I’ve sold ebooks, software, reports, online services through Clickbank for the past 3 years. But they charge about 7.5% commission and a small fee for every transaction. It works out at about 10% of our sales, which is very expensive when you.

However, we like selling Digital Online Products.

• No cost to produce

• No time to deliver
• No shipping costs
• No physical production

But the 10% hurts. So, I decided to Move To Another Ecommerce Provider. Or, at least, look for one that would give a better deal.

I contacted 9 companies – these edits are from their responses. Other didn’t even send out an auto-responder!

My requirements were for the following:

• Delivery mechanism to sell digital products, such as ebooks, software, templates, reports and so on.

• Real-time credit card processing system

• Ability to manage EVERYTHING online.

Most websites listed their products features, and fees, with some interesting advice to support their claims to the NUMBER 1 and what have you…

So, I sent them an email and asked 2 specific questions about selling digital online products.

Here is what I wrote:

1. I want to sell ‘Digital products’ on my site and offer them as ‘instant downloads’ to my customers. From your site, it appears that you offer such as service.

I would like some CLARIFICATION on how this process works, ESPECIALLY if a customer buys more than one product.

If they buy one item, they can be directed to a download page. That I can understand, But, how would this work, if (i.e. they used a shopping cart) and downloaded two or three products.

2. I assume I need a Merchant Account to do this.
What is the price for this service? I’m based in Europe if this makes any difference.

Here are the responses (with minor edits), in no order of preference:

PayDotCom

1. PayDotCom is a marketplace where you show your products.

Customers purchase them and then are taken to a download page you have setup. All this information is input into your product setup.

PayDotCom currently does not offer a shopping cart, but I understand that is coming in the near future.

2. You do not need a merchant account. All transactions are processed through PayPal or StormPay.

Ivan – sounds good, expect no shopping cart. They can only buy 1 item at a time. Big problem if your customer likes your products and want to make multiple purchases.

1shoppingcart.com

1. If the client buys more then one product they will be given multiple download links on the
download page. Basically they will be given a

separate download link for each digital product.

2. As for the merchant account, where in Europe do you live?

Ivan – Have updated them that in I’m in Ireland.

Awaiting response at the time of writing.

Stormpay

Straight from auto-responder land:

“To create StormPay payment buttons for your web site, log into your StormPay account and click the “Sell” link. Next, choose the type of payment button you want to create (ie: single item, subscription, or shopping cart). After you enter the details into the form, html will be auto generated for you to paste into your web site. For advanced button codes, click the “Integration
Manual” link which can be found at the bottom of any StormPay.com web page.”

Some of the answers are in here, but it is hard work. You’d think they would make a bit more effort, especially as they are competing with Paypal.

GoDaddy

I host with these guys and they are great. We got off to a flying start but then…

“1. They would receive an email to download the product after they have purchased it.

2. To answer your second question however, we won’t offer international Merchant accounts, also if your planning on using this shopping cart in Europe, this would not be feasible since it’s required to be in the United States to function properly.”

I didn’t understand the second part. Why would it not be feasible? Is it a legal issue or something?

“Quick Shopping Cart is currently only designed to work with U.S. addresses.”

Sounds like a legal issue to me.

And this was added:

“Unfortunately we can not state all reasons why this is not currently available for other countries.”

Why?

2Checkout

Clickbank’s main rival, so I had high hopes they’d out-do their rivals.

Here is what happened:

1. “Yes we do allow vendors to sell digital products and allow them a way to redirect the customer to a download url.”

U

nfortunately if a customer purchases multiple downloads a simple url redirect will only take the customer to the approved url for the last item they ordered. You would have to build your own script that took the correct item paramaters from the 2co sale and populated a database that would decide what downloads would be on an active download page.

Or you could just email download links to the customers.

2. 2co charges a one time startup fee of $49.00. After that you will be charged is 5.5% of the sale and $0.45 per transaction.

Did you like the part about “build your own script that took the correct item paramaters”?

Could you do this? Probably not, and neither can I.

I have asked for a generic script if they have one lying around. Nothing back yet.

Quick Tip

Most answered the first question only.

My suggestion is to ask *1 question only* when contacting Customer Service.

Most never addressed the second part, or, if they did, very fleetingly.

Almost none addressed the question about being outside the US.

Several companies never got back to me. Maybe when they saw I was outside the US, they didn’t bother to waste the time responding. At least, these companies did, so let’s give them credit for that.

Right Now

As things stand, I’m staying with Clickbank though I have started to develop an alternative buying option with Paypal.

More of that in the next posting.

Thanks,

Ivan

PS: Let me know if you’ve found any companies that provide these services, especially if you are also outside the USA.