The Lazy Stoner

OK, so if you have any experience selling virtual goods or ‘electronic items’ as Paypal employees refer to them, then this article is for you. I’ve been ripped off by people abusing Paypal’s policies on various occasions, and it sucks.

Well here’s one way you can protect yourself. Since Paypal offers no protection for sellers on digital goods, simply include something tangible with your purchases. Now, this isn’t something you’d want to do with with a cheaper product, it’s gotta be worth your while. Especially since I’m sure most of you don’t have a Fedex truck on call for everytime you sell a product. At least, that’s how I do it. In my last few larger product releases, I’ve included a small bound book with each purchase. The books were never really anything more than 15-25 or so pages of mumbo jumbo I’d type up quick a day or so before launch and bound with plastic binders, but they served a purpose. You see, many of the products I release cost between several hundred and several thousand dollars, so when I sell somebody something and they get my extremely high quality products that I’ve worked hard on for the past 2-57 weeks, I want to make sure I can hold on to that money.  Unfortunately, it’s quite easy for a buyer to get their money refunded back into their account after purchasing a digital item through Paypal. I won’t go into details because I don’t want to help someone scam anybody, but it basically just depends on how you approach the situation. Disputes can usually be won pretty easily, but Paypal people are fuckin wacky, so you never know what to expect from them. If it’s a bank or credit card chargeback though, forget it, your money is gone.

Anyway, the point is, is that if you include physical merchandise with your digital goods, like a book or some stuff, and can provide proof that you mailed it to Paypal, than in most situations you have nothing to worry about. I’m talking, even like some 3-page stapled together shit with newspaper letters glued together to spell out a message or something, mail it!

Now as I was saying, this doesn’t apply to all products. If you’re selling something for $12 or $27 then you certainly don’t want to be spending $1-$15 to mail the product, depending on where they live. I would only do this on products costing above $500 or so I think, maybe a bit less.