There are many ways you can make money by selling downloadable files online. One option available is selling through Tradebit.
The Good Parts:
- It’s almost free to use. It doesn’t charge a monthly fee or listing fees. It just gets a percentage (commission) of your sale price.
- It supports several types of downloadable files – software, photos, music, documents, etc.
- There’s an available support forum and a blog, where the owner seems to be quite responsive to site users’ queries.
- Several available payment systems available – including Paypal and Google Checkout.
- You set your own price to your downloads.
- A few good features – including integration with your affiliate programmes, sales reports, etc.
The Bad Parts:
- It’s a bit difficult to navigate. While testing the service, I got lost so many times. And, it can get really confusing/frustrating.
- There’s limited customisation options.
- Site presentation isn’t the most aesthetically pleasing. Would’ve preferred a better way to present products through the shop front.
- Some features tend to go wonky at times.
Payment is done on a weekly basis, sent to your Paypal account. They also run an affiliate programme, where you make money by promoting other people’s downloadable files for sale.
If you’ve used the service (or still using it), let me know what you think of it. If you know of other similar services, I’d love to hear from you too.
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{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }
How does it compare to E-junkie or PayLoads?
Abhi: I haven’t tested either one. Haven’t checked out Ejunkie at all, and have only browsed PayLoads so far. Will report here when I get to test them out. Thanks!
Shai, thanks a lot for the hook and let me know, where we can improve!
Abhi: we compare to Payloadz and e-junkie in some parts and differ very much in others. Most important is the fact (IMHO) that you may attach unlimited add-ons to your products (like videos or more pictures) and that you can run discount groups with sign up options.
One of our advantages might also be the search engine friendly listing of your products. You might want to compare the Alexa traffic ranking for all 3 marketplaces to get an idea.
I stumbled upon this blogpost while searching for alternatives to Tradebit to extend the locations where my products retail at. My tradebit page is at Velocityspark.Tradebit.com. I am currently using them and only have recommendations from there. Although they might not be perfect, I have seen positive changes since my 4 months with them. The good thing is that I am not being charged any monthly or upfront fees but only a percentage of my sales. Well, I encourage you to give them a try and do let me know if you find any other alternatives worth trying. Cheers.
I’m trying them for my book and want to upload photos as well. Challenge now is loging in, there just is a problem accessing my account even if I recover my passowrd. Mybe I dont understand the way it should wok, I dont know. I have send an email to the address that sent me the password and await response. Hopeful they’ll help me out.
hi musa – once registered you should get the automated welcome mail for activation – if that is not happening, it might have died in your SPAM filter! Our support should answer any requests within 24 hours (at least that is the goal of the support team)…
Thank you , will await response.
Hi I am Tammy. We just launched a new site Instafilez.com. We deliver digital items to your customers. It is set up like a store and easy to navigate. We are just like Tradebit. We pay our vendors once a week via PAYPAL and comng soon OBOPAY. We only keep 15 % commission though not 25%.
You can upload up to 1 GB right from your browser, no FTP needed! HTML allowed, have control over your vendor store. Add webpages, ship goods if needed. We have alot to offer.
You can never have to many places to sell your digital content. The more places your post your items the more money you make. So help us build our store. Become a vendor today!
@Tammu: we ask for 7.5% for direct sales on your paypal account, not for 25%…
i would not do business with tradebits , they do not answer support tickets and emails in a timely manner , I have sent multiple emails to them and have YET to get ONE response. This so called Puzzler list an iqc number on the support page to get help but is never on it nor responds to IMs left there. I am having major support problems and cannot get an answer and no I have no spam settings on my email so it is not a spam filter blocking them from contacting me they are just giving me a big FU by not bothering to reply. FYI i am very successful on other digital platforms but i wanted to test the waters here at tradebits , however with zero support and being ignored 100 % by them Id have to say look elsewhere.
