Fifteen years ago, I began developing a software program and began selling it online. To process orders and distribute activation keys, I chose to use a service called SWreg. Eventually, SWReg was acquired by a company called Digital River and rolled into an even better service called RegNow. RegNow had a really good reseller program with websites and IT providers who would sign up to resell my app. The RegNow support people were based in the U.S., and were always very friendly and eager to help when you needed them.
A few years ago, Digital River decided to merge RegNow with Share-It, another one of their platforms based in Germany, under the MyCommerce marketing banner. As a result of this, I was required to re-enter all of the information from RegNow into the Share-It platform. The process was disruptive. It was a lot of work to make this change, since by now I had a portfolio of about a dozen products I was offering, and I had to copy and upload graphics, change my software activation scheme, and export/import text in several different languages. I also underwent a rigorous and unpleasant 'know your customer' process through Share-It. It took me a week to redo everything and jump through their hoops. But I made it.
After the changeover, I found that when I had a question, the Share-It team would take longer to get back to me, often the response was not helpful, or my question was misunderstood. Oh well. I persevered and finally got to the other side of that intensive process.
The more serious impact to me after the change from RegNow to Share-It is that I lost my RegNow resellers. I was assured I could tap into the Share-It reseller program. However, the Share-It program proved to be much less effective for my products. Most of these Share-It resellers are basically just 'discounter' website that rebate the commission I pay them back to buyers. Instead of seeing these 'resellers' as complimentary to my marketing efforts, it became clear that they were competitors intent on selling my product cheap.
But I hung in, thinking that I things would be better eventually. Indeed, slowly the sales began to increase on the Share-It platform, and I slowly began to re-build my book of business with recurring revenue. After a few years, the recurring revenue was growing steadily.
But during their platform evolution, MyCommerce/Share-It seemed to refocus from serving all software developers (including smaller entrepreneurial, independent developers), to just the really big software companies. I don't begrudge them their growth opportunities, but in the process, the decision was apparently made to prune smaller resellers like me from their system.
Last week, after 15 years of working with Digital River platforms, I was unceremoniously booted from the platform. I was told this would happen about 30 days prior. At that time, I emailed them and explained my situation and asked them to reconsider terminating our long relationship. But they kept asking me how much I could grow my business, and I asked them how much I had to grow it to stay on their platform. They didn't reply to my questions, only demanding that I answer theirs.
It became clear to me that these were not the same friendly, helpful U.S. based people at RegNow who helped me build my business initially. The relationship had suddenly become very one-sided. This was not the same platform that brought effective resellers who brought a complementary sales channel and earned their commissions. Share-It no longer saw this as a mutually beneficial relationship, but one that should benefit only them.
What really has hurt me is the disruption to my business. I've had to hastily find a new platform provider (2checkout). I've had to redo marketing all over again. The internet is now littered with dead-end 'share-it' links to buy my software.
But here is what hurt the most:
All of the recurring subscriptions that my business had earned on Share-It are now gone. With a single arbitrary, capricious decision that can't be appealed, they wiped the entire recurring subscription revenue book of business. Its clear that Share-It customers are THEIR customers, not YOURS. You have no way to move those subscriptions with you if they decide to boot you. All the work you've done will simply be destroyed, wiped away.
I've started looking at other ways of managing subscription sales. If I am going to take the time and expense to once again rebuild my business, I absolutely do not don't want to go through this again, or feel as powerless and insignificant as Share-It/MyCommerce made me feel.
My advice to you if you are considering Share-It/MyCommerce is to ask yourself:
Am I making enough revenue to ensure that I meet their capricious requirements (whatever they are)?
What would happen to my business if they wiped out my entire book of subscription revenue?
Is customer service and support important to me, because you're not going to get it from this service.
My intention here isn't to just bash Share-It/MyCommerce. I want to convey my experience, and to let you know how this company does business before you invest blood sweat and tears in making Share-It/MyCommerce a very critical part of your sales and marketing infrastructure. While they may be a critical part of your business, it's pretty clear that you will never be a critical part of theirs.
I think its sad that after so many years, after dodging bullets from Google to keep my business afloat, after navigating through an employee suicide, after surviving a pandemic and dealing with so many other close calls over the years, that this little business which is important to me and my family, could be done in by a 'partner' that I trusted for fifteen years to handle the most critical part of our business infrastructure. That I could be wiped out so quickly by someone we trusted so much, was a shock that I didn't expect, but probably should have.
No comments:
Post a Comment