I work for start-up and I am trying to find a good ecommerce system that focuses on purchasing downloadable software.
The problem I have with most solutions I have looked at is that they tend to focus on creating a store front, while we really need a system that allows us to sell one software product. We will have 2-3 editions of our software, but the premium editions will differ in the type of support provided (live online chat for Business editions, while the standard edition will have email support only), the product itself will be the same identical for each edition.
I need a solution that would satisfy the following requirements:
Support for a Buy Now/Free Trial button, as opposed to a “add to shopping cart” button
Ability to offer 2-3 editions once the customer clicks on the “Buy Now” button
No commission, a fixed monthly fee is fine, but we can’t pay a % of our sales
Integration with Authorize.net and the ability to provide Paypal Express/Webstore Pro as an option.
Support for international sales, including tax calculation and support for pounds/euros/AUS$/NZ$
Integrating with Google Analytics would be a plus
Here is an example of ecommerce system that we would like to imitate:
The only difference is that once the customer clicks on “Buy Now”, we need to be able to offer him a “Business Edition” and maybe another edition.
Requiring that a system be dedicated to downloadable sales will restrict the pool you can draw from. Zen Cart may have a ton of storefront/physical product features, but it has full download support with options, and can be configured to use only the parts you need.
The Buy Now/Free Trial button would need to be customized, but the upfront cost of hiring someone to do that would be offset by the fact that there are no purchase or rental costs for the software.
It has an authorize.net payment module, and Paypal Express/Pro is integrated.
Full international support is built in, for multiple languages and currencies, and multiple tax calculation features.
There is a Google Analytics mod available, and there is at least one affiliate mod available.
There are regular releases for security/feature updates, and a very active support forum with extensive developer participation.
You could scrap the standard home page template and customize a product page to open as the home page, or create a PHP defined home page using built-in code structures - there is really no limit on page format if you are decent with PHP and HTML or can hire a designer.
Premium Web Cart and I Shoppiog Cart are two solutions that don’t interfere with your front end creation. I think Premium Web Cart has live chat as well. These are hosted ecommerce solutions and I think both are PCI compliant.