"Larry Bohen" <lbohen@audiobooksonline.com> wrote in message
news:cppsfm$2vc$1@eval.shopsite.com...
We would also run into the same issue you mention (I.E. special pricing
for
more than one product). We currently offer a 5% discount on orders $100 or
more. This works well with ShopSite's order discount feature. Any reason
this 5% discount would NOT work with digital products? Would this work
with
your situation? I.E. special pricing for a combination of products.
I do occasionally use the discount feature as well as the coupons and they
both work fine with digital downloads. I suppose I could use the coupon for
my bundle pricing, but that means the customer will have to remember to put
in the coupon code when they order. I would rather be able to set a price
for that bundle and have one Add to Cart button for it.
Because our downloadable/digital products would be a small subset or our
total offerings, I envision that some customers would WANT to order a
combination of digital and hardgood audiobooks. Given that we only charge
a
customer's credit card when we ship (and some hardgood audiobooks may not
be
in stock), I don't think I could allow digital and hardgood audiobooks to
be
ordered on the same order as I would want to get payment prior to
authorizing a download.
Loren's suggestion about not including the download link on the receipts is
a good one for this. That way you can control when they get to download it.
I think the restriction on associating one zip file with one product might
be a problem for you as well as for me. Aren't your audio books pretty
large files?
It's interesting that you are the only one who provided feedback. I wonder
if this indicates how little usage ShopSite's digital download feature is
being used.
ShopSite really needs to beef up its digital download features. More and
more sites are offering all sorts of digital products and SSP is missing out
on a huge market. I can only speak for the machine embroidery market, but I
see hundreds of new sites popping up each year selling design files. A
great many of them resort to emailing the files or using sites like Paypal,
BMTMicro, or 2Checkout for their order processing and the results are less
than desirable. It is much cheaper and you have a lot more control over
your orders and payment processing if you can have the shopping cart and
payment processing right on your own site and not have to rely on a 3rd
party for this. Not to mention that some of those 3rd party sites are not
terribly user friendly and if you have a customer base like mine, where so
many are not very computer savvy, they find it difficult to use those other
sites.
Something else I'd really like to see is the ability to lock out certain
customers based on IP address, email address, or name and physical address
or phone number. When you get into digital products, you begin to realize
how widespread the software piracy problem is. There are entire newsgroups
dedicated solely to illegal software sharing. Austions sites are another
problem. Ebay, for instance, does not police itself very well as far as
illegal auctions of software and other digital products. I am constantly
fighting theft and resale of my designs. I have a long list of people that
I know are involved in sharing or illegally selling embroidery designs and I
would really prefer not to sell to them. But with instant download, I can't
pick and choose who will buy my products. It would be nice to be able to
lock them out. Just something to think about.
Teri S.
www.sewterific.com