Let's petition the Reallusion store to change their policy


https://forum.reallusion.com/Topic296714.aspx
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By VanishingPoint - 8 Years Ago
I'd like to ask everyone's help in petitioning the Reallusion store to change their payment policies. I know most people here are used to the current policies and they may only sell here and not know any better.
Basically, I'd like for all the sellers to be paid automatically every month, without needing to request the money, without submitting an invoice, and to be paid the full amount with no PayPal fees. This is what practically every other marketplace site does.

As a background, I've been selling on Renderosity for 15 years, selling on TurboSquid for 10 years, selling on CGTrader for 5 years, and I've been paying merchants on my own site for 10 years.

The sales process should work like this:
1) When a transaction is complete, the site should send an e-mail to the seller to let him know. Renderosity and CGTrader do this.
Ideally, the site should also send the customer's name as proof of purchase in case he asks the seller for technical support.

2) At the beginning of every month, the site should pay the seller automatically, without any request from the seller. All marketplace sites do this.
The seller should not have to submit any kind of "invoice" since the site knows how much the seller made in product sales.
As a comparison, does anyone walk up to their boss every month and ask for their paycheck or does the company pay them automatically? Wink

3) The site should pay the full amount and not have tiered payments. All marketplace sites do this.
For example, if I made $295, I should be paid $295 and not have to choose either the $200 or $250 payment tier. So let's say I choose the $250 payment.

3a) The full amount means without leaving money "in the kitty" to cover chargebacks, refunds, or whatever. Chargebacks are a cost of doing business and shouldn't be passed along to every seller.
For example, my $295 in sales is now down to a $250 payment, but I have to leave $50, so it's now a $200 payment.

3b) The full amount also means that the site pays the PayPal fees when sending the money, simply by clicking the option for "seller pays the fees". This is what all other sites do when they pay their sellers.
For example, my $200 payment is charged a $7 PayPal fee to receive the money.

So now I get a $193 payment on $295 in sales- I've lost over $100. This just doesn't seem right to me.

Thank you
By Lord Ashes - 8 Years Ago
Interesting notes you make...

I don't mind the request for payout but I have never needed to submit any invoice. As soon as I hit $150 US (I am a Content Developer and thus I require $50 worth of point in my reserve), I make the request for a $100 payout using the online Cash Out function and next pay day (on the 15th of the month if I am not mistaken) I get my payout in my PayPal account.

With regards to PayPal fees that is also interesting. The first few payouts did seem to have a PayPal fee (I think it was around $4 for me but part of that may have been currency conversion) but I believe that my last payout had no fee. No idea what changed. Is your PayPal account in US funds?

1) When a transaction is complete, the site should send an e-mail to the seller to let him know.


I don't really mind that they don't because PayPal does that for me. As soon as the money hits my PayPal account, I get a notification. If I don't get a notification then I know Reallusion did not send the money.

2) At the beginning of every month, the site should pay the seller automatically, without any request from the seller


This may not be ideal for people if there is any set fee associated with the transaction. For example, if the PayPal fee is a set amount (not a percentage of the transfer) then some users which don't make a lot of revenue (such as myself) may prefer not to have funds transfered on a monthly basis. For example, I want until my account gets to $100 (plus $50 reserve) although there seems to be a option for Cash Out of $50 (meaning when you account has $100 to cover the $50 reserve). Although I agree that having an option which would allow you to select automatic payout or not could be a solution for all users.

 3a) The full amount means without leaving money "in the kitty" to cover chargebacks, refunds, or whatever.


As far as I know, Reallusion Marketplace offers three levels of membership. Sorry I forget the actual names of the levels. The first has no requirements - just open a marketplace store. At this level you can gain points, from selling content, to buy other content but you cannot Cash Out. To move to the next level, you need to submit some of your content for review. If approved, you gain the ability, among other benefits, to Cash Out but you need to have a reserve of $50 worth of points to cover refunds. The last level (not sure what is required to get to this level of membership), among other benefits, waives the $50 worth of points requirement allowing you to Cash Out all of your earned points (but probably still in $50 or $100 increments). 

So now I get a $193 payment on $295 in sales- I've lost over $100. This just doesn't seem right to me.


If you have $295 in sales you can get out $250 but the reserve $50 means you can only get out $200. Minus the $7 fee, you get $193. Agreed. However, you have not lost over $100. Your account still has the $95 dollars in it, you just can't Cash Out this portion. However, for example, it means as soon as you earn $5 more dollars you can Cash Out another $50. In worst case you can look at it as a one time loss of $50 but even that is not actually true since that portion can be redeemed for other content (although then you would have to build it up again before using Cash Out).

From what you say about yourself (i.e. that you are selling content on TurboSquid, CG Trader, your own site and RL marketplace) you probably meet whatever requirements are necessary to gain the third level of RL membership and, in such a case, the $50 in points reserved is waived. Or at least those were the rules when I last read about the content developer membership. You might want to look into that. I recall there was a chart somewhere on the RL website that compared the 3 levels of membership indicating the benefits of each level over the previous levels.  
By wendyluvscatz - 8 Years Ago
this seems an odd but rather commonplace policy, YouTube ADsense does it too, it pays out when I reach $100,
I am guessing it makes their bookkeeping easier and maybe keeps vendors from clearing off as they want that credit they cannot get till the next benchmark is reached.
Sw00000p VP is a well respected content maker in the Poser world, you may be unfamiliar with them but you roll your own in Max anyway.
I am thinking RL's policy might put off a few such potential vendors which is iClone and Reallusion's loss.