The Biggest Update in DPD History

  • Jason@DPD
  • May 11, 2010
  • 1 Comment

New Interface, Google Checkout Support, Customizable Websites / Emails, and multiple price levels
New Interface, Google Checkout Support, Customizable Websites / Emails, and multiple price levels
DPD always strives to make things easier. One of the things that’s always bugged us has been that there were two product lists- one for instant and one for cart. That’s not easy. It’s kinda confusing. It makes features like custom emails and delivery pages nearly impossible.

So in this update we set out to fix that and ended up making the largest change in DPD history. This update is five months in the making, with over 125 new features, bug fixes, and tweaks, and over 335,000 new lines of code!

So, starting early Wednesday, May 12, you will see a few changes at DPD when you login. We’ll start with the major changes.

New Product / Website User Interface

The product list has been completely overhauled. Gone are the days of two product lists. Everything is now on one page. We’ve added filters to help you find the product or website you’re looking for in a jiffy. We think this will make using DPD even easier.

Speaking of the product list, we’ve renamed “storefront” to “website.” We feel this is a better description of how you use them. We’ve also added websites to all products; they’re no longer limited to just cart products. This allows all products to be customized in the same way. Which is a nice segue into the next feature…

#1 Requested Feature: Email Customization

Email customization is here! This was the #1 requested feature in the feedback forum, and we just had to add it to this release. From your product list, click on Edit Website and then click on the Emails tab. Edit to your heart’s content. If you mess up, click on the reset link and start over. Look for pre-made themes in the near future.

#2 Requested Feature: AWeber Integration

Since we tackled the #1 requested feature, we decided to tackle the #2 most requested feature- AWeber integration. Click on Edit Website from your product list and fill out the Notification Email and then follow the Learn More link for how to setup AWeber to parse the emails.

We’d also appreciate it if you would contact AWeber and request that they add a global email parser for DPD. They’ve promised us one if we can get 10 people to ask.

The Notification Email can be used with any service that can parse emails.

#3 Requested Feature: Google Checkout Support

With #1 and #2 added, we had to add #3: Google Checkout. Add your Google Checkout merchant information to your website profile and Google Checkout will be automatically be presented as a checkout option. You can use it with PayPal, instead of PayPal, or not at all- it’s your choice.

Product Images and Descriptions

Next up, we’ve added product images and descriptions to the product setup. This is a 100% optional feature but we highly recommend you take advantage of it. We don’t use the image or description anywhere your customers see… yet. Look for some sprucing up of the checkout process and delivery pages in the near future. We’ve also got some other big features planned that will use the image and description.

New Button Creators

We’ve made creating add to cart, view cart, and buy now buttons even easier. And we added even more button styles to choose from. You can create buy now buttons for any product in the website, even if the website was cart-only before!

Multiple Prices per Product

DPD now supports multiple prices per product- no more uploading duplicate products if you want to run a special or offer a resale version- DPD accounts are still based on product slots, not prices, so create as many as you need.

Completely New DPD Affiliate System

We’ve added an all new Vendor control panel for better control of your affiliate programs. New features include multiple payout levels, better affiliate management, a new news system that lets you post affiliate news for your affiliates, and more.

We’ve also added an all new Affiliate Control Panel where your affiliates can log in to a custom branded “mini-site” to view their stats, generate hoplinks and buttons, view program news, and lots more.

And More…

We’ve done so many small fixes and tweaks throughout the site its hard to remember them all:

  • We’ve added payment history to your profile.
  • We’ve totally redone most of the forms on the website to be easier to read and easier to use, with context sensitive help that pops up when you need it.
  • The support ticket system / helpdesk has been replaced with a far better system.
  • Documentation has been updated throughout.
  • We’ve switched email services to improve deliverability to your customers.

We’ve put a ton of time and effort into this release, and it’s just one of many to come. We hope you enjoy using DPD, and as always we’re standing by to help if you need it!

Jason, Jacob and Scott
The DPD Staff

Upcoming Features: User Interface Improvements

  • Jason@DPD
  • May 7, 2010
  • No Comments

One of the things that people like most about DPD is how it looks and how easy it is to use. We’re always trying to improve on that, so we’ve upgraded many form and tool elements in the next DPD update.

Here is a preview of the new setup page style (this is from the Vendor Profile page):

New DPD User Interface Preview
When you select a field, tool tips pop up to give you additional information

We think it improves the look and feel of DPD greatly- as a matter of fact, we get mad when we have to use the live DPD site after working with our development version. We hope you’ll agree!

