Digital River solutions?

Okay, so I see that Digital River has several websites for various forms of ecommerce solutions for shareware authors, as listed here:

http://corporate.digitalriver.com/store/driv/Corp/sectionName.commerce/subSectionName.shareware/page.shareware

Is anyone using any of these? And what are the major differences? What are the best solutions from those listed?

I use ShareIt to sell my framework (as well as Paypal). Seems fine (fees are more than paypal though). I believe sswift uses it too.

Why did you pick ShareIt rather than the other options available, like that extra cheap one which is like 3% + $1 per copy sold? And for that matter, why not the pricier ones?

I tried to use RegNow.

They sent me spam for months, and I finally gave in and took a look. Even after I'd set up an account (more on this later), they continued to send me spam asking me to sign up. I've never had any contact with them prior to this, and when I queried it later they told me they were going around games sites pilfering any e-mail address they could find.

The sign up process for RegNow, is a utter joke. I had to fill in their registration form, then e-mail them MANUALLY to tell them I wanted an account - why?!

After I filled in the form I was given a username and password, which didn't work because of, and I quote "some server problem".

By the time they'd actually set my account up (over a week), I'd lost my user ID (read, "didn't bother to save it"). I was receiving affiliate requests at a rate of a couple per day from sodding Nigeria and such like. I couldn't log in without my user ID.

They have no option to recover your user ID - just my password (which I knew) so I had to e-mail them AGAIN - THREE BLOODY TIMES before they did me the courtesy of replying.

Wouldn't touch them with a bargepole now. They're useless.

I also work with ShareIt, no problem whatsoever with them, in a matter of fact, I highly recommend them! The only time I had some problem (which was my bank's fault, not theirs) they did everything they could to help.

The signup process was a breeze, and I havent so far any negative comment about anyone who purchased my games with them.

Also, all Blitz products are sold through them :)

The only thing I miss on ShareIt would be the possibility to buy other ShareIt products with your credits, or to transfer credits to PayPal.

I used shareIt because at the time I didn't know about others and I think sswift recommended them (oh yeah and I got Blitz through them too as SLotman says). I also use BMT Micro to sell all my games and Plimus for affiliate links.

Are these Digital River companies all the same company at the same location, like all under one umbrella with the same employees, or are they actually entirely different companies?

Thanks for the feedback Gfk, much appreciated.

The `esellerate` thing sounds interesting, being able to put a purchasing feature into your actual application. They have RealBasic code.

ImaginaryHuman, i "assume" they are different, altough maybe some staff in the top takes care for more then 1 branch. Its clearly a bigger company that has setup various formules to reach various groups of people and make max. profits. Its very smart. I once have seen a blueprint on marketing strategies, this was one of them.

Grey Alien games could as well make up 3 or 4 more company names, and do the exact same thing but in a different jacket. Having many portals or re-brands is always good.

No, it isn't. It's a company which bought out many of its rivals and hasn't dared to amalgamate them. Probably because there's no way to do that without losing customer trust in internet sales security and irritating clients.


Nonsense. Having many brands is a situation which usually occurs when businesses buy out rivals, and is a situation they tolerate only because doing otherwise would risk upsetting the apple cart. EG: The Cadbury takeover of Green and Blacks or the Nike takeover of Umbro.

Having multiple brands dilutes the brand which is usually the last thing businesses want to happen. If they can, most companies want to do the opposite.

Gabriel, i see your point but you are mistaking. Ive been there, said that. However, i do not feel any need to convince you otherwise. I know this for a fact.

esellerate is great. i use it and prefer it over other services (i do have them too).

Any way to get the esellerate integrated payment system into a blitzmax format?

I am sure it can't be hard, but I haven't tried it.

I can't recomend digital river. Might have been autodesks fault though.

One time I bought a 3dsmax DVD from autodesk who use DR for online distro. I got 5 tries but it didn't warn me of it, And the iso was corrupt on the server.

I called autodesk and all tech support could do was give me more tries. They had no control of files on the server, and neither could they provide me with a support number for digital river. Only a web link to the autodesk support site. Digital river were as bad, only they gave me a tech support number which ended up being a seperate company that develops some crappy virus checker!!!

After almost 10 days of crap, I got a refund and bought what seems to be an original DVD on Ebay for about 40% less and recieved it 3 days later in the mail.