you won't disappoint me, I still don't feel there is an alternative to clickbank. If there was, I wouldn't still be using clickbank but your 'problem' is really a solution. You just noted the competitive advantage clickbank has by calculating commissions at the point of sale. and your right about what clickbank essentially is; a glorified, albeit weak, payment gateway. Thats all. but also like you said, we would need a strong base of publishers and affiliates. hmmm... where could we find that... i mean there's a new "Huge New Product Launch" thread everyday But by discussing these things here with you and others, I believe a distinct advantage can be had over clickbank, by starting this new program from a grassroots level with working publishers and affiliates helping create it. and thats exactly what this section of DP is. so instead of the constant "whats wrong with clickbank" threads, why not "whoa this is much better than clickbank" instead of citing more and more problems, lets give our industry a solution. madman, if enough people feel this would actually be a dream, I'll make it a reality but I'll need help from everyone
I honestly don't think this will ever happen. There is a reason clickbank is the best even with all it's downfalls. There would have to be a massive shift of both affiliates and vendors to the "New Clickbank" and while we like to think that the DP Clickbank forum is the place to be, the reality there's a tonne of really successful affiliate and vendors who never ever visit this place and just keep on trucking. Paydotcom was supposed to be the better of clickbank and even with Mike Filsame and all his resources running it (which I wouldn't be surprised if it outstripped all our combined resources) it doesn't even come close even after all these years.....
I agree with you with the idea, in here there are hungry people looking for a clickbank alternative - especially when clickbank screw something. But the only problem would be to build a system "more reliable than clickbank". I personally have been involved in the development of a similar system (payment gateway provider) from ground up (and im not talking about just making a checkout page, but a system in which other people can integrate their own payment to) Believe me, it require some work but thats the least thing. To be considered as a clickbank alternative the new system must be a payment gateway connected directly to a bank (no third parties such as google checkout or any other provider) - this way it will waive those extra fees and give you more control. Apart from this such a system must be PCI compliant for security reasons and stuff - thers a hefty monthly fee of some thousands bucks + lot of security procedures and dedicated servers incolved to pass the test + lot of extra development. In addition, (we checked with a layer about this) under normal circustances one cant just accept the payments of everyone and then issue checks to affiliates and publishers. There are some permits involved, the same that are normally issued to banks. Obviously for such permits one needs to be registered as a company, have some kind of founding and credibility. And dont forget the legal stuff, some things are proprietary of clickbankak and one cant just make the same thing since you would just get a lawsuit. (just some months ago a website got closed by clickbank for some reason) So, as you can see there is lot of work involved that require experienced full time programmers and lot of legal things which does not make this an easy thing to do - even if you are an already established company with lot of resources.
You are right. Paydotcom main problem is because they are not a payment gateway like clickbank - being a payment gateway require lot of extra development, fees and legal stuff to be carried out that even mike filsaine opted not to go for it. By just managing the sales tracking part and leaving the payment to third parties like paydotcom does is not good enough.
I had already pointed out some of the stuff you mentioned on another thread (and this is why this thread was created to have its own place for discussion). The reason google checkout was mentioned was simply as an alternative system to be integrated into - instead of paying the monthly fees for compliance there would be the processing fee paid to checkout on each transaction (as checkout pay those monthly fees etc). The ideal way to go is obviously directly linked to a bank, but you already pointed out the cost involved with doing that. The biggest stumbling block is the legalities of everything from company creation through to payment distribution and everything associated with operating legally. It all adds layers of cost and requires a full system to be custom designed and managed - so a large investment is required (even on a small scale operation initially). In saying that, if such an entity existed then it would be tested out for a while by many affiliates and publishers and then there is no guarantee those publishers and affiliates would stick with the new network... it is a risk, but if it did work out then it could be rewarding.