Early Tuesday morning Jacob’s wife gave birth to a beautiful and healthy baby boy. Jacob is one of the brilliant developers behind DPD and as one of the two original founders wrote most of the code that delivers your products each and every day.
Jacob and his Son
Most of you never speak to Jacob, but thats not because he’s on vacation. As head of development for DPD he focuses on the technical aspects of the service and keeps everything running under the hood along with our newest partner, Scott. Rest assured though, if you’ve ever received a reply from me that read “One of the developers checked it out and fixed…” there’s a good chance he was the one that solved your problem.
He’s been my best friend for over 20 years and I’ve come to think of him as the brother I’ve never had. I have no doubt he will make a great father. Please join me in wishing him well while he works through his first days of being a new dad!
How about making the fonts a nice shade of green? Want to scrap what we gave you and start from scratch? Now you can! DPD now supports full cart and delivery page customization for all 20 product or more plans. We have two different ways to do it for your customization pleasure: Basic color and the advanced full template customization.
To get started, go to the Look and Feel page of your website profile and open up a template editor:
If you get lost, just read the button
Basic: Color Customization
Not so keen on the HTML and CSS? No problem- Go the easy route and pick 11 glorious colors to make the default template look a little more like your site.
Color Pickers. Because they pick colors, Avi.
Advanced: Full Template Customization
For the artistic and technical types we offer full template customization so you can customize how your cart and delivery pages look down to the last pixel. This powerful method is not for the faint of heart, so be sure to check out the documentation before diving in here.
Yes, that is completely my cat Pickles. And yes, Pickles is the most awesome name for a cat ever.
Whichever method you choose to customize your customer experience, we’re pretty sure you’ll never want to go back to stock. But if you happen to make your website a bit too purple and red, click on the revert link to start over.
Tired of giving free downloads to random strangers? Now you can make them stand up and be counted. The “collect customer info” feature requires that anybody downloading your product gratis is required to give a name and an email address. Of course we’ll treat these downloads like any other purchase and ping you with the API and send your customer’s information on to your mailing list manager.
Yeah, that's easy.
This is a per product option and all new products will default to “Collect Info On” for free checkout buttons and sales that result in a free checkout because of coupons.
You can also customize the collect customer info page template to your hearts content just like the cart and delivery pages!
Did somebody say list building?
What’s next? We’re not saying much but it rhymes with smaultiple squantities and stangible sgoods.
This morning we published an update that introduced an all new vendor control panel. This fluid, full width admin interface makes better use of widescreen monitors and higher resolution displays- something our server usage stats tell us that most vendors are moving toward. We’ve also made a couple usability improvements that we hope will make things easier to understand for everyone that uses DPD to sell downloads.
New Vendor Control Panel
New Vendor User Interface
The new vendor control panel is based on the 960gs system and is a fluid, full width template that uses 100% of your monitor instead of the bit in the middle. This gives us the ability to pack more information on a screen, reduces scrolling, and gives us lots of places to stick new features 🙂
Of note in the new admin interface is the side navigation- we’ve moved all commonly used vendor functions to the left sidebar for easy navigation from any page in the admin. We hope this will help people find everything they’re looking for a little easier.
Usability Improvements- “New Product Wizard”
New Product Wizard
As far as we know, DPD is the only download cart on the internet that allows users to set up multiple websites, each with their own customizations, on one account. Sadly, this also made DPD a little more complicated than other carts. To help correct this and make DPD easier to use for all, we’ve created a “New Product Wizard” that guides you step by step through picking the store you want to sell through, choosing your product type, uploading your product, and setting its features and options.
Vendors no longer have to go to the specific store they want to create a product under and hunt for a create product button- just click the “Add New Product” link in the new left nav menu for every new product- we explain the process along the way in plain english once you get started!
New Customization Option… Tomorrow
Tomorrow we’re adding a powerful new customization option that will let you completely control the look and feel of your cart and delivery pages. Check the blog tomorrow for the feature announcement and a link to the documentation for this powerful new feature!
