
Google ’not happy' with Android Market purchase rates, many changes coming - shawndumas
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/26/google-not-happy-with-android-market-purchase-rates-many-chan/
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wccrawford
Nuking the 24-hour return policy and replacing it with a 15-minute one was a
huge mistake. I've seen reviews of people who said they uninstalled it because
it didn't download within the 15 minutes, so they had no choice.

Sure, some people will return within 24 hours if they got enough in that
time... But seriously, if people can get sick of your game in 24 hours, I
don't blame them for refunding.

So now those devs are definitely losing sales, where before they just probably
were. I know I'm -much- less likely to purchase an app than before since I
have to have 15 minutes free to play with it, where before I could buy
something spur of the moment and then refund later that day if it's bad.

~~~
dpcan
I sell A LOT of units (games) in the Android Market.

The 15 minute window has literally been a Godsend and has had no negative
affect on sales at all.

I get far fewer people refunding minutes before the "refund window" is over
AND I only received ONE complaint from a customer who thought they still had a
24 hour window a couple days after the new Market app went live.

You are still welcome to email the developer and ask for a refund if you don't
like the game. I certainly refund money if someone hates my games, I don't
want them leaving bad comments in the Market, and I don't want their money if
they don't like my product, that wouldn't be fair.

"...where before I could buy something spur of the moment and then refund
later that day if it's bad."

I believe this is exactly why it was "nuked". If it took you a couple hours to
decide if the game is "bad", maybe it wasn't that bad and the ~$1 to ~$6 you
paid for it was adequate for the time you spent playing it - whether you liked
it or not.

When you go to an arcade, if you pump $3 into a machine, play for 4 minutes,
and decide to get a refund, do you get it? Nope. The App Market is the new
Arcade. BUT you get to keep the game to play over and over and over again for
just a few dollars.

EDIT: I'd like to add that in-app purchases will be awesome.

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wccrawford
If I bought a game and hated it, I wouldn't email the creator for a refund.
I'd either use the built-in refund interface or give a bad review. I suspect
most people are the same way.

You seem to be immune to that because you have created good games, but that is
far from the norm on the market.

Also, you have no idea how many people didn't buy your game now that they
can't refund within 24 hours. Just like piracy, it's impossible to measure
actual lost sales. You can only make a guess.

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uptown
Both app stores have room for improvement, but here are three areas where the
Android app store fail in my opinion:

1\. On my iPod Touch I have JUST the apps I use. I've removed everything else.
On my EVO I'm stuck with apps I don't want because my carrier thinks I shoud
have them (even though they'll NEVER be launched). It degrades the experience
and reduces my overall perception of the value of the apps on my phone because
it's a mix of stuff I want and stuff that's just total shit.

2\. Half their screen is consumed by the top green carousel thing. It's ugly,
takes up WAY too much space, and tries to sell me stuff that's already on my
device.

3\. No iTunes. Having a desktop-component to the sales process is powerful.

~~~
varjag
Agree with your first two points, but don't care about the last one. Windows
iTunes is the worst piece of software I've seen shipped by a major corporation
in 21st century.

~~~
pchristensen
Not disputing your point, but if I see an article about an app I like, I can
click on a link, iTunes will open to the buy page for that app and I can buy
it right away. No bookkeeping, no forgetting, no interrupting my flow to pull
out a device. iTunes sucks, but it does have some pluses.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Since the step after buying an app is playing with it, you need to pull out
your phone anyways. My phone sits on the desk next to me rather than, so
that's easy. And since a "link to an app" on Android is a QR code, I think
total time spent is about the same on either platform.

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moe
If they are not "happy" with the purchase rates then perhaps they should start
by fixing the performance of their market-app.

I'm on a fairly high-end android (Samsung Galaxy S) and it takes nearly 60
seconds to open the market-app for the first time. Over WiFi.

Yes, a full minute. I kid you not.

And the agony doesn't stop there. Moving around in the shop is choppy and
slow. 10-20 second lags are normal. Overall responsiveness is atrocious. And
that's _without_ any app-downloads going on in the background. Go figure what
happens once the phone actually begins downloading...

I don't think this is the only reason for the relatively low purchase-rates.
But it surely plays its part...

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Qz
Market load time on my HTC Droid Incredible is about 4 seconds. The green
carousel thing is laggy for maybe a second longer. After that everything is
responsive. No '10-20 second lags' whatsoever.

~~~
nickolai
same on my xperia X10. thought that's "the old breed" since it runs android
2.1 only.

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mynegation
How about they start with a decent web interface to an App Market. I am iPhone
user but for many reasons considered buying Android handset. Now, the main
criterion for me is availability of apps, and I would like to be able to
browse through app market and see what's there. But web UI is a joke! No
browsing, no categories, and (oh the irony!) no search.

~~~
mikecarlucci
I agree. Downloading Doubletwist does give you a bit of the Android Market,
but nothing like the iTunes experience. The most surprising thing is how many
of the big apps for iOS are on Android. Not all, but enough.

Unfortunately Google doesn't make access to the store as easy as it could.

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jsz0
I've noticed with the Android Market the Top Paid Apps are rarely of general
interest. I don't really want to buy ADWLauncher EX Pro. ezPDF, or the various
ROM managers for a phone I don't even own. I have no doubt they _are_ the best
selling apps but you really have to dig to find general interest stuff
sometimes. I think they should probably balance it out so
utilities/modifications don't dominate the Top Paid Apps list. Another issue
which sounds like nitpicking, but is actually kind of significant, are all the
cruddy icons. I don't know how other people respond to this but when I see a
$5 game with a bad 90's Windows shareware style icon I instantly dismiss it.
Not a big deal for non-games but I don't think it's unreasonable to assume bad
icon graphics = bad game graphics.

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dpcan
I think 2 things need to be fixed in order to sell more apps:

1) Fix the payment declined orders problem. There are a TON of these going on.

2) Add PayPal. I know some of you hate it but I get requests constantly from
people asking if they can buy my apps with PayPal.

EDIT:

3) The ability to reply directly to comments would be huge.

I think we may be losing sales because of false claims, or support requests in
Android Market comments that we cannot reply to in order to show we are
supportive, and you CAN do certain things in our apps that the commenter
thought you could not.

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atourino
I'd be happy if only I had the opportunity to buy apps, period. I can only
access apps that are free AND not US-only (so no Amazon Kindle for Android
app). While I understand that there may be some considerations I'm not aware
of, my iphone-owning friends seem perfectly happy and content to buy iphone
apps. So if Apple can do it, why can't Google? (I'm in Panama, by the way).

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nitrogen
Want to improve my market purchase rates? Get Sprint to remove the giant
upsell button right in the middle of the Epic's voicemail app.

