For sometime now Blue and I have been selling crap on CD on eBay.
I've also put my CDs on my maths shop. However about 6 months ago I decided I'd improve the content of my maths program and make it possible for the software to be downloadable instead.
You can sell downloadable software on ebay anymore, so CDs are the only option.
We do still sell a number of CDs each week making it worthwhile to do so. However in the new year eBay are making yet more changes (something they do every few months, it seems) this change will mean less exposure for items. Previously and at present, you can list about 15 items in the "Buy it Now" format for 30 days.
I've always written the users license to the CD and therefore burn a specific CD for each customer. This has been a real pain and I had planned to produce a key code along with the user details, in a box and have the user enter all these details. Thus allowing me to create all my CDs before hand.
However with these forthcoming eBay changes I'm not sure where its going to be worth it.
The fact that people still buy CDs amazes me, but they do, so I am tempted to put the work into this new licensing approach, but I fear it will be a waste of time due to this lack of exposure on eBay.
I may be able to sell these CDs online via my shop, but I'm just not sure. eBay has a niche, where items seem like their cheap and in a jumble sale, but site probably won't come across like that.
I guess I could finish of my downloadable programs, but this will shut the door for me on eBay, apart from selling / burning cds for eBay customers as I do now.
Thoughts?
by
JM
I'm not sure how cheaply you sell the CDs on ebay but it
ReplyDeletesounds like a lot of work if you have to place custom
contents on each CD.
Could all the CDs be exact duplicates and then you
simply give each customer a unique key via some other
means, e.g. print the unlock code on a label and base
the unlock code on the key mechanism you have for
IdeasPad?
Could you simply print the unlock code on a sheet of
paper and include it with the CD?
Alternatively, could you simply sell unlocked copies!
Or ... sell copies that require registration/ activation via
the internet?
Yeah, thats kind of what I was saying, it is a lot of work to produce / send out custom cds.
ReplyDeleteI had thought about labels, but this brings me on to another problem.
I can't believe I forgot to mention this to start with :(
At the moment with eBay my ordering system (which I wrote over the years) logs in to paypal and gets all the details and stores it in my database it then produces the key etc.
I have to enter details manually when i get a cheque, however I get very few cheques.
But now with a shop I have Google Checkout payments and paypal payments (where the data in paypal is limited) and most of the data is in my shop.
So I now have 3 sources of data instead of 1.
So if I do produce a license block, I've going to have to grab the address info into my block generator app then produce the label or print onto the bottom of the invoice.
So if you compare this to say selling some books, I have to grab two lots of information and print out two things.
I know its simpler that producing a custom cd, but it still seems a lot more work.
I could require it to be activated on the internet but this produces more problems, selling cds on ebay, I don't think your allowed to require internet access, or it seems to make sense that someone
buying a cd doesn't have net access.
Also I'd still need to put all my orders into one system for them to activate.
Comments?
Sounds like lots of work, especially if eBay require that
ReplyDeleteyou don't force internet registration.
Maybe you should remove all registration/ unlock
requirements and sell unlocked software via eBay. I
wouldn't be happy doing this but if eBay sells CDs and no
other outlet does, you may have to be radical to continue
using eBay.
Are sales via your shop sites increasing?
I guess i could be jumping the gun a bit, I should perhaps wait and see what happens to eBay sales once changes are in effect.
ReplyDeleteThe maths site has a trickle of sales. But I'm sure the pad file program has had a small impact on sales.
I've had 2 sheep sales on the jewellery site now and that has to be as a result of the pad file program.
So more of that same on that front I think. More pad file programs I mean.
Glad to hear the PAD file strategy works for you. Do you
ReplyDeletethink it ould work for SoftwareLode? What sort of
program could I make?
Well with my strategy I've aimed at one page and don't really expect a lot of traffic. I'd like to be proved wrong and with time this might change, hopefully.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm not sure its worth doing for just a home page.
Having said this, this is all uncharted territory for us, you could bed the strategy to suit you and come up with different results.
The program idea is the most difficult I feel, hence our discussion on it. Guess you have to think about acceptance, relevance and the time you want to put into it.
In hindsight, not that I've done anything wrong previously, I think you need to use good keywords in your program name and make that functionality be relevant to your site, where possible. For me on
my shop sites, this hasn't been possible, but for a download site... there you go, a downloading program :)
For PAD file promotion for SoftwareLode, how do you
ReplyDeletethink I'd get on if I rebranded my free submitter and
submitted it? I could chop out some functions, use a
different colour scheme, remove some of the directories
etc.
Thoughts?
Yeah you could do.
ReplyDeleteI think its download pipe they have a web service (I think thats what it is) which when windows find a file with an unknown file extension it takes you to a page on their site which tells you about it.
To be honest, I don't see why you should do several different programs.
But I do think your submitter is a good idea, but strictly speaking it lacks relevance.
I can't say selling cds to people for my download software is too much of a priority as the sales are poor in general.
ReplyDeleteHowever, since I only had to end a small amount of eBay listings last night I think I should still get some sales, near to what I get at the moment.
Therefore if you guys don't mind I'd like your thoughts on how I can streamline the work I have to do to get my orders out the door. I've talking about eBay and shop site orders, which will come from
PayPal or Google Checkout.
There are several different flows.
A.
eBay order => PayPal Payment => parse details to my order prog => print packing slip , Label and license key slip.
B.
eBay order => Cheque Payment => manually enter into my order prog => print packing slip , Label and license key slip.
C.
Shop Site Order => PayPal Payment => print packing slip from shop admin, copy Label details from shop admin and license key slip.
D.
Shop Site Order => Google Checkout Payment => Copy details into my order prog => print packing slip , Label and license key slip.
I'm most geared up to do A as I've re-developed (over the years) my ordering system to handle this process.
Programmatic ally logging into the sites and parsing details is possible and is what I do with process A at the moment, but it seems a lot of work to do this for C and D as well.
I guess in an idea world, I should but some of that paper with a label on the top, then peal off the label and stick on the mailer / jiffy. Then I could print the license slip on the bottom.
However if I do that I need all my order details in one place and I will have to log in and parse everything.
You start to wonder if its worth it.
Comments?
Option A+B but for everything, parse paypal emails via Outlook into a database.
ReplyDeleteDownloadable items auto gen reg code and auto email download link plus code.
CD Orders Mail merge the database to a word doc print and mark as done.
Postal Orders enter payment details into database and print order form / label via mail merge doc.
Email me if you want my outlook vba code.
You've really confused me with all that.
ReplyDelete>Option A+B but for everything
But for everything?
Downloadable items?
Basically set outlook up to parse incoming paypal and google checkout emails.
ReplyDeleteThen in your code / database add conditions so if productname = downloadable maths software your parse would populate database then create a reg code and email the buyer straight away.
If the product was Maths software CD parse the payment email into database then when you do your orders daily etc print them from a word mail merge doc.
It's a basic setup but effective in the days when I was getting 400+ orders a month on ebay it saved me no ends of time.
I've MSN'd you my outlook vba code.
Blue, thanks for your code I made some progress with it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the google checkout emails don't hold any data, I'm still going to have to login and grab the info for them.
I reckon I might have a look at using programmatic method of doing it, whats it called again? what do I use?
Are you sure? my google checkout emails contain:
ReplyDeleteName
Address
Email
Price
Postage
Grand Total
Product Name
Quantity
Product Code
The only extra thing I did not think about is that you would need to log into google checkout to confirm the order is shipped.
Yeah, your looking at the cube cart email
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