Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Increase software downloads


The software industry has three major points to measure the success of the products:
  • number of downloads
  • number of licenses sold

We will address today only the first point: number of software downloads. What are the key factors that can affect these downloads?

Our webmarketing team released again a great article regarding how to increase the number of the downloads for a software product. The main factors are:
  1. Let users know what they are downloading. Don’t surprise them!
  2. Suggest the action: Download versus Try label
  3. Don't ask for user details (or do it in an elegant manner)
  4. How to handle a potential customer if interested
  5. Get proactive feedback
  6. How to manage the uninstall process
The entire article can be found on the Avangate website: The 66 Route to Selling Software Online

Enjoy!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Open source as an advantage

Nokia announced today they will be acquiring (for $410 million) the remaining 52% of Symbian they don’t own. Thus, the Symbian platform will be released under the Eclipse open source license.

The big question now is how Android will respond on this one?

In my opinion Nokia made a great move by releasing Symbian as open source: the mobile applications made for Nokia phones will explode on the market :)

License renewal links - how to

During a meeting today we received a request to include into IPN (Instant Payment Notification) the license renewal link. The answer is very simple: the information is already there and the renewal link can be build very easy.

How the link looks like
https://secure.avangate.com/renewal/?LICENSE=license_code&COUPON=renewal_discount

Note: the COUPON parameter is optional and it is used to give a discount for the renewal order; the active discounts can be retreived by accessing the "Renewal discounts" section inside Avangate Control Panel.

How to get the necessary information
Along with the IPN communication, Avangate is sending the license information, including the "license code" which is used in the renewal link. The variable is called "IPN_LICENSE_REF"

Note: Please make sure that this variable is activated to be included in the IPN; to verify it, go to Avangate Control Panel > Account Settings > IPN settings


Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Shorties for 9 months

After a long period, I decided to revive my notes.

Personal news
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* I got married :)
* I have a Twitter account

Avangate news
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Avangate has an office in Silicon Valley
* Avangate Control Panel has reached the 3rd version
* Download Insurance Service (DIS) has been launched in February
* Referrer report - now the website sources can be measured
* Auto apply discount - set the promotions to start for Christmas and go to holiday
* New order process available: checkout page with shopping cart functionalities
* A/B testing scenarios
* GBP, YEN, AUD and CAD available as billing currencies
* Sales Source Report - track the sales sources
* Backup CD in DVD box
* Product upgrade - upgrade options for customers
* Avangate CodeBox - manage & protect software licenses by using AntiFraud, Uniloc and License management modules
* more to come...

Monday, August 27, 2007

Measure the performance of your eCommerce provider

During the globalization process, almost any software vendor outsourced the ordering process for his software products; thus, the electronic software distribution (or ESD) become a very tough niche for all companies which are providing this kind of services.

Outsourcing the entire ordering process will cut the operational costs bringing specific services such as multi-language, multi-currency, 24x7 support, etc. I will not dwell on outsourcing benefits here but on how to measure the performance of your e-commerce partner. In order words, what is the performance ratio of your ordering system and how to measure it?

A very basic method is to compare the number of visitor you have with the number of completed orders but this is a very primitive method.

A most suitable method is to create a script which will handle any redirect from your website (e.g.: mywebsite.com/buyredir.php?product=ABC&vendor=Avangate). At the end of the week the consolidated reports will show the number of redirected users vs number of completed orders.

Using such measuring system, you can see at any time how your ordering system performance is affected by the prices, website design or your e-commerce platform, helping you to take the best decisions for your business.

Notes:
  • a "user" means an unique session redirected to the e-commerce provider
  • in case that you are using more than one e-commerce provider, for the same session the shopper must be redirected to the same ordering system

Enjoy :)

P.S. Having more that one e-commerce provider can confuse your customers but we will talk about this in further discussions.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Order interface - layout control by using CSS

Two weeks ago, we released a new order interface with a fresh HTML code supporting CSS for each element. Thus, every Avangate vendor can control the look and feel of his order interface.


Some examples:
How to use the new features?
Simply download the default CSS stylesheet, modify it and upload it into your Avangate Control Panel account :)

Related links

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Czech language for Avangate order interface

Avangate released the Czech language for order interface. Customers from Czech Republic are automatically detected and the interface will display the Czech language and Czech koruna as prices currency.

The feedback from shoppers has been very positive and the sales are going up.

My recommendation for all Avangate vendors is to update their templates for the order interface to support the Czech language; also, all multi-language descriptions must be extended to support the Czech language:
  • product descriptions;
  • electronic delivery instructions;
  • interface templates;
  • order additional fields;
  • etc.


The final goal is to increase the orders from Czech Republic, of course :)