I want to build a website that sells downloadable videos. Ideally, a customer would make the purchase, then immediately download what they bought.
Does anyone know how I would go about setting this up? Any services I could be pointed towards that specializes in this type of thing? I already have the website, domain, etc. I just need an infrastructure that would support my concept.
Thanks in advance.
Download one of the many software packages that allow you to do this.
e107 has a plugin written by “Zaphod” (http://www.myTipper.com) called “digital Download Store” which is designed specifically for this purpose.
You could also download CubeCart and then install teh Hack for this.
There are plenty of packages for this just have a look on hotscripts.com
Thanks for the quick reply and links, but I think those may be beyond my level of expertise (which is to say, not much). Right now, I sell non-downloadable items using PayPal’s store; that’s about as far as my skill extends.
I suppose what I’m really looking for would be someplace I could go where a store could be custom built (rather, be installed by someone who knew what they were doing, regardless of whether it were custom or not) which would handle the e-commerce side of the website. To elaborate, the store would have to take credit cards and support the aforementioned download situation. Ideally, it’d also have user created accounts where one could track their purchases, etc.
As I have little experience with these matters, I have no idea as to what I have described would cost (or whether such services even exist, as described). I don’t have infinite funds. I can only hope there’s a happy median, though I have no idea what standard fare would be. Any further help would be greatly appreciated.
I’ve never Jr Modded before, but it’s generally best not to use the word “Hack” here. Just a head’s up.
golly, that mytipper site is frustating! They don’t even say what their damn software DOES?!
Anyway, I run an internet billing company, so I can offer you some things to think about. What you want is pretty basic, and can be acheived by a number of online services.
The most important thing to consider is how you think your customers are going to be be able to pay for this stuff. Credit card is the most common on the internet, but also the most hassle (and expense) to set up.
PayPal is easy for a lot of people, but most people will not bother getting a PP account to buy one thing. Those people that DO have PP accounts find them extremely useful, however, and the whole PP system is a boon for small merchants, cos they have to do very little to get it integrated to their site (PP can administer passwords and stuff).
PayPal do have a strict no-adult-content rule, again, not sure if that applies to you.
A lot of other places will have volume restrictions - minimum transaction value, and minimum number of transactions per period. I have no idea what you’re selling, so I don’t know if this is relevant. We, for example, have a minimum of $5US per item, and 40 sales per week (less than this volume, and it’s not worth the hassle to us).
Apart from the fact we’re cheap and offer a high quality service, there’s not a lot to separate our system from the several other big players. They will want a cut of each transaction (between 10% and 30% depending on volume and som other things), and they pay you out weekly by cheque or EFT. So, they process your customer’s credit cards, take the money themselves (their company name appears on your customers CC statement), take their cut, and send you the difference.
Most of them also have advanced affiliate management systems - this is where you get OTHER people to promote your site, and each time a sale is made, the affiliate gets a cut of it. Depending on your marketing strategy, this might be useful to you (you set the cut percentage!).
Pretty much the entire adult website industry (online billing was spearheaded by this industry, and it’s still the driving force for most ecommerce) relies on creditcard transactions, it’s tried and tested, quite reliable.
I am not sure what the policy is on plugging commercial services here (Presumably I am allowed to mention something as ubiqutous as PayPal?), but you’re welcome to send me a message off-list and I can tell you about our services, and suggest some others.
Other options include:
(1) “credits”, aka “micropayments” (one system was called “beanz”, not sure if they are still around) where you buy credits with cash at a real shop, and use them to buy stuff online. Ideal for transactions under $3.
(2) Phone billing, where you hook up with a company that bills your customers phone bill for the service you provide (cell or landline). Both the middle-man company, and the phone provider take hefty cuts (totalling 60% at least, often more), so you have to charge a fair bit to make any money. But pretty much anyone on the internet is going to have a phone bill, so there’s a big market for it. This service is available in most develop countries including the US.
(3) Online cheques. Where your customers enter their bank account info, and authorise money be taken out of their bank account for your service. There’s a raft of fraud issues here, but in general, it does work if you’re supplying access at low per-unit cost to you (so, you’d not want to be shipping iPod’s to someone who paid by online check, cos 40% of them bounce), but if all they are doing is downloading a Gb of video, that’s only 28 cents for you, so no big deal.
Hope this helps.
abby
I’m no mod, but I’m confident that anyone smart enough to be a mod on this board is smart enough to look at intent, not just semantics. In this case, the word “hack” was used to describe a third-party piece of code that modifies the CubeCart product. It’s a perfectly legal add-in module that allows CubeCart to support downloadable products. In this case, “hack” is an accepted industry term for what the add-in module does. moggyAU’s comment was both correct and directly responsive to the OP (unlike yours and mine) by letting the OP know that this third-party hack existed to make CubeCart a viable solution for their situation.
I don’t want to open up the hack vs. crack debate here, but suffice it to say that the word “hack” does not necessarily have nefarious connotations.
Haha, I realized after I had submitted my post that “downloadable videos” might sound like as if my website deals with adult material. Well, I can assure you it doesn’t 
Anyways, my website actually does use Pay-Pal at the moment, though for material items. There’s two reasons why I’m against using PayPal for the downloadable model:
I’m not quite sure how it would work. Best I can think of is that after the user makes their purchase, PayPal forwards them to a page with the downloadable link. My only worry would be people sharing this url with others (though I don’t know if there’s any economically feasible way around this problem.)
As you mentioned, a lot of people will be turned off the moment they realize they have to make a PayPal account for the transaction. I’d like it so they can simply pay with their credit card and be done with it.
You could set up a PayPal account using an email account from your domain (for example, sales@duderdude2.com). Then, put a PayPal Buy Now button next to each item you’re selling. When someone clicks oen and completes the PayPal transaction, PayPal sends an email to the email address you set up your merchant account with. It’s a simple matter from here to have a PHP or Perl script to parse this email and generate a single-use code which is emailed to the buyer, who must type in this code to start the download.
You can also set up a direct merchant account, either through a bank, a third-paty service or with PayPal to accept credit card payments directly.
Just curious. What kinds of films are you selling? I ask because, if I recall correctly, some national enterprises like Netflix and Blockbuster are working on plans to distribute feature films exactly that way. Apparently the only technical problem is the time it takes on the consumer’s end, depending on the speed of their internet connection. I don’t know anything about your technical issues, but I would hate to be starting a business in competition with Blockbuster.
Well, I’d rather not say (until I get it online, at least), but rest assured, it will not offer Blockbuster any competition (two totally different things).
I have another semi-related question that I’d thought I’d ask here as opposed to making a new thread.
What’s the cheapest credit card transaction company available? My host provides a service where they charge $0.35 per transaction, plus a 2.39% discount rate. I found another service with the same discount rate but a $0.30 transaction fee.
Since I’ll be dealing with purchases of only a dollar or so, a 30 cent transaction fee is eating up a third of my profit. Are there any other similar, but cheaper services? Thanks!