Delivering digital products
The different approaches that can be taken to deliver digital products to your customers including email, autoresponders, download pages and software options.
When your customers buy digital goods online, you can deliver these directly to their computer or device. Examples of digital products include:
- software
- films
- music
- games
- e-books
- reports
- training materials
There are different ways you could deliver digital goods.
You can deliver smaller files such as directly to the customer via email. The customer receives their book after they purchase the product from your e-commerce site. The advantage of this method is that it is very simple to set up. However, it is time consuming to manually send each product via email. The file can easily be shared with others.
Autoresponse emails
Once a customer has confirmed their purchase you can connect the order form to an autoresponder. This will send them an automatic email. The email will contain an attachment or a link which they can click to download the digital product.
Download page
It is possible to set up a simple online payment system on your own. After processing the payment, your site will direct the customer to a download page. They can access the file from this page.
Shopping-cart software
Several e-commerce providers offer software that delivers downloadable product files and protects against unauthorised digital product downloads. This type of software can be integrated with your shopping cart system. After payment, the system will let the customer securely download the file.
Protecting your assets
You will also need to think about how to protect the copyright of your data and prevent illegal sharing or reuse of your digital products. Read more about digital rights management.
The customer could copy and share the product, which poses a risk. This issue is addressed by digital rights management software.