Over the past 4 years, I’ve been very much involved in the market of reselling Flash Components (on Flabell and not only) as stock, rather than creating Flash only for a specific customer’s needs. There are many differences in doing one over the other, starting with the development time, the level of support required, the distribution price, the level of detail and customization needed, the return of investment, the freedom to create, the timeframe and so forth.
In this article I’ll be as transparent as possible, so that you guys can make an idea of what running such a business means.
In our approach to using Flash, we decided to take the best from both worlds, and do client work as if it would be stock work, and vice-versa. This means our customers get the same kind of support we provide to our Flabell users (continuous, passionate, novice friendly and immediate), and the Stock Flash we resell on Flabell is built at the same high quality our Vuzum customers expect to get from us. (exceptionally written code, amazing designs and well though of interfaces)
There are 5 important things that need to be considered when creating Flash Stock: file consistency, quality, support, price and uniqueness.
1. Consistency
Let me put it simple: we don’t create cars and boats, but different kind of cars. And not only that we create different kind of cars, but we make sure all have the same main structure, which we build upon (4 wheels, one driving wheel, and so forth).
What if you would have to learn driving every time you would get up into a different car? Imagine how inconvenient that would be.
I made this parallel so you can understand why Stock Flash products needs to keep consistency. Two different files are always built on the same structure on Flabell. We take our time to do this in order for you to find your way around the files and code faster, and faster, and faster (the more files you look at, the better you get at it).
2. Quality
High quality Flash stock is hard to find, and when found, it’s only as good as it looks on the exterior. This is bad, as it cannot easily be customized without Flash skills. And let’s be honest, most people that buy Flash stock are not Flash Developers, which is exactly why they buy Flash Stock.
The promise we make is that our Flabell customers get the same high quality our Vuzum clients get – we put very much work into designing, implementing and testing our Flash Components, and we continuously update them with new features or bug fixes. All our components are highly customizable through XML, and all the components can easily be resized without Flash skills.
3. Support
When creating a Flash project for a single customer, there is usually one or two scenarios in which the client is going to be using the file, and most of the times, everything works great. When doing it for 20.000 users, not only will they require new features, but they will also find different ways of discovering bugs, ways in which one wouldn’t ever think of, unless the file is put under a similar stress-testing environment.
This still isn’t the most difficult part. Having a team of people that continuously stay up to date with the products road-map, and are able to provide support for most of the platforms and environments where the components are installed, for thousands of users that get in touch on the forums, by email or by phone, is pretty difficult. We filtered the thousands of users by charging $4.99 for a Support Ticket which is available for one year, unless the client has already made a purchase on Flabell, for which he already receives a free Support Ticket.
This is helping us help our most important users, the ones that help the business grow.
Compare this to answering only one client’s emails or phone calls. It’s a huge difference, right? :-)
4. Price
The reason people purchase Stock Flash is to save money. In today’s competitive world they also look for getting the most for their money.
Let’s say that instead of paying 1000$ for an interactive Flash map (and waiting 2 weeks to have it done), they can get it for under 20$ as Flash Stock. They will save a whooping 980$, they will get to choose it, they will get to test it before buying it, they will get exceptional customer support, they will get it immediately, and if they purchase from the right place, they will get the most value for their money.
After the first experience, the buyer usually knows if he should return to a store or not, because he gets to interact with the support team, he gets to check out the source files and how easy it has been to setup the file on the server, and so on.
So what’s the deal? Well, if you have one customer that pays you 1000$ for a project, that’s the money you get and that’s it. On the other hand, if you resell a Flash Component 100 times, for 20$, you get twice the same amount. The only disadvantage you need to consider is the time required to get to those 100 purchases, and the fact that you might not get there if your Flash Component is not good enough.
The client disadvantage is that he will not purchase a unique file, but if it’s customizable enough, he can change it so much that nobody will find a similarity with the original one.
5. Uniqueness
When getting something done as custom work, you can make sure of one thing: it will have all the features you need, and it will be only yours to use. These are the most important aspects of why there are customers still looking for custom work, and it’s going to be a need for custom work as Flash Stock won’t ever be able to cover the different requests customers have.
There is a lot of work on the web, as interactivity is the blood of the internet, and that’s what Flash does the best. No matter what kind of content we create, we make sure it’s of the highest quality. It’s for you to enjoy using, and for us to enjoy creating! Flash on!