I've been thinking to use eSellerate to sell my upcoming game, since I know a few friends who already use it and they recommended it.

I've also noticed they offer a sort of portal-selling through special partnership with tucows, topdownload, 5-star shareware, etc.

Wondering if anyone has ever used them and how it worked for them. Seems a good thing, but if you get only 25-30% of the price of the game that isn't so much... maybe better keep only the advertising on download.com ?

Originally posted by Jack_Norton
I've been thinking to use eSellerate to sell my upcoming game, since I know a few friends who already use it and they recommended it.

I've also noticed they offer a sort of portal-selling through special partnership with tucows, topdownload, 5-star shareware, etc.

Wondering if anyone has ever used them and how it worked for them. Seems a good thing, but if you get only 25-30% of the price of the game that isn't so much... maybe better keep only the advertising on download.com ?

eSellerate's affilate system is based on their "Integrated eSeller" SDK. It allows customers to buy the application directly from with-in the program and also handles the affiliate sales tracking. Each affiliate portal gets a custom build and earns money from all the sales they originate on thier site.

Of the sites that you listed only 5-StarShareware requires using an affiliate program to get listed. And from the looks of it, they are partnered with RegNow and Softwrap, not eSellerate. All the other will give you placement either free or for a price. The affiliate status mostly buys you a free listing or a faster review.

Of the sites that you listed only 5-StarShareware requires using an affiliate program to get listed. And from the looks of it, they are partnered with RegNow and Softwrap, not eSellerate. All the other will give you placement either free or for a price. The affiliate status mostly buys you a free listing or a faster review.

http://www.esellerate.net/portals_partners.asp

here's their page explaining the portal thing... seems that they simplify the registration and have some free discount for their services.
But in the end, if you get only a small percentage, not sure if it is worth it.

When they're saying "Highly competitive rates - just 30%" I think you get 30% of the price of the game...! I'm not really sure if it is worth it.

No, this means the affiliate gets %30 - not the other way around.

I sell my screensaver at 15% with affiliates. The only difference between affiliates and portals that I can tell is that Portals dictate to you what the rate will be, and with affiliates YOU dictate to them what the rate will be (and they take it or leave it).

Tucows is 20% I think (IIRC), I have a portal with them (to no avail, aside from the free perks you get with Tucows for being a Portal).

As for eSellerate itself, I HIGHLY recommend them. Not only do they have decent rates and a system that works very well, but their system gives you loads of valuable info regarding your sales and hit statistics. They can tell you how many people started to buy your product and then quit without completing the order, how many people requested currency conversions, etc.. All of this info is very useful for tweaking your marketting approach.

They also offer easy-to-use features like setting up coupons with special rules like, "can only be used if the customer has purchased X", or expires on X date, etc.. But, IMHO, the coolest thing they offer is their integrated eSeller. This is an SDK they provide to you free of charge that lets your customers purchase your product from within your app itself. I've found that around 80% of my sales come from the integrated eSeller. And from what I've heard from other eSellerate publishers, they are experiencing the same.

In addition to integrated selling, the eSellerate SDK also offers you a variety of ways to control unlocking your software. You can use your own method, you can use a pre-packeged method like Armadillo, or you can use eSellerate's own custom serial number generation system which is rather flexible itself. It also has a serial number activation system that you can setup so that for a serial number to be authorized, the app must connect to the internet to varify this is still a valid serial. This allows you to limit the number of times an app can be installed, or to "black list" known stolen serial numbers so that they will no longer work.

And their support is very good too. Whenever I have a question I always get a reply from them the same day.

eSellerate offers a host of very powerful features and tools for the self-publishing developer, and I can personally recommend them highly.

Yes I already know those advantages :)
The only downside for me is that they don't provide direct payment methods for me (resident in Italy).

Thanks for the clarification about the portal-system.

When I'll release my game, rest assured I'll break your balls again if I need help :D

After reviewing their FAQ, it looks like you can get wired payments... only there's a $21 charge per payment. So I guess the only cost-free option is via check (or cheque if you are french ;) ).