50% Off Hosting Sale at FatCow

  • Jason@DPD
  • May 6, 2010
  • No Comments

Just a quick note to let DPD users that FatCow Hosting is having a 50% off sale this month- only $3.67/mo for full featured website hosting.

We’ve only heard good things about FatCow, and their plans follow the same “no gotchas” flat rate pricing model that DPD does. If anyone is looking for a cheap and reliable host for their sales site or store this is a great deal!

FatCow Hosting 50% Off Sale

“DPD 3.0” Update: Upcoming Features

  • Jason@DPD
  • May 6, 2010
  • 1 Comment

Just a quick post to let you guys know whats coming in the next DPD update. This is the largest DPD update in the history of the company with a complete overhaul of the existing code and a whole mess of new features. Over 334,000 new lines of code!

Check out a brief list of some of the major new features:

  • Customizable customer emails – #1 Requested Feature
  • AWeber / 3rd party mailing list integration – #2 Requested Feature
  • Google Checkout processor support – #3 Requested Feature
  • Products and customizations grouped by website
  • Unified product list- no more “instant” and “store” products
  • DPD affiliate program overhaul / upgrade
  • User interface improvements throughout
  • New and improved support system and knowledgebase
  • New and improved DPD button generator

All these features and more are already in and the update is currently being tested and documented internally. Once testing and documentation is complete we’ll be releasing it to the live site, hopefully in the next week or so.

DPD… Now 60% Shorter!

  • Jason@DPD
  • April 20, 2010
  • 1 Comment

Here at DPD HQ we type in the www.digitalproductdelivery.com URL about 2 million times a day. It’s one big honkin’ domain name, and it’s been bugging us for a while. That, and because its so long its prone to typos when someone is trying to enter our URL. To remedy that, we’ve switched DPD to use our new getDPD.com domain.


www.digitalproductdelivery.com = 30 characters
getdpd.com = 10 characters

That’s a finger-typing savings of 60%!

All joking aside, we hope this shorter URL will be easier to type for everyone involved.

There is no need to update any already placed cart buttons or instant checkout buttons- through the magic of the internet they are automatically redirected to the new domain and vendors don’t need to update anything. We’ll still maintain the www.digitalproductdelivery.com domain until around the time the sun burns out.

As always, if anyone discovers any problems with this domain change or any other DPD feature please let us know– we’re here to help!

Update: DPD Migration Complete

  • Jason@DPD
  • March 21, 2010
  • No Comments

Just a quick note to let everyone know that the DPD migration to new servers is complete- everything should be faster for everyone!

If anyone has any questions or comments please post them here or send us a support ticket- we’re keeping a close watch on the new servers through the weekend to make sure no major issues arise.

Maintenance Notice: DPD Moving to New Servers

  • Jason@DPD
  • March 17, 2010
  • No Comments

Through March 25th DPD will be completing a migration to newer, more powerful servers. This is in response to the growth of DPD and to maintain a high level of service to all vendors, affiliates, and buyers.

With the exception of a 10-15 minute time period during changeover, all carts and instant checkout buttons will continue to work normally during this migration. The 10-15 minutes of downtime will be done at non-peak hours to prevent adverse loss of sales to vendors, but during this downtime period all buttons will be inactive.

Vendors will still be able to log in to their accounts, however when a vendor’s account is moved the following will occur:

  • Vendors will be locked out from creating new products or uploading / updating product data files for existing products during the period of time their account is migrating. This is to prevent the possibility of new products created on the old servers during the migration not being copied to the new servers.
  • During the migration, vendor accounts may respond slower than normal.

Once the account is completely migrated these locks will be removed and you will then be able to create new products / upload files on the new DPD servers. We expect that the total “lock out time” during migration will be only a few hours for each vendor and the total “downtime” where buttons are not available will be from 10-15 minutes during off-peak usage hours. We appologize for the temporary inconvenience this may cause, but we think you’ll enjoy all the enhancements to DPD this upgrade will allow.

DPD Browser / Platform Stats

  • Jason@DPD
  • February 18, 2010
  • No Comments

Browser Usage ChartWe’re in the middle of a pretty big overhaul of the DPD user interface right now. Because we want DPD to work for the vast majority of our users (and their customers on the cart and delivery pages) we keep a close eye on our visitor platform / browser statistics.

