Thursday 29 January 2015

Why are UK Customers Charged More?

Did you know that many US companies charge UK and European customers much more than their US counterparts?

We often pay for the same goods and services at a rate of one pound to the dollar. That is, we pay about £10 when a US customer pays the equivalent of about £6.50.

I was planning to join the Apple Developers' programme so that I could develop free applications for the people who visit my website until I discovered that I had to pay £60 a year before I could test applications on my own phone.

I thought that there was no point in paying this until I had some applications to test. Recently, I went back to sign up only to discover that the price had been increased to £79! US developers only pay $99 (£65) - not as bad as the exchange rate mentioned above but still unacceptable. (By the way, if you have signed up for Apple's iTunes Match for £24.99 a year, you'll be interested to learn that US customers pay $24.99).

I contacted Apple support about this and despite the fact that they aim to respond to queries within one business day, I have had no reply but I did have an email reminding me that I hadn't completed the purchase of my developer licence. So, I contacted them again using the email address in the reminder and quoting the original ticket number, but I have still had no response.

It looks as if I won't be developing iOS apps for the Apple store but I will develop web apps - the only disadvantage being that you have to be connected to the internet to use them. I can develop, test and distribute OSX applications without putting them on the Apple store and I'm currently looking at developing Android apps which can be developed, tested and distributed without joining a developer program. More: http://www.mwls.com/news.php?n=219

Thursday 22 January 2015

Amazon Marketplace Profit Calculator update

Reflects the latest changes in Amazon's fees More: http://www.mwls.com/news.php?n=218

Monday 19 January 2015

New Resource

Avoiding Grievances More: http://www.mwls.com/news.php?n=217

Monday 12 January 2015

Have social media had their day?

I've just published the first edition of my re-launched newsletter (www.mwls.com/newsletters/2015-01.php). It's been a long time since I published a newsletter - partly because I didn't have a good method for distribution, opting-in and opting-out but the main reason was that social media seemed so fashionable. So what's changed? More: http://www.mwls.com/news.php?n=216