Show HN: CropUp, Sell your _______ on _______ | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: CropUp, Sell your _ on _

cropup.com

84 pointsjackseviltwin74 comments

For the box that shows a random service, I'd recommend just making it sequential. When it randomly comes back to a service I've seen before, I assume that I've seen all the services.

For example, I got: YouTube, Tumblr, YouTube, YouTube, Twitter

(I do product at CropUp.)

Yep, we noticed that as well, will fix it. Excellent observation, thank you.

+1, I got Handmade Bags 3 times in a row...

I want to suggest that it moves a little bit faster too. Either that or have both fields change at the same time. I get that you're trying to say "you can sell anything on any platform" by having the item persist while showing a different platform, but I think the fast that they're different fields is enough of a hint that you can sell "anything on anything."

You could have it start at a random spot in a sequential list.

(dev @ cropup)

Thanks for the feedback. Really appreciate it :D - It's now sequential! (yay~) We also modified it slightly to (hopefully) make the idea "you can sell _anything_ on _anything_" clearer. Any thoughts?

Your design overall is really nice. Me thinks this is either becoming a crowded space or there's just a lot of people doing similar projects for fun because the payment part is much easier (I did http://bngal.com as a side project for example).

BIG QUESTION: why PayPal for disbursing funds? With Stripe and BalancedPayments as options, I'm not sure why you'd use PayPal (other than possibly international reach).

(I do product at CropUp.)

Good question. PayPal was the easiest to use, for now, and works well. We'll likely add additional payout options, but no concrete plans or timing just yet.

Paul, just sent you an email about Balanced Payouts (https://www.balancedpayments.com/#payouts)

Nice job with Cropup!

Hi Paul. I work at Stripe and just sent you an email about our Connect product (https://stripe.com/connect), which is used by many e-commerce platforms such as Shopify and Goodsie.

You should consider modifying your pricing to be more in line with gumroad --- who appear to be your main competitor. They charge 5 percent of the purchase price plus a $0.25 flat fee.

(I do product at CroUp.)

We see shopping cart providers as our competition and they usually charge setup and/or monthly fees, which we do not. Given the value and functionalities our product provides we feel our pricing is fair, but we're open to structuring it differently in the future depending on market feedback, like volume or product price based, or we introduce a premium account with a monthly fee but lower per transaction fees.

I'm sure people who don't know about other direct competitors (Gumroad, etc) will see it as an alternative to a more elabore shopping cart or ecommerce site, and in that case 10% may be a no brainer. But if someone -like myself- knows about both alternatives, I may use CropUp initially but if I get some decent volume, I'd switch to Gumroad unless you guys had a 5% option for higher volume customers.

(I do product at CropUp.)

Fair point. We're open to exploring other pricing structures based on the market feedback we'll get. In general, goal is to rather be the Apple of eCommerce than the Dell. (Well, that sounds cheesy and not in a good way :) Sorry.) We don't want to be the cheapest service but the one that provides our sellers with the most value.

One interesting avenue for providing further value so that people might not balk at the 10% fee (as witnessed by a few skeptics in this thread), would be to perhaps provide next-day shipped shipping labels for merchants.

It seems that since the orders will be coming through CropUp, why not hold the hand of the merchant just a few steps further? Intake orders, print shipping labels, provide shipping materials to merchants, One-Stop-Shop concept.

(I do product at CropUp).

Excellent thinking! This is one of the ideas on our list, no concrete plans or timing yet though. It should just be real simple to sell the products you make so that you can spend more time on the things you actually care about like making some cool products.

Great work, love the design. One thing I'd like to see before I sign up, though, is a sample "product / purchase page". When I needed something like this I ran to Gumroad because I had used them before (as a customer) and loved the experience.

(I work at CropUp, I'm the designer there.)

Thanks! That's a great point and we're in the process of creating a few more product screenshots and possibly a video demo to cycle in that header area. In the mean time feel free to take a look at it here: http://crop.to/fW

Thanks; That link made me understand what the service is. (The home page, "How it Works", and FAQ did not.)

