Sell Digital Downloads with e-commerce Store

PHP-eSeller is a shopping cart in PHP for selling digital downloads from your web site using a shopping cart template. It can also sell physical (tangible) products. The type of digital downloads that can be sold includes software programs, mp3 files, graphics, icons, photos, ring tones, ebooks and videos and anything else that is a digital file.

The application is based on PHP / mySQL and as it is installed on your web site, you do not have to pay any third party costs except for PayPal fees.

The application provides the checking of the completed transaction from PayPal before the digital download can be accessed, it sends download emails, and has a template shopping cart to display the items.

The customer does not have to have a PayPal account to purchase an item but can use any Credit Card supported by PayPal. PayPal then becomes just a payment gateway for the credit card.

• Interacts with Paypal's IPN system to monitor when a payment is complete for both digital downloads and physical goods.
• Automatically generates a login in url link for PayPal purchases to download their digital goods.
• The purchaser has a defined time limit to download their files and has a defined number of retries.
• Files are NOT accessible via a normal href link and hence cannot be downloaded by unauthorized users.
• The PHP shopping carts are fully responsive so that they can be displayed on any mobile device and are based on Twitter Bootstrap.
• Audio clips use HTML 5 elements so will work on all modern browsers as well as mobile devices, tablets and phones.
• Physical and digital items may be added to the cart at the same time.
• Shipping calculations (flat amount or destination based for international postage) can be added to physical goods.
• You may place buy now, and add to cart buttons by hand onto existing web pages, or use the template driven shopping store.
• Includes a test page to check the basic operation of the scripts.
• Incorporates testing via the PayPal environment so that the complete system, can be tested.
• Includes a facility to send items to multiple customers which may be used for upgrading software or complementary sells.
• All pages written in PHP and script is NOT encrypted.
• All credit card transactions are handled by PayPal.

There are a number of features that ensure your digital downloads are protected and cannot be downloaded unless they have been paid for. The files can only be downloaded after a valid PayPal IPN has been received, they can only be downloaded a set number of times and within a time period, and they are normally placed out side the root of the web site so that they cannot be accessed directly or are protected by an htaccess file.

Products are viewed depending on how you want the PayPal buy now buttons to integrate into your web site.

• Hand constructed sites : You can create 'buy now buttons', and 'add to cart' buttons by hand which may be placed anywhere on to existing web pages. The technique makes it easy to add the dynamically created data into existing web pages. It means you add digital products to exiting physical products on your site without changing your site.
• Dynamic shopping store : You can use the PHP shopping cart store which is a complete application that automatically displays the products by category / subcategory extracting the data from the database so that any changes you make to an item, such as price etc will instantly appear on your web site. The PHP shopping cart store system is fully responsive in that it will display on different devices of different sizes from phones, laptops to desk top computers.

The customer receives an email which has an encrypted link that allows them to access their digital download. The link is valid for a defined number of days.

The customer receives an email which has an encrypted link that allows them to access their digital download. The link is valid for a defined number of days.

The following is an example of a single item buy now purchase using PayPal live for an item that costs $0.01. Make a purchase and see what happens from the customer point of view. After purchase through PayPal you will receive an email with the download link.

If you are going to use the template driven shopping cart displays, there are a number of templates supplied, some of which are illustrated below. You can make a live PayPal purchase from these where each item costs $0.01.

Note that the "audio clip" is an optional entry. If you are selling products that do not have an "audio clip" such as pdf files or docs, then you simply edit the template file to remove the table entry.

This uses the JQuery Datatable system to display a row layout and includes sorting, searching and paging as standard. You normally set categories and subcategories for each product. However, you do not have to show the category and subcategory columns if they are not needed which can be done in the datatable configuration script. The datatable display is good for long listings of audio products and works well on all devices including mobiles.

Preview

Features
Formatting: None
Search: Yes
Paging: Yes
Digital goods: Yes
Physical goods: No

This is similar to the above but has Boostrap layout wrapped around the Datatable. Bootstrap is suitable for displaying on all devices including mobiles.

Preview

Features
Formatting: Bootstrap
Search: Yes
Paging: Yes
Digital goods: Yes
Physical goods: No

This is an implementation of a cart system using Bootstrap. It uses an add to cart button for each item and further details of each item can be displayed. The displays are fully responsive and work well on all devices including mobiles. Bootstrap is a well know and well documented framework and extra functionality can be easily added.

Preview

Features
Formatting: Bootstrap
Search: Yes, and Filter by Category and SubCategory
Paging: Yes
Digital goods: Yes
Physical goods: Yes

This is an implementation of a single page product display including a cart and check out facility. The display provides an excellent user experience for situations where you have a large number of audio products to show on a compact page.

Preview

Features
Formatting: Bootstrap
Search: No (Filter by Category and SubCategory)
Paging: Yes
Digital goods: Yes
Physical goods: No

This layout can be used to sell albums and separate audio files presenting them in their album structures. The layout will be useful when you have a number of albums to sell.

Preview

Features
Formatting: Bootstrap
Search: Yes, and Filter by Category and SubCategory
Paging: No
Digital goods: Yes
Physical goods: No

• PHP 7 and 8
• Apache web server or Windows IIS
• An SSL certificate on your web server to use https for communications with PayPal
• mySQL database version 5 or higher
• Linux, FreeBSD or Windows operating system on the web server
• A Paypal Business or Premier account (if using PayPal) sign up here.
• Email functionality on the web server so that the PHP scripts can send out emails to customers.
• Most web hosts now have PHP and mySQL as standard so you should not have any issue in finding a basic web hosting plan. We have found web hosts such as siteground.com and lunarpages.com to meet requirements. Email us if you require advice.

It uses only 'standard' php, does not require any extra php modules, it should not need any changes to the .ini file and it requires only minor modifications to file folder permissions.

 Hints, tips and tricks : A free pdf on selling digital downloads