The reality of Filemaker Shareware - My experience

This Filemaker database is designed to help sellers keep track of sales, print package labels and to print a packing slip for ebay auction items. I spent a lot of time learning Filemaker and figuring out the scripts to make the template work. I actually thought that if I made the template cheap enough, users would actually pay for some of the labor that went into it. If everyone could write Filemaker script with loops to extract information, they would not need this database template.

Well, my experience is that users DO NOT pay unless you give them considerable incentive. You must "cripple" the program or "lock" it up so it is only really usable if they pay the SHAREWARE FEE. Over 1,200 people downloaded this database template (if you count versions 3.3 and 3.4).

Guess how many actually paid any shareware fee? The answer is only five so far. I guess that makes me extremely naive but actual experience is a reality based teacher. If you put in time and effort on filemaker solutions, I suggest you either not worry about payment and just give it away or find a way to extract the payment before delivering a working database.

I have improved the database by adding a few features ( see main page Filemaker 7.0 version). Access to the new database will only occur through email sent from me to users who pay. The ESeller Version 3.7 database will arrive as an email attatchment after the shareware fee is paid. You can still download version 3.4 for free and try it out.

"Shareware" is Copyright-protected software that is distributed on the condition that if a user wishes to keep the program beyond the trial period, they will send payment to the author. The database ESeller may not be sold as a single software program or distributed as part of a shareware collection by anyone other than the original author(© R. Hofemann 2004).
The database template is provided "AS IS," and without any warranty, expressed or implied as to fitness for any particular purpose. Copyright © 2005 - Robert Hofemann. All rights reserved

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