I notice that my shirt size isn't included on the final confirmation page. Seems like it should be.

(I do product at CropUp.)

Outsch. We're fixing that as we speak. Our apologies.

This. Basically all the emphasis is on the shorturl, which is a nice feature but the least important factor when selling products on an online store (hyperlinks are older than ecommerce, after all). There's nothing about what the buying process is like for the customer, how you support fulfilment, how easy it is to tweak prices/availability etc. - it's all assumed away by the "how it works" section which seems to imply you don't do anything after initial setup.

Much better! I really, really like the design. Better than Gumroad IMO. On the other hand, I would highlight a bit more or add more contrast to the link "My shipping address is not in the US", just in case. Other than that, it would be great to have a "test product" just like this but where we wouldn't need to input real CC details, just to check out the whole process, emails being sent, etc. Anyway, on what I've seen so far: Congratulations!

So then you only support physical products for now, or also digital ones (no shipping, etc)?

(I work at CropUp, I'm the founder)

Thanks for the feedback and we're working on a test product feature for sellers.

Yes, we only support physical products for now. Digital goods will be coming soon.

Is there any way to be added to your mailing list or something to be updated of new features in the product? If so, feel free to add {my username}@gmail.com to it.

You can follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/cropuphq) for announcements and we'll definitely add you to our mailing list. Thanks!

Great looking product, I'm a big fan of empowering everyday people to make money doing what they love. ShopLocket is a (local) favourite of mine, and I think GumRoad is also in this category.

Are there specific use cases that CropUp provides more value? Eg. on physical products? Photography? Digital downloads?

I ask because I see more and more similar products cropping up (pardon the pun) which want to help anyone sell anything online, but can't help but think that focusing on a specific vertical may result in the platform providing more value to the sellers.

(I do product at CropUp.)

For now we're focused on physical products, which come with a couple of challenges sellers of digital products usually don't have to worry about, like taxes, fulfillment, returns/refunds, etc. Our goal is to provide a product that equips sellers with everything needed for selling online and to make it real simple, so that they can focus on making their products and don't have to worry about selling them.

My only humble suggestion is to make the 'how it works' page more explicit. I did understand what you do but my mother would probably think you are just some kind of bitly for product listings she made herself. She would have to go to the FAQ sections to understand.

Maybe you should add more text to that page.

I agree... I didn't know if they accepted payment until going to the FAQ.

Cool site! Just notice that in some jurisdictions sellers of digital products also have to worry about taxes, cancellations, refunds etc.

(I do product at CropUp.)

Interesting. Would you be able to provide me with a link to where I can read more about this, please? Would be very helpful. Thank you.

Regarding cancellation of goods bought over the internet, directive 97/7/EC applies in the European Union: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:...

Directives are implemented differently in different EU countries and the countries also have the option to impose stricter rules.

In Denmark, consumers have the right to return digital goods such as e-books etc within 2 weeks (provided they haven't started using the product). I have no idea how it is in other EU countries but I would not be surprised if several other countries protect consumers that way.

Most Danish sellers of digital products state in their terms that the right of cancellation only applies until the file (e.g. an e-book) has been downloaded. I am not sure that would hold up in court.

As for VAT, in the European Union this is regulated by an EU directive on the common system of VAT: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CONSLE... Article 58 and Annex II deal with electronic services (and goods). Also look at the temporary rules in article 357 and forward.

As for taxes, every country has it's own rules and you will probably also have to consult double taxation treaties.

These issues are very complicated. If your website sells in different countries you should probably consult with accountants from each country.

(I do product at CropUp.)

Thank you. This doesn't look like a lot of fun to read... Will suffer through this. Again, thank you very much. Very helpful, very appreciated.

Paul, states like CO, KY, NC, NJ, TN, TX and WA generally require you to collect sales tax for digital goods. I suggest you dig into it a bit with the advice of counsel.

