Category: DPD Updates

Sep 21 Update: PDF Stamping Improvements and Features to Save You Time

  • Jason@DPD
  • September 21, 2012
  • No Comments

In this update we’re releasing an improvement to PDF stamping and a number of small features and requests designed to save you (and us!) time by giving you the ability to do some new things yourself, without contacting us and waiting for a response.

PDF Stamping Page Range

PDF stamping now has the ability to specify a start page and end page for the stamp. This is for when you have a pretty cover that you don’t want stamped, but want to stamp every other page. Or when you only want to stamp page 37. Or 23-42. You get the picture!

To set a page range to stamp, simply enter the start and end pages. Page numbering starts at 1. Leave the end value blank to stamp all pages until end of document, or specify a start and end range stamp only a few pages in the middle.

Change Your Own Username

DPD automatically sets your username to the email you use to sign up. Sometimes, people want to change their username to a different email for various reasons. Now you can!

By going to Account > Profile, you can now change your DPD login username along with your email, password, and everything else you’re used to.

Manual Unsubscribe from Newsletters for Customers

The DPD newsletter feature is wildly popular- we send tens of thousands of emails a month on behalf of vendors to their customers. In every email that goes out, DPD automatically includes an unsubscribe link at the bottom so that if your customers don’t want to receive email from you, they can unsubscribe. We do this for CAN-SPAM law compliance and because it’s the right thing to do.

Even though every single email has an unsubscribe link, for some reason vendors keep getting asked by their customers to unsubscribe them manually. Yeah, we don’t know either. But now that’s ok, because vendors can now manually unsubscribe customers from store communications!

To unsubscribe someone, go to the Customer list for your store in the left menu, find the customer and click on their email address to open the Customer page. You’ll see a small unsubscribe link there.

Better Coupon Errors on the Cart

There are a ton of different reasons why a coupon can’t be used. The product might not be coupon eligible, conditions required for the coupon like cart total or number of items in the cart might not be met, or the coupon might be invalid. Previously, we showed a generic error when a coupon couldn’t be used. The problem is, we had a ton of vendors asking us why their coupon was “broken” and it was a real pain to figure out the exact reason why a coupon was not applying for both vendors and us.

Now, coupons give a more specific error message explaining why they’re not being applied.

Better Sale Notifications for Vendors

Sale notifications from DPD to you guys to let you know you’ve had a sale have been improved. We now include the items in the order and buyer information. Nothing ground breaking, but should save you guys from having to log in and see what was sold. Or, as the vendor who requested it put, it keep them from having to log in and look while “traveling around the world with a residual income from selling PDF files”, which we think is just awesome.

Other minor changes since the last update:

  • Fixed a problem when customers had an item in their cart that the vendor then deleted, causing a cart error.
  • Fixed an error on the conversion tracking integration when no customer is available
  • Small tweaks to PayPal Express Checkout payment method
  • Added an optional keycode label to the theme > delivery page options
  • fixed some typos in the vendor area

Stripe Payments now available in Canada

  • Jason@DPD
  • September 19, 2012
  • No Comments

Stripe is by far the easiest credit card processor to get set up with but until today it’s only been available for US merchants.

Today Stripe added Canada to their list of supported countries

Starting today, Stripe is publicly available for use by any individual or business based in Canada. It’s the exact same Stripe that we offer in the US: instant approval, all major card types accepted, the ability to accept payments from anyone in any country, and simple, flat pricing, without monthly fees.

They also restated their goal to support businesses and individuals anywhere in the world, which we think is just awesome.

You can read more on the Stripe blog: Stripe in Canada!

Announcing Sage Pay Direct Support

  • Jason@DPD
  • August 17, 2012
  • 3 Comments

DPD now supports Sage Pay Direct (formerly Protix), one of the most popular payment processors in the UK. DPD has implimented the Sage Pay Direct method to accept all supported credit cards directly from your DPD cart and checkout.

Supported Cards Include:

  • Visa
  • MasterCard
  • Delta
  • Solo
  • Maestro
  • Visa Electron
  • American Express
  • Diner’s Club
  • JCB
  • Laser Debit Cards



In short, DPD supports all card types supported by Sage Pay Direct.

Sage Pay Direct Checkout Flow

Sage Pay Direct means your customers check out directly in your DPD cart without going to a hosted checkout flow. It also means you can choose to offer PayPal, 2CO, or any other alternate payment method in addition to direct credit card checkout.

Based on the card type entered by your buyers, additional fields (such as the issue date for Maestro cards) will be shown when needed.

Using Sage Pay Direct with DPD

Adding Sage Pay Direct is like any other payment method with DPD-

1. Select the store you want to add it to
2. Go to Payment Methods in the left menu
3. +Add the Sage Pay Direct method and configure

Enter your SagePay vendor name to activate the payment method. IP addresses for DPD’s servers are provided for you to authorize them for transactions in your SagePay account.

As always, let us know if you have any questions or comments!

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.

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

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.

New Service Product Type

  • Jason@DPD
  • April 20, 2012
  • 4 Comments

We’ve just released an update that brings a new service product type to DPD.

Service products do not include a download, keycode, or tangible good. They are useful for when you might want to sell consulting services, installation services, or other non-product related offerings to your customers.

To create a service product, simply select the Service product type when setting up a new product using our wizard. You will be able to set the name, price, and other options like other DPD product types.

The one big difference with service products is that you can specify a rich text block to be shown on the download page. This text block can include instructions to the buyer specific to the service they purchased, a link to a specific page on your own website where they can complete additional information related to the service, etc.

Service products can be included in bundles. For example, you can sell a bundle that contains a download + installation service, or an ebook + one-on-one consulting for one price.

DPD will send an IPN like any other transaction when services are sold, so you can integrate them with your own scripts and programs.

We welcome feedback on the new service product type. Let us know of any additional features that would make it more useful to you!