Payhip and Digital VAT part 1

Payhip manages VATmoss for creators and sellers of digital items, which is one big plus in their favour. They're the platform, they have to!⁠

Image Description: the words "Payhip & digital VAT - part 1" are written across the crown detail of my Concentricity pattern.

But did you know they're pretty VAT-savvy and offer store owners a number of VAT options?⁠
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1) if you're a VAT registered business and wish to manage the VAT yourself, you can!⁠
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This option means you can either let Payhip handle everything and you receive the amount after VAT OR you can decide to do it all yourself and they provide the information you need.⁠ There may be many reasons to handle it yourself, one being the ever changing VAT rates and making sure no-one is paying more tax than they need to. Or wanting to avoid extra platform fees associated with VAT handling.⁠
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Account > Account Settings > Taxes > "Let Payhip handle digital products EU VAT automatically for you"⁠
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2) if you'd prefer to offer pricing that includes the VAT, then that's an option too.⁠
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All stores legally have to show the price inclusive of VAT at every point - they're not allowed to add it on at checkout as they might sales tax. ⁠
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But this option is a choice between you as a store owner paying the VAT or your customer paying it. Put another way, it's whether you set a baseline price and it be the same for all EU customers, or whether you let the system add the VAT on top of your baseline price, where the amount is dependent on your customer's country rate.⁠
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This can be a heated topic that comes up a lot and we're not going to get into it here but if you'd prefer to have your customers pay the same regardless of where they live then you can! And that's really refreshing, as many platforms don't provide this option.⁠
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Account > Account Settings > Taxes > "Include taxes within product price"⁠
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We'll share some more tips over the next few posts that could help prevent VAT over-payment, which can only be a good thing, right?⁠

eta/ this post was updated on 11th March 2022 with a new post graphic. The image shows the crown of my Concentricity pattern.

Payhip and Gifting Digital Products part 2

Following on from our last post explaining how a Payhip store owner can gift their digital products, we'll talk today about how you can gift something to a friend without needing store owner access!⁠

Image Description: the words "Payhip & gifting digital goods - part 2" are typed across the crown of my Corella pattern.

One thing that Ravelry lacked, and one thing I know a *lot* of knitters have requested, is the ability to use a discount code towards the purchase of a gift item.⁠
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Well, with Payhip it's possible! Both in terms of gifting an item to a friend, and in using a discount code with that gift purchase.⁠
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The procedure is pretty similar to the outline in our last post.⁠
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1) you'll need your giftee's email address as well as the product or products they'd like to receive.⁠
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2) add the chosen items from the designer's Payhip store to the cart and proceed to checkout.⁠
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3) first, add in the giftee's email address.⁠
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4) then add the coupon code that the designer or store owner has provided, if you have one, and it'll show the reduced price.⁠
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5) then proceed to complete the purchase on behalf of your friend via Paypal or card.⁠
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6) your giftee will then receive a download email from which they'll have access to the knitting patterns or other digital items.⁠
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7) as the purchaser, you may still get the option to download the item right away unless the store owner has adjusted their settings*. We're trusting that you won't, 'cos if you're gifting a digital item you're already showing respect for both the creator and copyright.⁠
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8) *as a store owner, if you're concerned about the immediate download option you can choose to add a 'redirect after purchase' page - Account > Settings > Advanced Settings - and this removes the immediate download option. My customers are redirected to my website FAQ, for instance. Or it could be your newsletter sign-up page or your IG links page.⁠
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And that's how you can gift a digital item via Payhip, discount or not!⁠

eta/ this post was updated on 11th March 2022 with a new post graphic. The image shows the crown of my Corella pattern.

Payhip and Gifting Digital Products part 1

We've learnt a few tricks with Payhip over the last year and thought we'd share some of them. These could be helpful for anyone selling their eBooks or other digital goods via Payhip, but could be especially helpful to #OffRavelryDesigners.

Image Description: the words "Payhip & gifting digital goods - part 1" are typed across the crown of my Limerick pattern.

