you mind sharing experiences with fastspring

[DodongoXP]

hi there.. im new here

im interested to use a payment service like fastspring for a payware project ( a little game )

but i would like to know your experiences with this service provider.. or if you use another one that works for you .. it would be nice to hear your experiences as well

Thanks in advance!!

[elias4444]

I'd have to say that my experience with Fastspring thus far has been hugely positive. Their site is professional, and I was assigned a rep. that has taken really good care of my needs (and even went above and beyond the call of duty a couple of times).

For some background, I narrowed things down between BMTMicro and Fastspring, and actually set up both. BMT also had very good service, and I would have considered them more if I had been able to access their website (for some reason, I can't access most of their websites from my Comcast account - although other service providers don't seem to have that problem).

I really like Fastspring's account management interface (VERY slick). Lot's of reports are available and their website is easy to navigate and it's equally as easy to setup new products.

About the only things I've found that I haven't liked are the lack of a built-in affiliate program (they interface well with others, but I would have preferred a built-in program like BMT has), and the lack of pre-accounting reports (so I can see expected deposit dates and amounts, as well as breakdowns of percentages). Although I've noticed that Fastspring has been very straight forward with their 8.9% cut, and I haven't seen any "surprise" fees, so the pre-accounting reports may not be needed.

Hope that helps. If you have some specific questions, let me know.

[MichaelM]

I have been pleased with my experience with Fastspring (FS). I previously used Register Now exclusively (still do use RegNow for reasons below). The staff is professional and courteous. FS employees are very responsive to direct emails, although how long this can continue as they grow will be something to watch. In any case, it is refreshing at present!

Vendor Interface

The FS vendor interface is easy to use and presents some useful graphics. I would like to see the "Product Sales" bar graph allow summary by multiple weeks or months, on a per-product basis, to better show long-term trends. The "Sales" line graph of gross daily sales is useful to identify short-term trends so you can take some appropriate action to investigate or correct any problems.

FS also offers at least a couple of different vendor notification email formats. The default format was not conducive to my own database import methods, but FS quickly responded to my request and provided an email format that only required 20 minutes of programming for import.

The vendor interface does not offer transaction-based accounting details. This means you can't presently see the exact breakout of profit, transactions charges, etc. for a given order. However, FS's calculation of transactions charges based on a simple percentage has been accurate from what I can tell to date. FS pays quickly from the perspective of a vendor based in the USA (very fast direct deposits), but they do require about a two week backlog.

Ordering Process

One thing I really do like about FS's ordering page is that it can be made "flat" -- meaning all details can be entered on the first page of the ordering form instead of multiple pages of entry. I found that I lost a large percentage of customers from page-to-page with other services. I do currently miss the ability to take gift orders but FS says they are working on that.

I have had problems with other services granting orders and then generating a refund after the product was delivered. I was continually told by other vendors that this is the "cost of doing business". Maybe so, but I still do not like it. It was also creating problems in that many of the refunded orders were legit and customers would later ask for support only to be told they were not a customer. Some customers travel on business and their billing address doesn't always match their IP address at time of order. FS seems to better accommodate such issues so far and I have not had as many problems with non-USA orders.

FS presently clears orders in US dollars only in my understanding. I would like to see support for other major currencies, mainly those of all English-speaking countries (GB, CA, AU) and Euros.

Another nice feature is that as a vendor you can create a "custom order" that allows your customer to quickly order additional add-ons that they might have overlooked during the original order process. Did a customer forget to order the CD? Simply create a custom order and send the URL. The customer simply visits the form and provides the payment details.

It is my understanding that FS does not currently offer immediate, web-based product delivery at the end of the ordering process. Your customers must wait for email delivery to obtain the product. I have had only a very small percentage of customers complain about the delivery delay to date. FS's vendor interface provides for easy editing of the delivery email content to match your needs.

FS does send a couple of email notices to customers that act as "reminders" about the charge that is about to appear on the customer's cc account (many customers forget from whom they ordered your product when the cc bill arrives). This is not something I particularly like, but the email is concise and relatively unobtrusive.

Affiliate Support

I haven't thoroughly investigated the affiliate integration that Fastspring offers and for that reason I still remain with RegNow as well. I do know that I am not a fan of Commission Junction (CJ) as an affiliate myself. Out of all the programs I've promoted as an affiliate of CJ, I only ever got paid by two: Zappos and Blair.com. I've sent thousands of clicks to other CJ partners and never saw a penny. So you might say I should happily join CJ for the "free" advertising, but I'd rather promote an affiliate program that offers my affiliates real rewards for actual sales referrals.

Affiliate promotion is not something to be dismissed since I find that something on the order of 30% to 50% of my business is generated through affiliate referrals (the exact percentage often fluctuates with how Google search chooses to rank my affiliates' promotional pages). FS says they offer various affiliate alternatives, but I haven't found detailed descriptions of how the process works, or yet made any serious effort to try any particular program (ShareASale is too expensive IMO). However, what I've seen so far indicates the tracking is cookie-based for commissions which in my experience is a miserable failure, especially with all the cookie-blockers that saturate the Windows market. RegNow's model where the affiliate id is embedded in the ordering URL seems to work far better.

I would be interested in hearing from other FS vendors about affiliate options and effectiveness.

[MindToy Games]

Can I ask if RegNow's affiliate program is worth joining for the $20 one-time fee? Do you get enough sales off of it to matter (assuming you promote it decently)? Can anyone else here give me some numbers on this?