We don’t compile statistics for individual stores or sites (and don’t want to)- these are aggregate numbers across every product, delivery page, cart, and the DPD site itself.

I thought I’d share some basic usage statistics with everyone so they can get some insight in to their fellow vendors as well as the visitors that purchase from their sites:

Platform / Operating System (top 5):

There are really no surprises here.

  1. Windows 85.94%
  2. Macintosh 12.49%
  3. Linux 0.78%
  4. iPhone 0.38%
  5. iPod 0.12%

Browser (top 5):

The Browser stats were interesting to us with Firefox being used more than Internet Explorer among our users and buyers.

  1. Firefox 46.40%
  2. Internet Explorer 36.17%
  3. Safari 8.24%
  4. Chrome 7.09%
  5. Opera 1.60%

Screen Resolutions:

When designing an interface your user’s screen resolution is vitally important- DPD is currently 955px wide to accomidate a 1024×768 resolution monitor. After looking at these statistics we might start thinking about targeting the 1280×1024 width, giving us approx. 220 more pixels of width to work with (about 22% more space).

  1. 1024×768 22.50%
  2. 1280×800 19.31%
  3. 1440×900 11.01%
  4. 1280×1024 10.34%
  5. 1680×1050 8.54%
  6. 1366×768 4.73%
  7. 1920×1200 3.30%
  8. 1920×1080 3.11%
  9. 1152×864 2.48%
  10. 1280×768 1.73%
  11. 1600×900 1.53%
  12. 1280×960 1.35%
  13. 800×600 1.35%

Digging Deeper with Windows

With 85.94%, Windows is far and away the most popular operating system on DPD (and with the entire world). Another thing we have to keep a keen eye on is what Windows and IE version everyone is using- There are drastic differences in how things are displayed between different IE versions and spending time making it work in all of them is something most designers dread.

Windows Breakdown:

From these numbers we can tell that less than 1% (0.54% to be exact) use a Windows operating system older than Windows XP. Vista and Windows 7 are slowly taking over though, with 40.81% of the total.

  1. XP 58.22%
  2. Vista 27.86%
  3. 7 12.95%
  4. Server 2003 0.43%
  5. 98 0.24%
  6. 2000 0.20%
  7. ME 0.06%
  8. 95 0.04%

Internet Explorer Breakdown:

The most critical stat for interface designers and developers is the IE version statistics. There are entire sites dedicated to designer’s hate of IE6, and IE7- while slightly better- is not loved much at all either. IE8 it approaching standards compliance and reaching parity with the Webkit (Safari, Chrome) and Gecko (Firefox) rendering engines, so we’re happy that the majority of our users are installing the free upgrade from Microsoft.

  1. IE 8 56.36%
  2. IE 7 31.89%
  3. IE 6 11.66%
  4. IE 4 0.09%

Occasionally we’ll get a support ticket about having to horizontal scroll to see the entire DPD web page, or about transparent images not displaying correctly in Windows 98. We don’t really have a good reply for these people other than to urge them to upgrade their browser or operating system.

Seriously folks, if you’re using IE6 please go upgrade to IE8– it’s free from Microsoft, more secure, and renders the entire web better. Or try a new browser- DPD actually looks better in Chrome, Safari, or Firefox because of the additional CSS properties these browsers support like rounded corners and drop shadows! All three alternates listed are available for both IE and Mac and are free!

As developers of a service that serves thousands of vendors, tens of thousands of customers, and hundreds of thousands worth of transactions a year we can’t focus our time and energy on the 0.46% of our visitors and shoppers who are using a 12 year old operating system like Windows 98 with IE4- it’s not fair to the other 99.54% of our users who use modern operating systems and browsers and would be better served by us developing new features and improvements.

We hope this was an interesting look at some statistics behind DPD. If there is any interest in future updates we might make a post like this again in the future- let us know what you think!

A Preview of Things to Come…

  • Jason@DPD
  • February 17, 2010
  • 2 Comments

The New DPD Interface- Coming Soon!
We’re hard at work adding new features and improvements to DPD. We wanted to give you guys a little teaser preview of what we’ve been working on, so check out the screenshot for a sneak peak of the coming user interface overhaul and new features!

  • Multiple sales methods per product- add as many buttons with their own checkout method (storefront or instant) and price
  • Better product inventory management and lookup tools
  • redesigned user interface to handle all the extra information
  • Google Checkout support

…and more!