DPD vendors in the US will see a new popup when logging in to the DPD admin until Dec 14th. We’re showing this popup asking you take action to save Net Neutrality rules because it directly affects your ability to sell your downloadable content with DPD.
Last night PayPal notified of a policy update, effective July 1, 2015, that included a number of changes to their User Agreement, Acceptable Use Policy, and Privacy Policy.
The most important change to sellers of intangible items such as games, software, ebooks, music, or audio files is that they are now extending Purchase Protection to buyers of intangible goods.
Section 13.3
We are increasing the scope of PayPal Purchase Protection to now include coverage for intangible items.
More importantly, while they are extending Purchase Protection to buyers, they are not extending Seller Protection.
Section 11.4
Although we are expanding PayPal Purchase Protection to buyers for intangible items, Seller Protection will not apply to intangible items. We are including a note in this section about this. In addition, we are adding a definition of Proof of Delivery for intangible or virtual items or services which can help a seller win a buyer’s Item Not Received Purchase Protection Claim.
As they mention above, the note added to the section defines proof of delivery as “documentation satisfactory to PayPal” that the item or service was provided to the buyer such as proof of download including the date of fulfillment.
“Proof of Delivery” for intangible or virtual items or services is documentation satisfactory to PayPal that the item or service was provided to the buyer such as proof of download including the date of fulfillment.
NOTE: Although Purchase Protection extends coverage to buyers for intangible items, Seller Protection does not apply to intangible items. However, having proper Proof of Delivery can help a seller win a buyer’s Item Not Received Purchase Protection Claim.
It is important to note that they only say proof of delivery, including proof of download and the date of fulfillment “can help a seller win a buyer’s Item Not Received” claim and does not guarantee a decision in the vendors favor.
In summary, PayPal has made it easier than ever for buyers to make Purchase Protection Claims against sellers of intangible (downloadable) goods. They have outlined in a very non-specific way how vendors can provide proof of delivery of intangible goods and said that it will in some way influence or “help” the claims process.
View the Entire PayPal Policy Update Here
DPD is a Gold PayPal Partner and listed in the PayPal Solutions Directory.
DPD has always recorded purchase details such as the time the purchase took place, buyer IP address, the full PayPal responses and IPNs, and all buyer information provided to the DPD or PayPal checkout flow.
We have also always recorded download attempts including the amount of the file transferred, if we can detect a successful full delivery (based on transmitted data and the actual file size stored on our servers), the download IP address, and user agent.
We have taken all this information and compiled a Proof of Delivery page that can be provided to PayPal in the event of a Item Not Received Purchase Protection Claim. The page is hosted on DPD servers at a public but salted and randomized URL to protect buyer and seller information.
Here is an example Proof of Delivery page: Demo Purchase Proof of Delivery
DPD vendors can get this page for any transaction from its Purchase Detail page in DPD.
1. Log in to DPD
2. Go to Purchases in the left menu
3. Browse or search for the purchase and click the Purchase ID in the table to open the detail page.
4. At the top of the purchase detail page, click the Proof of Delivery button
We have contacted PayPal in an attempt to get further clarification on what additional information needs to be added to the Proof of Delivery page to maximize its effectiveness for vendors selling intangible items. Unfortunately, responses from PayPal are generally slow. As we receive more information from them we will update the proof of delivery page as needed.
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!
Cerizmo.com is closing it’s service on May 14, 2012. As a result, they have recommended that their users switch to DPD to continue selling downloads. This post is intended to clear up any questions Cerizmo users may have.
DPD works almost exactly like Cerizmo. You upload your products to DPD and set a price and product options. DPD gives you HTML button code for you to copy-and-paste in to your website. When a customer buys your products, DPD sends them to your choice of processor for payment directly to you. Once the customer has paid, DPD provides them with a unique, expiring download page for them to get their products.
Like Cerizmo, DPD charges a flat monthly fee with no transaction fees, bandwidth fees, or commissions.
DPD offers numerous product types: Digital Downloads, Keycodes, Tangible Goods, and Service Products are possible
DPD allows you to have more than one “store” in your account, so you can sell on multiple websites, all with their own customizations, from one DPD account.
DPD supports multiple processors: PayPal Standard, PayPal Website Payments Pro, Stripe, Authorize.net, 2Checkout, Alertpay, and Clickbank
DPD integrates with popular 3rd party marketing software: AWeber, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Imnica Mail, GetResponse, and CampaignMonitor
DPD has an all new, feature rich, customizable cart, checkout, and delivery system so that you can match the checkout to your store.
