Three Ways a Small Online Business Can Deal With an International Marketplace
When you put your business on the web, to a degree you become an international company. Outside of language preference, many web-fronts give me little clue as to whether they are physically located in California, New York, London, Berlin, Taiwan, or Siberia. And until I get ready to whip out the credit card and have to worry about security and shipping costs, I won't even care. With digital distribution, shipping is immediate and (practically) free. And I have noticed that about one-third to one-half of my sales are from outside the United States. This has been true since my first week of selling games.

Wow. Insta-global company. I didn't even internationalized (or "globalized") my site for visitors from other parts of the world, beyond some of the basics handled by my e-commerce providers. How cool is that?

But... and you knew there was a "but," right?... there are some problems.

Customer Support
For example, I recently got a customer support problem in email. Those are (fortunately) pretty rare, but I try to bend over backwards when I get them (that's what happens when I'm dealing with such low volume, I guess). The problem was that this one was in Spanish. I took a couple of years of Spanish in junior high too many years ago to remember, so I couldn't immediately understand the email. In fact, I almost deleted it as spam --- I get a whole bunch of foreign spam for some reason (at least, I did, until the sysadmin installed a new filtering system that is HOPEFULLY not blocking anything legitimate!). However, I took a second look, tried to decode it's meaning, and figured out the problem (he'd apparently not received downloading / licensing information from Plimus).

I was able to check my records, find his information, and send him all the information I think he needed. Unfortunately, my response was in English, and I imagine that if he spoke English, he'd have emailed me in English in the first place. As luck would, I have a friend who has her masters in Spanish, and she was willing to translate my instructions for me (I owe her cookies in exchange). At least, I hope translated it all. I might have ended up sending him a cake recipe as far as I know, except I know that it contained the correct web URL and license key.

I haven't heard back from him, so I certainly hope that resolved the issue for him. The solution doesn't scale very well, but I know a lot of people fluent in foreign languages, so if I can bribe them with cookies or free product, I may hopefully be able to keep up with the occasional foreign-language customer support issue.

"Off-Shore" Competition
Another issue is competition. Though I have high aspirations, the amount I make from Rampant Games each month is ... well, it's enough to buy a few indie games (yes, I even have to pay for some of the ones I sell!) or some tools for my game development, but it's not exactly what someone might call an "income." At least, not in this country. Or most other countries. I still aspire to make minimum wage one day doing this. However, it's not hard to see how an indie shop out in some parts of Asia or Eastern Europe might be able to afford an entire STAFF on revenue that we'd only consider minimum wage here. And they do. And in a global marketplace, they can be your competitors. They can do everything you can do faster and more cheaply.

Solution? Well, in the games biz, the nice thing is that you aren't in direct competition. Void War was released around the same time as many other 3D space combat games, but I don't think they really robbed sales from each other. Fans are happy playing several games in the same genre. Likewise, many people who like the indie RPG Aveyond will also enjoy Cute Knight, and vice versa, though they might prefer one or the other.

And through affiliate programs, competitors can also be a source of revenue. In fact, there is a TON of room for cooperation and mutual benefit in the games biz (as, I suspect, most industries). From affiliate programs to cross-promotion, there are lots of ways to grow the pie.

Foreign Pricing
On the flip side, there's the problem of pricing. $20 is right around the "impulse purchase price" in much of the United States (I think it's a little above impulse point, but I'm a cheapskate Utahn who has to live on a game developer's salary). But in other countries, it's a pretty steep price - too steep for many would-be customers. What do you do? Many companies offer goods at discounted pricing in other parts of the world, but that's very hard to restrict in the online world.

Amanda Fitch, creator of Aveyond, once mentioned an interesting approach she took with that problem. Dealing with it on a case-by-case basis, she went back to the barter system to get a fair exchange. For those would-be-customers who absolutely could not afford the price of the game, she offered to trade a copy in exchange for services... in the form of marketing efforts. Because there's one thing we indies can't get enough of (and can't afford enough of), and that's MARKETING!

Your Turn
Okay, I know there are some folks here who've been at this a lot longer (and more successfully) than I have. What kind of problems have you run into, and what are your suggestions? Are there any other problems you've run into? Or better solutions?

Thanks!


(Vaguely) related brain-dumps:
* 20 Ways To Make Money Making Indie Games
* Yes, Virginia, There Is Money In Indie Games
* What Do Indies Have In Common With Avis
* Should I Become An Indie Game Developer?
.

Labels: Biz, Indie Evangelism

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:39 AM (Permalink)