Can Os.. Sell A Subscription, Download And Shipped Item All At Once?

[buzybonnie]

I am hoping someone can tell me if OScommerce by itself or thru the many addons can solve our commerce problems.

 

In a nutshell, we are looking for a webbased solution that allows our customers to purchase all at the same time:

 

Downloadable products (pdfs, podcasts, etc.)

 

Shippable products (delivered thru USPS)

 

and a subscription based product (which is currently "delivered" each week in an email)

 

When they've paid thru our verisign/paypal payflow pro SSL (which I believe there is an addon for), they will be given any or all messages like, "This will ship, watch for it in your mail box", "click here to download xyz", "and thanks for joining this Mailer. Click here for your first issue and watch for the rest each week."

 

Our biggest hangup with everything we've looked at is our subscriptions. They join a weekly mailing for a period of 3,6 or 12 months. In our current system, we upload our PDF files and they are date sensitive. When the customer comes and logs in, it checks their "active subscription" period against the date on the PDF/news item and if they are within that time frame, the customer has access to it. I believe most of what controls that would be considered content management software. Our current provider considers it a "membership", which you have to join THEN make purchases. You can't do all of it at once which frustrates our customers to no end.

 

So with the need to handle all three types of products, does OScommerce have the ability to host content as well, or connect easily to a solution that can (maybe Mambo?) or how are people doing that?

 

Any advise or insight would be most appreciated. I've heard some really good things about OSCommerce and hope this may be our answer.

 

Bonnie Schroader

[buzybonnie]

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