DPD support is provided by the developers and is currently under active development. We’re constantly adding new features and improvements every week!
First, create a free trial account. You’ll be asked some questions about your store and where we should send buyers to pay. Once you have completed this initial setup, you’ll be sent to the Dashboard, our overview page for your account.
The left menu contains all the day-to-day product, store, and customer management tools.
You have 2 options to get your products in to DPD:
1. One at a time
2. Bulk Upload using FTP
If you only have a few products it may be easier for you to just create them one at a time. Our product setup wizard guides you through the upload and setup process. To create a single product, simply click the New Product link at the top of the left menu.
If you have many products, the Bulk FTP Upload option is the best. You can get your FTP information by clicking the FTP Import link in the left menu. Once your products are uploaded they will appear on this same page. You simply need to go here, select the upload you want to make a product for, and follow the link to create a product.
Once your products are set up, go to the Button Creator link in the left menu. Here you can create cart button code to replace the Cerizmo buttons on your website.
We’re here for you. Use the “Need Help?” form in the bottom right of every DPD page to submit a support ticket, or browse our knowledgebase for more information.
This is going to be a long post, but we’ve never released an update like this before!
Digital Product Delivery was started as a simple instant checkout and delivery system for single, standalone products. As we grew, customers requested features and we bolted them on as well as we could, but after a couple years we were in a corner. We had a place where we wanted DPD to be, but we couldn’t get there with our current cart.
About 8 months ago we sat down and looked at what we needed to do to make Digital Product Delivery the best platform selling and delivering downloads, keycodes, and tangible goods. There were no sacred cows- we decided that whatever we had to do we were going to do it, even if we had to rewrite the whole whole darn thing.
Well, we did.
We’re pleased to announce the all new DPD cart, checkout, and delivery system. The new cart has been rewritten from the ground up to support the advanced features that our vendors have been clamoring for. Written with expansion and improvements in mind, we designed it so future features could be added rapidly through an integration system.
1. To improve conversions for DPD vendors
2. To be easy to customize and integrate with your website
The default look of the new DPD cart and checkout is modern, clean, and designed to blend well with today’s websites. Drawing from case studies and industry reports, we’ve designed the new cart to improve conversions and provide a smooth, secure checkout flow.
Of course, we know you want to customize it and make it your own, so we made it easier than ever to completely integrate the DPD cart with your own website. Vendors can easily add text, turn fields on and off, change colors, or use their own logo without ever touching a bit of code. If you’re a designer or handy around the HTML, you can now edit one layout file and wrap the entire cart, checkout, and delivery process in your own site’s design. We provide a visual editor too, so even if you don’t know the first thing about HTML you can still tweak the look to your heart’s content.
Want to see an example of the new checkout in action? You can view a lightly customized version using PayPal at the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra’s music store.
Authorize.net is the most popular gateway in the US. With an Authorize.net gateway account money is settled to your own merchant account daily, making it a great choice for established businesses or those who need immediate access to their funds.
Learn more about Setting up Authorize.net with DPD or sign up for an Authorize.net account.
Stripe is a full-stack credit card payments processor for US merchants. You don’t need a merchant account or gateway. Stripe handles everything, including storing cards, subscriptions, and direct payouts to your bank account.
Stripe integration with DPD is so easy a caveman can do it! Best of all, Stripe is reasonably priced at 2.9% + 30 cents per successful charge. No setup fees, no monthly fees, no card storage fees, and no hidden costs. To get started head over to Stripe.com and create an account
Website Payments Pro is PayPal’s credit card processing product. Website Payments Pro is a paid add-on to your PayPal account. With competitive rates, it’s a good choice for those who want to offer credit card payment in addition to PayPal checkout.
View our information on Setting Up Website Payments Pro or head over to PayPal to learn more about signing up for Website Payments Pro.
One of our number one complaints was how poorly various processors handled shipping and tax. And, with the new in-cart credit card processors above we needed a way for vendors to charge shipping and tax without ever leaving the DPD cart. With this in mind we’ve added table based shipping and tax calculations.
Sales tax? VAT? GST/PST? No problem. DPD can now handle all those by country, state/region, or zip code. Need to only charge tax on tangible goods but not downloads? Yep, you can do that too. We even do compound taxes!
