Flogd Review

Flogd is a new service that provides you with a way to build an online store to sell your products.

This is one of many such services offered online, but each has it’s own spin. Flogd is intended to help you sell your own products on your own website, or on MySpace. You can specify the name and description of the product, and several varieties (e.g. different sizes, colors, etc), and how much each variety costs. Flogd will give you some code to paste into a website, or MySpace profile, and your visitors will be able to add items to a shopping cart and check out using PayPal. Flogd will collect sales tax for you. You’ll be responsible for reporting the tax to the appropriate parties, and getting it to them (e.g. the state you live in).

The store itself is a bit of Flash code that is displayed on any website you put it into. You don’t get a web page you can direct people to, as in Zlio or Bravisa. You must already have, or be willing to create, a website to place the store code on. This is most useful if you already have a website that gets traffic, and want to easily add your own products to the site. For example, you run a site with tutorials on making hand made jewelry, and want to start selling your own jewelry. Or you run a site about your band, and want to start selling CDs of your music.

You are responsible for ensuring delivery of the items. This is distinct from Oronjo, which specializes in products that can be digitally delivered and handles that for you. Flogd seems more suitable for physical products that need shipped.

The big disadvantage is that you need a product to sell! Luckily, Flogd has partnered with Bravisa to let you import all the products from your Bravisa store into Flogd. The idea is that Bravisa would take care of shipping and customer service, leaving you to just put your Flogd store on a web page that gets targeted visitors. The current integration has a shopper redirected to Bravisa to finalize the purchase of Bravisa items, although that’s supposed to be more seamless in the future.

Another feature that would work well with the target market is the ability to allow affiliates to put the store on their web sites, and earn a commission from sales. That feature doesn’t currently exist, but reportedly is coming soon.

Flogd seems ideal for small groups that have physical products to ship. A band might use Flogd to sell their CDs, or someone who makes crafts or homemade jewelry might use Flogd to sell their products. Other solutions exist if you’re selling info products, but if you’re selling something that you produce and physically ship, Flogd might just cut down the time you need to sell online.

Note that Flogd is currently free, but that is only through the beta period. No details are available right now on the fee structure that will go into place at the end of the beta period, but that should be in September 2008.