Is it worth using CB / PDC rather than PayPal WPP?

[Dave Navarro]

I've set up my PDC account, but I'm still on the fence on whether I want to ge thru all the fees associated with it. Those things sure add up fast. $3 here, 6.9% there ... especially since I'm pushing to sell thousands of units of my product over the next few months.

So it begs the question - is PDC worth it to get affiliates promoting your product? If you put a product out there, do people really start pushing it for you or is that more or less hype?

This is an important question for me because it decides whether the fees are worth it.

Currently, I use Paypal Website Payments Pro (WPP) for my coaching business - and it's worked really well. The old beef I had with PayPal is that it made it a pain for non-members to use credit cards, but with WPP they become a merchant account of their own. I've used it to process over $7000 in payments and it's been awesome.

The nice thing about WPP is that the customer doesn't even see PayPal at all. They've integrated a lot of different shopping cart programs (even free ones, which I use) so that it's relatively easy to configure and get going. Took me about two hours, and I'd be glad to help people figure theirs out, too.

Here's why I'm asking the question - the fees are $20/month (but January is free, so you can try it for $0 right now) , and the fees are paypal's standard 2.9% + $0.30.

Obviously, this is a lot cheaper than anyone else. If I sell a dozen eBooks it more pays for the monthly fee. The shopping cart resides on my web server & it's a paypal free experience on the customer side.

The thing is, for an affiliate program, do you think it's worth it? I guess I'd miss out on the "hungry army of affiliates just screaming (screaming, I say!) to sell your product!)" that are alluded to with CB and PDC.

Is it hype or truth? What are your experiences? Please let me know. I don't want to leave thousands of dollars on the table just because PDC takes two hours less than WPP to set up.

Thanks in advance for all answers.

PS. If you want to see WPP, and click the Merchant Tools tab on the top (note, it's an affiliate link, but if you click it & get it set up I'll be happy to help you with getting your shopping cart integrated. My way of thanks for helping my kids thru school

[Lynn Terry]

Two things in response:

1) If you have hosting, you can use their shopping cart (which integrates with PayPal) - and their built-in affiliate program manager. At only 24.95/mo (which includes hosting unlimited domains/sites & all cpanel has to offer) you might come out cheaper this way if you are doing a good number of sales.

2) I have heard most product developers say that the majority of their sales come directly from their super-affiliates. Done right, and with proper material & follow-up, you can train and motivate a group of affiliates to promote your products... and this increases your reach exponentially.

Even if you dont want to offer your program publicly, it would be great for joint ventures and partnerships that you do with other established site owners behind the scenes. Offering them half of the sale on every sale will put your product in front of an entire group you may not have been able to reach otherwise. Not to mention that it take the effort of non-stop marketing off of you - and instead you can spend your time managing your affiliates and creating new products.