As always, we value everyone’s feedback and we read every message you send us. If anyone has any questions, problems, or comments please log in to your DPD account and submit a ticket- we’ll get back with you ASAP!
We’re going to start featuring great products and services who use DPD to sell and deliver their products. We love to support vendors who use DPD, and we enjoy seeing what you guys have done with your site and products!
ProductShotPro has two things going for it that make it a great featured vendor for DPD- A great product that lots of DPD vendors can use and a great website integration with DPD 🙂
Sample box product shot created with ProductShotPro
What is ProductShotPro?
Digital product graphics are popular with vendors who sell downloads. When buyers see a product shot of the item they are about to download they may be less apprehensive about spending money on downloadable products or software- helping to increase sales. This is where ebook cover software like ProductShotPro comes in.
Product Shot Pro is a complete graphics suite of professionally designed and easy to use 3D style product cover templates. With ProductShotPro you can create professional product shots of software boxes, ebook cover graphics, CD and DVD cases, and more. It uses Photoshop CS4 and CS5 Smart Objects to automatically turn your flat cover image in to a 3D product packaging graphic.
Sample report cover created with ProductShotPro
It includes over 100 product shots you can design, including:
Software Boxes
CD and DVD Covers
Binders and Notebooks
Hardcover Books
Paperback Books
Magazines and Reports
Brochures, Stationary, and Business Cards
3D Screenshot layouts and more!
We’ve seen quite a few software packages and online services to create professional product shot graphics, but ProductShotPro has to be the most complete and well put together package of high resolution smart objects we’ve come across. In just a few minutes I was able to create all the sample “DPD Products” you see in this review!
How Does it Work?
ProductShotPro uses Smart Objects, which are like embeded Photoshop Images + transformations + effects inside other Photoshop documents. To create your cover graphic, you simply open the smart object that corresponds to the side or face of the product you are working on- for example the “front” or “spine” of a book or product box.
You then design your flat face graphic and save it- ProductShotPro smart objects automatically scale, transform, and apply layer effects and insert your flat 2D image in to a high definition, 3D product shot. ProductShotPro will automatically add reflections and shadows too!
ProductShotPro turns your 2D flat cover graphic in to professional 3D product shots.
ProductShotPro is a professional tool for making great high definition product shots, and you do need to have Photoshop CS4 or CS5 to use the smart objects. However, the included quick-start guide and clearly labeled and organized layers make it easy for anyone to start creating their own great looking product shots.
If you want to learn more they have a quick tour video that shows just how easy it is to create your own graphics on the ProductShotPro website– just click “View Tour” in the top right corner of the page.
DVD case made wth ProductShotPro
What is Included?
ProductShotPro Quick-Start Guide
Photoshop PSD product shot templates with smart objects
Free sample graphics to get you started
Quick reference chart to help you pick the perfect product shot
How Much Does it Cost?
ProductShotPro is available in a complete package with over 100 product shot types, or you can buy individual groups for just the products you need. Individual packs are a very reasonable $29, or you can pick up the complete suite for $199. You can browse all the pages in their DPD powered store.
When I told the guys at ProductShotPro that I wanted to review their product for DPD users they offered to give a special discount! You can use the coupon code below to save 15% off your purchase of an individual pack or the complete suite!
And just for fun, here is a shot using the HD Monitor template that contains a screenshot of my desktop making the HD monitor template that includes a screenshot of me making the DVD cover graphic. You know, because I can.
DPD Vendors: Have a product you think other DPD users might be interested in? Have a great integration of the DPD cart with your sales site you want to show off? Drop us a line– you might be our next featured vendor!
DPD was not paid for this review, but ProductShotPro is a DPD vendor.
We’ve decided that we’re going to start making semi-regular “DPD Featured Vendor” product and site review posts here on the DPD Blog for products and services that might be of interest to other DPD vendors.
