Lately, I’ve taken to ragging on MacZOT a bit. Maybe I’m just a cranky MyzteryZOT victim, but I’m beginning to wonder who really benefits from these bundles. Most users (or at least what I can tell from conversations with others) are usually pretty dissatisfied with what they receive. Users get a bunch of applications they’re unlikely to have wanted in the first place. And developers of the actually useful apps get a lot of headaches.
My aim was to get KIT some exposure. People like KIT when they see it, but don’t know to look for it. KIT got a lot of attention, so that worked and the objective was achieved. Kind of.
For me, what happened afterwards is what was most interesting. Unsurprisingly, I was inundated with support emails, some were bugs, many, many more were feature requests and others were just questions. All were welcome. I did underestimate the impact of this, however. After working my way through them all diligently I found it was the middle of October.
Six weeks vanished and financially, it wasn’t actually worth it, but I see that as an investment for the future. …
Perhaps the most significant thing is that normal sales of KIT didn’t change one iota. What I was selling before the promotion was exactly the same as afterwards. I think I know why.
That sucks, at least in the short term. Is going after users that aren’t willing to pay much and are even specifically looking for your app worth it? Gruber doesn’t think so. Neither do I.
This has prompted a response from the author of Relaunch, another product sold on MacZOT. Gus Mueller then responded about pricing.
As a person who now regularly purchases licenses to software, let me in on my transformation from a leech to a paying customer. Until I had a steady supply of money (about the time I started working full time), I was looking for the free solution for everything. I just didn’t want to spend money. I was one of those people that would whine about price knowing full well that I wouldn’t pay any price.
Now that I can pay, I do. I determine a need. I then research what apps can satisfy those needs. Then I make lists of feature sets to compare. I download them all and give them a once over (assuming a demo mode). At this point, price becomes pretty immaterial to me. As long as the products in question are comparable in price, I will go for the product with the features I want, the interface I like, and a good rep (or any dominant combination the three). A $25 app is just as affordable as a $10 given I have a real need to begin with. Those with a need are who developers should be going after, not those that could take it or leave it.
I see the author of KITT's point, but they say no publicity is bad publicity.
I just wonder if he couldn't have budgeted his time better with an auto-reply, as the feedback he was getting must be valuable for a developer. Clearly he didn't want to cut that off.
Mr Gruber's pinprick article is correct that lowering your price to satisfy the "chronic price complainers" is a bad idea.
What I object to in the pinprick article is he makes it sound like MacZOT! is therefore bad for all developers. This is not true.
When my product was on MacZOT! it was there for one single reason: exposure. This exposure more than made up for the extra customer service.