Sell Digital Products & Services
Overview
Generate additional revenue from members by selling digital products and services directly through the website.
Sell ebook downloads, banner ad placements, marketing services and more. The website will automatically charge the member’s credit card. The user will receive a confirmation email and be redirected to a confirmation/download page.
How To Get This Add-On
- Websites with the VIP Add-Ons Club automatically have this add-on available: Join The VIP Add-Ons Club
- Purchase Individually: Sell Digital Products & Services Add-On
IMPORTANT: This post type should only be activated for the admin membership plan, not for directory members. This feature is directly linked to the website payment gateway so any purchases made will be paid to the admin.
NOTE: In order to utilize this add-on, the website requires a secure HTTPS connection. Get an SSL Certificate HERE if the website does not currently have one.
NOTE: Users must be logged in to an account to get a Digital Product. This is required for all types of digital products: free, paid and recurrent.
Enabling the Add-On
1. Go to Finance - Membership Plans:
2. Select the Admin membership level:
3. Go to Post Publishing tab and scroll down to activate the Website - Digital Products Feature:
Adding Digital Products
Log into the Admin profile and using the left sidebar find the Website - Digital Products to a new Digital Product:
Fill out the Digital products form. Here's a list of the fields available in this form:
- Publish content on the site or save it as a draft.
- Add the Title of the Digital Product.
- Payment Type - Select if the product will be free, one time paymet, recurrent or a custom donation.
- Add the "Buy Button Text" - Call to action
- Add a Price - Product can be set as $0 and it would be free and no CC would be required.
- Select the Available Quantity.
- Redirect the members after a purchase to a "thank you" page or a custom page within the web pages.
- Select the email template it will be sent. There is a default email template called: Digital Product Purchase Complete, it is the default email template. This one can be used it or create a new one. Website admins can make use of the variable %group_name% to incorporate the title of the digital product into the email template.
- Select the email template that will be sent to the publisher(Admin) of the digital product. There is a default email template called: Digital Product Purchase Complete, it is the default email template. This one can be used it or create a new one.
- Enter related keywords.
- Add a description
NOTE: If the Credits System Add-on is enabled, there will be two additional fields appearing in the form:
- Credits to Add After Purchase: Buyers will receive this credit amount one time after initial purchase. Leave blank if no credits are granted.
- Allow Use of Existing Credits for Purchase?: Select 'Yes' to allow buyers to use existing credits towards this purchase, or 'No' to require the use of a payment method.
Once all of the details have been saved, add the images to the Digital Product feature.
Upload as many images as needed.
- Title
- Description
- Rotate Image
- Delete
Arrange the Photo Display Order:
All Digital Products (drafts or published) will be displayed in the member dashboard. To View, Edit, Clone or Delete the Digital Product click on the Actions drop-down to display the available options:
Find the Digital Products using the URL:
yoursite.com/digital-products
If a Thank You page was selected, make sure to also protect the page. In the Web Page Builder go to the static page and in the Page Details select Protect Page and only Allow Digital Products Buyers, then choose the digital product that's associated to this page:
If a user tries to access the page without having purchased the product a message will appear letting indicating that they don't have access to this page:
Use Cases
This feature should be used by the website owner. It should not be available as a regular post type for the members because the money will go directly to the site owner, so members won't be able to accept funds.
Examples of use:
- eBooks, Whitepapers and Digital Downloads
- Banner Ad Spots, Email Blasts and Press Releases
- Ticket Sales, Donations and Fundraising
- Class or course access.
- Profile Optimization, Monthly Boosts and Mentions
- Consulting, Paid Services and more
There are some options:
- Create a Thank you Page where they can download content after they pay.
- Create an Email Template where they receive the information (Download link, embedded YouTube Video, Embedded SoundCloud Audio, a form, etc.).
These options will depend on what the admin wants to sell to the members, whether that is to create only a static page, only an email template or both of them.
In this case, we are going to create a static page called: SEO-purchase
This is a simple example, but it's possible to add all the desired content.
- The link which is seo-purchase
- Add a Title at the top.
- Some text and the Download Button.
