Ecommerce service?

[george]

what ecommerce service do you use?

what is the commision rate?

what feature made you decide to go with this service?

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i use emetrix

commsion rate 13.9%

i dunno! it is a good service but i want to switch to something different that either has a lower rate or more features...

thanks

[simonh]

I use BMT Micro (http://www.bmtmicro.com). They charge a commision of 9.5%, they lowest I found. This gives me everything I want with the possible exception of a custom order form which would require a 15% commision.

I find their service to be generally very good. Their control panel could do with some work, but the features they offer and the customer service I can't find fault with.

[Devman]

I've also been using BMT Micro for my first product, with a custom order form, so it is 15%. I think it is worth it to give the customer a feeling of security by not changing the site appearance when they go to buy.

This is the first time I have ever used any ecommerce site, and so far they have been great: good communication and support, easy to use order system.

Peace!

[george]

does bmt micro let you customize order form per product or just per vendor account?

also the 9.5% DOES NOT include telephone ordering correct?

i like BMT too, but I am interested in some alternatives. I myself in the past have used regsoft, swreg, and now emetrix.

[Devman]

George,

Unfortunately since I only have one product and webpage I don't know if you can have multiple custom order forms.

[Jack Norton]

I'll repeat myself again...
I use Plimus (http://www.plimus.com).
10% ONLY commission. Great fraud protection (the best around). FAST response (usually you get answer within few hours).
Complete customization of order pages (check my site www.winterwolves.com).
Bundles, cross-selling, etc etc etc. Hard to find a fault in their system... :cool:

[patrox]

I use www.plimus.com too.
10% ( degressive commission as the transaction gets more expensive so it's interesting if you do bundles or sell tools )

You can customize per product, you can even use your own order template on other people's products ( interesting for affiliation, the customer doesn't really leave your site that way )

You can manage the product yourself, don't have to wait a week or a month for them to be approved ( like regnow) , it's instant.

Other good points for plimus:
-multilanguage order forms
-*working* affiliate system
-VAT friendly

Fast and good service also.

pat.

[Jack Norton]

-*working* affiliate system
Yeah that's one of the most important points.
Don't expect many affiliates if you use CRAP affiliation system... the only 2 good I've found are Regnow and Plimus ones ;)

[bmtshareware]

does bmt micro let you customize order form per product or just per vendor account?

also the 9.5% DOES NOT include telephone ordering correct?
Order forms are customizable on a per product basis, so you could have a completely different custom order form for each product.

The Standard Service Tier (9.5%) DOES include telephone/fax ordering... and no add'l fees for you or the customer to use phone/fax ordering.

For more information, visit our website, or you can email me directly for our current offer, brandon@bmtmicro.com

[ztownsend]

Anybody any experience of esellerate? They start off at 10%, so comparable rates. They have an affiliate system, but not sure how it compares.

[FlySim]

We use eSellerate - works well. We have lots of affilates but only a handfull of affiliate sales. I think this has more to do with the type of game (Fly Fishing) than the affiliate system. Early on, we had a problem with duplicate sales from the integrated seller - but after a bit of pestering they did fix it. They have always replied quickly to our emails. This is the first and only system I have ever used, so I cant compare to others.

Regards,
J.R.
www.flysim.com

[Chaster]

We're using eSellerate for our latest game (about to release in one week). I had planned on using plimus, but they yanked their plimware sdk, so I had to go with esellerate (we wanted to have integrated selling).

Esellerate has been good so far. Responsive, easy to use. Their SDK is not as flexible as I wish it was, but it is fine for typical ecommerce.

Chaster

[Red Marble Games]

The only real rap on eSellerate (which I also use) has always been that their affiliate system isn't cookie-based, so that if someone downloads a game from an affiliate but then decides to buy it through the author's web store, the affiliate doesn't get credit.

To me this problem is overblown. eSellerate's big strength is its strong integrated purchase system; I get virtually every sale from within the games, very little through the web store. And the in-game purchase process can easily be configured with an affiliate ID to ensure proper credit. Plus the in-game purchaser can offer other titles as cross-sell items, and the affiliate gets credit for those sales too.

And otherwise eSellerate is great. Initial commission is 10% (though it does go up if your sales do, and then declines as your sales increase further); customer support is unbelievably responsive; SplitPay allows automatic splits of revenue with partners; and the web interface, while a little convoluted, is usable (unlike Plimus's, which I find a disaster, though it's probably just a matter of personal taste).