This is good for a few reasons-
It gives DPD vendors free reviews, exposure, and promotion to a targeted group of users (download product sellers)
It shows people what others are doing with their DPD powered cart
It lets DPD show off great looking sites that use DPD
It lets DPD vendors provide a coupon or special value to other DPD vendors, saving them money while driving sales
DPD Featured Vendors will have a free review posted on the DPD blog as well as a spotlight link in the DPD newsletter. This will be for DPD vendors only and the featured vendors will be picked by the DPD team.
Want to be a DPD Featured Vendor?
Drop us a line and tell us about your product. Make sure you include a link to your sales site where you have integrated DPD as your solution to sell downloads. If you want to offer a special deal to other DPD users and readers of this blog, let us know what you have in mind. We’ll go from there! We want to spotlight and review products that other DPD vendors could use.
Some good examples might be:
Guides or ebooks related to selling downloads
Website templates, etc. for sales pages and selling downloads
Articles, content, graphics related to selling
Things that probably wouldn’t make good featured products:
Products completely unrelated to selling downloads like needlepoint patterns, scrapbook graphics, Adsense Affiliate guides, etc.
Products that are political or religious in nature
Adult, offensive, or illegal content not allowed for sale by DPD 🙂
Today we published a small update that tweaked how a couple DPD features worked. None of these affect currently deployed DPD buy buttons or products already set up in the system.
ClickBank Updates
Previously DPD would only work if a ClickBank sale initiated through a DPD generated buy button. DPD will now work with ClickBank if the sale initiates through either a DPD buy button OR a direct ClickBank link such as itemnumber.username.clickbank.net.
This should solve problems going forward with some users using pre-built scripts to power their ClickBank sales sites, and also sales that originate through 3rd party ClickBank directory type sites.
Also, ClickBank “thank you” pages provided by DPD now show a relevant error instead of the standard 404 error for dead pages when they are browsed to directly. The page will show an “active” status message when the product is set up and good to go. DPD generated “thank you” pages will only provide download links when part of a successful checkout through ClickBank.
This only affects new products being created from today forward. Previously created products are unchanged to prevent breaking already deployed buy buttons. If anyone wants the new functionality they are welcome to update their buy button code, but it is not required.
IPN Notification URL Updates
We’ve added POST vars for the contents of the cart checkout to the DPD IPN Notification URL system. These new additions include:
X = the item number in the checkout, i.e. 1, 2, 3, etc.
For each item:
‘item_nameX‘ => The product name for this item ‘item_numberX‘ => The DPD product ID number for this item ‘quantityX‘ => The quantity of this item sold. Typically “1” ‘mc_gross_X‘ => The product price for this item ‘mc_currency_X‘ => The price currency for this item ‘skuX‘ => The SKU / Stock number for this item ‘product_keyX‘ => If a product key was delivered through DPD’s new keycode delivery system for this item, it will be included here.
These are all the same as PayPal IPN POST vars, so they should be very close to compatible with any 3rd party services or scripts designed for PayPal or the PayPal IPN system.
We’ve been working with MailChimp to get our services hooked up and I’m pleased to announce that DPD integration with MailChimp is now live!
Now you can pass customer data from any website profile directly to MailChimp automatically. DPD supports Name, Email, and Address data to be passed and automatically included in your lists (if your list has address fields).
We use MailChimp here at DPD for our infrequent customer newsletters and we think they’re the best around. Their service is outstanding, their support people are great, and from our integration experience with them I can tell you first hand that it’s run by a great group of people.
MailChimp offers THE best list management tool on the planet. They support autoresponders and signup forms and have an active user and developer community to help you get going. We really can’t say enough good things about MailChimp here at DPD- we’re feelin’ the “Chimp Love”.
