Pleco store for Apple products

[stephanhodges]

I don't currently have an iPad, and don't know how to browse the Apple store. However, trying to cost things out, I went to the Pleco store page http://www.pleco.com/store/home.php and notice that there is no mention of an iPhone / iPad version even available.

Seems like you should list all the items and their prices there, as well as a link to the iStore (or whatever it's called), since (if I recall) you've said all product has to be bought through them... If nothing else, you'd get a "bump" from Google searching!

I don't recall if you also said that all dictionaries have to be bought directly from Apple or not as well?

Last question (tacking it on here).

What are the licensing restrictions for multiple iPads and iTouch and iPhones in one household? For example, let's say 2 iPads, 1 iPhone 3G, 1 iPhone 4G, and 1 iTouch 4G (latest announced).

Thanks!

EDIT: I did find the (very) small link to the apple store on your store page. Main comments still apply.

 

[mikelove]

That might make sense, but we're actually not allowed to sell our add-ons outside of iTunes; we've repeatedly tried to get permission to do so, even offered to give them their 30% commission just so that we could offer our own store as an option for people who can't use iTunes / don't have internet connections on their devices / etc, but they seem to be pretty set on their policy for that.

So this would just be a catalog listing for an item that you can't actually buy through our store, and I'm not sure whether that would actually do more good than harm - we could end up with people going to that page thinking they could buy our iPhone software there, getting frustrated when they couldn't find the "Buy" button and eventually giving up in frustration; at least by not listing iPhone items in our catalog we encourage them to keep looking.

We are planning to integrate our online store with the rest of our website much better in our next big site revision, though - they should all be running through the same CMS - so at that point we may do away with the single "Store" page altogether and just have buy buttons on the pages for individual platform versions.

As far as your other question, a single copy of Pleco purchased originally on iPhone / iPod / iPad can be used on any device that syncs with the same iTunes account, though I believe you might start to run into limits with iTunes if you try to authorize more than 5 devices at the same time.

 

[stephanhodges]

My suggestion was to make a catalog listing. How could it hurt? The positive aspects I outlined in first email still apply also, IMO. And, I actually still don't know any of the pricing on the apple items - haha

I understand the worry about a missing "Buy" button. You could have a "Buy on iStore" button, however. (or whatever the name is)

 

[character]

"Please note that these products are for Palm OS and Windows Mobile only - to purchase our iPhone software, click on this link to download our free basic iPhone app, then purchase add-ons / upgrades from the "Add-ons" tab inside of that app." IMO this should be a lot larger, and ideally have a graphic (like the one on this page) next to it. I'd also have a whole page listing what's available for in-app/add-on purchase for search engines/browsing users. If that's the way you're making your money, then promoting what you have to sell can't hurt. Instead of a buy button, put some text about "buy via Add-ons tab inside our app".

 

[mikelove]

My suggestion was to make a catalog listing. How could it hurt? The positive aspects I outlined in first email still apply also, IMO. And, I actually still don't know any of the pricing on the apple items - haha

I understand the worry about a missing "Buy" button. You could have a "Buy on iStore" button, however. (or whatever the name is)

There isn't a way to create a direct link to buy our iPhone add-ons, though, we can only create a link for them to download the free iPhone app. So that's why this worries me - people download the product, like it, go onto our website to buy add-ons, go to the store, find the page for the add-on they want, and where's the Buy button? They might click on the button to download the free app but then discover it would only let them download the free app... I suppose we could give it a try but I'm very worried it would end up costing us more sales than it would gain us.

"Please note that these products are for Palm OS and Windows Mobile only - to purchase our iPhone software, click on this link to download our free basic iPhone app, then purchase add-ons / upgrades from the "Add-ons" tab inside of that app." IMO this should be a lot larger, and ideally have a graphic (like the one on this page) next to it. I'd also have a whole page listing what's available for in-app/add-on purchase for search engines/browsing users. If that's the way you're making your money, then promoting what you have to sell can't hurt. Instead of a buy button, put some text about "buy via Add-ons tab inside our app".