One of the functions that's been difficult to replace since Ravelry launched their inaccessible website is the ability to gift patterns, both from a designer perspective, e.g. prizes for giveaways, and from a customer perspective e.g. folks wishing to buy their friends a pattern.

We'll cover the latter in a separate post, today we'll look at how designers or Payhip store owners can gift their digital products!

1) create a 100% discount code for your entire store. It's advisable to not limit this both date wise and in number of uses. Having one code for the whole store makes it all much quicker, admin wise. And obviously keep this code to yourself and your trusted helpers!

2) you'll need your customers email address as well as the product or products they'd like to receive.

3) add the chosen items from your Payhip store to your cart and proceed to checkout.

4) first, add in your customer's email address.

5) then add the coupon code - it'll then remove all costs and you'll be able to checkout on behalf of your customer for free!

6) your customer will then receive a download email from which they'll have access to the knitting patterns or other digital items.

This method is especially efficient if you're gifting more than one item to one person - it's much quicker than Ravelry from that perspective. Gifting one item per person is just as quick as Ravelry, and is much quicker than generating one code for one person for one product then emailing it to them, which is a workaround that's often used.

It made such a difference when we worked out how to do this, and we really hope it makes it easier for designers to list their patterns on Payhip and use this route for giveaways!

eta/ this post was updated on 11th March 2022 with a new post graphic. The image shows the crown of my Limerick pattern.

New searchable feature on Payhip!

Granted, it's not a database, only a product name search, but it will make things a whole lot easier to find the pattern you're looking for.

Image shows a screenshot of the Woolly Wormhead store on Payhip. To the top left is Woolly Wormhead’s logo, and to the top right the search and cart buttons. There are 3 Woolly Wormhead patterns in view, showing images for Daedalus, Circe and Echo.

Payhip have been listening to their users and building in new features which is earning them a lot of respect, especially amongst the knitting community. I've not done a great deal with my storefront yet in terms of customisation or things like linking up The Woolly Hat Society but the fact that they've done this, and continue to add new features, means I'll likely keep using them as an outlet once the new website is finished.

While the coupon feature is still limited to what we're used to on Ravelry, any coupon codes and discounts I offer will still be valid on purchases made through the new Payhip store. I'm hopeful that in the future new coupon options will be forthcoming as well as other store features, like listing products alphabetically or by popularity or recently added etc. They have some interesting referral discounts which I should look into, too.

The fact that they automatically make adjustments on VATmoss rates for eBooks (I cover the cost of VAT, not you, which means I earn more on an eBook sale via Payhip than any other platform at the moment) and allows sellers the option to offer B2B sales (which means as a VAT registered business I can buy digital products via Payhip and not pay extra if the VAT is exclusive, or a seller doesn't have the VAT deducted if it's inclusive, and vice versa). Which is a long way of saying I like platforms that understand VAT and provide wider options - that goes a long way in my book.

Why yes, VAT is still occupying too much brain space given that I'm a British citizen living in the EU with a European business registered in a different state to the one I live in and Brexit and changes to VATmoss are colliding! *sigh*. More about that another time, should I ever get the words untangled.

Knowing that we've had another delay in the website build, we're working on creating a searchable spreadsheet that anyone can access that'll go some way to make up for the loss of access of the Ravelry database in the interim. This has taken some time to get ready as there's a shit tonne of pattern data(!) and we've needed to make sure everything's in, tidy and usable. I hope to have more on that very shortly, but once it's done I should be able to link to it from the front of the Payhip store for convenience, as well as my IG profile, from this blog and website, and more. I know the loss of access to the Ravelry database has been a real blow, searching for the right pattern for your yarn or size or skills is mighty difficult without it. We’re working on our own Hat-focused alternative, and despite the setbacks and hiccups, we’re moving in the right direction.

The new shopping cart

With the Ravelry (in)accessibility mess ongoing, and there being little to no sign at this point that concerns are being believed let alone taken into account, most of my time over the last 7 weeks has been spent on getting my patterns onto another platform, one whose cart can be embedded here until the new website is launched.

