Please can anyone recommend (from personal experience of having used it yourself) a reliable method of digital delivery, either third-party, or preferably self-hosted, which includes the flexibility to limit the number of downloads made by a particular link. Links should also be able to be set to expire after a given time period. Most options seem only to cater for digital delivery of purchased digital downloads, but I also need to be able to deliver free digital downloads. Any constructive suggestions appreciated.
Hi, I'm planning to open a digital goods store myself, and have done research regarding this. If you want third-party providers you have: eJunkie, PulleyApp, Shopify, and FetchApp. You upload your product to these websites, and these websites take care of the delivery for you. The problem with these platforms is that you need to pay recurring fees--either by the bandwidth, number of downloads, or a fixed monthly charge. If you prefer a self-hosted platform, it depends on what your publishing platform is. If you're using Magento, there's a built-in option for digital downloads (which gives you the capability to restrict the number of downloads per product). However, if you're just operating a small store, I don't recommend using Magento because it's so resource-intensive (hosting and staffing considered). If you're planning to use Wordpress, there are several plug-ins that allow you to sell digital goods: WooCommerce, WP eStore, and Wordpress eCommerce. There are other plug-ins out there, but IMO those three are the best in terms of cost and functionality. I think all of these self-hosted platforms give you the ability to hand out free downloads--it is, after all, on your own server/hosting. If not, I think you can just put the free stuff in one folder/section/area of your host/server (sorry, not really a techie), and just link to it.
I agree with monsoondreams, if you choose third-party provider they will ask for recurring fee. There are lots of ecommerce cms, you can choose, just do a small research on google. And if you setup your own website with .com domain name, that would be beneficial for long run too.
Thanks for all the help. My website is stand-alone, and not part of a platform such as Joomla, Wordpress, etc. so I unfortunately cannot take advantage of any free tools that might be included in such a package, and my hosting provider offers no such benefits. I would prefer to operate this myself, rather than use the services of a third party, but as my knowledge runs only to xhtml and css (with a little javascript) I think I might find setting up my own delivery system, including installing and configuring databases, kind of a challenge! I have seen products such as Linklok, dlguard, dragon download protector, etc. and wonder whether one of these might be a solution. They all appear to be relatively inexpensive, offer varying levels of delivery and security, and are supposed to be fairly straightforward to install and configure, which is just what a non-teckie like me needs. The only thing I might struggle with is the set-up of the databases, as my paid host does not use the popular c-panel, or offer mysql on my package. I was wondering whether anyone reading this post might have an opinion as to whether my using the services provided by a free host (just to deliver my free downloads), who offers c-panel and mysql, might be a way to get around this? Does anyone have personal experience of any of the software I mentioned earlier in this post?
I strongly advise NOT to go with free webhosting when it comes to ecommerce. If you need I can provide you one month free hosting offer. Which you have to pay after first month. For 1Gb Diskspace, 3GB Bandwidth you have to pay $0.99. You can upgrade the package if you want. Some web hosting companies like hostgater, godaddy provide some exteded services for ecommerce. You can setup Magento or even wordpress with ecommerce plugin and test.
Consider a new site that's recently come out and is trying to boost their reputation by providing free service. Somewhat like e-junkie. Check it out - zaxaa.com - I'd link to it, but they won't let me yet. Sorry! -Travis
Zaxaa is completely free to use without any costs whatsoever. No per-transaction fees. No one-time fees. No monthly fees. No fees whatsoever. http://support.zaxaa.com/entries/22306581-why-is-zaxaa-completely-free-to-use
I'm actually quite surprised that you consider DLGuard and its ilk as inexpensive. As far as download platforms go, they are quite the most expensive tools you can purchase. DLGuard costs $147 for a license which you can use on only two websites. I'm guessing your website is not really an e-commerce store but a squeeze page? If so, I think third-party platforms are the best thing you can use. Some of those, like JVZoo, even have affiliate platforms that are ready to go. If you are building an e-commerce store, I suggest you rethink your strategy. Even if you're building a small store--since you're doing this solo--having off-the-shelf platforms such as Magento, Joomla, or Wordpress can help you a lot in the long run. Just think of the time you'll spend tweaking and managing your front-end pages and products without these platforms. If you have at least 10 products, doing a sale would cost you incredible amounts of time just tweaking the back-end coding. Unless I misunderstood and you have a custom CMS?
Hypno, you could try this. Protected Links - Expiring download links Seems to have all the features you want.
What if the digital delivery is not just a downloadable item , for example some serial numbers , do we need to use digitalriver
If you are in need of self hosted, or saas method. you can go with zscart saas store, that will help you to organize your own store.