Update on SD Version / 1.0.2

[mikelove]

Quick update on the SD card version of PlecoDict. We're still planning to sell it, but we've run into a bit of a snag with the idea of worldwide shipping - the customs and legal issues are less than straightforward (and we've never had to deal with them before), but our volumes are much too small to allow us to streamline them. We don't really want to be limited to shipping within the US, since the majority of our customers are located elsewhere, so the question we're debating now is whether to start shipping in July but limit it to US customers only or wait a few months and make a bigger release in the fall after we've figured out the legal issues.

Anyway, just thought I'd let people know what the status is.

Also version 1.0.2 on Palm should be out in a few more weeks - we'll put it together after we reach the next milestone on Pocket PC. (a milestone that should be accompanied by screenshots).

And we're getting pretty close to being able to announce pricing for Palm OS to Pocket PC crossgrades - unfortunately, they won't be as cheap as we would like them to be, because there are a lot of fees/royalties/etc that will have to be paid again for the Pocket PC version, but they should at least be significantly cheaper than a brand new copy of PlecoDict.

 

[Jim]

Hi Mike

Not sure what customs issues you are running into. I would expect it to be the responsibility of the customer to understand and deal with in their particular country. In the vast majority of countries a single SD card shipped to an individual will be charged duty according to the product category, in this case likely software. I am going to guess that a reasonable number of your customers are foreigners in China. Here, if it is shipped to a foreign individual it will either come straight through without duty or the customer will be contacted to fax in a letter saying it is for private use and it will go through. I haven't been in Taiwan for several years but if memory serves me correctly I believe it is much the same there.

You also mention legal problems but no details so I cannot make any comment there. The SD card is a great idea so I hope you are able to sort it all out.

 

[mikelove]

Well, there are a couple of specific problems. For one thing, there's the logistics of actually shipping the software: I don't want myself or anyone else to be stuck hauling down to the Post Office and standing in a long line every day just to get the customs forms stamped. (we're too small to have a daily pick-up, and the services that don't require this, like UPS/FedEx/EMS, are too expensive to fit in our target price of $120 shipped)

Another problem is credit card verification - the standard address verification systems only work within the US, and while we're not too worried about people buying our software with stolen credit cards, given the recent outbreak of pirated copies of our software being sold on CD in legitimate-looking stores in China, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few incidents of that. This wouldn't kill the idea, of course, but it does add some extra expense, since in addition to losing the price of the card, shipping, and possibly a couple of royalty payments we also get hit with a stiff penalty (and a minor dent in our credit rating) every time we have a charge reversed because of a stolen credit card.

Another big logistical issue is keeping track of packages - they get lost, they can sometimes get held up at customs for several weeks or more, and even if we're not running afoul of any regulations there's still a lot of potential for confused and aggravated customers. So we'd get stuck with a lot of re-sends, refunds, etc for lost packages.

One option I'm thinking about is setting up a relationship with a local shipping partner in China (and perhaps also Taiwan) - if we could offer shipping in the US and China, we could probably make do without shipping to Europe (though I'm sure some of our European customers will disagree), at least not until our sales had grown a bit. Or we could just put the whole thing in the hands of distributors, supply them with boxed product and limit ourselves to online sales only.

But basically it's become apparent that my initial plan of dropping a stack of $6 Global Priority Mail envelopes in the mailbox every day would create more headaches than I anticipated, so we've got to come up with another approach to this.