Unfortunately, it’s not been as simple as simply uploading them. Physically, my body and especially my shoulders, is in a painful fatigued mess. So sitting here uploading isn’t something I can physically do much of. And honestly, I’ve not had the emotional capacity and brain space, either. Thankfully, I’ve had help.

However, that help doesn’t have access to my hard-drives! And having an unreliable internet connection that is still far short of average speeds hasn’t helped. Not to mention that I’ve been trying to work on the new collection and get everything in order for the new website and try and manage my health…. NuRav could have picked a better time to screw things up, put it that way.

BUT! The new cart is here! And it works and it’s pretty simple and it will absolutely tide us over! I am so bloody grateful for the help I’ve had in getting this all sorted.

So this is what it looks like!

The ‘Add to Cart’ button is pretty self-explanatory, and as you click on that it brings up a little cart feature in the top right corner. In an ideal world I’d be able to change the colour of the cart to match this website (activated links show as purple) but I’ve not had time and it isn’t at the top of my very long list. Neither is the ‘Add to Cart’ button round and dark grey, i.e. not as prominent as it was, but again we can manage for a couple of months.

As you go around the site, that blue cart button sits in the corner until you’re ready to checkout. It uses cookies to keep track, and if you pop over to Payhip in the same session, it’ll remember what you’ve put in your cart.

There has been the very occasional time during testing when I haven’t had the blue cart pop up… I’m not sure why, as the next day it’ll be fine without me changing a thing, so I put it down to our craptastic internet. If you find it does this to you, simply click on that dark grey button with the ‘P’ on it and it’ll take you direct to Payhip and you’ll be able to do it all there.

When you’re ready to checkout, click on the blue cart button in the top right-hand corner and tell it you’re ready to proceed to payment. It’ll then bring up this screen, noting your location (for EU VATmoss purposes) and asking for your email address so that it knows where to deliver the download links.

Within my account I’ve enabled VAT inclusive pricing, which not only means you’ll see the price inclusive of VAT, rather than having it added later on in the checkout process (which is actually required by law and isn’t generally what most Europeans mean when they talk about VAT-inclusive pricing in relation to VATmoss), but also means I am paying the VAT. In short, this is always my preferred setting as it means I pay the VAT and my customers all pay the same price, regardless of where they live. I let Payhip handle the VATmoss for me, even though it’s covered by my monthly accountancy fees, purely because it’s one less place to download accounts from and it doesn’t cost me any extra.

I have also enabled an option that allows VAT registered folks to enter their VAT number and have the VAT taken off. This is something I’ve long wished Ravelry would do, especially as they already have my VAT number, ‘cos VATmoss isn’t meant to be B2B, only B2C, yet I pay it every time I buy a pattern or eBook on Ravelry. Now, if you’re VAT registered, you won’t have to! It honestly makes no difference to me, I don’t earn any more or less with this setting, but it is a saving for my customers and I can’t see how that’s not a win.

There’s also coupon and discount options! There’s no single use code feature, and neither is there a way to give a discount of a flat value, only a percentage, so I’ve not been able to use it as a replacement for certain Patreon tier rewards. But it has some other cool things that I’m trying out… for instance if you follow one of the ‘P’ buttons on a pattern or eBook page, you’ll see the item on Payhip and there’s a social share option - this means that if you share a link to the item on Facebook (by clicking the social share option) you’ll get yourself a % discount off. I’ve no idea how well this will work and what the impact might be, but I figured I’d try it? The discounts vary but everything in my Payhip store has this feature in one way or another.

There’s still a few more settings I need to explore and I will do that in good time, hopefully before we no longer need this cart! But mostly I’m just bloody relieved to have a functioning cart again here.

As a “yey, we made it, *finally*” celebration, wanna have 15% discount off everything until the end of the month? Use code ‘ThankFuckWeMadeIt’ either here or on Payhip. (some of the eBook social sharing discounts are deeper than this, so check them first if it’s those you’re after)

I very much appreciate your patience. We will be ready for woolly Hat season!