Sell physical products and need to create complicated shipping rules? DPD allows you to create rules based on location, weight, quantity, number of items, order total, or any combination of them all. Want to give free shipping, but only to customers in the UK who spend $100 and order 3 items? You can do that!
Learn more in our Knowledgebase:
Setting up Table Rate Shipping Options
Setting up Tax Collection Rules
We’ll be adding more shipping options, including automatic rate quotes from major carriers like UPS, Fedex, USPS, and Royal Mail, soon!
Every new cart will have it’s own unique URL at yourstore.dpdcart.com. This branding in the URL helps customers feel secure and adds legitimacy to your store. We have some exciting future features coming up that will use this, so stay tuned!
The new cart is the future of DPD. We’ll still continue to support the old cart for some time, but all new feature development will be on the new cart and checkout system. This includes new discount and cross-sale features, new processors, new shipping tools, and more!
If your cart is eligible for upgrade to the new cart and checkout you’ll see a Upgrade Cart! link in the left menu under store setup. This will guide you through the 1-step upgrade process where you’ll pick your custom sub-domain. It’s easy! But first…
The upgrade process is one way- you can’t go back to the old cart once you upgrade. However, all your old links on your website will continue to work- we’ll make them point to the new cart automatically!
Any existing customizations other than tracker HTML and store image will be lost. It’s all new!
The v2 cart only supports PayPal, AlertPay, and the new merchant account processors.
Google Checkout and PayDotCom are not supported by the v2 cart. 99.9% of our vendors report to us that they use these processors because “They’re not PayPal.” They account for less than 3% of transactions through the whole of DPD, and their support is abysmal if you need help. We’re providing much better options for our vendors with the new processors above, and more are on the way. It is undecided at this time if support for these processors will ever be added (but probably not).
Soon we’ll make the new cart default for all new stores and accounts. We’ve got a lot planned for the future!
On December 10th, 2011, Louis CK, a popular and well known stand-up comedian, producer, and TV star (of his own show, Louie) offered up his Louis CK: Live at the Beacon Theater stand-up performance on his website for viewing and download, with no DRM, for $5 via PayPal.
On December 13th, he issued a statement on his website that had some amazing sales numbers:
The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As of Today, we’ve sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000.
On December 21st, he issued another statement with an unbelievable screenshot and earnings numbers:
So it’s been about 12 days since the thing started and yesterday we hit the crazy number. One million dollars. That’s a lot of money. Really too much money. I’ve never had a million dollars all of a sudden.
By anyone’s measure his self-distributed, download and streaming sale of Live at the Beacon Theater was a resounding success. He made so much money (and is such an awesome and socially responsible guy) that he gave $250K to his staff as bonuses and $280K to various charities, according to his statement. I bought it, and it was well worth the $5 price knowing that the proceeds from the sale went direct to the artist.
Jim Gaffigan is going to try the same thing
Today in a statement on his website, comedian Jim Gaffigan has announced that, inspired by Louis CK, he will debut his new stand-up special Jim Gaffigan: Mr. Universe on his website at jimgaffigan.com for $5.
Gaffigan also states that he will be donating $1 for every $5 purchase to charity.
He lists his reasons:
I know I am taking a risk here. People I respect have advised me to take the safer, more traditional route with the premiere of the special. However, I am incredibly motivated by the courage of Louie to offer his fans direct access for a low price. Buyers of my special can be assured that their money will go directly to feeding and raising my four children instead of a giant corporation. I will self-produce a high quality special with all new material that will be incredibly easy to download and then you will own it. Forever. For $5. Roughly the price of five packs of Ramen Noodles. And believe me my special is going to be much better than five packs of disgusting Ramen Noodles. Gross.
At DPD we think this is an exciting trend- With “experiments” like Louis CK’s bringing in over a million dollars more and more comedians and other big name artists will look at self-distribution online. We think this will get the public used to buying digital content direct from the artists website. That will benefit every self-distributed vendor of download content as the public becomes more comfortable with buying their content from the creator and not a big media conglomerate or central media store like iTunes or Amazon.
Are these results typical? No, these are famous comedians with thousands and thousands of fans. The typical DPD vendor might have hundreds of purchases a month, but nowhere near $1M in revenue. That’s not the point though- the point is that these famous comedians are going against the established distribution model, selling their own content (just like every DPD vendor) and winning. This benefits everyone!
PS- Now if we could only get them to use DPD instead of paying $35,000 for a website that does what DPD does for tens of thousands less….