While looking for a way to download digital files for free, it occurred to me that I might want to set up to sell digital content at the same time. However I don’t want to do the pay as-you-go or subscription route.
I have considered Rapid Cart Pro Advanced but it seems I would be paying for a lot of capability that I don’t need since I only have need for the digital download portion.
Are there solutions that are focused on digital downloads, connect to PayPal, and don’t require coding.
I used RapidCart Pro for digital downloads for a brief time and now use CartLoom with a Total CMS Blog.
I think CartLoom is subscription. Am I wrong about that? I don’t have the volume to warrant another leak in my wallet.
Yes Cartloom is subscription based. If you went with RapidCart Pro you would need to use Amazon S3 for digital downloads and that’s only free to a certain point. Many people use Paddle for selling digital downloads as it’s a flat fee of 5% + 50¢ per transaction. So you wouldn’t need to use PayPal.
I have Dropbox and Amazon S3. I also have space on my shared server. What I need is a script/stack that will help the user make the transaction and deliver the digital download. Since PayPal does the backend, the solution just needs to mediate the PP transaction. Does that make sense?
Depending on how ambitious you are with your sales, I think something like Yuzool’s stack could work. Typically, upon successful payment, there’s an option to redirect someone to a specific page (a ‘Success’ or ‘Thank you’ for example). In your case, you could send the user to a downloads page. Each digital download would need its own page (that’s hidden from navigation and not tracked by google).
The downside, of course, is that you wouldn’t have a unique download URL so it wouldn’t stop someone from sending out that URL to others.
I think Rapidcart Pro is probably your easiest solution. If you had a chance to setup a simple store from someone else in the suture, you could recoup your initial cost.
Or, if you had all your downloads in one spot and you offered a single price to download as much content as they wanted, maybe the members Pay widget would work. https://www.yuzoolthemes.com/themes/members-pay/
It uses Stripe though, not Paypal.
@Vinnieweaver2
Cart would be a great solution for selling the goods, but does not currently provide for automated digital downloads on the back of the sale. Its a good idea for a future update though.
You may also want to look at http://www.vibralogix.com. They have several scripts that might be useful.
Thanks. I am considering Rapid Cart Pro Advanced. Seems I need that to get the digital download feature.I want to see how they well they respond to inquiries since it is likely that I will need help setting it up and it will be useless without that support.
I don’t do websites for others as a rule because I don’t have the time.
Just remember that if you sell any digital product this way to EU countries (and that includes the UK for several years to come) you’re supposed to register for VAT (non-Union VAT MOSS if you’re outside the EU) and are likely to be pursued by the authorities for Value-Added Tax. Unlike VAT in general, there is no minimum turnover threshold. The EU is determined to destroy all small businesses as far as I can see.
Nice to know. How exactly does one do that? Who are we supposed to send money to? Is it possible to just not sell to the EU?
Of course it’s possible to not sell to the EU. The only problem with that is they might lie about where they are. There is software which can tell you what country a credit card is registered in but that seems overkill. I’d have thought you’d be covered if you had a statement on the site which said that you didn’t sell to EU countries. Did I mention that you have to charge the rate of VAT applying to the customer’s country? Each country has different rates and may change them at any time!
To register, you have to apply to the tax authority in one of the EU states. I assume you have to give them quarterly VAT returns and pay them the appropriate amount. I believe that the IRS has pledged to help enforce this. It’s a nightmare!
Cart is great, but for tangible products. You can check it out on a site I did not a client www.thegorillacookie.com. I also have a site for an ebook (digital download) and I use Fetchapp for that. It’s also awesome!
I’ve been toying around with some cart services to sell digital products
Paddle is nice for a one-product-buy, it has a nice pop-up cart.
Gumroad has a modal product page, very stylish but I am struggling to use a custom button to trigger it, it also has a convenient stock management and it works for me as I will be selling tickets for webinars that can have up to X attendants.
I feel every platform has something missing but I am not willing to try again with Rapidcart Pro. It used to work but now is looking too complicated, especially for digital files and small shops.
Fetchapp looks good to I’ll give it a try