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How to sell (digital) products in the EU without the VAT hassle (3)

01-11-2019 01:23 PM #1 paulkl (Member)
How to sell (digital) products in the EU without the VAT hassle

Hey guys.

I know some of you are struggeling to find the perfect solution to sell within the EU, either digital or physical products while keeping the VAT & invoice struggle as low as possible. Right now I'm working on a digital product and I wanted to share the solution I'm using now.
In germany we got "Digistore24", a equivalent to Clickbank, which handles the whole sale process. They do the invoices and VAT on their name, you get payouts as a big chunk like with affiliate networks. They accept non-EU companys and take a 7% + 1€ fee per sale. But the problem is, you can only sell in Germany, Austria and Switzerland right now.

Recently another solution named "CopeCart" launched. It's about the same as Digistore24 but they take a smaller fee of 4.9% + 1€ and you can sell in every EU country, also with non-EU companys.
They charge 97€ a month or 997€ a year (Digistore24 is free) but in my case CopeCart is cheaper once I reach about 100 sales a month so I stick with CopeCart now.
Braintree or Stripe charge 2.9% plus a small fixed amount and you are left with the bookkeeping and VAT (it's a mess to set up correct VAT with them, I tried it) so I think especially when you are starting with a SaaS or digital product CopeCart is amazing.

Both got an affiliate marketplace and features to do JVs, 1-click upsells and so on. I never worked with Clickbank but I think the features are the same or more.
Obviously I've got an CopeCart affiliate link too, so you might write me a PM if you want to use CopeCart.

I've looked into other platforms like "Paykickstart" but they either got higher fees or they don't handle invoices and VAT so I didn't see a point in using them.
Let me know if you know even better solutions in terms of fees and maintenance!

01-11-2019 01:28 PM #2 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

Are you sure this solution is 100% legal? I'm not saying it's not, just asking whether you did some checkup on this. Because even though they handle the billing etc ... it's still you who's selling to the customers, so I'd guess you are still responsible for the VAT handling. Or is their setup different from a standard "billing solution"?

01-11-2019 01:30 PM #3 paulkl (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by matuloo View Post
Are you sure this solution is 100% legal? I'm not saying it's not, just asking whether you did some checkup on this. Because even though they handle the billing etc ... it's still you who's selling to the customers, so I'd guess you are still responsible for the VAT handling. Or is their setup different from a standard "billing solution"?
Yes, they have been around for years (Digistore24), are legit german companys and Copecart was founded by big sellers from Digistore24. Technically they are a reseller in the selling process.
The invoices are writen in their name, so the customer pays to Digistore24 GmbH for example, they do the VAT and keep the fee before they pay out your cut. Digistore24 accepts 0% tax companys from the UAE, I think CopeCart does too. Not sure about Hongkong.

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