Author Archives: Alwin

Collectorz.com software on Android

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We added a new platform to our already sizable list of supported platforms. Yesterday we released our first mobile app for Android: CLZ Movies. It is a viewer app for Movie Collector databases, similar to our CLZ Movies app for iPhone.

First day sales were good, but a bit less than expected. I was hoping for a higher number for the first day, mainly because the demand for Android apps seemed to be quite high. But maybe Android users just tend to make more noise 🙂 They do seem to feel a bit “left behind” because of most companies’ focus on iOS development.

I will post more sales results later, when I have more data.
I can’t wait to see how day-to-day Android sales compare to those of our iPhone apps and the upcoming iPad apps.

Software pricing : Standard and Pro editions

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Our Collectorz.com programs are all available in two editions: Standard and Pro. The Standard edition sells for $29.95 and is lacking a couple of “advanced” features compared to the $49.95 Pro edition.

We have been selling our software this way for a long time. Before we introduced these two pricing levels, we were selling our software for $29.95. Adding the more expensive Pro edition for $49.95 was a good way to increase the price without dropping the old price. After the change, about 80% of our customers started opting for the Pro edition, causing a nice jump in profits.

The presence of two editions also gives our visitors a choice. Price conscious customers can opt for the cheaper Standard edition. Buyers just looking for the best, regardless of price, can choose the Pro edition. The availability of choices helps to increase conversion rates.

As you can see in the image above, we have done something similar with our range of barcode scanners, a cheap CueCat for $19.95 as an entry level scanner, a deluxe laser scanner for $139.95, and a mid-level option for $79.95.

But offering multiple editions also has one drawback: it adds complexity. Continue reading →

Customer survey: which mobile device(s) do you own?

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About a year ago, we launched Collectorz.com iPhone apps and they are selling well. However, the availability of these apps has caused a lot of requests for similar apps for Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and lately, for iPad.

We are already working on iPad editions. The iPad development costs are relatively low because of our in-house experience with Apple iOS programming and because we can share a lot of code with the iPhone editions. Moreover, I strongly believe that the iPad is going to be an important software platform. Especially for our type of software and our target audience.

But what about Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile? Are these platforms popular enough to justify the development of dedicated mobile apps? What is the popularity of these devices compared to iPhone and iPod touch? More importantly: how popular are these devices amongst Collectorz.com customers?

Well, let’s just ask them with a simple survey. Continue reading →

Single stacked pallets or double stacked pallets?

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We just received the following email from our rep at CustomCD (they handle the shipping of our CDs and barcode scanners):

I have a favor to ask – the last batch of scanners that was sent to us came on a double stacked pallet. Our receiving dock isn’t able to accept these, so they asked that the next shipment we get if it could only be single stacked pallets.

Single stacked? Double stacked?
I don’t even know what that means 🙂

The joys of selling hardware, I guess. Sometimes, I long back to the days when we were just selling software, “shipped” by email.

Analyzing Adwords Geographic Performance Reports

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I was checking our Visitor stats in Analytics when I noticed that over the last 30 days, Mexico was nr. 2 in my top countries list, accounting for 8% of my visitors.

Mexico? We hardly ever sell to Mexico.

A quick peek at the Ecommerce tab confirmed that: In the same period only 0.37% of my sales came from Mexico. This wouldn’t be much of a problem if all that traffic was organic and thus free. But what if I am paying for those visitors with Adwords?

Sadly, information like that is not readily available from your Adwords interface. You will have to run a Geographic Performance report to get to the data. And even then, it takes some work to turn the data into actionable information.

But, it’s definitely worth doing. For instance, I found that for the past five months, a considerable part of my Adwords spend had been going to Mexico and a couple of other countries (Greece, Spain) that were not resulting in enough sales.

So I highly recommend that you spend some time to analyze your own Geographics Performance report. To help you do it, I have created a step-by-step tutorial on creating and analyzing this important report type. Here we go… Continue reading →

SIC 2010 – Dallas here we come

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This year, the Software Industry Conference (SIC) is in Dallas, Texas. Sytske and I were not planning to go, mainly because of the not so exciting conference location (at the DFW airport).

But after looking at the Conference Schedule, I changed my mind. This could be quite interesting after all.

And of course it’s always fun to meet our ISV friends in person again, drink some beers, play Rock Band, etc… 🙂

So Sytske has just registered us for the conference, booked our flight to Dallas and the stay at the Hyatt hotel. Plus we signed up as a Bronze level sponsor.

See you in Dallas!

CD Delivery and Priority Support – Opt-in or Opt-out?

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Delivery on CD and Priority Support options, do you offer those up-sells “opt-in” or “opt-out”? In other words, when users click your Buy button, do you put these extras in their shopping cart automatically?

CD delivery companies (we have worked with SwiftCD and CustomCD) are always pushing us to have “Delivery on CD” pre-checked. Understandably, because this is bound to sell more CDs and thus bring them more business. And automatically adding a $10 Priority Support subscription is sure to result in more subscriptions to that service.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Making more money on each sale, who can say no to that?
Continue reading →