Personally this was a huge learning curve for me. Having started my first tutoring business at age 19 – I was using email money transfer (now termed e-money transfer) and PayPal to allow students to purchase my tutoring courses. The beauty about e-money transfer is I would get the money immediately deposited into my account and I didn’t need to pay any third-party fees. But…these days that simplicity doesn’t cut it.
You want a store front, you want your shop online to look appealing and trustworthy. Most importantly however, is you want your customers to click ‘Buy’ and have them receive your product directly into their inbox. The only way to do that is to sell using a third-party company so that you can input any digital product or service you have, into a file and when they click buy they receive it without hesitation. The days are over when I would have to check my email every half an hour in case someone purchased a course and sent me an e-money transfer. I would say YAY, but also have to quickly go to my computer, open the files and manually send them via email.
There are so many sites out there to help you get started selling. Let’s review the ones I have used:
Selz – for the free version (no monthly fees) you pay 2% off the top per purchase, plus 2.9% and 30 cents processing fee. Well worth it in my option because your store front looks very pretty (I love my color options!), you can customize AND customers can see other products you have to offer. There are upgrading options where you can pay 0% transaction fees as well. See an example of the storefront here.
Gumroad – for the free version you pay 5% plus 25 cents per transaction. They also offer a subscription service so that your customers can choose a payment plan option if you set it up as such. This is handy and wonderful for your higher priced products. See an example of the storefront here specifically with their payment plan option.
DPD – DPD is nice because it has 0% transaction fees BUT you paid $10-$30 a month. So…you still have to pay monthly whether you sell products or not. I found this a little less user friendly and harder to set up my store. It’s also too plain looking for me. See an example of the storefront here.
I have used those in the past. I still prefer Selz because of “the look”, ease of use, and analytics I can use to keep track of who is looking at my store, who checks out certain products and abandons the cart (this is useful because I can send them a personalized email pushing the sale J, how many times a product was downloaded, etc.
All in all – check all of these out and see which one fits you the best. For those starting out in business, I always suggest trying things out with the 0% monthly payments. This way you only pay when you sell something. You can do the happy dance and they only take a minor portion off the top.
Any questions?! Feel free to email me!
BIO
Hello! I’m Andrea Twarowski, an online business expert.
I help newbie or aspiring entrepreneurs build their dream business online while they may be working their day job. My specialty is helping you get started the right way by not spending a fortune until you start making your fortune. Build a business you’ve always dreamed of, the life you want, and start smiling while you work.
Visit me at my web site: www.andreatwarowski.com
