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Grog: the Green Moon Blog
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Grog - Green Moon Blog
Nov
20
Written by:
Lisa Patrick
Friday, November 20, 2009 11:14 AM
Some organizations have asked us about the quickest, simplest way to set up an e-commerce system for them to sell their publications, software, and podcasts.
PayPal buttons are easy to set up and PayPal’s standard payments product has no monthly fees. However, once payment has been accepted, if you want to control what the purchaser can download from your site you will need to set up a decent amount of coding to track and allow access to your product(s) for specific users, and consider many other details.
When it comes to shopping cart software for your website, there are a lot of options. Most shopping cart systems are set up for typical retail applications – allowing users to select from a variety of products, account for taxes, discounts, and shipping costs. Tailoring them for product downloads can be cumbersome and often complicated database links are required.
So, we decided it would be worthwhile to look for some systems that would handle payments for website product downloads and would be simple to set up and use.
Reliability, price, features and customer service are important factors to consider in your choice.
E-junkie and FastSpring are two popular choices.
What differentiates one from another?
E –junkie is known for being quick, three step setup process, easy use, and economical. Plus, “e-junkie has no transaction limit, no bandwith limit, no setup fee and no transaction fee.”
FastSpring prides itself on their “rapid-response and personalized service.” You also receive a dedicated account manager who is guaranteed to respond to your question in less than 12 hours, they “treat you like gold.” Like e-junkie, FastSpring does not have sign-up, setup, or “special” add-on fees.
E-Junkie supports the sale of downloads and tangible goods, where as FastSpring supports the sale of software, games, e-books, or other digital products.
The breakdown: E-Junkie is quick, economical and easy to use. They offer a variety of features starting at $5.00 a month for selling up to ten products. Nonprofit organizations may qualify for FREE services. Currently they are offering a four month free trial promotion through their Twitter page, just by using the code: mevio.
FastSpring is customer service driven and innovative. They offer an innovative service, which they recently introduced on their blog that they are going to start to promote Mail-In Rebate Promotions, a first for online e-commerce.
FastSpring’s demo provides an overview of their service, while e-junkie offers a Getting Started Guide.
Why does FastSpring think they are the best?
I’ll break down each service in the following areas: Features, Fees, Technology, Ease of Use, Marketing and Payment Structure.
Features
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E-Junkie
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FastSpring
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Easy to use, centrally managed service
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Multiple Customer Payment Methods Accepted, Plus Manual Order Processing
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Digital storage & delivery for files and codes
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Dedicated Account Manager & Rapid-Response Customer Service
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Supports multiple payment processors
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Multi-Currency & Translated Order Pages
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Copy-paste Buy Now & Shopping Cart Buttons
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Branded, Fully-Customized Order Pages
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Supports variants for tangible products
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Cross-Sell Optimization
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Supports variants for tangible products
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Coupons, License Types & Price Testing
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Sales tax and VAT calculator
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Online Advertising Tracking & Google™ Analytics Support
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Packaged products
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Visual Sales Reports
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Inventory management
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International Customer Tax Collection & Management
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Product promotion
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Flexible Order Page Setups Including Shopping Cart Option
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Discount codes
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Google AdWords Expert Audit & Campaign Management
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Affiliate management
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SEO Audit & Actionable Consultation
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Autoresponder, updates & newsletters
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Affiliate Program Expert Audit & Campaign Management
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Sales tracking, built in support for Google Analytics
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Support for Complex Product Configuration Scenarios & Surveys
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Customization
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Free, Secure Download File Hosting
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Download link renewals
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Reseller Partner Management
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Easy integration with 3rd party and custom services
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Software Marketing & Distribution
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Logs & e-mail notifications
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Instant Web-Based Fulfillment
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Globalized
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Flexible Client Payment Options
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E-junkie uses SPF, Yahoo DomainKeys and is whitelisted by AOL for best possible email delivery rate.
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Chargeback & Partial Refund Management
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E-junkie is certified by PayPal and Google Checkout. E-junkie is secured by GeoTrust.
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Digital Rights Management (DRM)
Software Backup CD & Extended Download Support
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Visually-Appealing, Search Engine-Friendly Order Page URLs
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Multi-Store Management, Plus Usage Tracking & Unique Logins
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Pre-Launch Testing Environment
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FEES
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E-Junkie
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FastSpring
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ONLY charges a monthly subscription fee; there is no bandwidth cost, no per transaction fee or any other hidden fee. You can subscribe to any of the plans below from the admin depending on your requirements. You only need to subscribe when your free trial is over. Example: Price Chart
10 products = $5.00/month
150 products = $16/month
1000 products = $50/month
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Reasonable pricing structure of either just 5.9% plus $.95 per transaction or a flat rate of 8.9% (minimum fee of $0.75 per transaction). You select your preferred pricing structure. Both pricing options include identical features, including all merchant processing expenses. There are no sign-up, "special" add-on, or hidden fees, you are not "nickel and dimed", and you are not locked into a contract term, so it's risk-free to use the service.
During sign-up, specify in the comments field which pricing option you prefer; the default otherwise assumed is 8.9%.
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30-Day Money Back Guarantee: If you are dissatisfied for any reason, E-junkie will refund your last month's payment upon request.