Upload a PDF file, as it's shown, the name is "PDF_example.pdf"
Then go to the static page that was just created and add the link:
For the page to be limited to buyers of this Digital product, select this option in order to restrict this page:
The link should be the following:
Yoursite.com/images/name of the image.pdf
To learn how to create a custom static page with a downloadable PDF, please see the link below:
How to link a PDF to a Static Page
Digital Products Checkout Process and Payment Types
The checkout process for a user will depend on the payment type selected for the Digital product. (See Digital Products Form field 3).
By default, the Payment Type will be set to One-Time Payment, but the admin can choose:
- Free product
- One-Time Payment
- Recurring Subscription
- Custom Donation
Here's an example of the checkout process for each payment type:
Free Product
Here's an example of the checkout process to get a free product:
One Time Payment
This is the type of payment selected by default on the form. This will allow the user to purchase the product by paying a one-time fee:
The next screen will show the Review Order, where the customer will be able to enter a promo code if available, and check the Total amount due to be processed:
Important: in order for someone to be able to purchase a PAID digital product they must be logged in as a member. If the member as a credit card on file or have available credits those will be used automatically. If there's no card on file, the system will first ask for the card information, then process the payment.
If a member that didn't purchase the digital product tries to access the digital download page they will get this message with a link to purchase the Digital Product:
Recurring Subscription
The payment type also allows the admin to choose a recurrent subscription, when this option is selected additional fields appear in the form to choose what will be the payment cycles and the amount that will be charged.
The options available are: monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, and annually. Multiple cycles can be enabled, at least one option must be selected.
The checkout process for recurring subscriptions goes as follows:
The user will have the option to choose the cycle they want to subscribe for this product:
*If credits or are available these will be automatically applied towards the total cost of the purchase, this is valid for the default Digital Products post type as well as its cloned versions.
Custom Donation Amount
This option allows the user to name the amount they would like to pay, or donate. When this payment type is selected in the form, additional fields will appear that will allow the admin to choose the cycles that will be available:
For the Donation payment type, the user will name the amount that they wish to donate as well as the cycle depending on what was enabled by the admin:
In this Review Order the promo code option does not appear for donations, as this is meant to be a contribution:
Credits to Add After Purchase
If the Credits System Add-on is enabled, there will be two additional fields appearing in the form:
Credits to Add After Purchase: Buyers will receive this credit amount one time after initial purchase. Leave blank if no credits are granted.
If the admin adds and amount to the Credits to Add After Purchase. The checkout process will remain the same, the member will only see the available credits in their dashboard after the purchase:
NOTE: The member must belong to a plan that has the credits display on the dashboard enabled.
Since there's no mention of this credits being added to the member profile during the checkout process, it is up to the admin to mention this in their Digital Product Title or description.
Allow Use of Existing Credits for Purchase?: Select 'Yes' to allow buyers to use existing credits towards this purchase, or 'No' to require the use of a payment method.
If credits are available and this setting is set to 'yes' these will be automatically applied towards the total cost of the purchase, this is valid for the default Digital Products post type as well as its cloned versions.
Sales History
When a Digital Product is purchased, these sales will be found inside the Digital Products >> Sales History tab in the admin profile:
It can also be found in the billing section of the member who purchased the digital product:
Hover over the Actions button to view the available options:
- View Invoice: Click to view the invoice.
- Download the Invoice: Select this option to quickly download the invoice.
- Copy Invoice Link: Click to copy the Invoice Link.
- View Product Page: Click here to be taken to the digital product details page
- Cancel Subscription: *This option is only available for recurrent subscriptions Select this to stop the subscription.
If the digital product had a recurrent subscription it will also show in the Billing Information >> Subscriptions Tab. In this section, if the member has a membership plan subscription it will show under the "Primary Membership Subscription". And the digital products will appear under the "Additonal Subscriptions" which includes a search filter:
NOTE: If the memebrship plan subscription was created through the admin, it will appear at the bottom as an "additional subscription". The Primary Memebership will only show plans that were chosen by the user through the signup page or the upgrade page.
The information regarding the purchase will also display in the member's payment history in the admin and the invoice.
It shows the title of the post followed by a hyphen and the post type name:
How To Select A Search For Digital Products On The Homepage
If the admin wants to sell digital products on the homepage we recommend to select in Homepage Search Settings the Digital Products Search module:
If the admin cloned the Digital Products Post type, they can select here which one they want to connect:
