Over the last few years the microISV industry has started seeing a new way to sell their software - deal of the day sites. These sites work basically the same: entice impulse shoppers with a hefty discount on one or two products a day.

But do these sites work? Are customers okay with one day sales? And should you as a microISV associate with a software discounter?

Judging by the first-hand reports posted by microISV founders at the Business of Software forum, the answers are yes, yes and yes:

“In the end I ended up with 40 sales, which included Text2Go, voice modules and CDs. I probably gained about 30 new customers. I was very, very happy with this.” - Mark Gladding.

“I’m so happy! We sold an obscene number of copies of StyleSpread on Bits Du Jour Today!” - Paul Young

I’m going to find out myself in a few days just how effective a discount of the day site can be for microISV: my new ebook, MicroISVs Sites that Sell, will be one of the two products featured at Bits du Jour Feb. 25.

In the rest of this post, I want to cover how Bits du Jour and three other discount of the day sites work:

Bits du Jour:

Bits du Jour (BDJ) generally focuses on Windows software and is best known within the microISV community. Let’s say your software normally sells for $30 USD. If accepted, BDJ will sell it on your special day steeply discounted (30% at least, 40% or more recommended). Let’s say you sell it discount for the BDJ price $15 USD - BDJ gets 30% of the sale or $5 and you get $10. Bits du Jour does not sell your software - you do, or your current ecommerce provider(s) do.

But there’s more to BDJ than one site and one day sale: BDJ partners with over 60 sites (although some are quite small) that get the word out: Iconico.com, Tech-Pro.net, FindFiles.com, UpdatePatrol.com, SoftwareADay.com, CamDevelopment.com, CamUnZip.com, Winability.com and Uconomix.com to name a few.

For that matter, you can add a BDJ store to your web site or blog and earn half (15%) of what BDJ makes on each sale, each day. This strikes me as being an interesting way of monitizing your blog if you are so inclined, and definitely interesting if you run a site not connected to your microISV business.

I’ve been dealing with BDJ’s owner, Nico Westerdale, and I’m impressed with how competently and fairly Nico does business. BDJ gets approximately 3,000 visitors a day according to Nico and sends out an email daily to about 65,000.

MacZot!

Focusing on the Mac market, as a consumer recently come over the wall to Macs I found MacZot to be a great way to learn about software for my new baby. Here’s another reason to consider partnering with vendors like MacZot - as microISVs we’ve by and large forgotten what it’s like to get your very first computer and you have no idea what to buy for it.

Unlike BDJ, on MacZot you write your own product’s review. As to deal terms, I have no idea since MacZot does not post this information. One other difference - MacZot delivers and stores your product’s registration codes.

Game du Jour

Game du Jour aims to save PC users from a life without some fun and indie PC game makers from obscurity. Game du Jour is a microISV run by Philippe Piernot and his wife (both avid gamers) from their home in Palo Alto, CA.

“Me and my wife are both avid gamers and big fans of Woot - it only seemed natural to create a Woot for indie and casual downloadable games. We decided to start Game du Jour in September 2006 and the site went live December 12, 2006 on our wedding anniversary.”

Woot by the way is the granddaddy of internet deal of the day sites, with about 800,000 fans and over 1 million sales (according to this unusual Wikipedia article).

As far as how Game du Jour partners with indie game makers, “From a business model standpoint we simply negotiate deals with game developers/publishers and we operate as an affiliate: so all sales go through each game vendor’s existing system with a discount,” Philippe said.

Philippe is a genuine smart guy, with 13 patents to his name and several other microISV projects going.

Software Deal of the Day

New in 2008, Software Deal of the Day is run by longtime microISV Sharon Housley (NotePage.com, makers of FeedForAll and other products). Like other software deal of the day sites, Software Deal of the Day promotes your software with a single day deep discount.

I asked Sharon why start Software Deal of the Day? “Because I think that there is an opportunity with the economic concerns, consumers are looking for bargains, the deal of the day sites allow developers to capture impulse purchases,” Sharon replied.

“Many developers also have realized that in most cases the lifetime value of a customer is far more important than the money made on the initial sale. The Software-DOD.com website reaches audiences that many developers may not be able to reach on their own. It really is a win for everyone, consumers get a deal, developers grow their base and tap a new audience.”

While there are undoubtedly other deal of the day sites you as a microISV might find interesting, I’d recommend starting with these four and see how things work out. After all, a sale is a sale is a sale!

Related post:
Deep Discounting and One Day Sales