Distributing Downloads through a os Commerce?

[bradl@cbc]

we have software products that we want to sell in our shopping cart. The customer should be able to choose (via radio button or drop down) which delivery mode they want for the software: Full package (in a box), trial download (free download), upgrade (downloaded), or full product (downloaded).

 

Each version has separate prices and delivery details. For example, the non-trial downloads must be paid for (via Credit Card), before download is allowed. The full package can be paid via CC, or in other ways (e.g. they can mail us a check).

The download versions (trial & paid) should also give the user a temporary download code that allows them to download the software for a period of time (say a week), so they cannot share the download instructions with their buddies.

 

We need a shopping cart that can deal with these sorts of variations. The more off-the-shelf the better.

 

I'm attracted to Open Source by the flexibility, but am concerned about implementation difficulties.

 

How well deos osCommerce match this environment?

 

Thanks,

Brad

[Tjobbe]

to all your questions: YES, I'm quite sure it can!

 

I set up shops all the time for clients and recently made one with downloading enabled..

[Guest]

bump...please explain more thoroughly how easily digital downloads are administrated with osCommerce.

 

I'd like to do anything that I can to make the digital downloads option easier to administrate. Will this contribution help administrate downloads? I'm confused about its description:

http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,135

 

I think that this is explained a bit in this post, but am still not clear:

http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?sho...=0entry353945

[bradl@cbc]

Hi,

 

Thanks for the answers so far. Does anyone use the "Download controller" contribution? What was your experience with it? Was it easy to setup? How does it "control" downloads? Does it give each user an expiring link to the download, or ??

 

Thanks,

Brad

[Guest]

The link above is to an old version of this contribution. The new version is "made specifically to work with v2.2 MS1, it should work with any snapshot that has the new individual orders_status settings for the payment modules." Get Downloads Controller v5.3 - MS2 here and look through the specific support thread for the the contribution here. I am not convinced after reading the support thread that it is a functional contribution immediately upon download. This contribution is also included in the popular webmakers.com Shoppe Enhancement Controller available here.

 

I learned a few things from the readme.txt file of the contribution. This contribution specifically addresses two problems with digital downloads and the standard installation of osCommerce: shipping cost and payment amount. Obviously there isn't any shipping cost for the download and you might want to give away free downloads but still collect the user's account information with the system.

 

This contribution installs the webmakers.com Free Shipping and Payments contribution. Utilizing this contribution, manipulating the "Order Status" and "Product Weight" fields on your Product page, and configuring the new/changed fields on the Product Attibutes page for your downloadable product, you can control your digital downloads more effectively.

 

Digital downloads are apparently difficult to control because of the way that osCommerce deals with shipping and product cost. Installing this contribution will fix the shipping/pricing problems that arise when you try and utilize digital downloads within the latest version of osCommerce. This contribution solves these problems by applying the following system:

• Order status must be >=2 or Download is not available
  
• All Payment Modules have 3 order status settings:
  • Normal Payment, Normal Weight - Regular charges, Regular Shipping
    
  • $0 Payment, Normal Weight - Free but with shipping charges
    
  • Normal Payment, 0 Weight - Charges, but no shipping charges ( ie downloads or other Free shipping items )
    

You can see an example of this happening in webmakers.com's demo of their fully tricked out cart here (note Attributes Qty:Price One Time Charges:, and additional Yes/No radio buttons with For Display Only: Attribute is Free: Default Attribute: Discount/Product:). That link is directly to a page in the admin section. You may have to log in first with the demo account to see this attribute page. You can get to the main admin page of their demo here. Also, this page didn't display correctly for me. Scroll down until you see the modified Product Attributes box. According to the documentation included with SEC, "Download file access is based on the current orders_status in addition to the Max Days and Number of Downloads for the individual file." This seems different from what the readme.txt expresses in the contribution above, but perhaps they function differently.

[Guest]

...note the additional 3 Download Controller fields in the updated Configuration->Download page in the admin section here.