I told this puzzler guy my complaints and that i posted about this online after being ignored for a week here was his response lol :
Your Tradebit account has been deletedFriday, June 12, 2009 5:35 PM
From: “Tradebit System” Add sender to ContactsTo: “Tradebit System Mail”
hi
i fully stand by tradebit. they are awesome and have been with them for years. puzzler (ralf) is very very responsive and has the best support. i think miss money might have bad luck with them but i am sure he would respond very quickly. he takes tradebit very seriously. he has many benefits and i can only recommend them once you get past their navigation problems. either way, i have sold lots of product through them and they only take 25% when he refers to clients your product. this is usually through shareasale.com. i do believe you will lose above 8% commission on your own sales.
Let me share my experience using tradebit for the past 3 months as a customer and also seller. I could say don’t do business with them. Here’s why:
1) They don’t response to your emails unless you keep sending to them after waiting 2 to 3 days.
2) Their support staff will give a copy and paste answer even when you ask for more explanation. At one time I purchased an item on tradebit and was having problem with the software. I emailed the seller of the file but did not get any response then I submit a support ticket to tbsupport@tradebit.com and tickets@tradebit.com and all I get from them is ” In this case we are just the hoster,please contact the seller directly”. I send to them again saying I already contacted the seller but no reply….and guess what? I get this reply ” In this case we are just the hoster, please contact the seller directly”. What a shame…they don’t even bother to offer for help.
3) I did try my luck as a seller and I was selling a PLR article with them. I got a few sales but I was shocked when I got an email from Tradebit System-> telling me my sales was refunded. How could they do this without even telling me the customer is requesting refund and the reason the customer request for refund. All I know is later I found out another seller on Tradebit is selling the same item using my pictures and sales letter!
4) Don’t try to list the same items with different prices. It is against Tradebit law and your account will be deleted because Ralf will think you are doing a fraud scheme. I thought Tradebit claims they are a digital marketplace?. People in the market will try their best to win customers by giving various offers and why is it a crime to have same items at different prices is still puzzling me. Are you afraid of Google Ralf?. People on eBay list same items at different prices but they still rank much much higher than you. So for anyone wishes to do business with Tradebit, just rememer, this is not ebay where you are free to list your items as many times as you want and at any prices you want. Maybe German people think differently.
5) A friend of mine got his account deleted without any warning or explanation just like what miss money experienced. When he emailed to them all they say is ” We don’t discuss why an account is deleted, it maybe because you’re selling copyright infrindging material “. They won’t tell you what item or which item has copyright violations, they just delete your account and keep all the money your customer has paid to themselves. They won’t give you a single cent. This case happened on a payday! that is every Wednesday. Moreover what my friend was selling is an article with MRR that he bought from Tradebit too!
Faithfully,
Robert
If you sign-up with us under many accounts with different paypal emails (like 10), upload the same product (which is available for free on other sites and most likely a copyright violation) and answer with unfriendly emails to my inquiries: yes, please do not do business with us!
Mmmm… I still to find out who Tradebit is. I guess I better have personal experaince and then I will believe whatever has been said about them.
Musa: thx – we are a small team with a big site which spawns a lot of communication with different people and also constant fraud attacks. We are just careful with merchants overdoing it. On the long run I do believe that working for the benefit of the buyers, providing solid virus-free working downloads under our brand is the only way to go. On that way misunderstanding and unhappy users might just happen…
Tradebit sucks…Ralf just said he delete an account because either the file is available for free on other sites or a copyright violation but in reality he didn’t even care…
Mobile Bluetooth Spy software for example….are you sure it has no copyright violation? Are you sure the product is working as advertise?? Don’t just say things Ralf…and don’t blame other people for requesting a refund. You must be responsible!
And I agree with Robert, his support team will always copy and paste the popular answer ” we are just the hoster….” Wake up tradebit, you are selling the software and people paid money to your account not the merchant!! At least assist the buyer to get more support not just copy and paste the bloody answer…
Dan, we do care about copyright violations and these bluetooth spyware products suck even more than we possibly could. 50% of these sales cause chargebacks and some upload it over and over again just to abuse tradebits good search engine listings. There are sellers who just have the big $$$ in their eyes and do not care about their buyers or the work they cause by publishing duplicate content over and over. For us, the buyers come first, not the merchants. Why? Because the buyers leave the money for products they think do work. If merchants abuse either that, violate copyrights or publish their non-working packages like 40 times for different prices we will continue to delete them and face the flame war in comments like this. If you do not like tradebit, go somewhere else and do not care about your business partners there.