(I do product at CropUp.)

I shall and I will. Thank you very much.

Looks great. One thing I was looking for is a demo/test purchase. As a seller I want to know how it looks like to buy my product. In general, a sandbox with a bunch of test products and credit card numbers would make it a lot easier to adopt. Good luck.

(I do product at CropUp.)

You're right. We need to -- and will -- figure something out to better convey the buyers' end to end experience to people interested in using our service to sell their products.

I like it. But 10% seems a little high - I'd at least have reduced percentages for volume.

I'm not sure if you have (or intend) to support people with a lot of products, but I'd be interested to see how it works if you have 50 products vs. 500 vs. 5000. It would be nice to get group reporting (like every color of a T-shirt combined, all my mugs, etc. Ideally with tags instead of categories so you can cross-report).

(I do product at CropUp.)

We have some interesting ideas for what we can do with pricing in the future, like based on volume or product price or maybe we introduce a premium account that comes with a monthly fee, but lower fees per transaction. Still thinking about these.

For now we think 10% is a fair price given the value and the functionalities our product provides, e.g. calculating taxes based on the seller's nexus states and the buyer's shipping address. Also, the seller is only charged a fee in case of a successful order, but not e.g. in case of a refund, which is different from other services like e.g. PayPal. (And different means better here, we think.)

Cool! This is a pretty crowded space but your site looks great. My one criticism is that the pricing is pretty hidden. That's the first thing I look for before signing up for something like this. It's especially important in this case because the service is supposed to help users make money, so they will really want to know how much they can make. Don't be ashamed that you take a cut for providing an awesome service!

(I do product at CropUp.)

You're right, we need to make pricing more visible.

The start selling button seem to be displaying incorrectly on chrome. The color isn't filling the button and instead it takes the color of the background.

(I work at CropUp)

We can't reproduce that issue. Did you try to clear your cache?

If you're still having that issue, can you send me an email: robert@cropup.com

The website looks great! When I opened it, for some reason, I instinctively looked for a short video explaining what the website does and how it works. Maybe that could be something you might want to consider? Also, I had to check the comments here in order to find a demo product page - I would recommend you add a demo product page link on the front page, so people can see how it looks like in practice.

(I work at CropUp, I'm the designer there.)

Thanks! I completely agree with you on getting a video for the homepage, and we're actually in the process of creating one (they just take some time), as well getting a product demo link up.

Ten percent is too high.

US only. And it's quite hard to figure out. This is all I could find>

http://cropup.com/help/merchant

What about international buyers?

Yep, no problem. You can accept payments from international customers.

(I do product at CropUp.)

Hmm. I'm not following, can you please explain? It's not US only and that's what the FAQ says / is supposed to say.

I think OP is referring to the merchant side of things being US only.

Ah, I see. Good point, we currently don't call that out anywhere prominently, but we should. Thanks for clarifying.

Excellent idea! Waiting for digital goods selling / purchase notification API.

But.. if you give money to sellers with PayPal, you're paying PayPal fee?

(I do product at CropUp.)

Correct, great observation. PayPal Masspay charges the payment sender a fee, but it's free for the recipient. So these payouts are free for our merchants.

Hey I'm curious as to what you mean by a purchase notification API?

Would you imagine something like a pub/sub system or something that you would ping?

I mean something like PayPal IPN or another system which notifies my server about a purchase so I can send digital good to buyer e-mail for example.

(I do product at CropUp.)

For digital goods, we'd handle the fulfillment for you. Goal is to make it dead simple and to provide everything you'd need, so you don't have to use any other services or do any coding.

Still, a server to server notification would be a good thing to have, no concrete plans or timing yet though.

Thanks for your feedback.

Is this only for people who don't have a product order form yet, or is there a way for us to benefit from using you too?

(I do product at CropUp.)

