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Shipping AND downloads?


CharisMac

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Hey all,

 

We are a software developer and we have, in the past, offered users the ability to have software shipped as well as the ability to download the software while they wait for it to arrive. This has worked well (even though our current store sucks) and our customers enjoy having that option.

 

So, I'm wondering how to config my store to allow users both dilivery methods on one transaction?

 

Thanks,

Jim

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You could just add the download as a feature and charge for it like a regular product or set no price on the attribute just a price on the product and add weight for shipping like a product etc.

 

Then when they order it, by default the software is there for them if they want to download it and if not, then they can wait for their package in the mail.

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Thanks for your help, Linda. That sorta helps. We have users that only want to download software so that they don't incur shipping charges. Then we have users that want to get a "real" copy shipped to them, but don't mind the ability to download and use the product right away.

 

The only way I see that this will work is to have two separate products, one Download Only and one with Shipping options. Unless there is a way to tie a Product Attribute to shipping that I don't see.

 

Our current store I basically hacked it so that every user, Download Only or shipped, gets the ability to download the software.

 

The problem is that our current store is horrible. It's a FMPro/Lasso solution that is really slow, buggy and not very scalable.

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I have a site working on OSCommerce: www.shlockrock.com

 

He would now like to enable online purchase and download of MP3s

 

So I need a secure download method for delivering files.

 

This is very hard to search for in OSCommerce, and Google, as all the terms are overloaded.

 

Please suggest a method to enable secure one-time download for files after the customer has payed

------------

Lionel

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The ability to download and receive a product by mail can be one in the same.

 

Setup the product with the attributes with no value that each have the downloadable version included.

 

Now a person buys the product.

 

If there is a price and weight, then they pay for it and the shipping and handling charges but still get the choice to download it right away.

 

If there is no price and no weight then the product can be obtained for free using something like the Free Shipping and Payment add-on.

 

If you want to control when the download happens, ie base on payment type, then also get the Downloads Controller.

 

If you do not want to have the price showing as $0 and have the free shipping and payments and the downloads controller get the Free Call for Price Add-on. The current version 4.0 is on my site. There are still a few updates needed for more specific features, but it would solve 95% of your problems pertaining to downloads, free or special priced items etc.

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Linda,

 

Thanks for all your help. I'm not sure if I'm making what we are looking to do clear enough. We write commercial software, so this means that all ordered products through our shop will have a price.

 

For example, we have one product say, Discribe. It has three prices, a full retail value, an upgrade value and a competitive upgrade value. Then, on top of that we also have two ways for the user to get the product, shipped (with a download for convenience) and Download Only.

 

I'm just not seeing how, with one product we can accomplish that, even with your mod. Does this make sense?

 

In other words, how can I forgo shipping charges if the user wants the software Download Only?

 

Thanks again,

Jim

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From what I gather from the <a href="http://www.oscommerce.com/downloads.php/contributions,275/type,5">Free Shipping mod</a> by Linda, you should be able to have the shipping removed IF you set the weight to 0.

 

We are in the exact same situation with our Linux distribution. There's a download, and/or (<-- the key) the download+retail box. The current "fix" to have both options is to have 2 of the same products; one with weight which gives you the download + shipping and the other download only.

 

I wish there was a better work around for this (unless I just havn't found it in the contrib section yet). If anyone knows better, please post.

 

P.S> Linda - Thanks ;)

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After my post I installed the Free Shipping mod and it does exactly what we need. Might work for you as well..

 

Took all about 2 minutes to install :)

 

Anyway, not sure if you are going to do the same as what we plan on doing - offering the download version AND the download+boxed version. I think we can get away with this since the download only version will cost less than the d+b version. Make sense?

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OK, then I have a few questions for you, if you don't mind. First, what version of the Free Shipping and Downloads Mod did you install?

 

How did you configure it ("it" being the product/attributes/mod/etc), because if the product has zero weight then the shipping option never comes up. How can you change the weight on the product so that the shipping option becomes available? I can't, for the life of me, figure this out.

 

How are your products priced? Are you doing it through the attributes? Because then that is a bit of a problem when the products price shows $0.00. Do you just deal with it or is there some other way around it?

 

I suppose we could do it similar to what you are doing, have 1 product for each Retail, Upgrade and Competitive Upgrade (we are doing this now with out current solution). I was trying to do everything from one product to simplify the future updating process.

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OK, then I have a few questions for you, if you .don't mind.  First, what version of the Free Shipping and Downloads Mod did you install?

 

i'm using the same version I mentioned above; i think it's the only Free Shipping/Payment mod right now.

 

>How did you configure it ("it" being the product/attributes/mod/etc), >because if the product has zero weight then the shipping option never >comes up.  

 

Isn't that what you want for the download only version? Set weight to 0 means no shipping?! Even if other products (e.g. hardware) are selected, the shipping still only applies to those with weight.

 

>How can you change the weight on the product so that the >shipping ,option becomes available?  I can't, for the life of me, figure >this out.

 

We're using an October snapshot which gets updated automatically once a new one is released - so far nothing has broken. Which version are you using?

