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Amazon App Store: Rotten To The Core

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Re: Amazon App Store: Rotten To The Core

#21

Post by dhimes »

rkalla wrote: post #4

What I got from this blog post is that they made an uninformed decision, and ended up with an unexpected result that pissed them off from the perspective of "lost sales". The email from Amazon clarified there were no money to made and sure enough, no money was made. The added costs of the server is unfortunate and justifiably something to be upset about (especially if you weren't accounting for it), but I have to poi…

For me the most important part of the story is this:

Did the exposure count for much in the days afterwards? That’s also a big no, the day after saw a blip in sales, followed by things going back to exactly where we started, selling a few apps a day.

Re: Amazon App Store: Rotten To The Core

#22

Post by watty »

eavc wrote: post #13
robtoo wrote: post #7

thanks to Amazon’s secret back-door deals, we made $0 on that day. These secret back-door deals that were so secret that they were written in bold in the email, so secret that they noticed this and wrote back to amazon, and so secret that amazon then confirmed them. They were offered a crappy deal, realized this and double-checked it, but decided to go for it anyway. When it turned out that the deal really was pretty…

It does seem problematic that to consumers it seems as though the dev gets a cut.

A cut of what?

Re: Amazon App Store: Rotten To The Core

#23

Post by tybris »

irons wrote: post #17
robtoo wrote: post #7

thanks to Amazon’s secret back-door deals, we made $0 on that day. These secret back-door deals that were so secret that they were written in bold in the email, so secret that they noticed this and wrote back to amazon, and so secret that amazon then confirmed them. They were offered a crappy deal, realized this and double-checked it, but decided to go for it anyway. When it turned out that the deal really was pretty…

He's not saying the 0% price was a secret from his company, he's saying it was a secret to the general public. I pay pretty close attention, and I thought the free apps of the day were paid at the 20% rate that Amazon warns they may pay you if they unilaterally discount your app.

I see no reason to think that's not the case. This was a mutual agreement outside of the general terms. That's hardly unusual.

Re: Amazon App Store: Rotten To The Core

#24

Post by campnic »

rkalla wrote: post #4

What I got from this blog post is that they made an uninformed decision, and ended up with an unexpected result that pissed them off from the perspective of "lost sales". The email from Amazon clarified there were no money to made and sure enough, no money was made. The added costs of the server is unfortunate and justifiably something to be upset about (especially if you weren't accounting for it), but I have to poi…

Your entire response is conjecture.

He readily admits he bought into the 20%, got and clarified the 0% offer, debated and went for it. He shows the 54k number as a way of reinforcing the bait-and-switch they are using to lure people into the market, not as a way to say 'i should have been paid $x'.

You say 'Amazon gave that company an incredibly aggressive marketing campaign for 1 day' but let me tell you what i see. 'Amazon is building their market on the backs of apps by giving them away for free.' I write Android apps for a living and I appreciated the cautionary tale. The rest of the comment you left is basically unsupportable. We have no data to say what % of people that get the app for free leave a review (and, consequently, whether or not that review is good or bad). I'm guessing we also have very little insight into how the numbers of installs affect the search rankings.

You are (probably) right, there are a bunch of people that grab just the free apps, but I don't see that as a good thing and I'm not sure how it plays into your argument. Its also not clear that the 'freemium' option was offered to the developer as an alternative of putting up their full app up for free. If it was, I would have expected PopCap to do so with Plants v. Zombies.

Its also unnecessarily diminutive to say '... I have to point out that the sales BEFORE the free-app-of-the-day listing[1] were not impressive...". The fact of the matter is they made infinitely more money before the deal of the day then we can say they did AS A DIRECT RESULT of the deal of the day listing.

Re: Amazon App Store: Rotten To The Core

#25

Post by shaggyfrog »

mcantelon wrote: post #6

>Amazon gets to set the price of your app to whatever they want, without any input from you, or even the chance to reject their price ... Amazon re-writes your description, and in ours they even made up things ... you can’t remove apps from their store That doesn't seem great.

Re-writing descriptions is such a bizarre thing to do I don't know why Amazon would choose to do it. Clearly they are getting things wrong in the descriptions, which is misleading to customers, which must be illegal in some fashion.

Holding apps hostage -- not being able to choose unilaterally to remove them -- is beyond the pale.

Whose app is it anyway?

Does Amazon think they own these things the second they get uploaded?

