The Business of Software

As I'm writing this, there are still 3 hours and 40 minutes left at

http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/winstep-xtreme/

for the experience to be over (so, come on, what are you waiting for?! Go there, and buy, buy, buy, errr... Sorry, got carried away :-) ).

So far, I'm quite happy (although not ecstatic) with the results, and would like to share my experience with you.

Let me start by saying that, personally, I feel that offering regular temporary discounts for your software undermines its value in the eyes of your customers - and yourself. I also think that it is better to make less sales but have more revenue than make more sales but with less revenue (and more customer support headaches).

Furthermore, being in Europe, I'm suffering heavily with the Dollar devaluation in relation to the Euro, so I would actually be more inclined to increase the current price than cut it (the former being something I can't do because US customers would then balk at it, which I think currently, at $39.90, is 'as far as I can take it' for this type of software).

On the other hand, the idea of tapping into a 'virgin' market through Bits du Jour and, at the same time, 'feel the pulse' for what a drastic price reduction might do to sales really attracted me.

After thinking for a while, I remembered Winstep Software Technologies started way back in 1998, which makes it exactly 10 years old this year. Celebrating this milestone is a perfect excuse to offer a 50% discount for 24 hours - without pissing off your existing customers, build expectations of repeated discounts, or give the impression that you are desperate and need to cut prices (I'm not, by the way, things are actually getting better and better, albeit slowly, even with the Dollar situation ;-) )...

So, I contacted Bits Du Jour about a month ago, they reviewed and accepted Winstep Xtreme and scheduled it for today. Setting things up was, in general, easy, although it can be a bit confusing at first (tracking code in my sales page? Ooops. How do *I* do that?). Luckily I could count with the full support of BMT Micro, my e-commerce provider, to set the technical part up for me. Those guys are the BEST!

I didn't pre-announce the promotion anywhere, so my sales wouldn't suffer in antecipation of it. The only place where it was pre-announced was at Bits du Jour itself, so only Bits du Jour visitors knew about the discount and the day it would happen.

The minute the promotion started, I announced it in the front page of a couple of important related sites, and also on the main page of Winstep.net. I'm pretty sure a good slice of today's sales came from those announcements, as they were quite targeted. Although the announcements I put up targeted my own market (the one that is interested in my type of software and would buy it at $39.90 regardless), I'm sure the heavy discount generated a lot of 'impulse' buys I would not have gotten otherwise.

So, on to what really matters: how were sales today? Well, today alone (and so far) I've made 39 sales.

It's not a HUGE success by any means, and it breaks my heart to get only $12 (50% discount + 30% for Bits du Jour from what's left) per sale when I would normally receive $36.

On the other hand, I can only WISH every day would be like today. Plus, a percentage of the customers who purchased today will come back for more when their year of free upgrades expires. :-)

So, all in all, a very positive experience. And the guys at Bits du Jour are great and a pleasure to work with too! Recommended.

Ok, the Bits du Jour 24-hour Winstep Xtreme half price promotion is now over. Final statistics:

55 sales today, $1,097 total at $19.95 each. Not bad at all, wish I could make that kind of money every day. :-)

I'm glad to see BitsDuJour working out so well for the owners, too.  (And, naturally, uISVs.) 

I was a little worried for their business model when BCC sold like 2 copies there, but if they're consistently making a few hundred a day off of applications with broader appeal to the mass market, then they won't be doing all that shabbily.

Thanks for the info Jorge!

When my software was featured (when Ellen was still running things) it had six sells that day. If I had that kind of performance from my site everyday, I would quit my job for sure.

I'm thinking of getting on BDJ again.