Sellfy, the one-click e-commerce platform for self-publishers, has expanded its payment options beyond PayPal to now include credit card processing via Stripe in the U.S./Canada, and Paymill in Europe — potentially widening the appeal of its service. We’ve also learned that the Latvian startup, which is backed by Skype co-founder Toivo Annus, has seen a trebling of its customers since June last year — 9,000 sellers, up from 3,000, with 16,000 products current listed for sale. That seems like rather modest growth, even if it is steady.
A European competitor to U.S. and Kleiner Perkins-backed Gumroad, Sellfy targets the Long Tail of self-publishers and other digital content creators by enabling them to sell content – eBooks, music, video, photos, or basically any type of file – via a simple short URL that can be shared via the likes of Twitter and Facebook or on their own website.
To date, CEO and co-founder Maris Dagis tells me that Sellfy is seeing the most traction in the eBooks segment with many authors preferring to sell via Sellfy rather than Amazon because of much lower transaction fees — Sellfy takes a highly competitive cut of just 5% of each transaction, compared to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing which soaks up 30%.
“It’s because there is a huge difference in transaction fees and if you are not among Amazon’s top sellers you end up driving customers and doing all the marketing yourself anyway”, he says.
And it’s a fair point. With the barriers to distribution almost non-existent for digital content, creating a surplus of supply over demand, the real work and expense is in marketing, much of which is to an existing fan base.
“Many authors/creatives have built a significant online presence (blogs, websites, social network channels) and it is getting easier to sell directly to their audience trough platforms like Sellfy, without going to marketplaces”, notes Dagis.
With Sellfy’s newly added Stripe and Paymill credit card gateway integration, bypassing uber-marketplaces like Amazon or iTunes just became that bit more viable. After all, for some users, that familiar PayPal button can be as much a deterrent as an incentive to making a purchase.
Sellfy is a graduate of the Lithuanian StartupHighway accelerator, which is now open for applications.