Re: Amazon App Store: Rotten To The Core

#26

Post by watty »

robtoo wrote: post #18
yusefnapora wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're valid in calling the deal "secret," as the app-buying public at large has no idea these deals are taking place. The developer knows they're getting nothing, but everyone downloading the free app is harboring illusions that they're supporting the developer.

Okay, fair enough. But I do think it is exaggerating to say that "everyone downloading the free app is harboring illusions that they're supporting the developer." I strongly suspect that the overwhelming majority of downloaders get no further than "ooh! free stuff!" click

I had no idea 20% was expected to be paid to the dev and I've downloaded several from the Amazon App Store. It sounds like this dev made an uneducated choice to be featured even after knowing they would receive zero %.

Re: Amazon App Store: Rotten To The Core

#28

Post by dibarnu »

rkalla wrote: post #4

What I got from this blog post is that they made an uninformed decision, and ended up with an unexpected result that pissed them off from the perspective of "lost sales". The email from Amazon clarified there were no money to made and sure enough, no money was made. The added costs of the server is unfortunate and justifiably something to be upset about (especially if you weren't accounting for it), but I have to poi…

Luckily they got mostly positive reviews, however most apps have their reviews and comments trashed. I've seen great, 5-star apps go down to 2-stars because of people who downloaded it because it was free, didn't know what it did, then didn't like it and give it a 1-star. Others give 1-star because amazon screwed up and charged them, others give 1-star because it doesn't work on their device (even the description will say it isn't going to work). These things wouldn't happen with when people find the app and choose to purchase it.

The complaint seems to be that Amazon is talking out of both sides of their mouth. Telling the public that developers are getting 20% (thus making people feel good about installing the free app) then asking developers to agree to a rule change and accept nothing instead.

Re: Amazon App Store: Rotten To The Core

#29

Post by rkalla »

shiftyjelly wrote: post #9
rkalla wrote: post #4

What I got from this blog post is that they made an uninformed decision, and ended up with an unexpected result that pissed them off from the perspective of "lost sales". The email from Amazon clarified there were no money to made and sure enough, no money was made. The added costs of the server is unfortunate and justifiably something to be upset about (especially if you weren't accounting for it), but I have to poi…

Can I just reply here? Here goes. I think you missed the entire point of the article. We agreed to be featured, we stand by that decision. What we take issue with is the public perception that Amazon pays their (publicly stated) 20% of the asking price for developers to be featured. They don't. Simple as that. Everything else is a beef, yes, but not our primary beef. Also we left it a month, we got featured June 27th…

shifty,

Admittedly, my response was focused more on the other beef than that single point. Given how much other information was in the post, I didn't think the 20% == 0% was the central argument; my apologies for missing that.

My core belief that in the long(er) term that the give away likely would have helped the movement and sales of your app still stands though. I think you leaving it in the store for an extra month is valuable data point, but not quite enough for me to categorically agree with "Yep, totally experiment failure, f Amazon!"

Did any reviews come in from any of those massive downloads? How were the reviews? What was the average score?

I would give up the argument completely at 6 months after a few more update releases if there were 0 reviews and 0 sales, otherwise I stand by my original statement that this was a GOOD thing for you and your company.

It is my feeling that you are focusing too much on this bait and switch. Fine, it happened... but you also have your app on 101k more devices than you did the month before so do something with that, flip your perspective a bit and take advantage of it.

You cannot convince me that having your app on 101k more devices in 1 day is a bad thing (except maybe the server costs). It may be scary/odd/unexpected, but you guys are smart, you will figure out some good way to grow from this.

Re: Amazon App Store: Rotten To The Core

#30

Post by kosei »

dhimes wrote: post #21
rkalla wrote: post #4

What I got from this blog post is that they made an uninformed decision, and ended up with an unexpected result that pissed them off from the perspective of "lost sales". The email from Amazon clarified there were no money to made and sure enough, no money was made. The added costs of the server is unfortunate and justifiably something to be upset about (especially if you weren't accounting for it), but I have to poi…

For me the most important part of the story is this: Did the exposure count for much in the days afterwards? That’s also a big no, the day after saw a blip in sales, followed by things going back to exactly where we started, selling a few apps a day .

Agreed. That surprised me initially, but then I thought about it a little more. I think the issue is that with a "Free App" promotion, you get great exposure, but only to people who are going to buy your app for free.

- People who do see your free app buy it (if interested) and net you $0. They won't wait to buy tomorrow because why not buy it for free?

- People who don't see your free app won't buy later because they weren't exposed to you. Very few people will have "heard" of your app without having had the chance to buy it.

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