[quote="Anonymous"]I'll address your comments in a moment but first I just wanted to apologise to you for one thing. I thought you were writing on behalf of Handango not My-Symbian.com. This is my fault and of course I can see why you have responded as you have however, this is a misunderstanding. Apart from one point, my comments were not intended to be directed at either you or My-Symbian.com website, sincerely sorry.[/quote]
No problem at all. Of course, I was writing on my own behalf. Especially that I have no influence on prices, products, descriptions and the quality of applications offered by developers in the Handango partner store available through my site.
My intention is to present every single application that comes out for Symbian devices. I don't want to censor/filter applications, even if I think that some of them are poor/overpriced etc. I think that it is the best to let people choose. That's also why I implemented a User Rating system on my applications list so that people can express their opinions by rating programs and also let others know. This is especially useful when there is no trial version, so that a person who purchased the full version can let others know what he/she thinks about the program. I usually refrain from own opinions, because I understand that other people can have different preferences, likes/dislikes etc.
Of course I accept Handango provide a service and in return receives and deserves an income through commission. After all, this is business; I have no problem with this. However, just as you have explained the overheads above, using a re-seller is also an overhead and would be taken into consideration when pricing ones products. If the reseller costs outweigh the in house methods then that the price must be increased accordingly. If the developer had priced this at the lowest possible rate prior to taking on the services of the re-seller then, according to your interpretation of "fair", the developer would have to "increase" the price on their own website so as to be equal to that being offered elsewhere. This would affect the end user, not the other way around. There is more than one way to look at this. I merely say, in my opinion, and I accept it's just my opinion, I think calling this developer "greedy" is a harsh. I am happy if you and I agree to disagree on this as we are clearly looking at this from different perspectives. No offence intended.
Crafti, you may be right. But please consider two things:
1) This is the only developer who does so. Literally thousands of others keep the same prices in different stores, including own stores on their web sites. I don't think that this single, particular developer was the only one who used "the lowest possible rate".
2) Also consider, that Handango does a job for developers: authorizes payments, processes orders, processes complaints and offers after-sales support, hosts files and covers bandwidth costs etc. If the developer sells software himself on this own website, he bears all these costs himself. So it is not true that selling applications through Handango brings additional costs. I know at least a couple of companies who fully switched to Handango because selling apps through their own store was equally expensive + all the work with processing orders. Therefore, if we consider the cost of selling applications either via Handango or via own store equal, there is no justification to set higher price on Handango.
I personally don't mind this. But I got something like 20 emails from people who didn't like this situation at all. That's why I replied to the question here. It seems that CUSTOMERS (and not me) don't like the idea of paying more.
I fully appreciate that you expressed your opinion, as did I. There is nothing to like, dislike or for there to be a problem. I was under the impression that this was a "discussion" forum. An opportunity for people to discuss issues where they may be more than one opinion. Life would be fairly dull if everyone always had the same opinion. Please do not take this the wrong way, it is not meant to be offensive.
Sure, this is a discussion forum and there's nothing wrong with discussing things. I was only a bit surprised by the way you wrote it, with some opinions about me selling programs at ridiculous prices, "badly reflecting on Handango" etc, which is absolutely not true, as the store is operated by Handango themselves, without any influence from my side.
Price differences on products happen everywhere. How many times to people look on the high street for something and then look on the internet for the same thing and find it available much cheaper.
Sure. But in such case it is different distributors/resellers setting different prices, while in this case different prices were set by the manufacturer himself. This makes a difference.
Here is where the misunderstanding is. My comment was intended to be directed at Handango not you or My-Symbian.com, Sorry. It was also not an accusation in any way. It was a comment, my opinion. I do feel that Handango as a re-seller should show some responsibility toward their customers and not allow developers such as that mentioned above, who are clearly scamming the public. Handango should assert some pressure and say in order to sell it through Handango, ther developer should offer it at a realistic price. You may feel my opinion here is pathetic, but surely I am entitled to express it?
Of couse you are. But your post did look quite different. You wrote that "I am selling this application at a ridiculously high price which badly reflects on Handango". That's why I replied that way.
Given the volume of traffic that I imagine My-Symbian.com and similar sites generate towards Handango, personally I think My-Symbain.com deserves more than 3%. Especially given that Handango charges 30%.
My-Symbian gets more, but local taxes make it 3% in the end. Also remember that these 30% of Handango include their expenses - payment authorisation, processing orders, bandwidth, support, transferring money to developers etc. They don't get that much in the end.
Well I guess here we will have another difference of opinion. However, as mentioned I feel sites such as yours deserve more than 3%. But the point is the 3%'s that are offered to partners will most certainly have been taken into consideration when Handango constructed the 30% re-seller fee, and the 30% re-seller fee will have been taken into account (in most cases) when developers construct their pricing.
Well, once again: this is the only company that thinks so. Look at many other developers: Epocware, Symbianware, PSI NT, mBrain and literally hundreds of others - all of them offer the very same price in both their own store and via Handango or Nokia Software Market. They simply know that processing orders themselves also costs money. It is not true that selling programs via external distributor costs money, while selling them through own store doesn't cost anything, especially when you also consider the amount of work needed to process hundreds of orders. And time is also money.
No, this is not what I meant. I meant Handango selling ridiculously overpriced products reflects badly on their own reputation and they should take this into consideration rather than just allowing any developer to charge any price they wish to through the handango store. My comment was most certainly not directed at My-Symbian.com
Crafti, I don't think that Handango or any other distributor should have any influence on the prices. I think that it is PEOPLE who decide. And I think that people clearly showed their attitude to MP3Go's price by not purchasing it. This should be the best influence on the developer to change the price.
I do not dislike you, I do not know you. If I did know you I probably would like you, you seem to me like an interesting person. I have differences of opinion with my best friends. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing on subjects and discussing issues. In fact, I like your wesbite, I thinks it's terrific and I would say that to anyone. I am in no way attacking you or your opinions and no offence intended.
That's great. I am glad that we were able to straighten this confusion out.