We have seperate products; one with the weight and one without. After I added this mod, the shipping option disappeared leaving only the download option which is what we wanted. If we add the weight, the shipping option appears. (that's why 2 listings of the same prod). The weight is changed in the main products section, not in the attributes. For the download only version I just added a download attribute.

 

How are your products priced?  Are you doing it through the attributes?  Because then that is a bit of a problem when the products price shows $0.00.  Do you just deal with it or is there some other way around it?

 

Products are priced through the main products/category section. And nothing special was done to the code or mod itself. The products price never shows $0.00. The download only is just priced lower then the download+boxed version but that does not affect anything we're talking about.

 

I suppose we could do it similar to what you are doing, have 1 product for each Retail, Upgrade and Competitive Upgrade (we are doing this now with out current solution).  I was trying to do everything from one product to simplify the future updating process.

 

I agree, it would be a nice option if this was all in one instead of seperate products. We will eventually submit this to Linda to add to her code once we're done.

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OK, then I have a few questions for you, if you .don't mind.  First, what version of the Free Shipping and Downloads Mod did you install?

 

i'm using the same version I mentioned above; i think it's the only Free Shipping/Payment mod right now.

 

We just installed version 4.0, there is a version 3.6 (I believe that's the version number) also available from her site.

 

>How did you configure it ("it" being the product/attributes/mod/etc), >because if the product has zero weight then the shipping option never >comes up.  

 

Isn't that what you want for the download only version? Set weight to 0 means no shipping?! Even if other products (e.g. hardware) are selected, the shipping still only applies to those with weight.

>How can you change the weight on the product so that the >shipping ,option becomes available?  I can't, for the life of me, figure >this out.

 

We're using an October snapshot which gets updated automatically once a new one is released - so far nothing has broken. Which version are you using?

We have seperate products; one with the weight and one without. After I added this mod, the shipping option disappeared leaving only the download option which is what we wanted. If we add the weight, the shipping option appears. (that's why 2 listings of the same prod). The weight is changed in the main products section, not in the attributes. For the download only version I just added a download attribute.

My loopy brain thought there was some other "magic" control panel that I wasn't seeing. This is starting to make more sense. It is becoming apparent that we will have to categorize our store and create a couple of each product for different scenarios. Much less useful than what I thought we would be able to do but there are far more positives here than with what we've got currently. I am trying to avoid user confusion as well as product update headaches when we release a new version.

 

Our oscommerce version is relatively new, that is we downoaded it about two or three weeks ago. It has an auto update function :?:

 

How are your products priced?  Are you doing it through the attributes?  Because then that is a bit of a problem when the products price shows $0.00.  Do you just deal with it or is there some other way around it?

 

Products are priced through the main products/category section. And nothing special was done to the code or mod itself. The products price never shows $0.00. The download only is just priced lower then the download+boxed version but that does not affect anything we're talking about.

I've tried alot of things, mind you. It is possible to price your items through the attributes, but, like I said, the item shows up on the shop as $0.00. and then the pricing shows up in the selected attribute.

 

My thought is that attributes could be terribly more useful if you could somehow manage to tie them into the shipping options so that one selection drops the shipping cost. That is what I was looking for and what I thought this mod would do initially.

 

I suppose we could do it similar to what you are doing, have 1 product for each Retail, Upgrade and Competitive Upgrade (we are doing this now with out current solution).  I was trying to do everything from one product to simplify the future updating process.

 

I agree, it would be a nice option if this was all in one instead of seperate products. We will eventually submit this to Linda to add to her code once we're done.

 

Thanks for your help. I only have two other issues since installing Linda's mod. At checkout time we are now seeing a problem where checkout success returns he following error:

 

1054 - Unknown column 'DOWNLOAD_AVAILABLE_DATE' in 'field list'

SELECT DATE_FORMAT(DOWNLOAD_AVAILABLE_DATE, '%Y-%m-%d') as date_purchased_day, opd.download_maxdays, op.products_name, opd.orders_products_download_id, opd.orders_products_filename, opd.download_count, opd.download_maxdays FROM orders o, orders_products op, orders_products_download opd WHERE customers_id = '6' AND o.orders_status >= DOWNLOADS_AVAILABLE_STATUS AND o.orders_id = '1522' AND op.orders_id = '1522' AND opd.orders_products_id=op.orders_products_id AND opd.orders_products_filename<>''

[TEP STOP]

 

Also, how do you get rid of those newly added "Blow Out Prices" images?

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The Free Call for Price v4.0 has a built in product price based on attributes. If the product is flagged with the HTML code for it, it will take the lowest price of each attribute and add them together and then add that to the product price if there is one and give you a *new* product price.

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  • 1 year later...

I installed this mod and it doesn't work. I am running 2.2 CVS.

 

I have set the weight of the Download to 0.00. And I have enabled the free shipping and the free payment options. So when testing, I add the download to my cart, then checkout. When in checkout, I am initially taken to the Shipping Page, where no shipping options are available to choose from. That's fine, but when I click continue, it just keeps returning me to the same shipping page. I think it wants me to choose an option, but since none are available, I can't choose one.