Robert:Dan: I believe tradebit is doing their best to make everybody happy but of course they can’t make everyone happy. That’s just how life is.
Ralf responded to my email very fast and he even helped creating my account. I haven’t get the chance to use their service yet but my first experience was good.
Keep up the good work Ralf!
Tradebit is a cleverly disguised con.
If you have never heard of tradebit.com or just like to read up on them before you make that purchase, let me be clear: it is a scam, do not fund an illegal operation.
Ralf Schwobel (founder of Tradebit) is a clever scam artist. Even though they claim they are big on copyright violations, any random sample of top 10 files in 5 categories prove 90% to be illegally sold on Tradebit. What is more disturbing, files uploaded by members are then copied by Tradebit and end washed up somewhere else on the net. There are many disturbing facts about Tradebit that I do not wish to disclose as I have two little kids and do not want any trouble…but I would suggest stay away from this site like it’s the devil.
Sam, unlike yourself I post in public with my full name, have a full address on my site and in my emails and we do not copy the files of our merchants: We create sites for them, to help them sell – the money goes in their account.
Just because you got deleted for illegal activity on tradebit and you want to vent some hot air does not make your statement right. Ask our LEGAL merchants, what they think of tradebit! As soon we find a fraudster on Tradebit, he gets deleted and I suspect you are one of them. Posting bull without an URL or a full name does not prove more than that you have either been deleted for illegal activity on tradebit OR that you run a competitive site.
Unveil yourself and people might take you seriously – until then my team and I are personally available around the clock for the publishers who want to sustain a clean and legal site AND they know where I live and work and how we operate.
selling online is not easy. .. I tradebit but hardly get sales.
Musa: email me and we might be able to push you a bit or tell you, where you need to put some work in…
Tradebit is scam!
fd: no it is not
fd: Tradebit is not scam but there may be some merchants under Tradebit that are scammers. My account got deleted by Ralf because he said I was a scammer. I tried to explain but he arrogantly accused me as scammer. I was disappointed with the way he treated me but what past is past. Tradebit is not the only place to sell online. The best is sell directly from your website. I’m doing better now with my website. The key is traffic.
So to be honest as an ex customer and seller, Tradebit is not scam. But Ralf should be held responsible for any scam activity by his merchants because the money goes into his account. He only pays merchants once a week. I think he is doing his best to eliminate scammers only sometimes there might be a victim like myself.
Dan, I think you are one of the guys who uploaded the same product over and over… that is not scam but a completely different problem: we can not tolerate the same file 10 times on the platform just for the sake of selling it better…
hey ralf
judging by these idiots who cannot string a sentence together, i suggest they start their own platform to their sell their junk, they are the scammers and just a bunch of bitches who moan about not selling crap. f*CK you scammers!! tradebit properly controls quality. screw you who don’t think so. take your horrid level of english elsewhere you dumb idiots.
Tradebit is a good website, i recommend it and they are not a scam. They deal with you in a professional way. I as a seller have experienced this company and has helped me a lot too.
I can only speak for myself…I have been using tradebit for a few months and find them both co-operative and helpful
I have been using Tradebit for about 3 years. I get paid every single week and I haven’t had 1 single problem with getting paid every single Wednesday to my paypal acct. I have used several other sites to include Payloadz. But none of them can touch Tradebit. If you submit a ticket for any tech related issue you’ll get a prompt response and they’ll do everything they can to resolve the issue.
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bull this site does not do the payouts to their clients
i tested 4 different times with family members and all 4 times the sales did not show up on my recent sales list like i did not get no sales im now going to sue tradebit inc. beware if any one buys here the rightful owners dont get paid
just by repeating your false statements and ranting all over on the net how we “scamed” you, does not make it right… we deleted your account for fraud.
I heard tradebit from my friend. So far everything is ok. He gets his payment weekly. Only sometimes problem with refund issue where sales were refunded automatically without seller’s knowledge.
Bad
After being a Tradebit merchant for several years, withoutany problems, my account got deleted today without warning or explanation.
