Setting up a new payment provider is also a royal pain in the rear.  Not only do you have to configure all the products you wish to sell, with prices/discounts/incentive schemes, you have to create your customised emails, generate your license keys, link back to your back end systems, create a sales page that has the look and feel of your own website etc etc – the list seems endless.  It’s not uncommon for companies to stay with a payment processor that they loathe, simply because of the dread of having to go through all the pain again with someone else!

Well, Red27 Studios decided to hunt down a new partner after hearing too many horror stories about our initial choice, Plimus.  Don’t get me wrong – they are a big, highly respected, professional outfit, but things had been going slightly askew for them in recent months, and we as a company didn’t want to alienate potential customers by having transactions that didn’t go through until Plimus had contacted them by telephone.  Yes, that’s correct, simple $20 – $30 transactions were held up – so no “immediate download” (this is at other companies I hasten to add, not Red27) – until they confirmed their purchase over the phone!   Now we are totally 100% committed to customer security, but we also understand how people expect that their genuine credit card purchases – especially for downloadable content – should go through instantly; we are busy people.

Our hunt came across a young & dynamic company by the name of FastSpring.com.

Now FastSpring are relatively new, but don’t let that put you off; the guys that formed the company are industry veterans coming from such giants as Google.

And it’s been a pleasure working with them so far.

Nothing is too much trouble; they have helped in absolutely every aspect of the integration, from designing payment pages, configuring license key generation, emails, notifications – everything!  All that, coupled with the kind of professionalism that every company should aspire to.

Shouts out must go to Ken White & Ryan Dewell, who have been absolutely fantastic; emails are answered within minutes, and they are both incredibly knowlegable about the whole spectrum of e-commerce and technology respectively.

Red27 Studios doffs it’s collective cap to them…

Check them out at www.fastspring.com

PS And they charge less than the industry standard, if that’s yet another incentive…