[foxhop]

I built an alternative for my wife called MakePostSell https://www.makepostsell.com

Right now it only works for digital downloads but I'm planning to build out shipping and local pickup options for physical goods.

Currently in beta but my wife is using the platform in production here: https://shop.printableprompts.com

The only payment processor at this time is stripe.

My thought is to allow people to bring their own domain, Stripe API keys, PayPal, and S3 bucket or digital Ocean spaces (for files, attachments, thumbnails, preview files, and products.

I want to disrupt and keep pricing very competitive for small shops (potentially even a free entry-level plan)

Hope this helps you feel less trapped.

Click the "New Shop" button to try the beta.

[yarcob]

Your welcome page doesn't mention VAT, so I am going to assume that you do not handle VAT. This makes your product unsuitable for anyone in Europe.

There are other solutions for digital products that take lower commissions, for example FastSpring (would not recommend) or MyCommerce (no experience).

They are probably not as sleek as Shopify, but their rates are around 5-9% (depending on how big average orders are), and they handle VAT and invoicing so you don't end up having to pay a lot of back taxes when the authorities audit your business.

They are built for selling software, but work just as well for ebooks etc.

[foxhop]

Yeah no VAT at this point but seems like a road map item for certain.

I don't give tax advice but in the United States each state handles sales tax and economic/physical nexus on digital goods differently.

All of these are on my radar for MakePostSell and all online sellers should educate themselves on the rules for their region.

[__float]

Unfortunately "the rules for their region" can be incredibly complex: selling online means you don't necessarily know (or care!) what your customers' region is.

It's complex; good luck if you decide to tackle it!!

[foxhop]

I think I've already captured enough complexity in MakePostSell to make it possible to implement sales tax. It's not an unsolvable problem since we have plenty of examples in the wild.

I'm sure the examples hide the complexity with abstractions and I'm currently naive to all the edge cases, which makes me but not thankfully not ignorant to the path ahead.

From first principles we should be able to form a generalist approach to solving sales tax. Should be an algorithm in the public domain as far as I'm concerned. : )

I'd take a solution that got me 80% there.

[gamblor956]

From first principles we should be able to form a generalist approach to solving sales tax. Should be an algorithm in the public domain as far as I'm concerned. : )

Reasoning from first principles only works if you're Elon Musk and you don't actually have to go beyond a superficial understanding of the problem domain. Unfortunately, there is no "generalist approach" to sales tax or VAT. Every jurisdiction has different rules and rates. The U.S. has more than 3000 different sales tax jurisdictions, of which more than 1000 levy sales tax on digital goods and services even on out-of-state sellers.

And that doesn't take into account the dozens of different definitions of what is a "digital good." Here's a surprise for the unwary: in more than a dozen states, downloaded software is treated as a physical good.

I'd take a solution that got me 80% there.

In this case, the last 20% will take 99% of the time and effort. And then you'll have to make sure to do that work all over again next year, and every year, when the sales tax/VAT laws are updated.

[yarcob]

Also, noone will notify you when a sales tax or VAT law changes -- you have to find it out on your own :)

It's not an impossible problem, it's definitely doable, but I'm pretty sure you need a couple of people and won't be able to do it all on your own.

If you're just a small seller, you can "fly under the radar" and just handle taxes in your own jurisdiction.

But as you get bigger, you need to handle every place that you sell to. Especially if you resell your solution to others.

[foxhop]

I think a general system could be designed such that most of the classifying work is done up front and also shop owners could opt-in or add additional rules to the algorithm. I think the 20% could be squeezed and solved a number of different ways especially in the name of the public.

[randomswede]

For digital downloads within the EU, the VAT rate depends on the location of the end customer (and must be paid to the tax office in the jurisdiction of that end customer).

Failing to do account for this at the time of sale creates legal and/or economic liabilities for your customer.

This means that the API between your platform and your customer would need to have (at least) "gross price", "VAT" and "jurisdiction" for each item, to allow for your customer to do proper book-keeping.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

Thank you for sharing this.

Having looked into it recently, the current pricing for online merchants is just excessive. Unless you are selling an item with a ridiculous margin, it is hard to keep up. And it isn't just Shopify and companies of the same type. Online marketplaces are about as bad in terms of trying to capture bigger slice of the pie.

I will keep watching your project.