Do you have RAP feedback . . . ?

for what it's worth, I've looked at nearly 7+ major sales systems - upwards of nearly $1,000+ when you consider what you'd need to function the way one would need/like to...

and as a programmer who COULD indeed 'Pimp My "Ride"' - so to speak - on the software I'd select, I constantly went back to RAP for NUMEROUS reasons -

As you said, Immediate payments (no need to explain here)
Extendibility/Scalability to future development - with it's open architecture and ability to view the source code post-purchase is infathomably useful, and insightful and allows me to customize it the way I need to if need be.
Modularity of the templating structure, and portability of the add-ons structure is paramount in my books - if the code spans 14 files just to accomplish ONE task!? that's not good succinct coding... but if it's fairly linear and strightforward to follow - I like dealing with that

Now... onto your points (as I step down from my small matchbox pedestal - sorry) .

First off... affiliates do not mind at all... the fact that they get paid IMMEDIATELY is the EXACT reason people used 7DS and RAP to begin with...

Admin's do not mind this at all too - becausee if you want to you can change the % - to 30% or 75% payout to your affiliates - flexiblity is really slick here... i've used that for one of my current products.

The refunds who ALWAYS be handled by the person who received the funds... in fact, to-date, after roughly a combined purchases for all of my products in the past 8-9 months or so... I've had nearly 4,850+ purchased products thru my RAP sites... I've not had a single issue with refunds not being handled properly... both by myself or the affiliate who returned the purchaser's money... not a one.

Affiliates know it's a business model - if they need to process a return, they process it.

the "MINUS" you refer to i'm a little unclear... becuase if you're planning on selling a proudct that is only going to get a few sales... alright... yes... there might be a case where you get creidt for 1 and the affiliate gets credit for two - your 'cut' = 33% of sales... but (i know you know this... but it becomes silly to calculate) if you plan on making nearly 4,850+ sales, then the % cut doesn't really matter... right?

If you get paid 100 times, and the affiliate gets paid 101 times... does it really matter?
The sublimely silly and ridiculous helps me figure things out too - that's why the example helps me out



Uh... personally i've toyed with numerous processors, the point of this whole matter is that if you have affiliates and they want to get paid immediately then they'll be serious and get a paypal business account...

Seriously... I'VE not had a single affiliate ask me if there was another way that they could be paid.... in fact, some even didn't have a paypal account and after 2-3 days of getting paypal verified business status, they'd come back to me and ask me again for the affiliate signup links



**** one last note ****
many other sales systems have "plugins" which are costly, and aren't "supported"... and are very difficult to build but there's no real checks and balances b/w all of them to help mainstream them all to make sure that they don't step on each other's toes... RAP has put out the Add-On architecture which helps all of that process more smoothly.

didn't mean to make this a salesy response, but i've been where you are, "X", and as I told Sid numerous times, i've never seen a system more simple to use, easy to install, up-n-running in minutes, with the flexibility, low-cost to entry, extendibility and scalability that RAP has... period.

This is why I build add-ons for my own sites.

Later, X

Hi X,

Allen asked me to stop in to address your questions, but I think he's right. They have pretty much been answered now.
If they're not impressed - it's because they don't totally understand the payout scheme. For instance, with the 50% commission rate in your example, you stopped short. The merchant gets the first payment just to keep "affiliates" with two Paypal accounts from buying from themselves with no serious intention of ever promoting your product. Giving the affiliate the first payment would result in some number of people doing just that and the merchant might as well be promoting a free offer.

Extending your example...
The affiliate also gets the third payment (i.e. Merchant doesn't get paid again until the 4th sale), so the "imbalance" is always in favor of the affiliate. Alternating payments don't begin until after that point (to compensate for the fact that the full first payment goes to the merchant). Other than the first sale, if the affiliate has earned less than the specified rate - he/she is awarded the current sale.

Refunds are immediately communicated back from Paypal to RAP, and refunds no longer count as sales when calculating the commissions on future sales. That means that if an affiliate refunds a customer they are immediately in line for the next sale to compensate for that loss. With other affiliate systems the merchant would do the refund, but then would withhold the commissions for the refunded sales from any future sales. In other words, the affiliate still participates in the refunded sale.

I use RAP myself (surprise, surprise), and have only had 1 affiliate who did not honor a request for a refund. I had two choices. 1) Refund the customer myself, or 2) direct the customre to request the refund through Paypal (the affiliates account). I chose #1 in this situation, just because I don't want to leave a bad taste in a customer's mouth, but if you chose #2, Paypal would immediately take steps with the affiliate to refund the customer as long as it is within their 60 refund policy.

"Paypal Only" is not a deterrent. Especially in the non-IM niche. Firtst off, more of your consumers have heard of Paypal, than have heard of 2CO, CCBill, 1ShoppingCart, or whatever. A buyer does NOT need a Paypal account to purchase. Paypal accepts the EXACT same payment methods as these other processors, they have a better customer PLUS they have the ability to use an existing Paypal account for payment if the customer happens to have one.

Hope this helps you, or anyone else contemplating the use of the system - but be sure to look for discount offer that Allen's made available for forum members. It's only valid for a limited time.

Hi X,

Bill has pretty much summed everything that would be related to your question, so I will try to hit you response specifically.

1. The purpose of the affiliate (and JV partner) payout scheme is simple. The first sale ALWAYS goes to the vendor. The main reason for this is to prevent someone from buying from themselves. After that, the rotation of payouts (100%) alternates according to the % commission you have set.

The refunds are taken care of, first by the person that received the sale, either the vendor or the affiliate. Most everyone who is using RAP has a clear policy for affiliates. If they receive the sale, they take care of the refund. If it's the vendor, then they do. This can be verified who got the payment from the dales records for the product in the admin area.

If for some reason the affiliate won't make the refund, most vendors will take care of it in the interest of proper customer relations, then they have the option to ban the affiliate from future sales through the RAP admin area.

Another great feature of RAP.

The issue of odd sales/commissions isn't a problem. Instant payout more than makes up for this.

2. PayPal is widely used by many people. The difference is that it's the only payment processor that can be configured to do what the alternating paymnet schedule does. None of the rest will do this.

Also, PayPal is becoming more widely accepted by people buying online. You can thank Ebay for helping to make this happen. People buying on Ebay will pay through PayPal, so they will have an account already. Once again, no other payment processor does this.

With the question of non-IM niches, RAP is strictly a payment processing/affiliate management script that can be used for any type of didgital download product and is used all the way accross the board. It's use is only limited by the user's imagination.

Personally, I use it for the IM giveaways, as portal sites, sales of physical products, working on integration for ordering/shipping CDs and DVDs (product fulfillment) and whatever ideas may come along.

Not to sound like a shameless plug, but Bill has a new subsciption add on that is going to open up new possibilities for the use of RAP.

I think Bill summed it up best when he made the comparison of cost. You won't find anything else out there that, for the money, will do what RAP will do. The best part is that the support Sid Hale provides is beyond compare. He is in this for the long term and I defy anyone to match the level of support he provides.

If it helps any, I am one of the original beta testers for RAP, have developed a clientele of top name marketers that not only use it, but promote it as well.

I hope this helps to answer your questions, but if you have any more, I will be glad to answer them.

Thanks,

John

I have 2 questions:

1. How does RAP handle upgrades? Will I have to pay if the software is updated?

2. Is the RAP 'download protection' a replacement for DLGuard? Does it work with DLGuard in any way?