Ive always been the type of person to say, why should I use that service when I can build one like it myself. When I heard about Gumroad, I immediately felt that it would be just another online tool for selling digital products. I can be that way some times with all of the noise in the world that often turns out to be no more than junk. If you don’t know what it is, Gumroad is a platform that enables creatives to sell directly to their audience — so that they can make a living doing what they love.
However, this was a bit different because I had heard about Gumroad from a couple of people who I fell are reliable sources. Rob Walling mentioned it on his podcast during the summer but it wasn’t until I had a conversation with Nathan Barry that I begin to see how I could use a tool like this. These voices saved me the vetting time that I would generally put forth before dedicating my time to learning to use a tool.
Although I felt pretty confident about the value of Gumroad prior to signing up based on the referrals, I still decided to follow the blog until I needed to use the service. Im glad I did because it gave me the opportunity to really see how it fit into the digital product strategy that I was woking on.
My experience with Gumroad
It just so happens that I decided to purchase a product that happened to use Gumroad for fulfillment today. At the end of the purchase process, I was given the opportunity to supply a password for an account, which I did. I immediately received an email requesting my verification. Following verification, I was redirected to a profile page at Gumroad to complete the sign-up. I was given the opportunity to link social networking accounts, provide a Google Analytics ID (I GA any and every time I can data junkie), ad some API data if I was interested. I also received an additional email asking that I setup social account links, setup payout methods, and review the Gumroad analytics section.
In my opinion, they hit many of the most valuable things in the on boarding process. I really thought it was well done and will save me time later when I come back with the objective of setting up a preorder page.
Update 12/1/2013
I put up a sales page for an ebook and am now ready to begin to configure Gumroad for preorders using their recently released preorder feature. I decided to use an existing property that had some content that I want to monetize for testing Gumroad. So that I could kill two birds with one stone.
Setting up the preorders in Gumroad was seamless. There were about three clicks required to create a product sales page at Gumroad. There are some other options such as:
- Offer a discount. Percentage or Dollar.
- Product variants that could be added to the product for sale. For example you could add size and color.
Note: Having the descriptions and images for your product prepared before configuring Gumroad is recommended.
I am offering three packages so I added three separate products representing each. Prior to creating the three products, I’d created a single product page and used the variant feature to add the other two products. This resulted in a product page with a drop down menu that contained the other products.
I felt that this approach was not the best user experience because it offer options and sometimes options cause confusion. I also know from previous shopping cart experience that using variants can be trouble when it comes to inventory and reporting.
More to come. Leave your email address in the box below, use RSS or return to this page soon to hear more about my experience with Gumroad.
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