E-goods

Overview

StoreFront enables you to sell digital or virtual products like software, audio and video files (mp3s), e-books, graphics, etc. that are delivered to customers by download.

How E-Goods work

Customers can add digital products to their carts and go to checkout in the same manner as if it were ordinary products. After the order has been processed, StoreFront sends an email notification with the download link to the customer. The customer can also download the product from the order details.

StoreFront will send a notification with the download link only when the order is paid.

This feature is available in the 2,500 product store plan.

How to add an E-goods product

If you want to add a digital product, perform these steps:

1. Log in to your StoreFront control panel and go to the "Catalog" page.

2. Click any product to edit it or create a new one.

3. Open the “Files” tab.

4. Upload the files you want to sell.

These files will be available for the customer only after the product is purchased.

Please note, that each file cannot exceed 100Mb. However you can upload more than one file per product.

Protecting download links

In order to prevent sharing of the download link (and therefore a file), you can limit the link lifetime and number of downloads a customer can make. You can set these limits on the "System Setting → General→  E-goods" page. There are two options available:

• Link lifetime, in hours

• Number of downloads

You can set either both options at the same time or any of them. If the option value is empty, the corresponding limit won’t be applied.

Examples:

• "link is available for 24 hours only, unlimited number of downloads"

• "link is available without any time limits, however customer can download it 5 times only"

• "link is available for 48 hours and customer can download it 3 times only"

When needed, the store administrator can manually regenerate any download link or expire it on the "Order details" page of the necessary order. After regeneration, a new link will be generated and sent to the customer, so he/she will be able to download the file again. After forced expiration, the link will become unavailable for a customer immediately.

How can I customize the email with download links?

You should modify the “Egoods download” notification on the "System Settings→ Mail→ Customer notifications" page.

I want to offer free promotional E-Goods. Is that possible?

Yes, it is possible. There are actually two ways to do it in StoreFront:

1. You can create a product with zero price and attach a file to it under the 'Files' tab. A customer will be able to add such a product to the cart, place the order and get download links without paying anything. For making such free orders more convenient for you and your customers, we recommend to enable the 'Skip payment method selection, if the order total is zero' option and make your store automatically set 'Accepted' status for such orders so that a customer will instantly get download link after placing the order.

2. You can attach a file to a product by adding a download link directly to the product description without using the E-goods feature. In such case, a visitor doesn't have to place an order - they can download the file from the product's page. How to do it:

• upload your file to StoreFront

• add a link to this file to your product's description using HTML editor.

Does StoreFront support resuming downloads?

Yes, StoreFront supports resuming downloads. However, it only works if you don't limit number of downloads (i.e. StoreFront doesn't need to track them).

E.g. 

You don't limit number of downloads:

• a customer starts downloading your file

• then the customer pauses the download

• after he/she resumes it, his/her browser will not download the whole file again, only the necessary parts will be downloaded

If you limit the number of downloads: 

• customer starts downloading your file

• then customer pauses the download

• after he/she resumes it, his/her browser will start downloading the whole file again.

Does StoreFront have any space and bandwidth limits?

No, StoreFront doesn't limit total space available for e-goods storage and number of their downloads.  The only limitation is the single file size, which can not exceed 100 Mb.  There is no limit for the number of e-goods or downloads, so you can upload and sell as many as you need. However, there is a Fair Usage Policy at StoreFront: we monitor the usage of server sources and their over-usage may result in issuing a warning or applying a limitation to the stores that abuse our system. In other words, as long as you use StoreFront for the intended purpose of selling your e-goods, we won't limit your total amount of storage or traffic.