[bnystrom]

Well, we just got our new "terms" for selling though H**dango... and to no great surprise their percentage went UP again.
Yup, each time you buy a product through H**dango, they now take a 50% cut. If H**dango decides to have a site wide "20%" off deal, you (the customer) pay 20% less and H**dango still take an additional 50% cut from the remainder price. Those site wide sales that the retailers do comes directly out of the developers pocket no matter if they want to or not. All of a sudden a $20 product sells for $16, and the developer gets $8.

Here's what I still don't get. Once a company/developer sells over "X" number of dollars of product for the year, that cut goes up even higher. Yup. The more H**dango makes off of our products, the more percentage they take. Nothing like being penalized for doing well. They claim all of this is for "support" and "promotion". I've yet to actually feel they've given any of our customers any "support" for product specific question and they don't seem to "promote" your product unless you belong to one of the big conglomerates (Handmark, Iambic, etc.) Companies that get mention in they newsletters seem to be those that sell exclusively through them and use them as a "shopping cart" directly from their site.

I won't even go into what whole "Software protection" thing. You folks know you can always come to our site and redownload for free. i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif

So, why do we still post our products on retail sites like PG and H**dango? Mainly for exposure to those that wouldn't find us any other way. But that is even becoming less promising. Retailers used to make it easy for visitors to tell what software is new and updated. Items that are posted as new or updated usually provide a sales bump and download increase for a short period of time. But now retail sites are more about promoting their "top sellers", and it's hard to become a "top seller" on these sites unless you sell exclusively through them or have deep pockets to "pay" them to promote your products (and no, "paying" them to promote doesn't include any of that 50%-80% they are taking).

Oh well, enough ranting and venting for now. I guess if I don't like it we have "options", but we still feel "they" are a necessary evil.

[AlienAbductee]

It's no better from the customer side. As a matter of fact, I've vowed to never buy another product through Handango. To make a long, sour story at least a little shorter...

The last package I bought from them was cell phone access software developed by Avanquest, branded by Motorola, and sold by Handango. (Three hands in the pie. What a stinky business model.) The application was full of bugs. Since Handango was the point of purchase, I was required to start the troubleshooting/repair/RMA process with them. Two weeks and many emails and phone calls later (with nothing accomplished) I started navigating the murky waters of Motorola and Avanquest on my on...and got nowhere there as well. Handango refused to offer a refund until I had tried "appropriate troubleshooting steps", but communication was a brick wall; I couldn't find anyone who could guide me through the "appropriate troubleshooting steps."

After much frustration I finally deleted the application and contested the charge with my credit card company. About a week later I got an email from a Handango rep telling me that if I refused the charge they would be tagged with a "fraud" penalty, and I would never be able to buy from them again. I guess he thought that was punishment or something. I replied that that sounded like a righteous deal to me. Two weeks later I received an email from Avanquest with the updated/fixed app attached. I deleted the email.

Fire them. They're not in your league.

Dave

[kunkel321]

FWIW, I agree with the alien guy--fire them.
I spend a lot of resources (time, energy, $) paruzing what's available in the palm apps-world.
I've never been impressed with h**dango.
I don't recall ever learning of a new product there that I didn't already know about from other sources....
-steve
(ps "paruzing" is a word I just made up.)

[bnystrom]

Guess I'm not the only one with a RANT

And another HERE
and HERE
and HERE
and HERE
and HERE

... and the list goes on.

[TMDH]

Bryan,
I'm certainly no expert in these areas, but why don't you sell direct? Seems Googling could find you under many different keywords. You could set up a shopping cart site, accept paypal payments, or work with your bank to accept credit card funds.
Lots of folks doing it. You could also offer an incentive to buy from your site. Everyone shops and is likely to find your site easily.
I do think what they are charging you sounds high. Your products are very unique, so you might also consider pulling them from their site.

[bnystrom]

We do sell direct. There is a Natara store when you buy directly from our site.

We still need the retailers for exposure.

Retailers do not allow you to undersell them. If we sell on Handango for $25, it's against their contract agreements for us to sell at anything lower ourselves.

The Natara store still sells more than the other 3 or 4 vendors combined.

