This article was written on October 20, 2007 by CyberNet.
Weekend Website
Today’s Weekend Website is a site called Zipidee which is known as “The Digi-Good Marketplace.” It joins in to compete among other sites that are similar such as Lulu, e-Junkie, Payloadz, and more. This online marketplace is geared equally towards both those who want to sell, and those who want to buy.
–What is Zipidee–
Zipidee is like the eBay of digital goods. It’s a place where people can go to buy or sell videos, music, eBooks, ringtones, wallpaper, and more. They launched into private beta back in July, but more recently launched to the public just this week on October 15th.
–Publish, Protect, Promote, Profit–
Publish, protect, promote, and profit are the four main things that are involved if you decide to sell on Zipidee. Before anyone starts selling on the site, you’ll obviously have to register and create an account. From there you’ll be free to start the process of selling. Unlike eBay which just about anybody could use, Zipidee isn’t for everybody. If you’re an independent musician, a filmmaker, a software developer, etc., you could sell your digital goods online and benefit from everything that this site has to offer.
Publish is the first step because you have to have something to sell before you can do anything else. And because this is the selling ground for original digital goods, it’ll take creating a product before you move on. You must have the legal rights to digitally distribute the content that you’re selling. You have the choice to allow people to buy or rent.
The next step is protect. Everybody who uses Zipidee has the option to choose whether or not they want to add DRM to their content. They don’t have to, but if they do, they can download Zipidee’s Digital Rights Management software to make the process simple and protect their work. Zipidee says they don’t promote either option so it’s really up to you if you want it or not.
Promoting is another part of how the whole process works. Once you’re ready to sell your digital goods, you’ll want to promote them so that there’s a better chance that they will sell. To help market, you’ll be able to create a “virtual store” where people can come to shop.
Profit – Of course the whole point of this service is to profit and make money for both you and them. You set the price which means you then ultimately determine how much you can make. There’s a lot to the whole process of making a profit, so we’ll dedicate a section just for it below.
–Making $$ from Zipidee–
Before you decide to use the service, you need to take into consideration the money you could potentially gain, but also the money that you’ll pay out to Zipidee for using their service.
- Currently they’re not charging for people to list items, but in the future there will be a $1.00 per uploaded media charge.
- Anytime something sells, they take 20% of the purchase once PayPal costs have been paid
- Note: PayPal is their “official method” for transferring funds between sellers and buyers. They say in the future they intend to offer other options of payment as well.
Should you make over $50, you’ll receive a payment. If during one month you don’t meet the $50 limit, you’ll have to wait until you do before you can receive any payment. All payments are made to a PayPal account which means you have to have one to use this service.
–Buying Content–
While selling items here certainly isn’t for everybody, buying content is. Just go to the site and do a search for what you’re looking for. Another great idea is to just browse through some of the different categories like business, education, music, health and fitness, and more to see if there’s anything that piques your interest. It’s super easy to use, and has a simple interface. If you’re familiar with the eBay process, you should have no trouble understanding and using Zipidee.
They’ve set up their site so that anybody can start browsing the content. What’s especially helpful are the “top picks,” “new additions,” and “top sellers” which they display on the homepage so that you have someplace to start.
–Wrapping it up–
Zipidee certainly isn’t the only service like this to exist, but since when is there only one service per concept? They’re off to a pretty good start, and the sellers seem to price everything really reasonably. The only downside that I really see to the service at the moment is that its name really has nothing to do with the service that they offer which means they’ll have to spend a good amount of effort marketing and gathering up a group of dedicated users. The whole concept behind Zipidee definitely is interesting, and I recommend checking out their marketplace.
Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com
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