Selling Mac Software? Integrate DPD with Bodega and add a new sales channel

  • Jason@DPD
  • July 26, 2012
  • 1 Comment

Several months ago at a vendor’s request we added an integration that will allow the DPD checkout work inside Bodega, a marketplace for browsing and discovering new Mac apps. The integration adds the required JavaScript to report sales to Bodega when the sale occurs inside the app.

We didn’t really tell anyone about it though- it was right in the middle of the new cart and checkout flow launching and we just got covered up. Sorry! We aim to remedy that with this post!

What is Bodega?

Mac developers have always had challenges getting their great products into the channel, and then being successful once they got there. For Mac developers everywhere, Bodega serves as a perfect addition to their channel and product sales strategies. Bodega provides regular, consistent access to a large and growing audience base directly from Mac desktops around the world.

Developers who wish to include their Mac products in Bodega enjoy the following key benefits:

  • No charge for membership in the Bodega Developer Program.
  • For each sale taking place in Bodega, Freshcode charges the developer 10% of the application’s sale price- the developer retains 90% of the sale price.
  • No API restrictions for applications submitted for inclusion in Bodega.
  • Zero interference in developer/customer interaction.
  • A wide variety of advertising, marketing, and co-marketing programs for Bodega developers.
  • Developer-owned deployment and management of their product upgrade/update strategy, as they always have.
  • Bodega automatically checks for application updates for all Sparkle-endowed applications on the user’s hard drive each time it is launched.
  • Developers need not create a special version of their app or their DPD checkout for inclusion in Bodega.
  • No formal application vetting or approval processes.

Bodega is the new way for customers to discover and purchase software, and for developers to reach customers on an inexpensive, highly-profitable, ongoing basis.

Using Bodega with DPD

Integrating your current DPD cart and checkout with Bodega is ridiculously easy.

1. Register your app with Boedga

2. Log in to DPD and select the store selling your app.

3. Go to Integrations in the left menu and +Add the Bodega integration.

4. Check the box to enable the integration and save.

That’s it! All checkouts that occur inside the Bodega app store app will automatically be tracked and sale information passed to Bodega using a bit of JavaScript code on the delivery page.

For sales that occur outside Bodega (by users simply going to your website) nothing changes. It’s that easy.

New Google Analytics Ecommerce Tracking Integration

  • Jason@DPD
  • July 20, 2012
  • No Comments

Today we’ve released a new integration that automatically sends transaction information to Google Analytics Ecommerce Tracking.  

The integration will pass the following on successful order completion with DPD:

  • DPD purchase ID
  • Order Total
  • Tax and Shipping Totals
  • Items included in the order



This will let you track your sales, view traffic sources and referral info for purchases, generate reports, and more in Google Analytics.

To set up the integration is easy.   Simply go to Integrations in the left menu, find the Google Analytics Ecommerce Tracking integration in the list, and click the +Add button.  Enter your Google Analytics account number for the website associated with your cart (found on your account home page after logging in to Analytics) and you’re in business.  No complicated JavaScript or variables- DPD handles all that automatically.

Other Improvements

We’ve also made a change to the way the universal 3rd party tracking integration works- you can now select if the tracking code will be shown once per transaction or every time the delivery page is loaded.  This is useful for preventing false conversions on goal funnels and trackers that track every page load (like Google Analytics and Adwords) by only showing the tracking code once per transaction.

You can enable or disable the “show only once per transaction” option when editing or setting up the 3rd party tracking code integration in your list.

Delivering Media to Mobile Devices

  • Jason@DPD
  • July 8, 2012
  • 1 Comment

Here at DPD we often get asked what is the best format to deliver a file to Mobile Devices. These include Android, Blackberry, and iOS devices like the iPad, iPhone, and iPod.

Delivering Files to Apple Devices

The bottom line: You can’t without special apps.

iOS devices, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod do not have a user accessible file system. It’s not like a PC or Mac where you just download the file with the browser to your desktop. There is no way for a user of an Apple mobile device to “download” or “save” a file to their device from the internet without a specific app that is associated with that file type and includes the ability to save it.  

For example, if buyers have iBooks and you’re selling a compatible PDF, they’ll probably be able to save it (if they know how).   If you’re delivering a zip file that contains a PDF, chances are they won’t be able to open it unless they have an app that handles zip files and allows them to save and open them.

There are free apps available in the iTunes App Store like iDownloader Pro Free that will let you download just about anything, but there is no guarantee that buyers will have an app like that on their device or that once they download the file they’ll have an app that will play it!  As you can guess, delivery gets complicated when every single file type needs to have an associated app.

