Wordpress Shopping Cart Plugin to To Sell Digital Downloads ?
I have been looking at a way to sell downloadable digital content off one of my blogs. I sell a type of vector file for digital download. The files are cheap, some of them as low as 25 cents.
I basically just want to sell though paypal and not deal with credit card service and I want customers to be able to buy and receive the file right away.
There are a few ways of doing this- Creating my own database, etc and use product like PayPal shopping cart. I did try this and to be honest the software was over my head and was gettign into some pretty complicated areas. I really just need a IPN feature ( Instant Payment Notification). X-cart is also popular shopping cart software but comes with a hefty price tag and not not sure I want to fork out that kind of money. I believe they have a trial version but takign the time to set uo at not be worth my while.
Next there are third part companies that will let you do this. Tradebit is a site that host your product images and handles your sales- with a smallish commission of 7.5 percent. Thsi may be the option I go with. I think they payout weekly. Paypal charges commission plus .30 cents per transaction if buyer uses credit card to purchases. Not sure what happens if some one buts something for .25 cents and my fee is 30 cents- do I end up owing Paypal?
This may be my biggest stumbling block. I am looking at a Wordpress shopping cart plugin, WP e-Commerce and the free version does not do digital downloads. The cost is 25.00 USD to get the “gold” version which will let me sell digital downloads and buyer will receive file instantly.
I also see that they have an add-on that will integrate with NexGen Gallery plugin, which costs another 10.00 . ARGH.
I will give free version a whirl and if does what i want will do upgrade to paid version.
I also have looked at WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart which is free but I do like that WP e-Commerce will work with NextGen Gallery and that might be the tipping point for me.
I will play with the plugins over the weekend and post back on which shopping cart plugin what worked best.
Lisa
Lisa, why don’t you just increase your prices a little? If you have people buying from you then you should fairly quickly be able to make those 25+10 bucks. If not I am not sure the time you’ll spend will be worth it anyway.
/Mikael
I agree with Mikael. Apart from anything else, pricing too low can turn people away … they think if it’s that cheap it’s either a scam or not worth anything.
I think you should increase your prices a little bit to accommodate paypal charges. You can’t be selling stuff that costs 25 cents unless you sell them in packages. Are you adamant on using a wordpress plug-in? I have used OSCommerce, ZenCart as well as Magento as shopping carts and I am sure no plug-in can match these full fledged carts.
That will be a great advice as I am in the moment of choosing the best one for my Audio Shop.
I have been doing the same thing, and most of them just don’t integrate as invisibly as I would like. But of course I am trying to get it to do my digital download stuff along with being a front end for my cafepress / zazzle / redbubble things all in one place. But am going to keep searching for the elusive perfect wordpress plugin!
I think $35 is cheap if it makes the selling much eaiser.
But of course you have to sell a lot of vector files before the plugin is paid.
I am looking for a blogging type program like wordpress which has a shopping cart program for my users. I need it to handle multiple users like wordpress mu with shopping cart plug ins, each user account must look like a stand alone site (except for the e-ddress). We like WPMU, but we could use more options and would like to test out other programs before we commit.
you need to look at how much money you are gonna make from this if the cost is on 35? then u shud be looking to make this back within about 1-3 month period once this is done then its all profit baby yeah!!!!!
I suggest The Market Theme for Wordpress. Its very cheap and very awesome for a store using Wordpress. Very clean and easy and feature packed!
Good luck to your online store Lisa. I hope the free version could work well with you, thus giving you much convenience.
I’d be interest to know how the Wp e-Commerce performs once you give it a whirl. You can be my guinea pig