To Esellerate or Not

[kodex]

So the guys at esellerate have been bugging me again to switch from using paypals IPN to their systems for sales. I have looked into it and it looks pretty decent. Granted the charge more per sale in fees but the features they offer seem like they can boost sales to even it out in the long run.

Does anyone have any experince with them? Is it a good idea to change over, since im not a huge fan of paypal anyways. Any insight would be greatly appeciated.

Thanks!

[Jake]

I switched to them from paypal and I have no complaints whatsoever, I like their in game sales engine, about 2/3rds of my sales are from it. The 10% does add up after a while, but I try to think of the 90% I'm keeping instead.

[kodex]

Really? I was going to stay kind of away from the in game purchase and move more towards the webstore, but if you are experincing such a great return on it, it may be worth a second look.

have you noticed an increase in sales since you switched? They are talking up all these affilate programs where they can help generate more sales and im wondering if anyone has noticed a increase on anything.

[Jake]

have you noticed an increase in sales since you switched? They are talking up all these affilate programs where they can help generate more sales and im wondering if anyone has noticed a increase on anything.

I can't say because back then my sales were to inconstant and was updating alot. but I think it will help a little bit. I have had 1 affiliate who has sold a few copies but other than that I really haven't generated many sales from them.

[Frank C.]

PayPal has much lower transaction fees than Esellerate, but there's a very important difference between the two. PayPal is a payment processor, while Esellerate is a reseller.

With PayPal, you are selling a product directly to your customers and are responsible for collecting and remitting sales tax for your region and/or European VAT. This is fine if you don't mind doing the work, or if you don't bring in enough money for it to matter (check the tax laws in your area).

Esellerate is basically a publisher that sells your product for you and gives you a (large) royalty. They collect and remit sales tax and all you have to do is report your income to keep the tax cops off your back.

[FCCovett]

I've been using eSellerate for a few years and they are really great. There was a problem with the game engine being hacked a while ago, but their engineers scrambled to release a new version that solves the problem. They are also very reliable with payments, you can get a ton of reports from their web-manager.

If you are going to work with eSellerate or not, I strongly suggest you release a demo separate from the full-version. Your customers can buy the game from the demo, but they only get to download the full-version upon purchasing the game. That helps minimize the effects of piracy a lot, as it gets harder to grab a full-version of the game, and the demo can't really be cracked.

[aarku]

Does the full version have registration built in, and does it show up on pirate sites like TorrentsKickAss a lot then? Does eSellerate handle the full version downloading system? Do they sell enchiladas?

-Jon

[Carlos Camacho]

I am in the process, along with Justin B, in looking at the various options for shareware devs. I have a list of 20 or so companies to research. If/when we finish, we will publish our data. :)

[Baldock]

Yes it should be interesting, I just need a few hours of free time to work on it. This weekend is looking good for that.

[FCCovett]

Does the full version have registration built in, and does it show up on pirate sites like TorrentsKickAss a lot then? Does eSellerate handle the full version downloading system? Do they sell enchiladas?

Of course you can have built-in registration on the full version. It's the same from the demo. The game always checks if it has been activated on the computer it's been run for the first time, and the game contacts a server to check if the number of activations allowed for a certain serial number has been reached.

eSellerate gives you 20 Mb of disk space. You could put the full version there for the initial release period. That's not ideal for games, that's for sure, but I can work with that.

I don't think they sell enchiladas. They've got other interest stuff to fill you up though. ;)

[Najdorf]

e-Sellerate has an amazing service: you ask them anything and in 2 hours they reply... They also have cool tools that keep track of all your orders and are very reliable. Highly recommended,

[kodex]

Thanks for the help guys I belive i will be making the switch over the next few months. As i dont have enough time to even work on my own projects...