That seems a bit less risky - actually does require a bit of work, technically you have to sign a (free) trademark license with Apple to use that "Available in App Store" button, but a more prominent banner at the top of the store page could make sense. We already do have a pricing page here and a page with instructions for how to order Pleco on iPhone here so it's mostly a matter of redirecting people to these pages.

Or we could make it really obvious with a giant two-panel page that would be the first thing to come up when you clicked on Store:

CLICK HERE to go to iTunes and download our free iPhone app; you can purchase add-on modules inside of that. (see this page for instructions)

CLICK HERE to go to the Pleco Software Online Store to purchase the Windows Mobile version of Pleco.

 

[character]

We already do have a pricing page here and a page with instructions for how to order Pleco on iPhone here so it's mostly a matter of redirecting people to these pages.

Or we could make it really obvious with a giant two-panel page that would be the first thing to come up when you clicked on Store: [...]

Either, and it would be good to have links anywhere it remotely makes sense (such as in the manuals, putting your "Products" sidebar on the front page and most other pages, etc.) to where people can get information about what's for sale (directly and from in-app purchase) and how to buy. It would be good if the Add-ons section of the manual had a link to what Add-ons were currently available and their prices, for ex.

Perhaps Pleco is at the point where it makes sense to get some outside marketing/sales advice? Some agency could help you punch up your App Store and other product descriptions, help you structure your website so it drives more sales, give you some advice on (or run some) A/B tests on the web, etc. I think the logical/minimalist way of thinking required for good programming can be at odds with the emotional/psychological thinking of the sales/marketing fields.

The advice on another thread to make Pleco look like it came out of the Ming Dynasty makes perfect sense from a 'convincing new people to install it' perspective, even if it is a lot of work* and adds no functionality.

* Esp. because current users will want a 'classic look' option. :wink:

 

[stephanhodges]

I didn't realize that you listed prices -- on the product page.

Perhaps a link to that page from the Store (sounds backwards, but it would give your reader a "context switch" from purchasing to informational) with some wording about finding individual modules and price breakdowns for budgeting, etc.

 

[mikelove]

Either, and it would be good to have links anywhere it remotely makes sense (such as in the manuals, putting your "Products" sidebar on the front page and most other pages, etc.) to where people can get information about what's for sale (directly and from in-app purchase) and how to buy. It would be good if the Add-ons section of the manual had a link to what Add-ons were currently available and their prices, for ex.

Not sure about putting that in the manual since we're finally about to add an easier way to download the manual for offline viewing (rendering that information potentially out-of-date, a big worry since if we raise the price for something people can start demanding that we honor the price they saw in the manual). But more links would certainly be a good idea.

Perhaps Pleco is at the point where it makes sense to get some outside marketing/sales advice? Some agency could help you punch up your App Store and other product descriptions, help you structure your website so it drives more sales, give you some advice on (or run some) A/B tests on the web, etc. I think the logical/minimalist way of thinking required for good programming can be at odds with the emotional/psychological thinking of the sales/marketing fields.

I've actually made some inquiries about that in the past, but there's a bit of a problem in finding someone who actually knows something about our market - it seems like all we could really get would be someone who would pretty up our website and rewrite some marketing copy, not someone who would actually help us figure out how to target our potential users better. So more an aesthetic / tweaking thing than a full-blown marketing strategy overhaul. It might make sense to hire a single firm to design a new website design and some new design elements for the app, actually, and maybe even a new, less-complicated logo though I'm rather attached to the old one that I designed myself in Adobe Illustrator back in 2001

Perhaps a link to that page from the Store (sounds backwards, but it would give your reader a "context switch" from purchasing to informational) with some wording about finding individual modules and price breakdowns for budgeting, etc.

Makes sense - in some sense, our website navigation has already failed if an iPhone user has even wound up on the Store page, so really what we probably ought to do is make our website a bit more product-dependent, remove the direct "Store" link and instead only direct people to it after we knew they were interested on the Palm/WM/(Android) version of Pleco rather than the iPhone one.