I'm working on an online store that sells downloads in .zip format. I was given a free php script from a forum here on coffeecup.com, my question is how to integrate this script into coffeecup. Also:
1) Will there be a digital download function for the pro version of coffeecup shopping cart creator and will the people who bought v. 3.5 get the pro version as an update?
2) When I bought coffeecup I thought there would be a digital download component to it considering much of internet commerce is digital. So I really need help with this integration process with this php script.

Thanks to those that help.

There will be no support for digital downloads in the initial release of the Pro version. Eventually I am sure it will be something that will be addressed.

The version 3.5 that is live now and the Pro version are two separate programs and will not be a free update, but there will be an upgrade price for those users.

Digital downloads is and has been my number one request ever since I purchased the original Shopping Cart.

I love your software - I have nearly every one of them, but was dismayed to purchase the software thinking it included digital downloads.

Please reconsider adding this feature. I am not interested in upgrading until it is a feature.

Hi Karen. The only way you can handle digital downloads with cart creator at the moment, is to put something along the lines of 'your secure download location will be emailed to you within the next xxx hours', in your item description and on the checkout page.

It isn't the best of solutions, but it will allow your customers to pay quickly online and get their digital download, albeit a few hours later.

Same here

I thought I would experiment with selling digital products but have a problem with shipping being charged. When I set up each digital product, I unchecked the "Apply default" box under "Optional Charges" thinking this would override the default shipping charge, which is $3 in my shop. After adding each digital product to the cart and viewing the cart, the Shipping Total indicates $3 when it should be $0. I thought deselecting the "Apply default" would override the default shipping charge. Apparently this isn't the case.

The only way I see to get around this is to add a shipping option of "Electronic Delivery" so it appears in the drop-down menu of shipping methods. The problem with this is there isn't a way to prevent a customer from purchasing tangible products and selecting the "Electronic Delivery" method to get free shipping.

I've had problems with relying on customers to choose an appropriate shipping method or destination. (Some customers in Canada would choose the cheaper shipping method either to save some money or they didn't know they were supposed to select "Canada Air Mail.")

You can see what I'm talking about by going to my shop (www.travelbooksusa.com/shop) and adding digital products to the cart.

Any ideas or suggestions on how to override the default shipping option as it applies to digital products?

This might sound a silly question, but why do you only deliver your products to America and Canada? With digital downloads you can send to anywhere in the world. With physical deliveries the process is not difficult.

I can't think of any practical way of resolving your free shipping problem. Even if you had a free shipping option in the shipping dropdown and specified it was for digital goods only, you would still get people choose the free shipping option. Call it human nature.

I used to ship physical products internationally but I guess I just got tired of the hassle. Also, I've never used a shopping cart system that was effective in calculating international charges, requiring further contact with the customer to let them know shipping would be higher than my standard $3 fee. Some would accept the additional charge, others would cancel their order. In some cases, shipping fees were higher than the cost of the product itself.

One popular title I sell costs $11 to ship to Canada. I earn very little when a customer in Canada purchases that title and then selects a cheaper shipping method. I'd like to be able to recover at least some of that cost but with the current SCC method, you must rely on the customer to select the appropriate method.

I ship worldwide and the only reliable shipping calculation is a combination of weight and destination. I am currently pestering Scott for this in SCC.

I have had time to do some lateral thinking as regards your problem. You can have two shops on your web hosting by just using two folders shop A/shop B etc. Paste a hyper link to your digital products on your physical goods site pointing to the shop in the second folder. Set up the shipping in the second shop for zero cost. The only flaw with having two separate shops though, is that you can't combine physical goods and virtual goods in the same cart.

Not an ideal solution, but should work ok, Remember to put a hyperlink on the second shop also, pointing back to the first shop.

Thanks for the suggestion. I initially set up a separate store just for ebooks but decided to combine the two into one. That's when I discovered that shipping was still being applied even though "Apply default" was unchecked.

I tell you, it has been frustrating trying to find a shopping cart solution. I used to use Miva Merchant but it didn't handle digital products (I think a module is now available but costs around $150). I've been through numerous open-source carts. OS Commerce, Zen Cart, and Magento are complicated to set up and style. Prestashop looked nice but I don't think it supported digital products. Open Cart looks promising but it doesn't support my preferred payment processor -- not a big hurdle to overcome though.

I've also tried Ecwid (just launched in September) but it is AJAX powered, not good for SEO. I've looked at Pinnacle, X-Cart, Lite Commerce, 3dCart, CS-Cart, Ubercart for Drupal, VirtueMart for Joomla, WordPress e-Commerce, and many others. I like the simplicity of Coffee Cup's offering but I'm afraid it's still six months to one year away from being a mature shopping cart system.

So my quest continues...