Vanishing Point: Brokered Artist Information and Benefits: Details

Brokered Artist Information and Benefits: Details

Thank you for your interest in brokering your products at Vanishing Point. Here are some additional details:

•You will receive 60% of your product's sale price
This is more generous than the standard 50% cut that many other sites give merchants, and you will always receive this share regardless of sales or discounts given by the selling website. We give this amount to all brokered artists, whether they are a best-seller or if their products are exclusive.

We pay this same commission to every merchant for every product. There are no convoluted terms to change this amount, such as selling one version of product for a 50% cut unless it's a premium product then it gets a 70% cut unless the customer pays with a voucher, then it's a 50% cut of a 70% cut.

•Product Testing
Some larger sites may hold your product in a "testing queue" for 4 days and then hold it in a "release queue" for 10 more days (which almost 2 weeks!) or the product may get "lost" and not released for 18 days. And other sites may hold your product for up to 5 weeks without any feedback.
Our goal at Vanishing Point is to test and release submitted products within 24 hours of receiving them. If your product is not acceptable, we will send you a detailed e-mail listing the reasons why it was rejected.

We realize not everyone makes perfect products every time, so if your product has an issue, we will not punish you by making you wait one week until we test it again. And if there's a second issue, we'll help you work through it, rather than punish you a second time and make you wait 14 days for your product to be re-tested.

We will not fail your product because of a typo in your product's readme file or if you forget to include a license file. We're all human, so why should your forgetfulness delay your product and cost you 2 weeks of potential sales?

We do not test products in every version of every software. For example, if you say your product was designed for use in Poser 6 and above, we assume it will work fine in all higher versions of Poser. And if you say your product only works in Poser, we won't test it in DAZ Studio and then complain when a feature doesn't work right.

•Listing on Vanishing Point's Facebook page
We will add your product to Vanishing Point's Facebook page (link opens in new window), under the "Shop" tab. This will give your product more exposure since it'll be posted to our timeline as well as become available for purchase on Facebook!

•Extra Sales Images
We allow merchants to upload as many sales images as they need, in order to properly show off their product. Need 5 or 6 or 7... or even 10 images to properly show your product? That's no problem! Though we prefer merchants include at least 3 promotional images.

We have created some brief tutorials to help artists with their images:
•Image Techniques (a general tutorial with tips and ideas on how to make better images)
•Sales Image Guidelines (a general tutorial with tips and ideas on how to make better sales images)
•Product Description Guidelines (a general tutorial with tips and ideas on how to write better product descriptions)

•Large-Sized Banner Images
We allow each product to have it's own banner, regardless of whether it's exclusive or non-exclusive. Some other sites only allow one banner per merchant, no matter how many products that merchant may be selling.
Our banners are much larger (600x100 pixels) and are designed to compliment the look of the site. In fact, visitors may think they're looking at sample artwork instead of a banner.
This is completely optional and we'll be happy to make one for you.

•Additional Product Marketing
Every product receives these, regardless of whether you're a top seller:

•New Product e-mail notifications sent out to all customers who have signed up to receive the notifications, not just your previous customers.

•Sales E-Mails
We send you an e-mail every time a sale is made. Yes, every time. You don't have to remember to check your sales report every week or every month- we send the sales to you.
Some sites don't send sales e-mails because they consider them to be spam. I don't know about you, but I would love to be "spammed" with e-mails telling me how many products I sold and how much money I was making.
When possible, we also send you the customer's name. This way, you can verify their purchases if they ask for support.

•Exclusive Products
You have the choice to list your product as exclusive or non-exclusive. We understand that merchants want to maximize their income by selling on multiple sites, and because of this, we do not penalize any merchants who do not sell exclusively with us.

• Payment Times
We send payments around the 10th of each month for the previous month's sales. For example, a payment sent on April 10 will include sales made from March 1 to March 30. So, yes, this means that a sale made on March 30 will be paid a few days later.
Some other sites hold payments for over a month, for example sending a payment on April 15 for sales made from March 1 to March 15. This means that a sale made on March 16 won't be paid until April 30th- a month and a half later! We think this is wrong since these are your sales and you should be paid promptly for them.

•No Minimum First Payment
Unlike some other sites that may hold your first payment until you reach a set amount (such as $300), we pay you whether you've made $25 or $100 in your first month.

•No Hold Time for Payments
Some other sites may hold your first payment up to 90 days to make sure you're "cleared" as a merchant. We pay new merchants the money they are owed on the next pay date. For example, if you upload your first product in April and it makes a sale on April 30, you'll get your payment when we pay the merchants in May.

•No Specific Minimum Price
Unlike some other sites that set a minimum pricing at $5.00 (or $7.00), we do not have a specific minimum price. Instead, our pricing is based on the size of your product: $0.50 per meg. This means that the minimum price for a 4M product should be at least $2.00, though you are certainly encouraged to price your items above the minimum price.

•We do not take out "taxes"
We do not take "taxes" from foreign merchants. According to one merchant, another big-name site takes an additional 30% of the product price as a "tax" on foreign merchants... on top of the 50% that the site takes as their share.

This also means that you are responsible for reporting your income to the appropriate tax agencies. However, under certain tax laws, you may not need to report any income if you received less than $1,000 in one calendar year. (Check with your tax advisor to be sure.)

•Ninety (90) day listing requirement
Please note, that if you choose to sell your product with us, we reserve the right to continue to list it on both Vanishing Point for a period of ninety (90) days after it is uploaded for sale. If you want to remove your product before the ninety days, we will certainly consider your reasons. However, asking us to delete your product because you want to sell exclusively at another site is not a sufficient reason to remove your product.

•We believe in treating our merchants like professionals
Unlike other sites, you don't have to check in with us every 5-6 days to let us know about your travel plans. All we ask is that you answer your customers' questions in a timely manner.

•Earn theme park passes
We're offering all merchants the ability to earn free passes to the theme parks in Central Florida. You can read all about this promotion at the Theme Park Promotion page.

•Merchant Resources
We provide exclusive resources and guidelines to help you better develop and promote your products. (This information is only available to merchants.)

Becoming a Brokered Artist

To become a brokered artist, you must complete a few steps. These steps only have to be done once.

1) Decide on a product.
What would you like to make or what would you like to sell with us?

2) Complete the Member Information
Go to your Member Information page (located on the Profile Page) and make sure all of the information is filled in, especially the address and payment preference.

3) Download and complete the broker agreement (in Rich Text Format)
Type in your information and e-mail the document back to us, at this address.

That's it! You are now a merchant and you are now ready to upload your first product.
(The following steps must be repeated for every product that you upload.)

1) Create the following files: •Product zip file: You can either e-mail us your product zip file, or if your zip file is larger than 10M, please Contact Us to arrange for FTP access.
Note: Your product zip file MUST include the following license. You can download it by clicking here. •Readme file (instructions and notes about the products): in plain text format. •One (1) thumbnail image for display on the main Marketplace page: 150x150 pixels/ less than 50k in size, GIF or JPG format, no nudity. •One (1) to nine (9) sales images to show off your product. We prefer 600x600 pixels/ less than 600k in size, but we can resize larger images. (Image #1 will be displayed on the main product page, the rest of the images will be displayed in a new window.)

For more specific information about the required files, please see our Product Checklist.

2) Go to the Upload Product Page and fill out the form.
If you have already sent us the product file, it may be easier to send us an e-mail with the product description and price, rather than filling out the form.

Note:
Per the US tax law, if you make more than $600 in income from this site, we are required to send you a 1099 form. Before we send you this form, however, we must receive a W-9 form from you. If you think you will make over $600 this year, then please download, complete, and MAIL us the following forms. Please consult a legal tax representative if you need help filling out the tax form. •If you are a U.S. Resident, then you need to fill out a W9 form (instruction sheet). •If you are not a U.S. Resident, then you need to fill out a W8BEN form (instruction sheet).

If you do not have Adobe's Acrobat Reader you can download it (for free) from:
Adobe Acrobat Reader download page.

Please note that you only need to send us the W-9 form *once*, unless your information changes (you move to another address, you marry and change your name, etc.).

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