It's for anyone who wants to sell a product on a social network like Facebook, Twitter, etc., whether you have an online store already or not. It's not great to share a link to your online store on social networks because then your customers have to go through the entire checkout flow incl. putting the item into the shopping cart, going to the shopping cart, clicking on checkout, creating an account or not, ... even though all they want to do is buy one specific item quickly and easily. With CropUp you can sell individual products via a very streamlined checkout flow, that works great regardless of the social network or the customer's device (mobile, tablet, desktop).

Nice idea, but I couldn't find a demo product or some place with current customers so I can check how it looks, etc

Sure, try this product: http://crop.to/fW

I know you guys are overwhelmed with work by now, but I really want to know how was your experience with AngularJS.

(I'm the tech lead at CropUp)

I'm surprised how well AngularJS has worked for us.

Currently, we're using it for the shopping checkout page and also for the merchant dashboard. The dashboard is all driven by AngularJS (using $resource/$http api calls). The checkout page is more like Twitter, in that we preload data in the DOM when it's rendered, but there are API calls via AngularJS to create the order, check quantity, etc. These pages are actually served directly from our CDN.

As far as how it's worked for us. We've actually rewritten our dashboard and checkout page twice, and it look some getting used to on how to structure our controllers. Getting used to writing directives instead of using jQuery and doing DOM manipulation in our controllers also takes some discipline, because it's just way simpler to drop some selectors and event bindings/triggers in your controller.

The way AngularJS encourages you to keep any dom manipulation out of the controller and to think about reusable directives has really helped for readability and maintainability of the code base. We're consistently surprised how quickly we can implement features because of AngularJS. We've actually said, "Wow, that was easier than I was expecting" quite a few times.

However, there are some hurdles. $http doesn't support file uploads, the stable release doesn't support custom http headers with $resource, only one ngView, etc. That said, I still would not hesitate to recommend AngularJS.

(I'm a developer at CropUp)

Totally agree with Jack on this, I enjoy working with AngularJS. I think the learning curve could be made less steep with better docs. It would be great if they were moved to GitHub to make contributing easier.

Did the limitation of having only one ng-view affect your project at all? I'm embarking on a new project using Angular and there are mixed opinions on the web. People that were shouting against it have come back saying that it's actually not so bad [1].

[1] https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/angular/...

ng-view is not simply a view (I think the name confuses most users), if you want multiple ng-views you will probably need more routers. Maybe there are some use cases for it, I just can't really think of one. You will pretty much split your application in N.

You really really really really want to keep those kind of things in directives.

Anyway, I read about it sometime ago on a github issue it is 'planned'.

(Tech lead @ CropUp)

In the first iteration, we thought multiple ngViews would have been useful, but it didn't prevent us from achieving the design we wanted. You can use ngInclude to accomplish a similar effect, if you don't need the routing.

AngularUI seems to have a solution for nested views/routing here (https://github.com/angular-ui/ui-router). Although, I would think about your routes and the pieces of your web application and rethink whether you really need ngView. Using ngIncludes for pieces you want to reuse might make more sense.

edit: for clarity

It sure makes more sense, but you need to write boilerplate code to map URL state to ng-include changes/updates. It would be nice if it was out of the box.

I don't know the details of your app but maybe you should consider using ngView in the outer most container, then everything inside the container can pick the appropriate template via ngInclude. That's the path we took in our first iteration, this current iteration actually doesn't need nested/multiple ngViews.

Really cool idea and site. How do you guys differ from CashieCommerce.com ?

(I do product at CropUp.)

I'm not familiar with them, but I'll check them out now. Have you used them? Do you like them?

Yeah - I know the guys building it - I definitely like their product and take on the market. It seems like it must be a crowded space, just saw this come up on HN: https://trychec.com

I think 10% will create a rather large barrier to entry for most.

What provider do you use for processing the credit card payments?

(I do product at CropUp.)

Based on the other comments here you can tell we use neither Stripe nor Balanced :) One of the other big guys... Please email me if you'd like to discuss details: paul@cropup.com

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