DPD vendors now have the ability, with one click, to update all previous buyers of a download product with the currently uploaded file. This feature is included with all plans $10/mo or more at no additional cost.

On the product detail page (available for each product on the Products list in DPD) you now have a button at the top to “Send Product Update.” This button will open a form that looks strangely similar to our “Send Customer Newsletter” feature but has one key difference- When this email is sent to your buyers it will also include a new, reactivated purchase link to the customer so they can download the currently uploaded version of your product file.

This feature works for two types of products: Download and Bundle / Combo products that contain a download product.

Download Products:

Sending an updated download to your customers is very straightforward- Go to the product’s detail page, click the Send Product Update button, optionally select a purchase date range you want to update (for example, if you only want to update the people that bought since the Jan 1st, 2012), edit your update email message where you can include what is new in this version, a thank you message, etc., and send!

All your customers who purchased that product will have their purchases reactivated, an email sent to them with the new purchase link and your message, and will be able to download the currently uploaded product file.

Bundled / Combo Products:

You send a bundled product update the same way as a download, but how DPD handles them is a bit different. For bundles that contain a download, DPD will re-evaluate every purchase and add (or remove) the current set of items in the combo before reactivating the download and sending the link / email.

This means-

If you just update the currently attached products in the bundle, the customer will get the new versions of the files in the attached products.

If you add an item to the bundle (such as a new template, supplemental PDF, etc.) the customer will have the new items you added to the bundle available on their download page when you send the product update.

If you remove an item from the bundle (for instance, outdated instructions or something you combined with another product in the combo) the item will be removed and not available to the customer when you send a product update.

Lets take a moment to talk about the implications of this feature.

Now, when you sell a product you can include free updates for a period of time (or forever) with the purchase. All you have to do when you update is upload the new file for your product to DPD, send the product update, and you’re done! DPD will automatically handle the download reactivation and sending of the emails. Easy!

Lets say you sell a product that has additional items you regularly add to enhance or expand the product. For example, a website script. You might make more themes for this script available on a regular basis and need to distribute them to your paying customers securely. If you create your product as a bundle with the main script + any additional themes, you can easily add a new theme at any time to the bundle, send a product update, and DPD will re-evaluate all previous purchases, find any parts that were added after the customer bought your bundle, add them, and send the product update!

In this way products and supplemental files can be updated with one click, delivering more value and content to your buyers.

We’re really excited about this feature and welcome any feedback you may have on it- specifically, we’re looking for how we can make it fit how you do business and make it a more valuable feature for everyone. Email options? More filters to narrow the customer group that gets updates? Let us know!

Other fixes and changes in this update:

– Changed Profile to Account in the top menu to more accurately describe the items functions
– Fixed an issue with tax and coupons that resulted in a PayPal bug on checkout
– A few typo fixes
– Changed the from: address in newsletter (and the new product update feature above) to come from Store Name
– Improvements to purchase log to store information about product updates and combo re-evaluations
– Tweaked some table alignment / visual elements in the admin

Today we’re happy to announce the release of the iContact integration for DPD.

iContact provides a robust array of tools to create, send and track your email marketing campaigns. We’re fans of iContact- from our testing they were easy to use and integrate with DPD. They also have a 30 day free trial.

Integrating DPD with iContact

Integration takes a few steps due to iContact’s security, but its all straightforward. iContact requires that you authorize DPD to add subscribers to your account and create a new username and password to use with the API.

Please do the following to create your password:

1. Visit http://app.icontact.com/icp/core/externallogin
2. Enter your iContact username and password to log in to iContact.
3. Enter the following for the API-AppId:

[box type=”info”]drXC3zFlGQb17EebiqLSnDNNq2VZxq0A[/box]

4. Enter a password. Note: For security reasons, we recommend that this password be different than your iContact password.
5. Click Save.
6. Log in to DPD and visit the integrations page in the left menu
7. Click the Add button to activate the iContact integration and enter your username and password created step 4 above.
8. Click save

That’s it! Now all sales for the selected store will pass their customer information to your iContact list.

We’ve got a couple more integrations we’re working on as we move down our list of requests. If anyone has any questions or comments please feel free to send us a support ticket or comment on this post and we’ll do our best to get you squared away.

Integrations!

Starting today, everyone will see an Integrations link appear in their left navigation menu. Integrations replace the notify url and notify email feature we’ve been using to work with AWeber and MailChimp. Today’s release includes five integrations: MailChimp, AWeber, GetResponse, URL Notify, and Email Notify.