 

So I am stuck. Please help!

 

Also, there was a typo on the freebee.php page where the initial comment was not closed. So I closed it.

 

Please help!

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  • 1 year later...

cvs is not something you want to use in a production environment . . .

software downloads is built into osCommerce MS2.2

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  • 1 month later...

Not sure if anyone is still following this thread, but I have been having the same problem.... I want to make certain products available for ship or download or both. I am just about to try a new contribution I just found, which looks like it will handle this scenario very well....

 

It's called More Product Weight v1.0, and can be found at:

 

http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contri...ns,2706/page,25

 

I will let you know of my successes or failures with this mod after I install it....

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm using MS 2.2 and have downloads enabled. Is there an easy way to disable downloads for products where the user has selected a shipping version? i.e. we would like to have either downloadable or shipping, but not both.

 

Thanks,

 

Miles

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I am new to OS Commerce and have read this thread but im a bit confused.. I just installed it via the Fantastico script. I have only ONE item I need to sell, and it is a software patch...for $1.00 I want them to just be able to click it and download it after paypal authorized the sale...is this possible? some mod I need to install?

 

thank you all

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No,

 

It is actually very easy.

Use the download manager.

Set the payment method to paypal ipn.

I deleted all of the product attributes but you don't need to, then create product attribute download.

 

Make sure that download is enable under the configuration tab.

 

Under attributes, use the scroll down menu to select your product.

Enter the file name to be downloaded (you should see a clearly marked box for this otherwise go back and make sure downloads are enabled.

Make sure that the file you are downloading exists in the download folder and that the permissions on that folder are set correctly (i use 755)

 

Make sure the status for the paypal IPN matches the level you need in the download controller to enable downloads, so that when the purchase completes

it will enable the user to download a set number of times.

 

I am currently implementing this on two shops.

 

 

Hope it helps,

 

Eric

 

 

I am new to OS Commerce and have read this thread but im a bit confused.. I just installed it via the Fantastico script. I have only ONE item I need to sell, and it is a software patch...for $1.00 I want them to just be able to click it and download it after paypal authorized the sale...is this possible? some mod I need to install?

 

thank you all

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  • 10 months later...
No,

 

It is actually very easy.

Use the download manager.

Set the payment method to paypal ipn.

I deleted all of the product attributes but you don't need to, then create product attribute download.

 

Make sure that download is enable under the configuration tab.

 

Under attributes, use the scroll down menu to select your product.

Enter the file name to be downloaded (you should see a clearly marked box for this otherwise go back and make sure downloads are enabled.

Make sure that the file you are downloading exists in the download folder and that the permissions on that folder are set correctly (i use 755)

 

Make sure the status for the paypal IPN matches the level you need in the download controller to enable downloads, so that when the purchase completes

it will enable the user to download a set number of times.

 

I am currently implementing this on two shops.

 

www.dollartemplates.info

 

and

 

Photo's by Donna Rae (www.raebrant.com)

 

Hope it helps,

 

Eric

www.creative-domains.net

 

 

At this point, if I add the attribute for downloads, it simply will not allow shipping. However, once I dis-able that, then it it fine. It works sometimes...for new products, then it stops! Uggghhh!!!!

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*bump*

 

I guess no one else has this issue?? I add attribute, and it's like OSC takes the weight and makes it 'zero' no matter the payment means (which shouldn't affect things anyway), but when I take off the attribute, shipping shows up fine.

 

Any thoughts? I've removed all attributes, options, and option values- that was no help.

 

I would LOVE to be able to provide instructions after completion of purchase, but at this point, will have to provide download info for each order- rather tedious.

 

I'm not a programmer, been searching for days..to just no avail. ANY help would be appreciated.

 

'Free shipping' is not turned on, I use Firefox for processing, I'm using 2.2.

 

Thanks so much in advance!

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*bump*

 

I guess no one else has this issue?? I add attribute, and it's like OSC takes the weight and makes it 'zero' no matter the payment means (which shouldn't affect things anyway), but when I take off the attribute, shipping shows up fine.

 

Any thoughts? I've removed all attributes, options, and option values- that was no help.

 

I would LOVE to be able to provide instructions after completion of purchase, but at this point, will have to provide download info for each order- rather tedious.

 

I'm not a programmer, been searching for days..to just no avail. ANY help would be appreciated.

 

'Free shipping' is not turned on, I use Firefox for processing, I'm using 2.2.

 

Thanks so much in advance!

 

 

So either you are forced to learn *.php..or you get some luck...got mine via LOTS of reading of threads and some tries.

 

After I installed contrib Add weight to Attribute v2, I follwed suggestion in this this thread discussion by adding TWO attributes. However, I didn't need to do the weigth adjustment trick. instead, I just added one with a file one without a file...then shipping came up.

 

Now with the Paypal Shipping Preferences updated (toggled on that ship based on other calcs at the bottom of the page)- my shipping shows in the Paypal location AND I now list all I provide with that order.

 

 

YAYYYY!!!!!

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