[Jack Norton]

To me this problem is overblown. eSellerate's big strength is its strong integrated purchase system; I get virtually every sale from within the games, very little through the web store. And the in-game purchase process can easily be configured with an affiliate ID to ensure proper credit.
EASILY? :)
I don't agree ;) In my experience, the only way to be sure of a sale with eSellerate is to request a custom build...


and the web interface, while a little convoluted, is usable (unlike Plimus's, which I find a disaster, though it's probably just a matter of personal taste)
Hmm I think the Plimus one isn't perfect but surely better than eSellerate one :)

The only real strength of esellerate towards Plimus is the integrated sale system, even if I never tried it because had people complaining that they didn't felt safe to put their credit card info in "a game" instead of a secured webpage... :(

[AnotherDev]

I'm using Swreg (grandfathered plan at $1 + 5%)

Anyone tried 2checkout ? (0.45 + 5.5%)
http://www.2checkout.com/home.html

[Chris Evans]

I used 2checkout.com over three years ago. It was a solid service. Best of all, they paid every two weeks, which I wish Plimus would...With Plimus you have to make 40k a month to get checks bi-weekly... :rolleyes:

It was three years ago when I used 2checkout.com so things might have changed, however at the time it was geared toward general products and services. So there was no serial keys, affiliate system, and etc that RegNow, Plimus and other shareware oriented payment processors offer. Also, there's a $49 setup fee and it'll probably take a little extra work setting up the product pages.

The upside is that 2checkout has a nice low commission (0.45 + 5.5%). It's been the same for the last 4 years. So if you don't need all the advance features of Plimus or RegNow, definitely consider 2checkout.com.

Since my game is just about done, I'm going to give 2checkout.com another look. If they added a few more features since I last used them, I may switch to 2checkout.com as my primary payment processor and then use Plimus/RegNow for affiliate sales only. The low commission added with the bi-weekly payments is hard to pass up. And actually if you have sales exceeding $1000 a week (which is actually feasible) then you can receive weekly payments. This is a pretty big issue for me because since I'm shipping a tangible product I have to watch my cash flow. For example, if I get an influx of orders over a two week period, but I don't get paid until 30-45 days later for those sales then I'm going to struggle paying shipping costs and for any supplies I have to re-order.

That's my biggest annoyance with Plimus, I don't know why they can't cut checks more often. Basically with Plimus if I'm not making nearly half a million dollars, then I can't get paid twice a month... :rolleyes:

[terin]

I use 2Checkout for VGsmart when people wish to pay by Credit Card:

I've never had a problem with them and the one issue I did have was sorted out very quickly.

So, kudos to 2CO from me as well.

[AnotherDev]

Thank you for the informative replies.

[Chris Evans]

Out of curiosity, what's the payment frequency for some of the other payment processors? Many of them don't state it on their website.

The more I think about it, the more inclined I am to switch to 2checkout. For example, if I start selling my game on Nov. 1st, then I wont receive my first payment from Plimus until 45 days later on Dec. 15th. Whereas with 2checkout, I would have already received three payments in that same time period.

Unfortunately, 2checkout doesn't host downloads, so I may have to do a little website backend work. However I think it may be worth the extra effort.

[Mike Boeh]

What good is an affiliate system if there aren't many affiliates using it? That's the problem I would have with Plimus. Even though BMT's affiliate system works perfectly fine, but we also use regnow's on top of that, because regnow has far more affiliates than anyone else. Of our affiliate sales, I would say that 85% come from BMT, and 15% from Regnow.

Regnow provides a little redirect thing to check if it's a regnow affiliate generated order, and if it isn't, it passes it on to your normal payment processing. In my case, BMT.

The BMT affiliate system works on a cookie, like regnow's, but they also let you pass an affiliate ID to their forms, which is nice. That way I can mark the downloads too, thus making double sure an affiliate gets the commission they deserve.

[Jack Norton]

What good is an affiliate system if there aren't many affiliates using it? That's the problem I would have with Plimus.
Hmm that's because they're starting, but I see an increasingly number of sites using it.
Ask DFG about UBM sales with Plimus ;) Honestly if I had a big site with lot of traffic I'd accept any affiliation system.. is always more money coming in, no?

[Greg Squire]

Mike,

I'm just trying to clairify what you said. You mentioned that Regnow has the most affiliates, but you also mentioned that most of your affliate sales come from BMT. I would expect the opposite to happen, since Regnow has more affilitates. However I guess it more of a matter of which affliates take your products on and how good the affliates are in promoting your games. So I'm guessing there are more BMT affiliates carrying your products than Regnow affiliates (eventhough the total number of Regnow affiliates overall is greater than BMT's). Is that right? At any rate it's probably still a good a idea to be in both affiliate programs, after all if you only were in BMT's affiliate program, then (by your figures) your sales would be 15% down from what they are.