http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/ User submitted comments to Practical Ecommerce's article entitled Digital Assets: What Are They, And How Are They Sold? en-us Copyright 2007 Confluence Publishing Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:22:45 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/rss/ Practical Ecommerce v2.0.1 Ecommerce kmurdock@practicalecommerce.com bgetting@practicalecommerce.com 60 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment4120 I was wondering if there are off-the-shelf apps that can let a company sell it's own media if they provide their own servers, storage, support, etc... or does it need to be hosted by third parties? Also the graphics code to post messages is a pain since they seem to use 0 or O and l and 1... hasn't taken my first 2 attempts... Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:22:45 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment4120 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment3839 I am thinking of starting a software store, allowing digital downloads of the purchases - kind of like handango.com. I have not been able to find a host that allows both the digital downloads AND a decent storage space to allow those files to be stored. I have looked at places like volusion, but they allow a max of 1 GB, that too on the platinum plan. Another site, lunarpages.com, allows unlimited storage, but I am not sure the shopping carts they offer have digital download capabilities, or how easily configurable they are (they offer oscommerce, zcart etc). I'd like to get some advice on my situation, and any hosting recommendations. How do people generally host and run a digital goods ecommerce site? Thank you, HK Tue, 09 Oct 2007 20:09:26 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment3839 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment1016 Hi Brian! Thanks for posting that comment! As monetizing digital assets continue to explode, those who offer them need not pay the associated costs of maintaining a shopping cart unnecessarily! If anyone has questions that they'd like to ask directly, I always try to act as a resource to the industry and good representative of www.practicalecommerce.com, so feel free to ping me at jamynigri [@] gmail.com. If you have some DRM related concerns and want an enterprise wide solution, Entriq has a great DRM solution for global enterprises (www.entriq.com)! Plus...they are really good people! All the best Jamy Wed, 28 Mar 2007 15:36:09 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment1016 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment998 On that subject, here is a link to an open-source, role-based, access-controlled digital asset manager built using Ruby on Rails. If nothing else, it illustrates Jamy's point that a "shopping cart" is not always required for digital asset management. Ruby Asset Manager Tue, 27 Mar 2007 10:54:23 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment998 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment997 Greetings all! As my mother used to say, "Feedback is a gift!" Thank you! To touch on each question: Jamie's Question re: Transparency: What I am referring to is making your "offer" transparent...as in, totally logical and understandable to the online guest. An example would be that if you offer an eight-hour subscription, then simply make a 24-hour subscription three times your eight-hour price. Now, in terms of creating incentives, of course you can consider a discount for volume buying (10 percent off if they buy a second or third subscription). The key is to be very clear about how you came to your value proposition so the guest trusts you, because that is the ultimate goal: Building trust and a relevant experience. zanybooks.com/Bill/Chandresh: Re shopping carts Chandresh is absolutely correct, in that a shopping cart is used for physical goods (something you touch, feel and have shipped to you). Digital downloads do not require a shopping cart. Shopping carts are... Tue, 27 Mar 2007 10:50:11 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment997 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment964 Very informative article indeed. However, I have some comments about your point number 2 - 'Provide an intuitive experience.' On the one hand, you say it must be 'easy-to-use,' on the other you say 'functionality is king.' The problem with that is that under the guise of functionality, too many websites try to pack a big punch on the site, making it too cluttered, too complex with navigation so cumbersome that visitors get frustrated. Rather than trying to pack too much upfront for the first 'prospect,' I would focus on ensuring a very simple, clean 'single click' buying process for the content so as to develop, build and nurture a relationship with the customer and then try to cross/upsell. I would also like to point out that the entire concept of 'shopping cart' as a carryover from the brick-and-mortar analogy is obsolete in the digital content world. So, why think about shopping carts when they are not even relevant? Chandresh J. Shah Sat, 24 Mar 2007 22:48:38 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment964 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment957 I believe you'll find that the GoDaddy cart system does include the option to sell digital products for download. The company's issue is a crippling file size limit on the products you can offer for sale and download. But, during a transitional period for our estore http://shop.renebooks.com, I ran a temporary ebook sales site using GoDaddy to sell downloadable text files quite successfully for three months until our main store site was back up and running. File size is the drawback for large audio, video or software titles at GoDaddy, however. Thu, 22 Mar 2007 21:25:55 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment957 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment949 Not all shopping carts support downloads. For example, the GoDaddy Quick Shopping Cart does not. It's just one more issue you need to resolve before setting up your business. Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:07:47 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment949 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment939 Thanks for the informative article. I have a website, YogaDownload.com, that sells digital assets in the form of audio yoga classes. We are having our site redesigned and the new site will allow customers to purchase various subscription options. I am curious what you meant when you said "those (subscription) costs should be transparent to the online guest." I want to make sure we do what we can to keep our subscription members around as long as possible. Thanks! Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:51:22 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/445/Digital-Assets-What-Are-They-And-How-Are-They-Sold/#comment939