This is not a limitation of DPD. This is a limitation of Apple that affects every single web page, shopping cart provider, and content delivery service on the internet. With DPD the user will be able to stream compatible media types immediately to their iOS device, but they will never be able to save directly to the device without an associated app.

Because of the above reasons, iOS devices only have one option to get the media on to their device that works 100% of the time- to download it to their PC or Mac and use the iTunes proprietary system to move the media over to the device.

Delivering Files to Android and BlackBerry Devices

Android and BlackBerry devices can save files directly to the device. Your only considerations with these devices are to

1. Deliver a file that is compatible for playback

2. Be aware that the download speeds of mobile data connections to these devices (3G, 4G, whatever) will be slower in most cases than home or office broadband connections, and encode / pack your files with this in mind (aim for a smaller size).

So What’s the Best Format for Mobile Devices?

As a vendor, if you want to deliver files that work with the vast majority of mobile devices, including Android, BlackBerry, and iOS devices (once they are transferred through iTunes to the device from a computer) you should deliver the file in a format that can be played by the device. Below are the most cross-compatible formats for all mobile devices:

Documents:  PDF, epub, mobi (it really depends on the reading app they’re using)

Video: MP4 – H.264 Video / AAC Audio

Audio: MP3 – All bitrates are acceptable, including VBR

References:

Comparison of e-book Formats: Supporting Platforms
iOS Supported Media Types
Android Supported Media Types
BlackBerry Supported Media Types

New Feature: Universal 3rd Party Conversion Tracking Integration

  • Jason@DPD
  • July 6, 2012
  • 8 Comments

Recently we’ve had a lot of requests to integrate various 3rd party conversion and affiliate tracking systems with DPD. These integrations use either a bit of JavaScript or a HTML tracking pixel image on the confirmation page of your store to track sales.

Well, we’ve just released a universal 3rd party HTML / JavaScript Conversion Tracking integration!

This integration will allow you to place any 3rd party conversion or affiliate tracking code on your store’s delivery / order confirmation page. The integration also includes variables for order, customer, and store values so you can pass information like the order total, purchase ID, or customer info in to your tracking code.

The integration is easy to use:

1. Log in to your DPD account
2. Go to Integrations in the left menu
3. Add the “3rd Party Conversion Tracking Code” integration to your store
4. Name the integration and paste your code.
5. Save. That’s it!

Links to the available variables and reference documentation are on the setup page.

DPD Knowledgebase Documentation

New Feature: Buyer Blacklist

  • Jason@DPD
  • June 14, 2012
  • 6 Comments

It has been requested from several vendors that we add a feature to prevent problem buyers from making purchases at a store. The scenarios given to us were buyers who repeatedly made purchases then did chargebacks through PayPal or other processors.

Today we released the buyer blacklist feature that lets you block these problem customers.

For PayPal Payments Standard, 2CheckOut, or AlertPay transactions DPD doesn’t know who the buyer is until their payment verification is returned to us after they’ve paid along with their name, email, and address if applicable. This presents a unique problem for us, because for half the transactions that go through DPD we don’t know who the buyers are until after they’ve paid.

To work within this limitation, the blacklist works two different ways depending on what payment method is used on any given store:

For Credit Card Methods (Stripe, Authorize.net, etc.):

DPD will block any buyers who match the blacklist rules from purchasing your product.

For PayPal, AlertPay, 2CheckOut, and other 3rd Party Payment Methods:

Because we can’t stop them before they buy (because we don’t know who they are), DPD will check all incoming payment notifications against the blacklist and deny delivery of the products in the order if they match. Orders that fail the blacklist check will be placed in a holding status and the vendor notified via email. The vendor will then have the option to either allow delivery or process a refund through their payment processor.

A Word of Warning:

Vendors can create wildcard blocklist rules based on buyer email address or IP address. This can be a dangerous feature if you’re not careful- it’s very possible to block a huge number of people from buying from your store.

95% of vendors won’t need this feature, but the 5% that do need it really need it. We highly recommend you carefully read the blacklist documentation in our knowledgebase before setting up blacklist rules:

Blacklist / Block Email and IP Addresses

Indie Underdog Pack 2 Bundle

  • Jason@DPD
  • June 12, 2012
  • No Comments

We’re pretty busy here at DPD. Between supporting users, spending every free minute developing new features, and the day-to-day operations of running our business we don’t have much time for anything else. That said, when we need to unwind for a minute we’re more apt to fire up a game and shoot it out or solve a puzzle at our desks.

Thats why we’re happy to announce that the Indie Underdog Pack 2, a collection of independent games for PC, Mac, and Linux is using DPD to successfully distribute their products. We LOVE independent games and artists in general- they’re who DPD was designed to serve.

indie Underdog Pack 2 Bundle

The Indie Underdog Pack, or IUP for short, includes 5 games for $3.99. They’re also selling a “Champion Bundle” that includes the 5 bundle games, 2 bonus games, soundtracks and more for $8.00. They’re donating 10% to the ASPCA, and you have the option at checkout of adding a few extra bones (dollars) to go toward the organization.

