
Sellfy found way how to sell files - IvarsIndriks
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/03/09/sellfy-lets-you-sell-your-digital-goods-through-twitter-and-facebook/
======
bengarvey
Interface looks nice and the innovation here is deep links into social
networks.

Many of us have been selling digital files for a while. I originally came here
to post how expensive 5% seemed, but after looking into it, it's not a bad
deal at all.

Here's my setup: <http://www.bengarvey.com/2011/04/27/my-e-commerce-stack/>

My eproduct ( <http://kidsdungeonadventure.com> ) sells for $5.99 and I pay a
flat $5/month for most of the functionality provided by Sellify. 5% of $5.99
is $0.2995. My break even point between the services is 16.7 sales per month.
The other great thing about sellify is that with no other fees, you can safely
run it alongside with whatever setup you currently have.

Overall, I am definitely better off with the flat rate, but the appeal of a
no-cost plan is pretty enticing to newcomers.

Still, it's way better than Amazon, scribd, or other services I looked into a
year ago. Glad to see some more competition in this space.

~~~
maris
Thanks for your comment! In future we will plan to introduce some additional
plans for established sellers as well.

~~~
bengarvey
I don't think you need special plans for established sellers. Here's what
would get me on board: Convince me that your social hooks can sell more for me
or lower fees at various levels (ie. drop to 4% after 50 sales in a month)

------
xal
Incentivizing people via money discounts to share via social networks is in
direct violation to their the terms of services. It's very obvious why they
don't want this kind of spam and they all enforce this hard. They will be shut
down.

------
jh3
Has anyone had success selling e-goods with this service or similar services?
And how do they stop people from selling things they have not created?

~~~
bengarvey
Can't ever prevent it.

Treat your customers with respect, put a human face on the product, and remind
yourself that your overhead is so small you don't need to worry about it.

~~~
joering2
ok, what if one customer is emailing me all angry and cursing he claims that
another is stealing his work? which one do I respect more? and which one do I
believe if both telling me "its my work".

~~~
bengarvey
I don't understand the question. This is about you selling digital goods that
you created. Why would your customers argue?

~~~
chris11
As I understand the question it is about a person who finds their work being
sold through Sellfy without their permission.

~~~
ahoyhere
No, it's a guy who wants to start a service LIKE this one talking about what
happens as a customer support issue when somebody claims someone else is
selling their IP.

------
citricsquid
Another gumroad clone? Although this appears to have more fancy features, also
instant payment, the embed buttons look great too.

------
celticninja
How do they ensure that PayPal do not do chargebacks, as they do with other
electronic goods, once the buyer has recevied it?

~~~
Brajeshwar
That is something that really sucks with digital good selling with Paypal as
the payment gateway. They get my digital goods and then chargebacks or claims
a refund. I don't want to get in with irritants, so I refund them but they get
the download.

~~~
aparadja
Has this been an actual problem for you?

I decided to skip the chargeback shenanigans by offering my customers a no-
questions-asked money back policy. So far, less than 1% of my customers have
asked for a refund. I suspect that those who want to get my product for free
will simply torrent it rather than weasel around with chargebacks/refunds.

~~~
Brajeshwar
Well, it's less about the money and more about the irritating attitude. Yes, I
just refund them and find it to be easier to deal with than anything else.

------
sp332
So I have to make a "secret" link on my website (or use a "private" link on
SoundCloud etc.) right? And Sellify just sells the URL?

~~~
citricsquid
I just tried it out and no, they host it. You upload a file, set a price and
then when the payment is made the customer is given a download link (with a 5
download limit).

~~~
michaelbuckbee
That seems surprisingly reasonable.

~~~
ahoyhere
Pretty much all of the digital goods sales platforms work this way. This is
nothing new. Please don't credit them with inventing it. This technique has
been around for literally a decade or more.

------
tomjen3
Oh great. Now half the links on Twitter and Facebook will be spam for useless
digital crap.

------
IvarsIndriks
Guys I from my experience I created <http://indriks.com/io> in 2hours using
sellfy. But of course you can use other tools such as shopify or whatever but
that is more complicated.

~~~
dminor
I go to that page and see a bird in the background and some social widgets. Is
there supposed to be more?

~~~
citricsquid
He typoed, he forgot the s on the end:

<http://indriks.com/ios>

------
veguss
So did megaUpload

------
ahoyhere
Tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of people have been selling digital files
for years and years and years. Ever heard of Clickbank? No? Well that's
because you're not doing enough research.

The moderately interesting part is the social aspect but considering how many
times a person has to be exposed to a thing before they actually buy it, I
doubt it will make that much of a difference.

If you're serious about selling digital goods, I'd really look into a
different platform. You want something solid that's been around the block for
a while, when you're talking about creating a new business based on it. You
want more than a couple glossy social gimmicks.

(Note: I do NOT recommend ClickBank, for the skeeve factor. They are a totally
legit, well-behaved business, but they LOOK too skeevy for YOUR customers to
interact with. There are more modern, classy alternatives.)

FWIW I have sold probably around $200k of digital goods in my career so far. I
know whereof I speak.

~~~
Manfred
For others who are wondering what you _should_ use, just Google ‘Amy Hoy
selling digital goods’ (;

------
toddnessa
Sellfy provides a platform that is allowing for a further integration of
digital content into the social networks. This is the future direction of
publishing. Eventually, the models of distribution & access to information
will be further changed from what we have currently known. Authors will be
much more greatly empowered as will end users (the readers) who will have a
greater access to information as the future is reshaped by entrepreneurs.

