My immediate thought is that people will use this to sell pirated and/or illegal goods. I’m curious how you plan to address this issue?
Show HN: Fruits – Sell digital products via your website, newsletter, etc
41–50 of 159 posts
Re: Show HN: Fruits – Sell digital products via your website, newsletter, etc
#42Congrats on your launch! But honestly, your site gives me some huge red flags regarding your service:
You don't have a legally valid "Impressum" on fruits.de: It points to fanbase.com and that one isn't even mentioning fruits.de. So, as a German startup, it seems you're at least bending German and EU law by not providing the information necessary for proving services on the domain fruits.de. And as a result, as a potential user, I can't trust you with my business.
Moreover, I couldn't find information about your "sales tax" claim. You know better than me that selling digital products in the EU and across borders can be kind of tricky, depending on what you are selling (e.g. ebook vs software), if you're selling B2B or B2C, and depending on the origin of your customer. As a user, I'd need much more information about how you handle this and the bookkeeping you mentioned, but it somehow looks like you're relying on PayPal as the payment gateway and are not handling sales tax / USt by yourself?
And no: As someone looking for a simple solution to sell my digital products, I don't want do book a consultation for answers to the questions above.
Re: Show HN: Fruits – Sell digital products via your website, newsletter, etc
#43Cool to see a München based startup popup here! Nice going neighbour :)
Re: Show HN: Fruits – Sell digital products via your website, newsletter, etc
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would you want to log every transaction with an external accountant? This increases the cost of your service and adds absolutely nothing of value to the customer.
That's due to rules and regulations here in Germany. We need to have our outgoing and incoming invoices being handled properly to not run into tax fraud issues. By talking to creators from e.g. OnlyFans, the biggest issues they faced was explaining their earnings to the tax authorities with no proper invoices at hand. By further automating those tasks, we will be able to reduce costs dramatically and might get rid of…
Maybe you want to just include it in the fee itself. It feels silly to have a separate fee when you advertise with 7%. At the very least it’s 7%+0.49. It’s not my problem that you have to hire an external accountant, and not something that I think is relevant for your customers.
Re: Show HN: Fruits – Sell digital products via your website, newsletter, etc
#45How will taxes be handled?
I am in Europe. That means every time I sell something, I need to charge taxes depending on the country of the buyer. And once a year, I have to make a report for the tax authorities with all the revenues I made with all the countries.
Does fruits abstract that away somehow?
Re: Show HN: Fruits – Sell digital products via your website, newsletter, etc
#46congratulations on the launch! how does this compare to Gumroad?
Unlike Gumroad, our goal is not to offer sales pages for digital products - at least not initially. We found out creators don't necessarily need a complicated landing page when selling content through e.g. tiktok or instagram or a newsletter that already provides trust. In addition, we will also process and handle invoices and credit notes
Yes, the same was true for me. I literally only want to accept payments, the sales page and the fulfilment is already done externally, so I really just need a payment form that sends me a callback.
Stripe does this, but going through their whole KYC process has become extremely arduous (and they seem incapable of being clear about what they need/want, as well as understanding that Dutch people with a Dutch company sometimes do not reside on the Netherlands).
Re: Show HN: Fruits – Sell digital products via your website, newsletter, etc
#47Happy to see a startup from Germany here, way to go folks! Also I wasn't aware you can now add a description and post a link to an external website here, that's quite helpful.
Thank you! Greetings from Bavaria. :)
Congrats withdrawn, not from Germany.
I kid, I kid! ;)
Context for all non-Germans: Many "northern" Germans joke about Bavaria not being part of Germany. Another often made "joke" is that Bavaria starts ~50km south of were one lives.
Re: Show HN: Fruits – Sell digital products via your website, newsletter, etc
#48I made a little test file & purchase - how do I actually get paid?
First impressions are that it seems very expensive for smaller purchases - my $2.00 turned into $0.56 (and then I'll have currency fees as GBP wasn't an option).
Re: Show HN: Fruits – Sell digital products via your website, newsletter, etc
#49Congrats on your launch! But honestly, your site gives me some huge red flags regarding your service: You don't have a legally valid "Impressum" on fruits.de: It points to fanbase.com and that one isn't even mentioning fruits.de. So, as a German startup, it seems you're at least bending German and EU law by not providing the information necessary for proving services on the domain fruits.de. And as a result, as a pot…
You sound like a user that expects the world for your $20/month business. These red flags could be corrected in a day.
Re: Show HN: Fruits – Sell digital products via your website, newsletter, etc
#50Congrats on your launch! But honestly, your site gives me some huge red flags regarding your service: You don't have a legally valid "Impressum" on fruits.de: It points to fanbase.com and that one isn't even mentioning fruits.de. So, as a German startup, it seems you're at least bending German and EU law by not providing the information necessary for proving services on the domain fruits.de. And as a result, as a pot…
You sound like a user that expects the world for your $20/month business. These red flags could be corrected in a day.
I think they sound like a user who expects the service to follow German and EU rules and regulations when on a German domain, which sounds not like the world but common sense.
Also "for your $20 month business"? I mean I guess he expects it for everyone's $20 month business.