You can enable as many integrations at once as you want.

New! GetResponse Integration

We’ve added a GetResponse integration. Enter your API key, choose which campaign to subscribe your customer to, and you’re done. Easy. (We love easy.)

Upgraded MailChimp Integration

The MailChimp integration has been upgraded. You can now select which list to subscribe your customers to and you no longer need to setup anything in your MailChimp account. If you’ve already setup DPD to work with MailChimp don’t worry–everything will continue to work.

And More!?

We’re not done with adding integrations just yet. We have at least three more planned to be released over the next week in the order they’ve been requested.

Also in This Update

Affiliate links no longer use the affiliate’s username (which is sometimes an email address). We now generate a completely random affiliate ID instead. Existing affiliate links will continue to work indefinitely so you don’t need to rush out and update them, but all future links will use the new random ID.

We’ve fixed the MP3 preview feature for those of you running on a secure (HTTPS) web site. Thanks for the feedback!

Over the past few months we’ve been working on a new and improved DPD checkout experience for buyers. We went in to the project with a few key goals in mind:

• To allow for greater customization and integration of the DPD checkout and delivery process with vendor sites
• Lay the groundwork for more processors, including merchant accounts
• To build a system where we could add more advanced features that vendors were asking for

Today we’ve published an update that includes the new and improved DPD Cart. This is a total cart rewrite and includes every ecommerce best practice we could cram in to it. Taking information from industry reports, case studies of global ecommerce sites, and more we’ve done our best to make this the best converting checkout experience possible for your stores.

Add to Cart:

Demo Product ($0.00)

Demo Product w/ Key ($0.99)

Customization

The new DPD cart features a theme system that is 100% customizable by you to completely match the look and feel of your website. No longer do you have to load the cart in a lightbox or take your customers to a page that looks like its from a different website- checkout and delivery can be seamlessly integrated in to your website.

To show you the level of customization now possible, here is an Add to Cart button that will add a demo product to a customized template:

To accomplish this, the new theme system uses a Layout Template that serves as a “wrapper” for all checkout and delivery pages. Most vendors will only need to edit this layout to match the DPD cart to their site’s design. For those who want to do more in depth customization, we’ve also provided individual page templates that you can edit to your heart’s content.

The DPD checkout and delivery process is secured by SSL as always, and the all new asset manager allows you to upload your images, stylesheets, and javascript files to DPD so that SSL errors are not thrown by files hosted elsewhere.

Your own Sub-Domain

The new cart and checkout system is hosted on a custom, seperate sub-domain for each store. Your checkout and delivery will now take place on YOURNAME.dpdcart.com, adding another level of integration and professionalism to your store.

Hosted Product Pages

For those selling without a website, through ads, mobile apps, or just want DPD to host the product pages the new cart also includes hosted product detail pages and index view that include the product description, image, and add-to-cart button. This product detail page and index view is wrapped in the Layout Template and styled by your own custom css / images to match the rest of your checkout process. There is no requirement to use the hosted product pages- they’re completely optional and you can continue to sell with add-to-cart and buy now buttons. You can opt out of displaying your products on the cart view by deselecting the option when creating or editing your product.

We’ll be adding more features to the hosted product pages as well as other DPD generated page in the future.

Coming Features

The new cart checkout and delivery system will allow for many new features in the coming months. Our old cart, while effective, was based on older technology and limiting on the space we had to work with. With the new cart we’ll be able to add additional pages, provide for a PCI compliant checkout experience for Merchant Accounts (with Authorize.net coming soon, more later) and have more room to offer value added services, cross sales, upsales, and more.

This new cart is the groundwork for hundreds of new features that vendors have been asking for in the future.

Upgrading to the New Cart and Checkout

While we’ve thoroughly tested the new cart and checkout we’re going to require that vendors contact support to upgrade their current cart to the new system, at least for the time being. We want to work with early adopters to make sure their theme editing needs are met and get feedback for improvements before releasing the new cart to everyone.

Both the layout and theme page editors have a preview option to see your changes in real time before making them active for your buyers so there is absolutely no risk in diving in and customizing your new cart before switching it to your active checkout. If you make a mistake you can always add a new, clean version of the DPD Standard cart to your theme manager.

If you’d like to use the new and improved cart and checkout for your store, please log in to DPD and contact Support for 1-on-1 setup and assistance.