready to sell", I was contacted a few hours later and asked for additional information and documents before my account could ultimately be verified by the "risk team". So the progress shown in the dashboard does not reflect the actual verification progress.

[Otis_Inf]

Yeah Cleverbridge is quite expensive for a small ISV. They offered us a $2000/m minimal fee but that's just too much for us. Currently working to migrate to PayPro Global and also setup an account at Lemon Squeezy. I found Paddle's system too convoluted for what we need, tho a developer I know who migrated to paddle said it was in the end straight forward, so perhaps go back to that if PayPro global or Lemon Squeezy don't pan out ok.

[jonjbar]

First communication I've just received in weeks from them... ironic!

Dear Valued Customer,
As of October 16, 2024, the updates to the MyCommerce Master Services Agreement (MSA) are now officially in effect. Here's a brief overview of what has changed...

[Syncsro]

Same here, cancelled all customer subscriptions and requested to close our account and pay our money. I know it won't happen

[IaES]

. . . Currently working to migrate to PayPro Global . . .

Are your sales B2C or B2B?

If you're selling to private persons, ie not businesses, and handling the payment yourself via PayPal then you are the seller and you need to get your head round all the Sales TAX/VAT rules in the other countries you sell to.

If you are selling to businesses in other countries then you can simply often just add a note to the bottom of your invoice refering to the "Reverse Charge Mechanism" as long as you confirm they really are a business buyer. That is usually done by asking the buyer for their sales tax number but other methods are acceptable. Basically business buyers account for their own purchase VAT using the reverse charge mechanism that most countries have signed up to.

The above is not definitive and can change if you sell cross borders in the USA depending on volume. Also some countries such as Mexico do not have any "Reverse Charge Mechanism" so different rules apply.

Speak to your tax advisor.

Or find an MoR and you don't need to worry about any of that.