Happy New Year!
We’ve been receiving a lot of inbound questions about e-commerce in the Marketplace and when we expect to enable paid apps. It’s very exciting and encouraging to see so much interest from our broader community in the Liferay Marketplace! To get right to the point, we anticipate launching Marketplace e-commerce this quarter (Q1 2014). I can tell you that enabling paid apps is top priority for our Marketplace team, and we’re laser-focused on execution. In the mean time, we wanted to provide some additional color around where we stand and responses to key questions we’ve been hearing from the community. Please feel free to reach out with any other questions.
When can I offer paid apps in the Liferay Marketplace?We expect to roll-out e-commerce for the Liferay Marketplace this quarter (Q1 2014).
What are some of the key features that you're working on for the initial roll-out?Sell Apps- App pricing structure (bundled pricing and ability to offer discounts)
- License type (standard vs .developer)
- License term (perpetual vs. annual renewal)
- App licensing initially based on Liferay Instance (per installation of Liferay Portal); potential to add other license types later
- Option to provide/charge for support
- Geographic offering (keep the app local or sell it abroad?)
- Automatic collection of sales tax/VAT in most countries
Buy Apps- Payment processing
- Renew or upgrade existing app licenses
- Ability to purchase for personal use or for a project team
Manage Apps- Monitor app sales performance
- Transaction history
- Manage licenses across customers and apps
- Automated app update notifications (when Marketplace accessed via Liferay Portal)
How much of the app proceeds will developers receive? Liferay Marketplace developers will receive 80% of app proceeds. This revenue share % is extremely competitive vis-a-vis other online app marketplaces.
I am already a registered Marketplace developer. Do I need to do anything to be able to submit paid apps? There will be an annual fee of $99/yr for a Paid App Developer Account. You can upgrade when you’re ready - you only need to pay the fee at time of paid app submission. Additionally, we’ll request required tax forms (W-9, W-8BEN) and your Paypal account info so that we can send you payments.
How is the Marketplace doing today? Thanks to our community of developers, users, and partners, the Liferay Marketplace continues to gain strong momentum! We’ve come a long way since inaugurating the Marketplace with approx. 75 apps in August, 2012. Over the past 1.5 years, the Marketplace has grown almost 5x in number of apps and has registered more than 600 developers from over 25 countries. Here’s a current snapshot:
- Over 600 registered developers
- Over 350 total apps
- 3,000+ downloads/week
