Moved from "mycommerce" to "FastSpring"... why?

[axel.hennig]

The subject says it all.

Prevousliy located in Germany (mycommercy and DigitalRiver), now USA (FastSpring). Correct?

And: Any downside for us?

[Mario]

Prevousliy located in Germany (mycommercy and DigitalRiver), now USA (FastSpring). Correct?

Correct. When I started, I selected the German company share-it! in Cologne. Awesome people, great service.
After some years, they became MyCommerce which then was bought by the U.S. company Digital River. Worked fine and reliable for years, no complaints. About six or eight months ago, the first "signs" showed up. Changes to contracts, service reduced to an online ticket system, payout schedule doubled to two months+,...

When you google for digital river not paying vendors, you'll understand why I had to switch.

I have not received any payment for any IMatch sale since October 2024. Everybody who bought IMatch or an upgrade since October paid good money to Digital River, got an IMatch license, but I never got the money. And probably never will. This is not a problem for the customer, of course. The IMatch licenses are valid.

Digital River or MyCommerce don't communicate anymore, except with hollow phrases in their "support" system.

Digital River also moved their place of business to Minnesota, to make it almost impossible for small European software vendors to sue them. Not without hiring an US lawyer, which cost more than Digital River owns me. There may be a class action, though.

I've worked hard over the past weeks to pull everything over to FastSpring. This required a lot of changes in my customer database and the APIs I have to provide to connect with FastSpring. So far, everything is working just fine.
I need some more time for testing and I want to get the first payment from FastSpring end of the month to see if things really work. Their system is great and when I've had a question, my contact Job from FastSpring always responded within a day.

I cannot release IMatch 2025 unless I'm sure payment processing works reliably and I actually get the money my customers pay to FastSpring (sans fees). I'm quite confident, though.

And: Any downside for us?

No. FastSpring is used by companies like Adobe, CaptureOne, Luminar, TechSmith and many others.
And now photools.com is happy to provide reliable and secure shopping via FastSpring. Albeit with itsy bitsy micro sales

On the upside, I've had a lot more time to test IMatch. Spending weeks running it from a users perspective, on several different computers. This helped a lot to work out some final bugs, improve smoothness of operation and solve some user-interface issues.

[mopperle]

I've read months ago about the problems many devs have with Digital River and oustanding 5 digits payments. Most devs are moving elsewhere, in Germany some use JDS, those with an international customer base move(d) to Fastspring.
And running your own shopsystem is simply impossible for small software companies.

[Mario]

I've read months ago about the problems many devs have with Digital River and oustanding 5 digits payments. Most devs are moving elsewhere, in Germany some use JDS, those with an international customer base move(d) to Fastspring.
And running your own shopsystem is simply impossible for small software companies.

The DR payment schedule was two months. The money for October should have been sent to my bank account in December. When it did not came, I opened a ticket. And, based on their bla-bla reply, I've started to look for another company who takes on the "role of merchant", which is important.

Some were relatively unknown. Some had a monthly minimum limit (e.g. 25,000US$) before they accept you. Or you have to pay very high feeds for not meeting the minimum sales. I don't make 25,000US$ per month - I'd wish, though

If you sell something internationally, you are responsible for collecting and distributing sales tax. And that's impossible for a small company, because e.g. in the US, sales tax depends on the ZIP code of the customer. And there are even weirder rules and  reglementations to follow elsewhere.

Companies like DigitalRiver or FastSpring take care of that, and also ensure that sales follow the laws of the customer's country, that embargoes are enforced etc. The also perform fraud detection etc. I could never do all that myself.

I was happy with MyCommerce / DigitalRiver for many years (since 2001) and I would have never thought that they would resort to ripping off their customers so badly.

Anyway, I'm selling IMatch licenses and upgrades via FastSpring for a week or so and it works fine. Some minor issues in my customer database initially, but all sorted out.

Another option would have been, or actually is, the Microsoft Store. Microsoft has opened the store to "regular" applications like IMatch. But if you want to sell via their store (and use their billing etc.) you have to provide your software wish an MSIX installer.

MSIX installer install applications in an isolated container, similar to smart phone apps. This means that each MSIX app gets an isolated virtual file system for folders such as "ProgramData" or "AppData". And this does not work well with IMatch, which stores it's settings database in the "ProgramData" folder accessible for all software - usually. Also, MSIX does not support services, which means IMatch Anywhere in it's current form cannot be sold via the store. I have an idea for that, though.

The benefit of MSIX is that software can be installed and removed cleanly. Windows just removes the container file. And MSIX apps are isolated and cannot fiddle with other applications data (in folders like ProgramData and AppData).

I already have a special version of IMatch which can be installed with MSIX, and it works fine. The settings database cannot be shared between users, and there are some issues to resolve with Pack & Go (which has to exchange data with IMatch). But I'm sure that I can solve this once I have more time. I already have a shop account in the Microsoft Store and will look into this again when IMatch 2025 is out and things run smoothly.

Microsoft takes a hefty cut of 15%   but they do security checks, host the application, do the billing and IMatch would be available in the store, which is ensuring for users and provides some visibility and marketing. May be worth a try in the future.