Sunshop - how does customer download digital product?

Business
1

I’ve successfully set up the download directory and I added the filename to the product. I then test ordered a digital product in order to check the download process.

Imagine my surprise to find out that there is absolutely no notification to the customer about file location or how to download. There’s nothing in any of the email notifications, there is nothing on the “thank you for your order” page, there is nothing in the (cough) documentation on how to give this information to the customer.

So… has my client just paid out a good bit of money – and I have I spent a good bit of development time – for a totally useless product?

2

Opened a ticket and was told that “Like most stores that offer digital content for sale and download, one must log in to their account and download it there.”

Classic case of “well, we knew what we meant, why didn’t you?” The SunShop documentation is very, very poor.

3

The first custom product we ever
developed was to deliver the customer’s
password on the very next page so they
did not need to “check their email” or
“White list” etc.

We had about 35% of our new customer
complaints disappear immediately …never
count on email for amything important.

Use email as a secondary delivery mechanism
but never as a 1st option.

4

If email notifications were meant to work, maybe there is some problem on a mail server… Did you ever try placing a test order yourself?

5

We have all our servers at RackSpace…

…arguably the highest quality server
management company in existence
and their emails to us sometimes end up
in the junk folder.

Google Rackspace and check out their
reputation and then think about the fact
that even their email is mistaken as Spam
and then think about the odds of your
emails making it 100% of the time …

…ain’t gonna happen (as uncle Billy says)

If your system relies on email for any
“mission critical” items … you have trouble
brewing for a chunk of your customers.

P.S. RackSpace has no affiliate program
so this is a free plug for them …of course
keep in mind that their 100% up time
guarantee and awesome technical support
and customer service come with an equally
awesome price tag - LOL

6

Of course, William, everyone knows RackSpace - and I totally agree about the quality.

7

I think, for digital downloads, you should choose dedicated digital download application. Shopping carts are better at dealing with tangible goods. So don’t use them for digital downloads. That is my personal take on this

8

That’s kind of a blanket statement as some
shopping carts are set up with digital
downloads in mind and so it very well.

There are also stand alone programs that do
it “not so well”.

Rather than generalize, examine the application
and see if it does what you need.

Do you need an affiliate system with it? Will you
up sell another product? Etc, etc…

9

This is really strange, try to report a bug to shopping cart developers.
They must fix it.

10

It’s not a bug, it functions as designed.

11

It comes down to the system.

A good system will deliver the necessary
information on the very next page and
not make the customer wait for an email
or anything else.

When a customer buys from you, they want
the product ASAP …so give them what they
want, don’t make them wait.

Think about standard retail. You see a product,
grab it, pay for it, and it’s yours …no waiting.