Late PalmGear royalty checks

[iboar]

OT perhaps, but worth mentioning: I thought my PG royalty check got lost in the mail. I spent time on Monday and Tuesday trying to track down the problem. Motricity's customer service department was rude and unhelpful. I finally asked for Accounts Payable and talked with the person in charge of getting our checks to us. Seems she just took over that position and was rather overwhelmed. She said the checks would be mailed this week and promised they would try to mail them sooner in the future. We'll see!

Anyway, if you are accustomed to getting your royalty check around the 28th of the month, be forewarned that that might be a thing of the past. I wish they would offer direct deposit like Handango. :mad:

[Tam Hanna]

gotta look into handango. How much do they charge??

[iboar]

gotta look into handango. How much do they charge??

Both PalmGear and Handango charge approximately 40%. Traditionally, most of my sales come from PG. I have no complaints against Handango that I don't have toward PG, but in reading the threads in several forums I gather that a lot of buyers are hesitant to use Handango due to bad experiences with them. The way I look at it though, a sale is a sale. I I only get a few sales from Handango per month, that is still a few sales I probably wouldn't have made otherwise. I would list with other companies as well if they existed. Unfortunately, PG and H pretty much have a monopoly.

[Tam Hanna]

Well,
Handago looks like 40%
PalmGear 40% if realtime, if developer fulfillment 45%...

[iboar]

Both PG and H were charging 30% when I signed up with them 1 1/2 years ago. Unfortunately, their User Agreements are written in such a way as to allow them to change their pricing plans whenever they feel like it. And they feel like it quite often!

What we need is a non-profit co-operative designed to compete with these guys. A co-operative is owned by the members and charges only what is necessary to cover operational costs. But I doubt that a co-op will ever be created, so I guess we will have to look forward to even higher charges in the future from PG and H.

[JLP37]

A new alternative is Mobihand. You might visit them and give them a try. They don't have the traffic yet, but their rates are reasonable and they have a lot of nice developer services in the backend.

As for a summary of the major ESD's: PG seems to have the most traffic and sales for us. Handango's updates have been overtaken by a few that abuse the system and no one moderates (our biggest complaint), so getting exposure is difficult. But they have direct deposit and an easy way to issue coupons. SmartPhoneTools (connected to Treobits) has decent commissions as well and they have started to list 'other' products besides those geared towards Treo. They are getting more traffic as well.

[dmitrygr]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/protestPG/message/1

[iboar]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/protestPG/message/1

If you expect any response to your Yahoo post, you should put a date on your plan and include more information.

BTW, I just checked the latest user agreement and the rate is not 50%. here's what it says:

Motricity Site
For all sales of Software through the Motricity Site, Motricity shall pay Developer 60% of Motricity's Net Receipts.

Additional Distribution Channels
Unless applicable additional terms specify a different revenue share, for all sales of Software through Additional Distribution Channels, Motricity shall pay Developer 50% of Motricity's Net Receipts.

[iboar]

I agree that both Handango and Motricity charge too much, I also athink that driven by BIG, and I mean BIGGG investor groups they would move ahead and even further... However, before saying that a co-op can exist one should imagine the reality of such resource, it is hard routine work and quite often developers are not helpful at all to increase their sales. Quite opposite - while you try hard not to put the commission up, they use you all the way as a free advertising channel. And guess what you most probaly find in their products readme files?! Notifications that their products can be bought from Handango...So everyone of them complains about Handango getting 40% and even 50% of their sales but they would not bother to help you and themselves to sell that title via a channel that still charges them 25%...

Hence why I wrote, "I doubt that a co-op will ever be created..."

[dmitrygr]

40% + fees is about 50%

[Tam Hanna]

I got my cheque today by mail!
Sth else: the current worst-case commission for sales on PalmGear's domain is 45% if you have a non-real-time(e.g. safe) way of creating reg codes!