Hi, I want to get into distributing some of my own games myself, I thought a trail run will break me into the business of online distribution, Ill sell some developer products first before I move onto my games, so Ill sell model textures etc first so I can get a feel of what one does in ecommerce, from this I can learn about setting up online shops and learn about online distribution before I do it with a game product. My questions apply to selling developer content, but the same question is relevant if it is also a game, which I will do once I have learnt about online distribution. Being new to ecommerce I'm new to the whole affair so I have some questions on what to do. The first thing that came to my mind is a store that uses paypal, rates don't look too bad, though I think this may not be an automated service, I'm not sure if we have to manually send the products to the buyer, does paypal just give a list of buyers and what they bought, then you have to send the digital media out. Or does my web program store send me the details and emails and I have to personally send out to them there digital orders. I've heard of some other ecommerce services, that I think are automated as in they handle the payments and send the digital media to the buyer, but the cost is much more, like way more than paypal. Giving out like 8% and more of the cost of the item to the service, hell that's high. What are the options of online shops, what can we do here I am a complete noob. Also, I have sites that are interested in selling my art assets, now how does this model work, these sites have told me what percentage they take but Id like to know how sales are managed, is my product on their server and I have to go on trust of how many units was sold, that sounds like one way to get cheated to me, what are the safeguards, or do they send the traffic to me and take a cut that way. In this case its sales of art assets, but it could apply to a video game, what's the method of business in this, if someone sells your product.

> What are the options of online shops, what can we do
> here I am a complete noob.

Your questions are open-ended and answering them would require a book. My recommendation is for you to start by buying a book on e-commerce. You can find and buy a good one online quite easily.

If you are the browsing type and happen to travel to central London, there is a business-oriented bookstore on Regent St near Picadilly Circus called "The Economist Shop"; it's where you will find materials published by the magazine "The Economist", but it also has a good selection on various business topics including e-commerce.

I haven't been to Manchester in a while, but I recall there was one on Whitworth street west of the train station. You probably know that area better than I.

Hope this helps.

-cb

I use paypal for the custom purchasing system for pokervitals. You can definitly and quite easily use that for automated transactions, it just requires a bit of coding. Google "IPN" and that should return a few links.

There are also a few storefronts that will do some of this automaticaly. Some really good scripts you can find and customize are typicaly in the $100-300 range.