They have a lot going on at their website: secret codes, more bonus content unlocked when sales milestones are reached- they even have a IUP comic.

I’ve only had time to play a few minutes 48 Chambers from Discord Games and Ichi from Stolen Couch Games so far (after all, supporting our users comes first), but from the enjoyment I’ve had from these two the bundle is already well worth the price I’ve paid and I look forward to playing the rest. There are also a number of favorable reviews around the net.

Games included in the IUP Bundle:

Tesla: The Weather Man (PC / DESURA)

Drains (PC/Desura)

Ichi (PC, Mac/Desura)

Clone Wolf (PC, Mac, Linux / DESURA)

48 Chambers (PC / DESURA)

Thats a lot of independent games for a low price! We encourage you to go check it out and support indie developers: Indie Underdog Pack 2

New Tutorial Video: Basic Customization of the DPD Cart and Checkout

  • Jason@DPD
  • June 12, 2012
  • No Comments

Not everybody is a programmer or a graphic designer. With DPD that’s OK! There are plenty of basic customization options you can use to make the DPD cart and checkout match your website and give you a professional appearance. Best of all, you never need to touch a single line of code.

You can always find this tutorial screencast and many more at DPD University, or screencast tutorial site.

New Tutorial Video: Deleting a Product in DPD

  • Jason@DPD
  • June 11, 2012
  • 2 Comments

Sometimes you want to delete a product; this video shows you how! This is actually one of the more common questions we get because the delete link is on the product’s details page and not on the product list. This is for good reason though- we don’t want you to accidentally click it and kill a product you’re actively selling!

We need to give this little disclaimer though: In most cases you don’t want to delete a product that you’re selling. You can edit anything about the product including the name, price, description, etc. without deleting the product, and you can simply upload a new file to overwrite the old one if you need to update your product file. If a product is deleted in DPD you can no longer reactivate downloads for past buyers, send product updates, or of course sell it through DPD. Be careful!

You can view this and many other video tutorials for DPD at our DPD University tutorial site.

May 30, 2012 Updates and Improvements

  • Jason@DPD
  • May 30, 2012
  • 13 Comments

Today we’ve published a maintenance release for DPD that adds a few feature improvements and fixes and squashes a couple minor bugs.

PayPal Payments Standard Improvements:

PayPal now uses the shipping address already collected from DPD’s shipping form to pre-populate the PayPal checkout. This saves your customers some typing and shortens the checkout, improving cart abandonment rates.

We’ve also corrected a bug that sometimes resulted in PayPal dropping a coupon discount when DPD tax rules are enabled. This was a rare thing that only affected a handful of vendors, but it’s fixed now.

VAT and Business Name Fields added to Shipping / Tax Address Form:

We’ve added two new fields that are completely optional to the shipping / tax address form- VAT ID and Business Name. Some vendors, when collecting VAT, are required to collect the VAT ID and business name for tax purposes. You can now enable these fields on the new cart and checkout by doing the following:

1. Log in to DPD
2. Go to Theme in the left menu
3. Edit the current, active theme
4. Go to the Shipping page options
5. Check the boxes to enable the fields you’d like to display.

Of course, if you sell primarily business software or would like to collect only the business name and no VAT ID you can always enable just that field, so it could be useful to any vendors regardless of if you collect VAT or are in the EU.

Search by DPD Purchase ID

We’ve added a field to the purchase list that allows vendors to search by DPD purchase ID. Nothing fancy here- you just paste the DPD purchase ID in to show that purchase- easy as pie.

DPDは、日本語にも対応するようになりました。

Or, “DPD is translated to Japanese.” The new DPD cart now has Japanese translations that have kindly been provided by one of our native Japanese speaking vendors.

Introducing DPD University: Video Tutorials

  • Jason@DPD
  • May 21, 2012
  • 3 Comments

We’re proud to announce DPD University, our new site for step-by-step screencast tutorials. These tutorials show you how to do basic and advanced tasks in DPD with easy to understand, plain English explanations of all the steps and options.

We’re trying to cover the basics first like Creating a Digital Product and Configuring a New Store in DPD, but we’re going to expand outward past core features to advanced techniques and customization options soon!

All of the screencasts are available in greater than 720p resolution and have download versions available on the Vimeo page for each video for offline viewing. To get a download version, simply click on the Vimeo logo on any video and find the Download button below the video.

We’ve launched the site with several tutorial videos and we’ll be adding more regularly, which we’ll announce here on the DPD blog.