Googling is great when you know what it is you are looking for. Most of the customers that we attract through retailers just "happen upon" our products there. They are usually customers who are on Handango or PG mainly because they know that is the one stop place to look for "stuff" for their devices. Most of our direct sales are due to either word of mouth, customers who bought at one time through a retailer but have now become familiar with our product line, or, like you said, those that have done a search and found us. There is probably also a very small percentage that come to our site due to "advertising & marketing" we do (ads on blogs site such as Palm Addict, print ads in PalmTop User, or Google Ads). The highest percentage of new customers I would imagine is because of folks like you spreading the word about one of our products.

(We get a fair number of people who also get fed up with any lack of progress and nothing be excuses from competing product lines and read other users on their forums and user group recommending us.)

Still, even though Handango and PocketGear are not selling as much as we do directly, they do make some sales. It's just that they do nothing that justifies the high percentage they take or freedom they have to do what they want with your product.

Trust me folks, we have more than once over the years had status meetings at Natara where we have considered removing products from Handango or PG. But it's hard to guestimate the repercussions of doing it... and once you pull and then try to get back in you are really at their mercy. And, as some of the comments on some of those links I pointed to said, it would take action from some of the top 5% of sellers (the MegaHouses) to actually shake up the way Handango does business. And the problem is, none of this affects those sellers. They write their own ticket (and Handango makes of for the losses by twisting the screws tighter on the smaller guys like us) Makes me wonder if Astraware "sold out" to Handmark due to the advantages of their sales channels.

[TMDH]

OK, one final thought. Does it make sense to split your application into a handheld version and a desktop version? Offer only the handheld software on the handheld sites (but mention there is a desktop version available). Then, offer/sell the complete package (handheld bundled with desktop) directly on your Natara site. I see several advantages with this approach:

1. Bonsai can stand on it's own as a desktop application. Some folks may not be interested in the handheld. These customers won't be browsing the handheld sites.
2. You'd reduce your high commission/low margin sales, but maintain your exposure.
3. I think most folks would prefer the desktop/handheld bundle and would be able to find it at your site. Personally, I usually prefer the software authors site as there is better information and they care more than the resellers sites.

[Dwight]

From another customer point of view, the only reseller that offers any benifit as far as I can tell is Mobihand. I was a long term customer of PG, but when they sold out last year, the record of all of my old purchases disapeared and the "last updated" date for all software on their site seems to have been changed to the date they merged. Additionally, the downloads of purchases I have made from the PG site since their merger have all been outdated versions of the software. Each time, the result was that the registration code provided did not work. I had to contact the developer to get the updated version. The registration code was for the updated product, but the version on PG's site was the old version.

MobiHand continues to send me updates when applications that I purchased from their site are updated, which is a big plus for me. They also keep a very clean list of everything I have purchased from them and the current version is easy to pick out. If I was sure that purchasing software from the developer's sites would result in getting me the notices of updates I would have been purchasing directly from developer sites from the start.

Not only does H@!)(&#gooo not send updates when products are updated, I think they even charge a fee to allow for re-downloading software that was originally purchased from their site. Luckily, the only time I have every tried to purchase anything from them, they held the purchase for review so long that I cancelled before they charged me. As soon as I cancelled the order, they sent me the approval and a notice saying that I could not cancel except for conditions stated in their user agreement. Luckily their user agreement states that if I am unable to download the software due to blah, blah... then I would be eligible to cancel the order for a full refund. I replied back that I had already decided to cancel the order and had puchased and downloaded the software from another vendor.

Since I can't predict what it would do to your exposure if you quit using PG and Han@#$^&*&!!! I won't make any recommendations, but I would guess that it would be their loss.

Dwight...

[Marco]

As a long-time Palm OS user, I have "boycotted" the PalmG*** and Hand***o type sites for years precisely because of their treatment of developers. It continues to worsen, evidently.

After much consideration, I now use those sites parasitically; that is, I go there and browse Palm OS software but then Google the developer and buy from them directly if possible. Those sites deserve a fair cut as a distribution channel, but the terms of the relationship as grown more and more lopsided. Unless and until their behavior changes vis-a-vis developers, that's how I'm doing business.

I wonder if the terms in, say, the iPod Apps store are as bad?

By the way, I plan on staying with the Palm OS indefinitely (and have already squirrelled away 2 spare Palm T|X's). It is very unlikely that I will choose a smart phone platform until they are available on prepaid plans, and keeping my mobile computing separate from my mobile phone just fits my style.

Cheers!