Show HN: Creators selling files from their own host, Dropbox etc. | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Creators selling files from their own host, Dropbox etc.

filesprout.com

63 pointslatteperday34 comments

How does it handle VAT MOSS on digital goods in the EU?

The new rules state that sellers must charge VAT at the rate of the buyer's country and must record evidence of the buyer's location. Even businesses under the VAT threshold must register for VAT just to comply, unless you're selling through a third party who handles it for you - like Google Play.

> How does it handle VAT MOSS on digital goods in the EU?

They don't. See: https://filesprout.com/support/what-do-i-need.html

"If after talking with a professional you are responsible for paying sales tax for your items, you'll have to add this into your pricing manually."

Pretty sure that won't work. You need to add the VAT in the buyer's region, not the seller's. This is of course a nightmare to manage. See: http://euvataction.org/key-facts/#key_regulations

If that link is to be believed, you also need to submit your taxes on a quarterly basis, not a yearly basis as filesprout mentions as well as keep track of and store your customers data for 10 years.

Also, on your link they say: >Do you take a % of my sales? No way jose :) That's your money.

Whereas the main page says: >No contracts or monthly fees, leave at anytime. We take 5% you keep 95%. Fair enough?

Which too me qualifies as taking a % of sales, 5 to be precise.

And my final complaint: grey text on a white background...

Yeah, actually, if you're going to be a third party selling user generated content directly (and paying those users) over the internet, what are your responsibilities as the distributor? Can you really just say "Ask your accountant, not our problem..."? Seems like that's the best one can do as a startup though. Incorporate elsewhere?

> Incorporate elsewhere?

Doesn't matter, to a degree, the rules apply to anyone selling to Europeans regardless of where they are based. How and if non-compliance will be prosecuted is a more complicated matter.

>> How and if non-compliance will be prosecuted is a more complicated matter.

Indeed. As far as I can tell, it's only been tested in a limited sense when there are relatively clear violations, such as drug markets, blatant piracy, or gambling. But extend that a bit further, and you get into the sort of murky territory where you're forced to blacklist entire countries because they have crazy people running them.

IF someone provides the service with the VAT support i think it could actually work quite well for a lot of small vendors.

We also provide the service to help you with the EU VAT (and Norwegian VAT) and we also provides payment by SMS (mobile phone) for a lot of countries and a lot more.

https://www.bizify.me

Gumroad is: http://blog.gumroad.com/post/110080508463/vat

leanpub does it for books

I'm assuming that filesprout doesn't do anything about EU VAT because I couldn't find any information on their site.

What does it actually mean then? They're likely to be responsible for EU VAT anyway. Do they provide me with EU VAT invoice that states supplier's VAT number? If not, then it can't act as an intermediary, and that makes them responsible for EU VAT, even if they're based in the US.

Can I comply with EU VAT myself selling through it? Very unlikely. For each B2C transaction EU requires me to have 2 pieces of non-contradictory evidence of customer's location. I will likely need buyer's IP, billing address, card country and in some cases even additional verification if all other pieces evidence contradict (actually happened to me when I was travelling). It doesn't seem that filesprout handles all of that and can provide me with that information.

Sounds like what https://gumroad.com/ used to be when it started (am I remembering correctly?).

Still is - you upload your files to Gumroad though - not a big difference.

how are you handling redownloads later?

I used to offer my books through my web site directly, but I moved everything to leanpub because I didn't want to respond to 'bought six months ago, want to download again' emails any more.

this is probably one reason why gumroad switched to hosting files themselves.

How do I link to the file without it being public in the first place? I'd want it to not be publicly accessible, but only accessible through the purchase.

If the link is just hidden that doesn't really solve the security risk of someone downloading the file from the public dropbox url or wherever else.

Perhaps they store the file on their server and you can unlink the file from your own server? I doubt that is the case though.

taking 5% for doing what exactly? I assume this does not include the paypal fee right? so those guys are basically charging at least 1,5% more than paypal for handling what a wordpress+paypal does? what about the analytics of the sale? do they even provide some service around that?

If there are thousands of people for whom it would make more sense to set up Wordpress to do this, there are millions for whom it wouldn't.

I initially assumed they were covering the Stripe/Payal fees, in which case 5% sounds like a very fair deal. Definitely needs to be clarified...

So quickly checked out Gumroad's fees and it's 5% + 25 cents per transaction.

This is a similar a similar service but you can just store the files locally, minus the 25 cents transaction fee.

Does it matter if files are hosted on their server or yours(3rd party) if they can access them via links anyway?

How do they solve the problem of "sharing dropbox links after purchase" ?

"the purchaser can then download the file from your storage via our website, so the file's location is never exposed." It looks like their site acts as a proxy to the dropbox link which only allows those who have paid to access the file

They need to put that info in a more prominent location

S3 and Dropbox let you create signed links which expire.

More importantly, how do they solve "upload the download up to my dropbox and share that"

I suppose they'd say that this problem exists however you get the file to the consumer; their business is being the way you get it to them [legitimate users], not piracy-prevention.

But realistically, the 2 are intrinsically linked. I'd be interested in something like this that actually did something about piracy. I've built the systems myself, so I know it can be done, but it's annoying to maintain.

SnappyCheckout has been rocking this functionality for several years now... and they're cheaper as well.

Interesting. Can I also sell access to my blog? Or do I have to write my blog in a different format first?

This is likely not the problem they're trying to solve. This is more of a solution for selling files / access to files, and they provide (assuming) a proxy to that file so people don't just paste the link to the file everywhere on the internet. What you're looking for is to make your blog accessible only by certain registered users, and sell access for accounts. Unless you sell PDF files of the things you blog, then you could use this service that way.

Memberful already does this really well, and provides a number of other features.

Memberful.com

Maybe they focus on different niches?

5% seems a little steep on top of what Paypal or Stripe take.

Hidden != Secure

Punting on this is kinda ridiculous.

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