We’ve written a simple guide on Integrating DPD with MailChimp to get you started fast. If you don’t already have a MailChimp account and want to foster better communication with your buyers, go get one. Mailchimp is totally free for lists below 500 subscribers! You’ll be amazed by all the powerful email marketing features.
This uses the brand-spankin’-new Notification URL feature that we deployed yesterday. Now that we have a common notification URL set up we’ll be working to integrate DPD with more and more services and products- if anyone has a special request post it to our feedback forum and if we get enough users asking we’ll do our best to get it hooked up!
PS- If you can’t tell we really, really like MailChimp.
We’ve released a couple new features: purchase notifications (IPNs) and keycode retrieval.
Purchase Notifications
DPD now supports sending purchase notifications to a URL of your choice. We send most of the same fields that PayPal sends in their IPN plus a few fields that are specific to our service. Hop on over to the documentation to learn more.
We’re pretty excited about this feature. It opens up DPD for tighter integration into 3rd party services. We’ll be announcing an integration later this week.
Keycode Retrieval
Hot on the heels of last week’s keycode release we’ve added a branded keycode retrieval page. Link to this page from your website and your customers can retrieve their purchased keycodes without asking you for help. Grab the URL from the “Website Tools” link under your website on your product list. We’d love to hear your feedback on this feature.
Fixes and Tweaks
Delivery pages now display website name or logo (if uploaded) but not both.
Added checkbox to control whether your website logo is used on PayPal checkout pages. Defaults to enabled.
This morning we pushed a couple new features out to DPD. We’re working hard to make DPD the best we can. Please let us know if there is a feature you’d like to see in an upcoming release.
Key Code delivery
DPD now supports delivering key codes (serial keys, product activation keys). We support three generation methods:
Bulk upload Upload your codes into DPD and we will deliver them.
Single key Use one code for all deliveries.
URL Setup a URL on your server and DPD will request a new code for every sale.
We’re also evaluating adding some of the more popular key generators. Let us know which one you use.
Fixes and tweaks in this release
You can now activate a pending purchase.
Added an alternative uploader for customers unable to use the Java uploader.
We allow recording a price for all products. Previously, products in websites that used Clickbank or PayDotCom as the payment processor did not include a price in DPD since we are unable to control the product’s price. You can now store a price for reporting purposes. DPD does not validate this price as with other payment processors.
Fixed a bug that caused the dashboard sales graph to report low numbers.
Fixed a bug that caused the free vs paid purchase stats to be incorrect.
This morning we published a minor update to DPD that added a few new features and tweaked a couple of improvements made in the last update.
New features and tweaks included in this update:
DPD now displays product images on an improved delivery page designed to give your customers more info about what they’re downloading.
If there is no product image uploaded, DPD will display a file type icon to give buyers a better understanding of what they’re downloading.
Here is an example from the DPD Demo Store:
The delivery page now shows product type icons if no product image is uploaded, or the product image is one is provided for the product.
If you’ve uploaded a product image it is now displayed in the DPD product list.
We’ve digitally signed the DPD product uploader for enhanced security.
We corrected the button image alt text on free buttons.
Revamped sales site to include new features in last update.
Automatic subscription emails for failed payments, cancellations, and credit cards that are expiring soon.
Fixed problem with language selector on delivery page.
Fixed a bug that caused the “remove” link to revert to the non-lightboxed cart.
ClickBank purchases now record customer name so they can be used with AWeber integration, etc.
Fixed a PayDotCom activation issue that affected a couple accounts.
During the last update we also upgraded the PayPal checkout process to include individual items and discounts, so your customers will get an itemized PayPal receipt. We just forgot to tell anyone we did it.
PayPal Checkout is now Itemized with each item and any discounts
Compared to the last update this one was relatively minor- just a few new features and tweaks. As always, if anyone has any questions or comments please submit a support ticket and we’ll get right with you!
DPD is an all-in-one shopping cart and digital fulfillment service for downloadable products. Serving thousands of stores, DPD processes and delivers millions worth of downloads each year.