I consider myself an honest merchant and always check for illegal files. I bought most of my files from Nicheempires.com which come with resell rights.
Even if you are not aware of your illegal activities your account may get deleted. This may even happen to honest merchants.
I feel very dissapointed that this happened but nothing I can do about it.
I’ve had a good time on Tradebit, but time now to move on.
If we delete an account, we have serious reasons… at the end we live from having active merchants…
Ofcourse, I understand this Ralf.
Alas, those reasons were not given to me. So, there was no room to correct my mistakes.
Just realize that honest merchants make mistakes as well without them realising it. It’s like sending an innocent to jail without a proper trial.
Ofcourse it is easiest and fastest for Tradebit not to debate with people who’s account just got deleted.
I do not want my Tradebit account back anyway as this may happen again(lost a nice income/per month and lost many many hours of work in 1 blow).
I do want to warn (new) Tradebit merchants that this may happen to you as well, even if you think you are honest.
I do wish you a good life Ralf and I hope you will think over your system of dealing with scammers as you may take out innocent merchant as well.
Andre, or whatever your name is… I deleted only 5 accounts today. All heavily inflicted in credit card fraud. I will not unveil how we detect that or how the methodology works, but these 5 accounts (and yours is among those and I see which one it was! It is NOT a very old account, so top telling BS) were used for credit card frauds and we only state that, when we are sure. Also: that “nice” income came from exactly these fraudulent buyers who will charge back on us and cost us serious money. Each credit card incident costs us around $50… I do not know, what you people think we are… we are a small company and I actually see $50 differences in our bookkeeping. You fraudsters are hurting us, you put workplaces in danger and you do not give a damn about it. Then you come here and want to discuss that in public on a unrelated blog comment? I am available around the week for discussions, but you carry it into the blogs that you can not scam us any more… well, live with the answers.
I have had 2x $47 chargebacks this week from buyers. This may happen if the buyers think my product was too expensive and want their money back.
My tradebit payment was NOT linked to a credit card but to my paypal linked which was linked to my ING postbank account in the netherlands .
My “nice” extra income was $100,- from Tradebit.
I do not know exactly how old my account was on Tradebit was…but I think at least 6-12 months.
I do not see what fraudulent BUYERS have to do with me? I am not even linked to a Credit card. (I don’t have one). As I said my paypal account is linked to my Dutch postbank/ING account.
Could it be that those buyers want their money back, with no money on my Paypal, and then you have to pay it from your account? To cover the expenses.
Then the problem arises when my paypal account has no money in it…see what I mean? I am not sure how this works.
Furthermore, I cannot prevents chargebacks from customers.
André is my real name as you can see in your Tradebit mailbox today. I am also admin of Shopofenlightenment.com forum.
Really, I fail to see why I am to blame when my customers want their money back.
I received an email from a fellow Tradebit merchant asking me to do something about the chargebacks and start a discussion group + buyers blacklist. It does not only hurt you, but also your merchants.
Well – these two 47 $ chargebacks were from the same IP class with the same browsers and with stolen credit cards ….
Well, in that case that that is something I cannot prevent.(chargebacks)
Unless:
- my dad’s credit card info was stolen by them(I’ll check that after this post)
- you are suggesting that they used my IP.
Alas, I cannot check my Tradebit sales log…I already had a funny feeling when I saw those 2x $47,- chargebacks.
My conclusion:
You have deleted my account because my fraudulent buyers wanted their money back and you have to pay the credit card costs.
However, if this is the case, that won’t stop those fraudulent buyers, because they will buy from another merchant and charge their money back.
Will you delete those merchants as well?
You are punishing the wrong people Ralf.
Ralf has contacted me to work things out. Much appreciated:-)
yea ralf, what andre said is true. Don’t just blame merchant over chargebacks. There are many fraudulent buyers out there. If the merchants are selling legal products then you should investigate further before punishing them by deleting their account and not paying whatever they have earned before.
Dan
I made another sale and see the payment went through. I’m sceptical though about the negatives comming from tradebit users. I hope I dont fall by the way side also. Much as I have big dreams along this business.