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Free Sign Up and Setup
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Non-profit organizations (charitable, humanitarian or otherwise just plain awesome causes in our opinion) can qualify for FREE E-junkie services. Please contact us to inform us of your nonprofit status and we will waive your monthly fee.
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Cancel Anytime
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You DO NOT have to subscribe or pay anything to register. You ONLY have to pay after the 1st week of FREE TRIAL and ONLY IF you decide to keep using the service as a Merchant selling your own products.
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For special situations, FastSpring occasionally offers specialized pricing. You can request a specialized price quote by emailing us at: info@fastspring.com
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Twitter Free Code - 4 Months Free Code from Twitter - You can get 4 months free if you register using the code mevio. Posted 11:21 AM Nov 10th from web http://twitter.com/ejunkie/status/5596753621
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The minimum fee per transaction is $0.75. Minimum account balance required for payment is $25.00 unless you require payment via international wire, in which case the minimum is $100.00 and there is a fee of $15.00 per payment to cover our international bank wire fees.
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Technology & Ease of Use
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E-Junkie
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FastSpring
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E-junkie's shopping cart buttons bring up the shopping cart in your site. You don't have to install anything. Just copy paste the buttons we provide and you are done. Your buyers don't have to deal with annoying pop-ups. The smooth experience for buyers certainly means much better conversion rates for you.
It has a built shipping, sales tax and VAT calculator. Tied with E-junkie's inventory management features, you can use it to virtually sell anything. It works with PayPal Website Standard Payments, PayPal Website Payments Pro, Google Checkout and Authorize.Net.
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FastSpring's Java platform overcomes issues of growing complexity and maintainability that plague legacy e-commerce systems. Unlike other systems, FastSpring is architected from the ground up to be extremely flexible, adaptable, and configurable. No other e-commerce provider can adapt to changing client needs as quickly as FastSpring. Our order pages' extensive customization and merchandising capabilities often result in significant increases in our clients' revenue. Rest easy knowing our server uptime has been a steady 99.86% for the 12 months prior to August 2009.
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You do not need to install anything on your site or your computer to use E-junkie.
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FastSpring’s easy-to-use and fast interface provides for an enjoyable and time-efficient experience when you manage your store.
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Marketing
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E-Junkie
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FastSpring
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Discount Codes- You can create flat price discount codes for each product.
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While most e-commerce systems are built from a technology perspective, every segment of the FastSpring system was designed from a marketer's standpoint with the intention of helping increase your revenue.
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Order level discounts codes.
You can create percentage discount codes based on order total and shipping amount of the complete order
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The FastSpring team has experience generating over $40 million in revenue selling its own software products through prior ventures, and as part of the FastSpring service we offer marketing guidance, ideas, and suggested new distribution channels upon request.
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Send updates and newsletters to any buyer group. Buyers are automatically placed in the group of the product they have purchased and you can also manually add other people to buyer groups.
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Increase your profits significantly by offering a mail-in rebate to your customers to lower your product price, in order to increase the number of units you sell without sacrificing revenue per order and/or instead of giving out coupons in your promotions. Rebate checks in 2008 totaled over $6 billion; it’s a hugely successful and popular merchandising tool. This is the first online-based rebate service of its kind, and it is not available through any other e-commerce service!
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Autoresponder
For each product, you can configure an email with a thank you note, instructions and anything else you want
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FastSpring’s founding team has generated over $40 million in product revenue through software marketing, having run Internet marketing for highly-successful software companies and products, including Google™, Picasa™, GoToMyPC®, Morpheus, and NextUp. FastSpring clients are regularly provided valuable suggestions for trying new revenue-producing software distribution channels.
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Supports Google adwords tracking, Yahoo overture, MSN Adcenter, AdBrite and other tracking programs as well
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We will review your existing AdWords campaign to specify how you can increase your Google profits.
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Built-in support for Google Analytics
E-junkie cart buttons are pre-integrated with Google Analytics to track conversions, clicks, goals etc. All you need to do is to place the code Google Analytics provides you on the page where you are using E-junkie buttons
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Upon request, we will provide an initial assessment of your web site, products, and the SEO opportunity available to you to identify potential for new revenue streams via organic search engine traffic. No additional charge.
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Package Deals
Need to sell individual files (like MP3 tracks) as well as a group of files together (like a complete album) OR need to offer a discounted combo deal? Take advantage of our packaged product feature.
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Whether you have your own affiliate program or you use an external affiliate system such as Commission Junction, LinkShare, or countless others, we will review your program and outline how your affiliate revenue can be increased. This service, available upon request, is included as part of being a FastSpring client.
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Payment Structure
Interesting Links
Are you currently using a different e-commerce service? You can compare the fees of 23 services here. The list was created in 2007, but updated again in 2008.
Here’s a blog that shows the results from an October 2009 survey of if e-commerce which had 202 responses. The survey covered features, ease of use, reliability, support, fraud protection, ethics, value for money, and future use.
Conclusion
E-Junkie and FastSpring are two of the leaders in e-commerce software, and they’re both economical, reliable and feature rich. The first step in your decision on choosing is to make a list of the features you are going to need. Then project what features you will need in the future, so that you have a system that will grow with your business. Decide if you’d like a quick and easy system or one that provides a superior customer service and new innovative products. Once your shopping cart is up and running, you can watch your sales grow.
Copyright ©2009 Green Moon Solutions, LLC
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