...or you could always move to the US or Canada. :)

I'm using eSellerate. We had one sale with them so far, with no problems at all. However, I can say the customer support is excellent. You're assigned an account executive which takes and answers your mail. It's great to talk to an actual human being. Their web application where you control everything is extremely complete.

Originally posted by Punchey
After reviewing their FAQ, it looks like you can get wired payments... only there's a $21 charge per payment.

...or you could always move to the US or Canada. :)

That would cost you slightly more than $21, though :)

Yes I know...
I could also move to Germany or UK which are closer to Italy :p
I may not exclude to move myself from here, since it is one of the worst places to start a business in the world...! :(
but from the moment I think I'll opt for the check payment!!!

Posted by Jack_Norton
but from the moment I think I'll opt for the check payment!!!And what's wrong with wire transfers? If you are going to sell hundreds of copies per month for starters (and you MUST go for it :)), then $21 won't make the weather ;)

Hehe you're right...
I've also seen that you can opt for payment only when you reach a certain sum. So I think I'll choose wire transfer only after I reach a considerable amount, let's say 2000$, so 21$ isn't too much :D

Hey, that's a good idea, Jack.

I've been using esellerate for about a year now.
I find them very good, and the customer service is *excellent* ( they reply in a couple of hours , always in less than a day )

pros :
nice and complete interface
very good good support
they implemented my keygen algorythm ( still waiting for regnow to figure it out :s ... )
cross selling options are very cool features.

cons:
affiliate system does not use cookies so the affiliate loses a lot of sales according to me.
no multilingal paiement system, non english buyers will give up on buying the products : "buy" to be pronounced 'bwee' does not mean anything for my mum :)
they don't provide a royalty splitting system ( yet )

pat.

Yes multilingual payment system is definitel a must and they should add it soon.
The royalties too is important, if you commission work to freelancers.

what's the difference between esellerate and regnow+other registration services?

Originally posted by Jack_Norton
Yes multilingual payment system is definitel a must and they should add it soon.


Hm, "should" as in "they told me they will do that", or as in "I think they'd rather do that" ?

I'm thinking of using shareit.com mostly because they offer multilingual support (multilingual payment service are rare...). But their $2.5 minimum fee is a bit high, especially if I want to sell $10 games later (of course I can still change service, but I'd rather pick up the good one first).

To STAN:
I said "should", hoping that they would add it soon :(
Shareit is also a good service, however they rates are a bit high compared to esellerate.

About you question jih, the big difference of esellerate are the built-in "buy now" option in the installation process and also (with source code they provide) INSIDE the game.

In practice your customer can buy the game from the installation menu, and also inside the game, maybe at the end of the demo or as a menu option.

Apart for that and the lowest rates (only 10% of earnings) I don't know any other differences between it and other services.

Originally posted by Jack_Norton
Apart for that and the lowest rates (only 10% of earnings) I don't know any other differences between it and other services.

The 10% is pretty much an introductory rate, if you get over about 1K a month in sales it jumps to 15%.

Not exactly true.

You must have over $15,000.01 in revenue within the previous 12 months before it goes up to 15%. But after you pass $50,000.01, it goes down to 14%, and as you go up, it eventually gets back to 10%.

Well! I really hope to pass to 15% then!!! :D
That would mean that I've passed 15000$/year doing shareware games :)

Personally, I hope to cross back into 10% terriotory. I think that's around $5,000,000. :D

I've started glacing at esellelrate's SDK and was wondering if anyone has tried using it with Blitz with success? I guess this may be one way using c++ would have made my life eaiser (but the game is already in beta!).

-Josh

I am writing my game in blitz too, but doesn't seem that there's a way to incorporate the SDK with it (unless you make some tricky things, but I haven't managed it).
However, I'll just provide a button inside the game which will open the browser directly to the buy page of my game's website, I think I'll be enough...!